Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abd-William M. Connolley/Proposed decision

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WMC temp desysop motion

• Rlevse should now recuse from this case. Spartaz ^Humbug! 16:24, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
  • This is ridiculous. Here Rlevse implies that WMC's ban from cold fusion is invalid [1] when this is a key aspect of the arbitration case that still hasn't been determined - presumably because its imposed by a single admin and then here [2] asserting that the ban is still in place on their own authority. This is ridiculous and makes the proposal to desyspop WMC look extremely suspect if Arbiters can't even decide from one moment to the next what Abd's status is regarding Cold Fusion. WMC isn't involved with Abd outside the CF case and then only in an admin enforcement role so are yu arguing that you can be forced to recuse from dealing with someone just because they file an arbitration case? If so, its a charter for every malcontent and troll to to take any admin to arbitration just to force them off their back. Also, shouldnt Abd be banned formally from CF for the duration of the if you are positing that WMC's ban wasn't valid. What a mess. Spartaz ^Humbug! 16:23, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
    • Spartaz, I've moved your comment from the main page. If you and others post here, the arbs will read what is said here. As far as involvement goes, the very fact that we accepted the case, with WMC named as a party, and with WMC included in the title, means that the committee thinks (at first glance) that there is a case to answer. The evidence in the case may well show that not to be true, but until the case is over, Abd and WMC are very much involved in a dispute. This works both ways - Abd too needs to stop the behaviour that led to the events that led to him filing the case. Equally, Abd may be exonerated. But until the case is over, they both need to back off and concentrate on the case, and not replay the dispute. Carcharoth (talk) 16:39, 9 August 2009 (UTC) Updated: 16:49, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
• That Rl should recuse is now obvious. CHL recused, with apparent intent to provide evidence, although it wasn't clear to me why William M. Connolley (talk) 08:40, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Possibly evidence related to Scibaby range blocks if the case headed in that direction. Also due to interaction with several of the parties. Cool Hand Luke 01:48, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

"Temp desyssop of William M. Connolley" motion (Mythdon's comment)

I have not reviewed any of the evidence of the case, but let me make this one comment about the motion.

To block someone who is a party to the same arbitration case as you is, uncalled for and non-legitimate because to do so, you're not an impartial administrator as you're an involved party to the same case as the person you block. William M. Connolley should have reported to another administrator who wasn't an involved party to the case if there was a need that Abd be blocked. William M. Connolley is not uninvolved if both him/her and Abd are a party to the same case, no matter what the evidence says. Such a block is biased, beyond doubt, and can affect the case in a harmful manner, and can affect the decision being made by the committee, because the user blocked will be unable to provide their evidence during the block or able to comment on the decision proposals by other users.

William M. Connolley being a party to this case terminates the title of "uninvolved", which administrators should have before blocking users, in order to maintain impartiality. Abd and William M. Connolley are parties to this case, and therefore, they do not have the "uninvolved" title if they block one another (note that Abd is not an administrator, however). William M. Connolley blocked Abd, but was a party to the same case as Abd, and therefore, William M. Connolley should not be allowed to act.

Wizardman, who is supporting the desysop makes a good phrase with "no question". There is indeed no question that this is necessary.

Therefore, I urge the Arbitration Committee to desysop William M. Connolley, at least until the specified time comes. What are your comments? --Mythdon ^{talk • contribs} 16:46, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

"I notice you've unblocked Abd. The obvious questions are: (a) why did you make no attempt to discuss this with me? and (b) given your evidence presented to the case, what makes you think you are uninvolved?" - A comment from William M. Connolley on Viridae's talk page. To ask "what makes you think you are uninvolved?" is not rightful to ask given the fact that William M. Connolley wasn't uninvolved his or herself when blocking Abd given the fact that they are both parties to the same arbitration case. William M. Connolley should not be question Viridae's uninvolvement when William M. Connolley wasn't uninvolved him or herself. --Mythdon ^{talk • contribs} 18:08, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Why on earth do you think he isn't allowed to ask questions? That's not how wikipedia works, and is the first step in WP:DR. Verbal chat 18:24, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Requested diffs

I am reposting this here as requested by Carcharoth (originally on User talk:Rlevse). Rlevse indicated that before posting his motion he had not located the diffs for the final conditions of the original page-ban and the role of Heimstern in the closing of the ANI thread, where the page-ban was approved by the community. Here are the diffs.

Here is the final exchange between Abd and WMC [3]:

“

Please reduce the ban to 30 days from the article only, and recuse yourself from further administrative involvement, and please notify Hipocrite of the ban, if you have not already done so. You hadn't last I looked. --Abd (talk) 02:10, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I decline your request. I am happy to note that portions of the ban correspond to a voluntary agreement. Whilst I anticipate it lasting approximately one month, the period remains indefinite. Since the page is now unprotected, the version I chnaged it to under protection is now moot William M. Connolley (talk) 10:31, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

”

Here are the diffs where Heimstern clarifies the closure of the ANI discussion. [4][5] [6]

Here is what Heimstern said on July 19 when quizzed by Abd about the page bans [7]:

“ I am releasing all responsibility for this ban at this point, as I never intended to take on any responsibility for it at all. I believed myself to be making a purely procedural close of a discussion; in that belief it appears I was mistaken. It appears ArbCom will likely handle this, so I imagine it shouldn't be a problem for me not to get further involved in this. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 04:17, 19 July 2009 (UTC) ”

Mathsci (talk) 17:04, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

He has clarified it further in 9 August [8][9]. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:41, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Having read all of the above links it seems that the bottom line would be:

1. Heimstern clearly believed a the time that he wrote the close that the duration of WMC's ban was 1 month.
2. Heimstern considered his closing to be a procedural matter and he wasn't intending to compete with WMC over administration of the ban that WMC had imposed.
3. Heimstern noted clearly in his close at AN/I: "Abd has indicated that he will abide by the ban, not per the original banning administrator, but per the discussion/straw poll/whatever it was here."

Whether Heimstern accepted a role as the administrator of the ban, or not, is not really relevant. What is relevant is that prior to this point Abd had been disputing WMC's administrative ban as being improper and illegitimate and that this is the first time any community discussion of a ban had taken place. As Heimstern's close clearly indicates, it was evident to Heimstern that Abd was making a clear distinction between his acceptance of WMC's administrative ban and what he, Abd, was now accepting as a community ban based on the discussion that had taken place. None of this requires Heimstern to accept on-going responsibility for the community ban that was thus formed, but it does provide a uninvolved perspective on the situation as it existed at the time the close was written. --GoRight (talk) 23:56, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

True enough. In which case it is reasonable to assume that WMC's conditions might still stand, as Heimstern's "1 month" was based on a misunderstanding of WMC's terms and, as you say, Heimstern wasn't trying to compete with WMC for administration. Thus at the point of the second block, we were still in a situation of Abd disputing WMC's ban, WMC believing that it held, other editors going either way, and no announcement from ArbCom one way or the other. - Bilby (talk) 00:21, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Evidential basis

Is there an evidential basis for substantive ongoing harm to Wikipedia that would merit temporary removal of sysop powers from William M. Connolley? I ask this because none has been presented on the evidence pages. Such motions, in the absence of an actual removal of sysop powers due to misconduct, are rare. In view of the clear community consensus on the community ban, this proposal is very, very worrying and I urge the other arbitrators to resolve this issue quickly so as to minimize the disturbance such a shocking and unexpected proposal must inevitably cause. --TS 18:40, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Abd acknowledged that he was still some active ban by deciding his ban was over. He then made an edit, which was a violation of the ban. For that he got blocked by an, arguably, involved admin (of which Abd claims he is involved), William M. Connolley. As Abd is now again banned from editing Cold Fusion and Talk:Cold fusion, I don't see a risk that William M. Connolley will block Abd again, unless Abd again decides that the ban is not in place anymore. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 18:45, 9 August 2009 (UTC)(adapted arguably, I understand it can give a wrong meaning to my text. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 20:31, 9 August 2009 (UTC))

In what sense is William M. Connolley an "involved admin"? Even arguably? Does "involved" here take on a meaning not a million miles from "agrees with the ban"? --TS 18:55, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I included that part because Abd says that William M. Connolley is involved, and arguably because I do not really believe that is the case. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:03, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Abd says a lot of things. Does that mean they're arguable? In many ways I think that question that goes to the heart of the case. --TS 19:17, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec)That's an unusual usage of the term "arguably;" in my experience the term is generally used to qualify an opinion held by the writer, to introduce a proposition that the writer believes has merit but may not be universally agreed with; here you seem to be using it to mean the inverse: that the assertion has been made but that you don't think it has merit. I think the use of the term may confuse the reader as to your meaning, maybe consider refactoring for clarity? Thanks, Woonpton (talk) 19:18, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

It is really worrying to me that, without public evidence, at least three of the arbitrators are treating William M. Connolley as an involved editor. Is there some hidden evidence suggesting socking? --TS 19:25, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Accepting the case gives a presumption that there is a case to answer. For the duration of the case, parties should be sensible enough to halt the dispute and not repeat what led to the case in the first place. As far as I can see, both Abd and WMC have done just that (Abd by editing the cold fusion talk page, and WMC by invoking this ban that Abd contests). When we've finished reviewing the evidence and voting on the proposed decision, that will be the point when the parties are exonerated or not. In other words, there is an expectation that parties will adapt their behaviour due to being parties to a case, and allow the arbitration committee to hand down a decision, rather than acting as if there was no case in progress. Since this is all public (the fact that a case got accepted, and the norms of behaviour during a case), that should answer Tony's concerns that any of this is based on hidden evidence. Though that would be privately submitted evidence, not "hidden" per se. Ironically, private correspondence was submitted concerning socking in this case, but that was related to this. As far as I know, no other private evidence has been submitted. Carcharoth (talk) 20:26, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I apologize for any unnecessary disruption resulting from my edit to Cold fusion; however, I did not believe that there was any legitimate ban in place, the community ban having expired, but WMC had claimed on Workshop talk that his ban was still in force and he could prove it. So I withdrew my voluntary ban extension, which I had stated I would honor precisely in order to avoid disruption, while that was being all the while derided as ridiculous. However, the ban was based on charges re editing style, etc., possibly -- it never was clear -- so I thought that if I rigorously avoided anything questionable, no walls of text, no tendentious argument, the only risk was that WMC would insist on his right and "prove it" by blocking me. Since I considered it valuable for the community and myself to understand if he really would be so foolish, in spite of all the warnings and the sheer obviousness of it, I was willing to be blocked to find out. I'd say it was highly efficient compared to all this massive discussion. WMC had many legitimate possible responses, probably the most open and least disruptive would have been to ask for an injunction, as Rlevse did effectively issue by banning me pending resolution of the case. He could have gone to AN/I, though I think that the chance that a neutral admin would have blocked me for that edit was very low.

I have no problem with Rlevse's action, it's what I'd expect from an even-handed arbitrator. Regardless of what the actual content of my edit was, it's obvious that my presence at Cold fusion is seriously upsetting some editors; to determine whether or not this is due to a defect in my behavior, or to a cabal, or to some combination or other factor, could be quite complex; I congratulate whoever was behind the mentor proposal, because it finesses the problem, allowing an individual to investigate and actually solve the problem. In any case, pending, an injunction against editing, or the ad-hoc equivalent, Rlevse's simple statement, makes perfect sense.

Not only could I have figured that out for myself, I did figure that out for myself, that's why I voluntarily extended the ban. However, by doing so I was "enabling" WMC by protecting him from the consequences of his bluster. What he would do to me, openly, he could and has done to many editors, under much less scrutiny. Scibaby, 300 socks and counting, can be tracked back to his block by WMC, who had been edit warring with him, as I recall. If I had time, I'd have documented all this....

Tony, you seem to be under the illusion that "involved" means "content involved." The involvement in this case is long-term dispute over ... adminstrative recusal. Plus immediate dispute over WMC's edit reverting to the May 14 version of Cold fusion. Plus immediate dispute over his right to unilaterally declare a ban and then, based on his own ban, block for behavior that would otherwise be illegitimate to block for. I.e., non-disruptive edits. There are a lot of editors who seem to think that, yes, he could do this. So it was important to assert my right to edit the article or its talk nondisruptively, which exists unless that right has been taken away by the community, through a consensus of uninvolved editors, or by ArbComm or in the enforcement of ArbComm discretionary sanctions, none of which applied here. --Abd (talk) 11:07, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Abd, when you say above "Since I considered it valuable for the community and myself to understand if he really would be so foolish, in spite of all the warnings and the sheer obviousness of it, I was willing to be blocked to find out." Did it not occur to you that this was all very WP:POINTy and generally not going to be looked apon favorably by people, like, oh, say mooning the jury? 198.161.174.222 (talk) 18:42, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it occurred to me, and I rejected that under WP:IAR. I wasn't mooning the jury, I was intuitively arranging, so to speak, a field trip for them so they could see what I was claiming in a way that a megabyte of text could not accomplish. WMC could easily have arranged for this little demonstration to fail. He didn't, and his inability to respond according to recusal policy was precisely what it was necessary for ArbComm to see. Absolutely, my edit was irregular, the normal "least disruptive" action would have been to continue my voluntary ban, but, remember, it was being claimed that my voluntary abstinence was moot, and that the ban was real and did not depend on my consent. I decided to confront that, not by an action that was a disruption in itself. I am not responsible for, nor did I anticipate, the edit warring by another party to this case that ensued on talk cold fusion, for which see

• WMC revert (on his theory of an absolute ban, he considered the community ban "irrelevant.")
• Enric Naval revert he said he was reverting me, but he was actually reverting Viridae.
• Enric Naval revert of GoRight
• Verbal comment "I would remove it if it was added, as it would be proxying for an editor banned from this page by a member of the arbitration comity, and has a long standing ban from these pages."

At the time of the edit, I was not banned by an arbitrator. That ban was declared and accepted by me afterwards as very reasonable, pending resolution of this case, after Viridae had unblocked me and had reverted my edit back in. There were two possible ban actions that applied: the declared ban of WMC, and my position is that admins may declare bans but may not enforce them absolutely, i.e., declaring a ban does not create a right to block by an administrator that did not already exist, a block for a nondisruptive edit, which is different from community or ArbComm bans, and there was also the community ban closed and clarified as "one month" by Heimstern, and thus expired; the "one month" closure was clear and accepted by Enric Naval at the time, and not challenged until well into this case, based on claims of confusion of the closing admin (by some; WMC claimed that the community ban was irrelevant, that his own declaration was sufficient.)

The edit itself was very reasonable (and not at all what was claimed about it, it did not reassert the allegedly rejected sources, but rather only pointed to Talk page discussion of those sources, which are secondary sources), but I simply did what I believed I had the right to do, edit that page. Once. After I declared withdrawal from my voluntary consent to a ban continuation, I did not jump to edit the page, I simply stopped believing that I was banned, and when I saw a question appear that I could answer more fully than anyone else there, I edited. In the end, one picture is worth a thousand words.

This incident also demonstrated, before the Committee, if it looks at it, the long-term behavior of Enric Naval and Verbal, both of whom previously reverted other editors who restored, partly or fully, on their own responsibility, material from the allegedly banned JedRothwell (editing IP as he had since 2006). The claims made about me in Evidence about "proxying" for banned editors was based on these incidents. As with Coppertwig in this one, and GoRight beyond a single revert, I did not edit war over such removals, beyond an initial revert. (If an editor is, in fact, banned, the initial revert by Enric or Verbal would not be an edit warring revert, but in this case, that initial revert was by WMC. On this theory, a restoring revert from an automatic removal per ban, by Viridae in this case, is not an edit warring revert, but later reverts may be considered such. --Abd (talk) 18:06, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it occurred to me, and I rejected that under WP:IAR. I wasn't mooning the jury, I was intuitively arranging, so to speak, a field trip for them so they could see what I was claiming in a way that a megabyte of text could not accomplish. - Black is white. Up is down. Night is day. War is peace. IAR, assuming you consider it to be a rule (I don't), is a narrow thing for helping to improve articles. Abd stretches it like taffy to cover all sorts of misbehavior on talk pages, in the Wikipedia space, off wikipedia, etc. When confronted with his misbehavior, Abd cites IAR to claim that rules don't apply to him because he doesn't think they should. It goes a long way towards explaining those 100+ ignored warnings and why he still doesn't think he did anything wrong. It's also a pretty good indicator of why the current proposal is wholly inadequate for dealing with him. Raul654 (talk) 18:26, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Comment s from me

On my talk page, Rl said While I am still looking into the details... and then there is some confused stuff about a 'it appears the one month ban by Heimstern. There was no such ban. I'm curious as to whether he has finished looking into the details. I asked that on my talk page, but he hasn't replied. Meanwhile Carcharoth suggested discussiong things here, so perhaps we should.

So, my view: one of the main questions in this case is my ban of Abd from Cf and t:CF. My view on this is in my evidence, which (snark) unlike many other peoples isn't too long to read. Alas, that hasn't stopped people not reading it. So: So I banned them both, for an indeterminate period of approximately a month, from CF and t:CF; A asserted that the ban didn't exist. I told him that it did; I reviewed A's ban [10]. Since the ratio of useful edits to wikilawyering in the interim was well below 1%, I kept the ban in place. If arbcomm cared to suspend that ban, they should have said so. Had Abd wanted arbcomm to declare it suspended / invalid for the duration of the case, he could have asked them. Rl now appears to have re-enacted "the" ban [11] but has failed to say what he means by "the" ban. Arbcomm (or at least, the small portion of it that speaks) has now told me not to block Abd during this case. I think that is the wrong decision, but I admit Arbcomm has the right to make it, so will abide by it.

Meanwhile, Arbcomm (but not perhaps Rl [12]) should consider the role of Viridae. He is without doubt involved in this case (having presented very one-sided evidence) and yet unblocked Abd without pretence of communication. A glance at his contribs suggests that he ahs unblocked and run [13] - certainly he isn't answering talk page messages.

William M. Connolley (talk) 19:43, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

"Arbcomm (or at least, the small portion of it that speaks) has now told me not to block Abd during this case. I think that is the wrong decision, but I admit Arbcomm has the right to make it, so will abide by it." - that is good enough for me. I will now oppose the temporary desysop, but would ask that you please do not take any actions with respect to Abd while the case is still open. As I said above, by accepting the case, there was a presumption that both you and Abd had a case to answer. You were in dispute and the resolution of the dispute is something that we are now attempting. It is difficult to do that if the parties themselves try to resolve things during the case, or the community try and resolve things during a case. Please, you, Abd, and everyone, just present the evidence (or finish presenting the evidence) and let us decide what the evidence shows. That's how this process should work. Put down the tools (wrt Abd) and edit buttons (Abd wrt to cold fusion) while the case is in progress, and go look at the proposals made by the drafting arbitrator on the workshop page. I would propose injunctions on both WMC and Abd to formalise this, but I hope you both have enough sense not to carry on with your dispute while the case is still open (since the drafting arbitrator has started posting proposals, we should be not too far away from a proposed decision when voting will start). As for "the small portion of it that speaks" - there are 14 of us in different time zones, so if you think all of us should respond to everything happening in the arbitration pages, that will be a difficult expectation to meet! Carcharoth (talk) 20:11, 9 August 2009 (UTC) Sorry, forgot to answer the questions in the final paragraph - if you have concerns about Viridae's actions, please enter that into evidence and make proposals on the Workshop page. Carcharoth (talk) 20:28, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Carcharoth, WMC declared his ban about two months ago. In all that time, I made two edits to Cold fusion. One was during the period of the community ban, and I had, as you may recall, suggested self-reversion as a solution to the problem of the complication of ban enforcement by "harmless edits." The occasion was a strong ban, an ArbComm -declared one, and the community clearly did not care to block for technical ban violation. I truly believed that the consensus was solid that I was safe making that one-character edit, self-reverted; contrary to what Enric now asserts, there was no provocative intent or intent to test at all, then. This time, this one time, was different, for reasons I explain below. I am now banned from the article by Rlevse, for obvious reasons, the same reasons that would make you think an injunction might be needed. But it is not needed. I was under a phony ban for at least a month, a ban declared by an involved administrator with a huge axe to grind with respect to me, personally, and you saw the one edit I made come down, and I announced it in advance (that I might be making such an edit). Originally, Rlevse said something about "it might be wise not to edit those pages until the case closes." I think he realized that this wasn't a ban, and that a ban was appropriate, pending, so he did make that explicit. I will not violate that, and I'll say right now, if I edit that article or its talk without the permission of an arbitrator or the closure of this case, whichever comes first, any admin may block me, I waive even claims of involvement. I can say that because I'm not going to do it, period. You don't need to go through an injunction. I'm essentially enjoined, by Rlevse, acting quite properly. --Abd (talk) 12:19, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Statement

WMC and Abd are the two primary named parties in this case, which is still open and they have a history with one another. This makes them involved to a high degree. Therefore one taking an admin action against another should not have happened. That makes WMC's block of Abd an involved block and honestly, I'm amazed anyone thinks otherwise. As for Adb, he clearly should not have edited the Cold fusion page simply because he knew it'd cause lots of drama. Mathsci admits "I think it would be hard to determine how long the page-ban was for" so that there's confusion on the issue and disagreement amongst the parties is understandable (cf the case evidence page). As Carcharoth says, I could have taken more time on this esp in regards to my initial statements to Abd but I was stepping in as no clerk was immediately around and it is ArbCom's responsibility to make sure that the involved parties of the case don't go around committing the same errors during the case that brought them to arbitration in the first place. If a party to an arbitration case thinks it is in order for him to ban and/or block his opponent during the case something is drastically wrong and it needs to be dealt with promptly. The CF page ban is a core of this case and to prevent further drama I've explicitly banned Abd from the CF article and it's talk page for the duration of the case. If the final decision rules on that, that'll take precedence, otherwise the page ban would then be in the communitie’s purview. There are other arb cases where arbs presented evidence on the evidence page (or PD talk page) and did not recuse (dates delinking, Aitias, and Geogre-WMC as three examples. I posted the evidence about the block to ensure it was documented and then in three editing sessions made a timeline of the events that led up to it so that all users could use it as a chronological reference. Prior to this case I can not recall any significant involvement with either Abd nor WMC. Furthermore, I have no axe to grind with either side. So the question becomes "does today's event in me trying to maintain order on the arb case and trying to document it mean I should recuse?". I do not think so. I have not used my admin bit. I was attempting to restore order, and ensure that both parties stepped away from the cliff. I could have posted this chronological evidence on the PD talk page and no one would have thought anything of it as this has been done many times before by other arbs, such as in the Scientology case. But instead I decided to post it on the evidence page and built a chronology with date and time stamps there because I thought the timing very important. I built this all from diffs supplied by users on both sides of the issue from various case pages and talk pages. Arbs often put something together like this in order to make the issues clearer to them. I do not think that in this instance it requires me to recuse. Note: posting on my own talk page and the case PD talk page. Respectfully to all, — Rlevse • Talk • 00:11, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your statement. When you say "no clerk was immediately around" it sounds like a momentary thing. In fact this highly contentious case was left unclerked for over a week, despite the fact that Hersfold notified arbcom that he would be absent, and that I requested by email to clerks-l on 2 August that a clerk be appointed to stand in during Hersfold's absence. When parties see that the case is being left to spin out on its own with no supervision it's hardly surprising that some of them (on both sides) run amok. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:30, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

You are correct. I did not mean to imply it was only momentary. Lately the clerks have been in short supply (vacation, recusal, etc). Their availability lately has been spotty and we all hope that will change soon (like when summertime is over ;-). — Rlevse • Talk •

I have some ideas about how ArbComm could easily deal with this, but I won't clutter this page with them. If asked and notified of the question, I'll respond in situ. --Abd (talk) 16:34, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I can't see how Rleve's conduct is problematic here, nor why he'd need to recuse. Indeed he seems to acting with restraint; I don't see anyone defending the behavior that instigated Rleve's actions. IronDuke 01:32, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, here you have one defending the behaviour. WMC imposed the ban on Abd before the case started, Abd started the case to contest the ban, the ban was still standing until the case ended, Abd had already defied the ban before to see if WMC would block him, Abd has recognized that his edit was testing WMC's limits and he had to know that WMC would block him for defying the ban again. And, yeah, WMC shouldn't have fallen in the trap by blocking him. --Enric Naval (talk) 02:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Whilst Abd should not have edited the page during this proceeding, there was absolutely no reason for a block by WMC. WMC could simply have notified the alleged violation or alleged inappropriate action here. Why did it have to be him? For what my opinion's worth, Rlevse has done absolutely nothing wrong here, and both WMC and Abd come out of this looking very bad. Fritzpoll (talk) 06:41, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Rlevse is absolutely correct - contrary to the posts on WMC's homepage, Rlevse did not need to know any detail of the case to censure WMC; the simple knowledge that there's an open Arb case between these two parties is more than sufficient. Any action by WMC against Abd at this point, be it correct or not, is highly inappropriate and has drawn very strong attention to himself and the objectivity of his actions. Similarly, Abd's editing of the CF article at this time is provocative, to say the least. Both parties would do well to take some advice for a change instead of constantly trying to give it. Socrates2008 (Talk) 11:23, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

True enough. At the same time, it is important to keep track of the context - as Abd has mentioned before and after the event, he edited to goad WMC (or another admin) into a block. That it worked speaks badly of WMC. That he tried it speaks badly of Abd. - Bilby (talk) 11:40, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

More accurately, in response to repeated insistence by WMC that his ban was real, and he could prove it, thus aggressively asserting confidently his view of the very basis of this RfAr, I did decide to stop enabling him by voluntarily refraining from editing those pages. I did not then go there to defy him. I simply set his "ban" aside, and when an occasion presented itself, did not stop myself from commenting on the Talk page. I was very aware that there is much claim that my participation there is with walls of text or domination, or POV-pushing, or whatever, so I carefully avoided any possible reason (I thought!) for the edit itself to be considered disruptive. WMC's response to this edit was actually a very typical WMC response, and so all this may have been quite useful. It allowed WMC to demonstrate, in front of ArbComm, when a lot of attention has been gathered, how far he goes. If there were not other credible allegations of use of tools while involved, I'd agree that desysopping might be extreme. In fact, however, there is no shortage of such allegations, WMC has been warned before by ArbComm for involved tool use, and essentially dismissed that warning as wimpy (I think that's in my Evidence), and one of his blocks-while-involved led ultimately to the Scibaby range blocks, which are doing massive on-going damage. --Abd (talk) 16:33, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Let's be very clear - you stated, outright, just prior to editing the page and as part of your declaration that you intended to do so:

So if WMC blocks me for a nondisruptive edit, it demonstrates, in itself, involvement (attachment to his own prejudice about an editor). If another administrator blocks me for a nondisruptive edit based on WMC's ban, and not on the edit itself, it would demonstrate affiliation, that is, another admin doing for WMC what WMC might not be able to do himself. Elsewhere that's called "meat puppetry."[14]

Without even bringing in later comments, (not to mention off-wiki ones), you were very clear that you were thinking very much about the responses that your actions would engender. Let's not pretend otherwise. - Bilby (talk) 17:04, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Enric Naval claims that I "started the case to contest the ban," and therefore "the ban was still standing until the case ended." I stated my reasons for the case with [15]. It doesn't mention contesting a ban, rather, the case was about the usual administrative recusal failure, and a few other issues. I was not asking ArbComm to lift a ban, but rather to judge whether or not WMC could legitimately declare and enforce one. If he could, then, yes, the ban existed and perhaps, indeed, I'd have to ask for it to be lifted. But if not, the ban was unreal, a fantasy. There was another reason for making that edit which may actually be the most significant: it was psychologically necessary. Contrary to what some may think, I do suffer from massive criticism. Having a dozen editors writing volumes every day about what a terribly disruptive editor I was does have an effect, and I was seeing way too little support from the community. My belief is that I'm working to develop and support real consensus, which sometimes involves anticipating it and acting to bring it out. Were all these editors right? What if I'm deluded?

I needed to find out, and if I was deluded, so seriously deluded, the best thing for me and for the project would be to be indef blocked, and quickly. I needed to know, personally. So I found out.

Thanks, Wikipedians, all of you. I'm grateful. I may be wrong about this or that, but I'm not completely deluded. I was correct, WMC could not carry out his threat to block me if I edited the articles, and get away with it.

And if ArbComm wants me to "take a hint" from the decision by reading between the lines, I'm afraid I'm unlikely to do that. The ADHD is real, and we tend to read literally, we don't understand "between the lines," or at least not well. If ArbComm has expectations of me that are not being stated, and they aren't for behaviors that come naturally to me, the committee may be disappointed. I'm not demanding anything, just pointing out what works and what doesn't work. As the proposed decision stands right now, I have some level of mixed feelings, because I'd hoped to be able to address the Scibaby situation and other matters that came up, but I don't think I have the time, that ArbComm has the time, and that this case has the time. Other than that, just as some fear, as it stands, I consider this a kind of victory, that ArbComm is affirming a very important policy, admin recusal. I have one regret here, about the edit to cold fusion. If I had not made that edit and WMC had not blocked me, perhaps the issue would have been resolved at a lower level of involvement. I'd say that WMC should not have declared that ban, period, given his prior involvement, and I proposed in the Workship that recusal on request should be routine. (IAR still applies, though, and no admin should allow the project to suffer damage simply because of recusal rules; but the problem is really continued, insistent recusal failure.) --Abd (talk) 12:04, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

(Since Abd says that he has problems reading between the lines, I have tried to be crystal clear here)

Abd, in the same link, there are other two sections above called "Summary" and "The present dispute" where it's clear that it's all about the ban and only about the ban (or, rather, about you causing disruption because you couldn't get support for your version of the article, getting banned for that, and then trying through all means to get the ban lifted).

Also, "I was correct, WMC could not carry out his threat to block me if I edited the articles, and get away with it.", that's called causing disruption in order to make a WP:POINT and prove that you were right. That's not good. We are not here to prove that we were right about some rule, but for writing the encyclopedia.

Abd, sorry that you have problems with ADHD, but Wikipedia is not therapy (and please don't tell me that it's "only" an essay, specially when some sections like "Unintended consequences" fit so well this situation). If you boast about having 15 years of online discussion experience, then you are going to be expected to have learned to behave online during those years.

I would like to remind you, and to remind the arbs, that Wikipedia is exclusively about writing an encyclopedia, period. And the issue here was that Abd was getting in the middle of writing one of its articles, and that this is the only issue here, and that everything here arises from Abd insisting in the middle again, and that I come to wikipedia exclusively to get good articles written, and that this is the reason that I oppose Abd's return so much. Everything else is missing the point that the only goal here is writing the encyclopedia, the ultimate goal is not the strict enforcement of some social club rules. So get Abd topic banned, or banned, or very restricted in some way, or whatever is necessary to let the writing of the encyclopedia continue. And, I shouldn't need to say this, don't punish the admins that do the things that are needed to keep the encyclopedia being written, specially if they acted on request of the editors that were enforcing content policies in the article. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:36, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

A curious statement, Enric. So you seem to feel that when you and Abd disagree over what should or should not be included in CF that (a) you are completely in the right, and (b) Abd is completely in the wrong? And so much so that you believe that Abd must be banned? And further still that the end you have set your sights on justifies any means to attain it (i.e. "don't punish the admins that do the things that are needed to keep the encyclopedia being written, specially if they acted on request of the editors that were enforcing content policies in the article" regardless of whether they are justified or not)? Strange because when I read the CF talk page I see Abd also claiming to be "enforcing content policies in the article", specifically but not limited to WP:NPOV and WP:RS and WP:V. Are you suggesting that your interpretation of those policies is the solely correct one and that those who disagree with your vision should be banned? I don't wish to put words in your mouth here, so please correct any bits I have gotten wrong. --GoRight (talk) 03:25, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

@Rl: I have no axe to grind with either side [16]. I have not used my admin bit - weaselling. You have made threats to block. William M. Connolley (talk) 16:11, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh c'mon WMC irritability is not the same as partiality. You could at least assume some good faith? Given the biggest failure of arbcom is to do much having someone a bit impatient might even get something done here. --BozMo talk 20:56, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

WMC was clearly in the wrong and should not have blocked ABD himself. As for Rlevse having to recuse himself for pointing that out, telling WMC not to do it again, and informing him of the penalty if he does so..…well that’s ridiculous - and I'm sorry, but the diff provided by WMC above is certainly not even close to being evidence of Rlevse having an axe to grind against him. There's absolutely no reason for Rlevse to recuse himself from this case, he acted appropriately and has done nothing wrong. This entire issue has been blown way out proportion. Dreadstar † 02:27, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

"Clearly" perhaps but also not yet written down in any policy. If we want sub judice (during Arbcom cases) rules on Admin behaviour by all means lets write them but as far as I can possibly tell at the moment the only limitation on Admin behaviour is using tools to gain advantage in a content dispute (not the case here) or using tools where there is a conflict of interest (not the case here since a COI arising from use of tools does not seem to be included). Let us not forget that tools exist and are presumed to exist for the good of the project. Use of tools to slant a content dispute (e.g. banning someone to stop them voting on an AfD) is clearly wrong. No one has yet said that this use of tools by WMC was unjustified just that he should have wasted someone else's time about it in the circumstances. Now that's all understandable if you take a troll playground view that blocks are about punishment, vindictive etc but we go to lengths to say blocks are not punishments, they should not be imposed if articles are already protected because they exist to protect the project etc. From the clean view of project we aspire to there isn't an obvious COI on this block. If even in a world where witness tampering is impossible because history is recorded Arbcom or others feel that such blocks may intimidate witnesses or something then we should pass a policy. I don't know which way I would vote but we need to focus on the projects interest not squabble boards. --BozMo talk 06:13, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

How about Wikipedia:Administrators#Misuse_of_administrative_tools - With few specific exceptions (like obvious vandalism) where tool use is allowed by any admin, administrators should ensure they are reasonably neutral parties when they use the tools.? Since you ask for a policy, I believe that is quite a relevant one, and is not undone by the exceptions in WP:UNINVOLVED. If you think that WMC can be a neutral party when applying a block to someone who he is engaged in an arbitration case with, then we're not going to agree here. Why couldn't he just post to AN or ANI if a block was required? Fritzpoll (talk) 07:29, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

That's a better policy on relevance, thanks, but it is still rather subjective. AFAICT in this particular case Rlevse stated categorically that he was not reviewing the reasons for the block (for example he was not checking to see if it was an obvious exception) but he was objecting that a block should not have taken place in any circumstances by WMC. Wizardman supported but cited only WP:BLOCK which does not apply. WMC is one of the more rules-based administrators on the project; excepting unannounced policy changes I have not seen him break an objective WP rule in years, only there is a certain Judge Dredd tendency. I do not doubt if he posted to ANI other admins would have stepped in and blocked. Whether Arbcom's decision to hear this case should force this step was arguable but now he has agreed to anyway. --BozMo talk 08:34, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, BozMo. Administrative bans are really warnings, and when an editor perceives that a warning is being issued by an administrator who is involved or has some axe to grind, the warning is likely to be disregarded. Had WMC followed recusal policy, he would indeed, if he believed the edit to violate some policy, have gone to AN/I to ask for a neutral administrator to handle it. A neutral administrator would have been very unlikely to block for that edit. Rather, what would have been the likely outcome would have been either acceptance of the edit as non-disruptive (just look at the edit!), or a warning to me to not make such edits while this case is pending, to avoid possible disruption (and it is not necessary, with a pending case, to make a decision about whose fault this disruption might be). I think a block, absent a warning from a neutral administrator, would have been very, very unlikely. This points out how following recusal policy can prevent much unnecessary disruption, and the arguments that recusal rules unduly inhibit the ability of administrators to prevent disruption are thoroughly bogus. I have seen one case where an administrator recused when faced with obvious disruption, and damage resulted; in that case, in fact, I'd have suggested, because of the emergency nature of the disruption, that the admin protect the involved page, or block the editor reverting his close of an abusive AfD renomination. Instead, the admin did not respond to the reversion, but went to AN/I, which report was successfully diverted into a debate over the notability of the article, and, because the AfD was left open, it attracted comment and really couldn't be closed, and it became a huge battle between factions, the "procedure" faction and the "to hell with procedure, is the topic notable or not" faction. Recusal rules do not prevent Ignore all rules action, they would merely would have required that the admin to go immediately to AN/I after reverting, protecting the AfD, or blocking the editor for disruption, and then recusing. Had the admin blocked this editor for disruption, it would have saved a lot of trouble later; this was User:Allemandtando, nee User:Killerofcruft, a sock of User:Fredrick day, essentially banned as a result of this and subsequent incidents. --Abd (talk) 16:20, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Questions/Observations

Irrelevant comments removed. WorriedScientist (talk) 18:31, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Please comment under your main account, if you have one. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 18:34, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Question about "talk page in any Wikipedia space"

I have a question about one of the terms in Abd's editing restriction. What is a "talk page in any Wikipedia space"? Do you mean only "Wikipedia talk:...", or does this include things like ANI? Cool Hand Luke 15:44, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I would interpret that to mean "any namespace ending with 'talk:'", and thus not necessarily noticeboards, however I'm not certain. I'd also point out that as written, this appears to be "one post per day period" instead of the usual "one post per day per page"; I'm not sure if this was intentional. Hersfold non-admin^(t/a/c) 16:16, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh! I misread that emphasis. It's not "any talk page in any Wikipedia space," but "any talk page in any Wikipedia space." Now that I see that, I agree with your interpretation. Cool Hand Luke 16:24, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I know you're recused, but if that is how it was meant, an alternate may need to be proposed that makes this clearer; and makes the noticeboard issue clearly laid out as well, since those are generally held to talk page guidelines despite usually not being talk pages. Hersfold non-admin^(t/a/c) 18:54, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll message FloNight. Hopefully she can clarify what she means before there are many other votes. Personally, I think a standard once-per-page-per-day limit would suffice, but if I thought it was prudent to limit a user in this way, I would also include the noticeboards. Cool Hand Luke 22:44, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I intended the wording to mean "any" name space ending with talk. FloNight♥♥♥ 00:14, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Once-per-page-per-day is standard, but referring to 1RR, which I have rarely, if ever, violated on any Talk page, and it is unusual in article space (but there is some unclarity for me on the meaning of revert; bald reverts are obvious, but what about attempts to satisfy an objection by making a new edit with, say, better sourcing?). 1 edit per day will simply push me toward one big edit instead of a number of smaller ones. I can handle that, easily, but is this really what ArbComm wants? The biggest problem with the proposed set of remedies is that it does not seem to be based on specific misbehavior but rather on a vague concept of overall misbehavior as alleged by one of the parties, Enric Naval, who has edit warred on Cold fusion Talk, and repeated it the other day. I will, however, review the exact evidence cited and update my evidence if needed. (I believe I responded, but only with a draft.) On the technical point, if it were meant by "any talk page in any Wikipedia space," any talk page at all, then the words "in any Wikipedia space" would be redundant. Rather, I did read it, at first, as referring to WP talk space specifically. But then the complaints were mostly about Cold fusion talk. So the remedy doesn't make a great deal of sense to me. Mentorship, no problem, I'm looking forward to it. --Abd (talk) 23:54, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Insufficient

On the workshop, there is broad community support for FOFS that Abd engaged in meatpuppetry, wikilawyering, that he drove away subject matter experts, that he made personal attacks against other users both on and off wiki, that Abd uses talk pages as off-topic discussion forums, and that he has disrupted the dispute resolution process where other users are concerned. This proposed decision does nothing to curtail any of these misbehaviors. Is the arbitration committee planning to actually deal with these problems? If not, then what was the point of asking for evidence and workshop commentary? Raul654 (talk) 15:56, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

The broad community support appears to be against your definition meatpuppetry (see especially the uninvolved comments at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Scibaby). If ArbCom wants to act on this claim, they should clarify that meatpuppetry requires actual coordination between the users, not merely agreeing with a few edits from a banned editor. I've no comment on the rest, but this wasn't WP:MEAT. Cool Hand Luke 16:09, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Nice try to rewrite the meatpuppetry policy, , but your claims didn't fly when GoRight proposed it on the workshop. Wikipedians are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned user, an activity sometimes called "proxying," unless they are able to confirm that the changes are verifiable and have independent reasons for making them... Users are generally expected to refrain from reinstating edits made by banned users in violation of the ban, and such edits may be viewed as meatpuppetry. - were Abd's edits verifiable and made independently of Jed and Scibaby? No, they were not - in the latter case, he restored a talk page edit verbatim minutes after Scibaby made it. (So his actions were neither verifiable nor independent of Scibaby's) So he did violate the rules, your own attempt to rewrite them not withstanding. Raul654 (talk) 17:37, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

"So his actions were neither verifiable nor independent of Scibaby's" - This is a perversion of what the policy actually states as was demonstrated in my workshop proposal, [17]. In the case of the talk page edit there was nothing that needed to be "verified" so that part of the policy was rather moot, and the policy states that Abd had to have "his own independent reasons for restoring the comment", not that his edit had to be "independent of" Scibaby's edit, whatever that is supposed to mean). In the case of restoring the comment on my talk page, Abd's independent reason was, obviously, to ensure that I saw the comment. Nothing more, nothing less. This does not make him a meat puppet of Scibaby. --GoRight (talk) 05:14, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia's rules are descriptive, and we do not treat restoring an occasional edit as "meat puppetry," as at least three independent commentators noted at your now-archived SPI attempt. This activity cannot sanely be called editing "at the direction" of a banned user. Read the policy again: verifiability and independence doesn't matter because the editing is not at the direction of Scibaby: it falls cleanly outside of the definition. Cool Hand Luke 17:56, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

we do not treat restoring an occasional edit as "meat puppetry," - who said anything about occasional? Abd spent weeks/months acting as Jed's mouthpiece.

This activity cannot sanely be called editing "at the direction" of a banned user. - the half-dozen or so editors on the workshop who unanimously rejected GoRight's proposal would beg to differ with your claims about policy. As does the typical interpretation of the policy, as applied at ANI, where explicit communication is *NOT* needed to infer meatpuppetry. Or, as the banning policy I cited above (which you apparently failed to read) says Users are generally expected to refrain from reinstating edits made by banned users in violation of the ban, and such edits may be viewed as meatpuppetry. Notice it says nothing about being told what to do by the banned user. Acting at someone's direction doesn't necessarily mean they tell you what to do and you do it -- it's more than suffecient to follow their lead and restore their edits, as Abd and GoRight have both done. Raul654 (talk) 18:15, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

GoRight's proposal was ludicrous. Evidence of direction is not needed for meatpuppetry, that's the whole point of the policy. Coppertwig's comments there capture what the policy is meant to prohibit: evasive socks and apparent canvassing. This is not an example of such apparent direction. Apart from the occasional revert, they're clearly different users acting for their own purposes. MEAT is not meant to be a cudgel to ban users for holding similar POVs, your attempts notwithstanding. Cool Hand Luke 18:22, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

"GoRight's proposal was ludicrous." - Gee ... thanks?!? Obviously I have a tendency to disagree with this. --GoRight (talk) 05:41, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Coppertwig is not a partisan. Read his remark; I think it's the most sensible construction of MEAT in the lot. Cool Hand Luke 06:36, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

GoRight's proposal was rejected because it was a backdoor attempt to rewrite policy to excuse his own violations; it was rejected becasue it was flatly contradicted by policy, which does not require communication. (Despite his own attempts to rewrite that same policy a few days earlier) Per the banned policy I just cited, restoring a banned user's edits is by itself evidence of meatpuppetry.

"Per the banned policy I just cited, restoring a banned user's edits is by itself evidence of meatpuppetry." - Well, except for all the exceptions to that rule which are already IN the policy. --GoRight (talk) 05:58, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

They're clearly different users acting for their own purposes. - their own purposes? Hardly. Restoring another user's edits means you are editing for his purposes, and when that user is banned, restoring his edits is proxy editing and is prohibited. Or, to look at the bigger picture, banned means just that -- no longer allowed to participate on Wikipedia. The meatpuppetery policy does not mean "Go ahead and make the edit, and some like minded editor might restore them." It is not an invitation to restore comments from banned users, although you'd never know that given how frequently GoRight and Abd do it. (Not to mention their multitude of other misbehaviors) Raul654 (talk) 18:42, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

"Restoring another user's edits means you are editing for his purposes" - So, when you restore someone else's edits in a content dispute (say WMC's, or KDP's, or SS's) on some global warming page, you are saying that you are nothing but a MEAT puppet for them and that you are editing at their direction? That seems prima facie ridiculous. --GoRight (talk) 05:58, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd concentrate on their other misbehaviors (with a focus on how it harms the encyclopedia), rather than wikilawyering some selectively-quoted language from MEAT. I don't deny they've been disruptive, but this MEAT theory has been rejected by the community enough times.[18][19] The arbitrators apparently have no desire to adopt it. Cool Hand Luke 22:15, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

The guiding principle here is that you don't restore banned user's edits. The wikilawyers are the ones who are trying to undermine that not-hard-to-understand principle by trying to carve out exceptions where none exist. GoRight did violate the meatpuppetry policy, on many occasions, and I see no reason to pretend he didn't.

"The wikilawyers are the ones who are trying to undermine that not-hard-to-understand principle by trying to carve out exceptions where none exist." - Proven wrong by your own statements: "GoRight has highlighted basically every caveat and exception in the above policy ...".

I don't deny they've been disruptive - gee, how generous of you, to concede what is perfectly obvious to everyone else.

but this MEAT theory has been rejected by the community enough times.[20][21] - Did you actually read the links you posted? The second one found (a) GoRight violated the 3rr, and (b) If there are general behavioral issues or ongoing problems that need to be dealt with, they should be dealt with at a noticeboard other than this one. "Go somewhere else" is hardly a rejection. As for the Scibaby sockpuppet investigations, exactly three people chimed in there, and one of them (A-tren) is a long-time GoRight apologist, and one of them (Cla68) arrived because he saw it posted on WR. So you're claiming consensus based on exactly one independent person's opinion. Raul654 (talk) 03:00, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Raul, please retract the "long time apologist remark". I have defended GoRight because you have been repeatedly attacking him for over a year, using what I consider to be baseless accusations. I have not defended him when I believe he is wrong (there have been a few occasions where I have criticised him) and I largely don't agree with his POV. Please strike your "apologist remark". ATren (talk) 23:05, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I have defended GoRight because you have been repeatedly attacking him for over a year, using what I consider to be baseless accusations - I think you just proved why my description is accurate. Anyone who cannot, from his behavior in this case alone, see his misbehavior is wearing quite a set of blinders. Raul654 (talk) 23:09, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

"So you're claiming consensus based on exactly one independent person's opinion." - And you are claiming consensus based on what, exactly? The fact that your attempt to paint me as a meat puppet failed? And let us not forget that the administrators who investigated that report and made the final determination were likewise uninvolved and independent of myself. But more importantly, if the existing policy is description of community practices and therefore descriptive of a broad community consensus on those practices, then the exceptions articulated in that policy already enjoy prima facie consensus. --GoRight (talk) 16:41, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't counting Atren—I know he's not uninvolved. Rjanag, Nathan, and Cla68 (who was not solicited from WR). Not to mention the clerks who collectively passed on your theory (and NuclearWarfare in particular). This is not MEAT—not at the direction or in collusion with another user. Cool Hand Luke 06:45, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

The arbitrators apparently have no desire to adopt it. - Wow, quite an impressive non-sequitur. Abd is guilty of many misbehaviors (his wikilawyering, his personal attacks, his disruption of cold fusion articles, his ignoring warnings, his disruption of the dispute resolution process, etc) that the arbitrators are not dealing with. Using your bizzaro logic, do they think he's innocent of those misbehaviors too? Raul654 (talk) 03:01, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I made no such argument: my statement is advice. Adopting your stale MEAT theory requires and unpalatable, mistaken, and counterproductive view of a policy that's been grossly misused in the past. Sanctioning the other misbehaviors does not. You should focus on those points because they're better arguments not based upon tenuous and idiosyncratic policy assumptions. Cool Hand Luke 06:34, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Congratulations Arbcom, I hope you are looking forward to the next Arbitration case brought by Abd against some hapless fellow who makes a small mistake in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm going to dig out my copy of war and peace instead of wasting my time contributing to the next one - at least that is well written and has a coherant and interesting narrative to follow. Probably shorter too. /sarcasm. Spartaz ^Humbug! 16:17, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Should it happen that I survive this mess, I will note that I have only brought one ArbComm case, this one, plus I would have brought Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Abd and JzG if Jehochman hadn't beaten me to it. The editors complaining about my behavior here include (initially it was almost entirely them) those who previously called for me to be banned, for raising the issue about JzG, during RfC/JzG 3, as shown in my evidence, and that includes Spartaz. If I ever raise a frivolous and harassing RfAr for a "minor mistake" by an admin, or by anyone, please put me out of my misery. My view, however, is that no clear example of recusal failure is minor, unless nobody was hurt by it. I actually oppose the desysopping of WMC, for my view is that, generally, ArbComm should suspend administrative privileges for recusal failure, and it should do so promptly and without fuss and without blame, until it is satisfied that whatever failure there was will not repeat, the basic condition satisfying that would be that the admin shows understanding of the problem and would therefore recognize and recuse in the future under similar circumstances. It is precisely that condition which remains absent for WMC (and it did for JzG as well, which is currently moot). --Abd (talk) 18:19, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Given that Abd doesn't listen to warnings (from other users or the arbcom), doesn't think he's done anything wrong, and is looking very, very hard for any bit of vindication he can pull out of this case, I think the chances that he is suddenly going to see the light and improve his behavior are nil. And Spartaz says, given the current remedies, Abd arbitration round #3 is inevitable. Raul654 (talk) 19:07, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

From his POV, Raul654 is correct. The issue hinges on balance. If my behavior is bad from start to finish, then the only reasonable remedy would be a site ban. If my behavior is good from start to finish, flawless, then I should get a barnstar and profuse commendations. If my behavior is mixed, with some good and some problems, then the good should be noted (don't forget that, Arbs!) and the problems addressed with solutions that have some hope of success. I see mentorship, particularly mentorship with teeth, as a solution that should satisfy reasonable concerns. Discretionary sanctions covering a problem article is an excellent idea. The meat puppetry claim has long been used in an attempt to exclude POV as distinct from misbehaving editors, and "broad community support," mentioned at the top of this section, is the "faction cooperating in the frustration of policy" staring itself in the belly-button, but I'll deal with that below. --Abd (talk) 21:46, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

The track record of mentorship voluntarily undertaken by problem editors is checkered at best. The track record of mentorship agreed to during Arbitration in order to avoid stronger sanctions is, so far as I know, uniformly negative (though I'm willing to be enlightened if there are success stories I've missed). Given the historical futility (and worse) of this approach, why should it satisfy "reasonable concerns" in this case? MastCell ^Talk 22:01, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Picking up on a point Raul made: "I think the chances that he is suddenly going to see the light and improve his behavior are nil". I think this can be applied to more people than just Abd. Rather than focus just on one side or the other, try and step back a bit and look at all the behaviour here (that is what arbitrators have to do when considering the case), and consider what all parties (both Abd and WMC) and those who have heavily participated here, could do to improve their behaviour (or internalise lessons learned), even if it is only the smallest of changes. Then we might start getting somewhere. If anyone thinks that their behaviour will be totally unchanged as a result of this case, that would be good to know as well. Carcharoth (talk) 23:32, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

You are justifying treating both sides in this case equally when they are clearly not equal. Five minutes worth of reading on the evidence and/or workshop page gives a clear indication of where the vast majority of the disruption originates, and it is from Abd. WMC might not have showered himself in glory, but any problems he might have caused pale in comparison to the problems caused by Abd. Yet, this decision punishes WMC for trying to reign in Abd's misbehavior, while doing absolutely nothing to remedy Abd's numerous misbehaviors. He still doesn't think he did anything wrong! He's already using this decision to claim vindication! So now he gets to pick the apologist of his choice to act as mentor, "negotiate" secret terms, and continue on with business as usual.

This decision is a slap in the face to everyone who has had to deal with Abd. What was the point of compiling the evidence if you're not even going to pretend to read it? Why did Bainer bother posting his proposals on the workshop if he was going to ignore the unanimously negative feedback they got and repost them here verbatim? As it now stands, another Abd case is inevitable. I would start compiling evidence now, but given the way the committee has handled this case, I'm not sure if it's worth it. Oh, there's lessons to be learned here, but I'm pretty sure they are not the ones you want people learning. Raul654 (talk) 02:31, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Yet, this decision punishes WMC for trying to reign in Abd's misbehavior, while doing absolutely nothing to remedy Abd's numerous misbehaviors. Agree. Wizzy…☎ 06:38, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm certain that my behavior will improve. As to others involved, some may improve, some may degenerate as they burn out, and it's up to them. Thanks, Carcharoth. My suggestion is that all parties (construed narrowly and broadly) start to more actively seek broader consensus, instead of being content with imposing their views, or the views of a faction, on Wikipedia. Consensus is powerful and resolves disputes instead of burying them. I can accomplish nothing without consensus, whatever I do that is actually opposed to consensus will be transient and disappear. What I do with consensus is likely to survive me. It will not require any continued effort on my part. --Abd (talk) 00:03, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

As Mathsci said when you proposed this principle on the workshop, [this is an] attempt to justify the pushing of a fringe viewpoint by slowly tiring out mainstream. So much for improving your behavior. Raul654 (talk) 02:11, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Raul, it appears that you have some kind of dispute with me, and that I don't seem to be getting it. I know that you are an experienced editor, highly so. Can you suggest how we could resolve this dispute? Do you think we should discuss it directly, or do you think we would need a mediator? Hopefully, I will have a mentor soon. Do you think we should wait until then? I probably should have asked about this before now. Thanks. Looking forward to your response, --Abd (talk) 22:09, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

You contribute nothing of value to Wikipedia and you cause much disruption. And from this comment above, and your continued disruption of Blacklight Power while this case has been ongoing, it's clear that you still don't understand that all the problems that occur wherever you go trace back to you and you alone. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves" - Julius Caesar (I, ii, 140-141) Can you suggest how we could resolve this dispute? - Yes, when you start behaving appropriately. Or when you are banned. One of these in evitable and I have a pretty good idea of which one it is. Do you think we should discuss it directly Given your comments in the past couple of weeks over in this WR thread about me personally, and others in this case, I doubt your new-found desire to work-through differences amicably is anything more than a cynical attempt to curry favor with the arbitrators now voting on this decision. Furthermore, as you have to date shown absolutely no ability to take in feedback or suggestions from others, I have no desire to engage in such a fruitless waste of time with you, your mentor, or a mediator. Hopefully, I will have a mentor soon - Hopefully, the arbcom will come to its senses and craft a decision that actually addresses your misbehavior instead of foisting the responsibility on a mentor and crossing their fingers. I probably should have asked about this before now. - there are many things you could have done differently in the many months leading up to this case. Raul654 (talk) 22:35, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Raul. Yes, statistics alone don't give the full picture, still, of Abd's total edits only 15% are in the article namespace [22]. Only GoRight can beat that with 13% [23] SPLETTE :] ^{How's my driving?} 22:56, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

← If mentorship is being seriously entertained, then please provide some mechanism for a rapid review by ArbCom. I don't want to name names, but in previous cases ArbCom has "settled" for mentorship; the mentors don't view themselves as "police"; the problematic behavior resumes; and those affected are left with no recourse other than to start another lengthy, unpleasant round of litigation from scratch. MastCell ^Talk 04:10, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I assume that mentorship is going to pass, and I ask that my mentor have one of two things: (1) ready access to ArbComm or (2) ready access to an individual arbitrator selected by ArbComm to interface with the mentor. As well, if I have a problem with my mentor (unlikely), I would appeal to the committee or to the selected arbitrator (better). This communication would be private, non-disruptive. If anyone has a complaint about me, they would be encouraged to communicate this, first, directly with me. If there is no satisfaction from that, they would bring in my mentor. If my mentor does not respond within a reasonable period of time, this would be evidence of abandonment and would be communicated to ArbComm, either by email (best, probably, up to ArbComm, as is all of this) or at Arbitration Enforcement, because if I have no acting mentor, that would be a situation requiring remedy. Clear? However, if we expect mentors to be "police," it will fail, that is predictable. If the Committee wants to establish police, it could appoint a supervising administrator, a kind of "probation officer." But it is not clear that this level of bureaucracy is needed. Any neutral administrator may sanction me for misbehavior, any editor can request such and it can receive rapid review at Arbitration Enforcement. --Abd (talk) 21:58, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

The mentor is not there to act as your apologist or translator. The person complaining about your behavior is under absolutely no obligation whatsoever to talk to your mentor, nor does your mentor have any responsibility to apologize or justify your inappropriate behavior. (And, for that matter, given that you ignore all warnings you have ever gotten, I don't think the complainer has any obligation to talk to you about your misbehavior first, either. Your long history of disruption everywhere you go means, IMO, the complainer would be perfectly justified taking it straight to ANI or RFC.) In short, the mentor's *only* job is to keep you, and you alone, in line. And in the eminently likely event that the mentorship doesn't work, there's Abd arbitration round #3. Raul654 (talk) 22:08, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I've come to interpret mentorship as "something arbcom does when arbcom has to do something but doesn't know what to do," along with issuing 1RR restrictions when a case has nothing to do with excessive reverting. It's similar to the way that the default response of a university administrator is to form a committee. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 04:49, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

If that is the default response of university administrators, maybe we should consider it! I agree with MastCell that establishing some rapid review procedure is a good idea. It may already exist and simply hasn't been made clear. --Abd (talk) 05:00, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Is this for real?

Has anyone thought through the implications of Principle 6, regarding the need to avoid "reasonable but inaccurate suspicions" of coordinated editing? So, constructive editors are now guilty until proven innocent when accused of being a cabal. Maybe we should just surrender the project to Randy in Boise and be done with it. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 16:46, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Yep. As I said in the Workshop, that proposal directly conflicts with the secret of Wikipedia's success - collaborative editing. If that principle is accepted, we need to abolish WikiProjects (since they exist to facilitate "collusion") and watchlists. Talk pages too, since they're prime venues for collusion. And FAs. Can you imagine - you decide to completely re-write an article that's a FAC. All around you there's collusion going on. Oh the horror! Guettarda (talk) 17:15, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

This proposal does not seem to be related to any particular finding of fact or remedy. It would be helpful if the Arbs could explain what particular conduct that they are attempting to address with this proposed principle. I too am concerned about how this statement might be gamed. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:39, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I see the principle as a sound attempt to address the "cabal" issue. That there is an appearance of a cabal is actually not deniable, I did not invent the term as applied to the particular faction involved, it is found in media source and was routine on Wikipedia Review, and there is evidence most recently added to my Evidence page showing clear appearance and a little more, some level of conscious coordination, not in a formal sense, but as a sense of "us" vs. "them." I did not need to establish the "reality" of the cabal, it is an instinctive social phenomenon that has, in my view, resulted in long-term damage to Wikipedia, and that is not to blame the individual editors for what is, after all, simple cooperation (as with WikiProjects). What is damaging is when this cooperation becomes tribal and exclusive, as it clearly has in this case, and that is what my cabal evidence shows, I believe. Solving this problem is difficult, and beyond the ability of ArbComm at this time, in my view. But this principle begins to recognize the problem, which becomes most visible with tag-team reversion, where a series of editors make bald reverts, and where that same series of editors repeatedly does this in the same articles or family of articles. Even a single bald revert is to be avoided, but they are sometimes necessary (and not only with vandalism). We can't prohibit them, but in order to deal with the problem, we need to be able to at least recognize it. An action which is prohibited to a single editor does not become desirable, or maybe not even allowable, when it is performed collectively by a confined set of editors, each contributing a piece. Neutral editors, yes, fine.

I would prefer, myself, a deeper approach to the cabal question, that explicitly acknowledges the appearance of a cabal. I used the word "cabal" because I realized that always pussy-footing around "mutually involved and supportive exclusive faction" was, shall we say, not conducive to understanding. If a better single term had occurred to me, I'd have used it, but the meaning I gave to cabal is actually quite within standard usage, and it is only a more extreme meaning ("conscious, evil, secret plotting") that is objected to, and for which I presented no evidence, because I have seen none. --Abd (talk) 18:49, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I don't believe that "guilty until proven innocent" is at all what that principle is trying to get across - it's simply a reminder that various actions can be taken different ways, that misunderstandings can occur, and users should make sure that they are aware of their own actions such that they limit such misunderstandings. Do any of you have a suggestion as to how it can be reworded, if you feel it is too easily gamed? Hersfold non-admin^(t/a/c) 18:51, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I stand by the "guilty until proven innocent" wording. All that's needed to be in violation of this principle is for someone else to have a "reasonable suspicion." The burden of proof is on the accursed to show that not only were they not acting as a cabal, but that they could not "reasonably" have even been suspected of acting as a cabal. (Let's not even get started on what "reasonable" means...) Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 20:57, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Given that Abd has already chimed in above to use this principle to claim vindication for his unsubstantiated (per FOF #12) cabal allegations, I think it would be best to scrap the principle entirely. Raul654 (talk) 18:55, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

The man who insists that 2+2=5 will suspect that everyone who says that 2+2=4 is in a cabal against him. And, just as he knows that 2+2=5, he will know that his suspicions are reasonable. This principle, if passed, would put real teeth into his suspicions. (After all, his opinion about which suspicions are reasonable is at least as valid as anyone else's opinion, isn't it?) Thus this principle would tend to work to the advantage of POV pushers who are outnumbered. Also, if those who disagree with him do adjust their behavior to avoid the appearance of coordinated editing with others who agree with them, then they will have just coordinated their editing. So, any attempt to obey this part of principle 6 would be a violation of it. So, no, it is not a good idea. Cardamon (talk) 20:13, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

This finding is probably not helpful for the reasons Cardamon points out. Everyone considers his or her own suspicions "reasonable", so such a finding will not deter inappropriate accusations. I do think that Abd's employment of these proposed findings, in the face of a proposal specifically branding his allegations as unreasonable, may be useful context in drafting the decision. MastCell ^Talk 21:34, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Let me point out that Flo and Bain have voted THE SAME WAY on SEVERAL PROPOSALS. They are also KNOWN to use BACK CHANNELS of communication. Block them now, I say! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:52, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

But these issues are far more nuanced than 2+2=4. Determining the weight of a particular source is complicated and inherently swayed by each individual's POV. I would even suggest that those who believe their opinion is as straightforward as 2+2=4 are the root of the problem, because they are never going to reach consensus on something as fuzzy as reliability of sources when they believe their own opinion is infallible. ATren (talk) 02:14, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Go to some real world trial and try to get rid of judge by pointing out that you have already appealed against his/her previous decision so you find him/her involved. You will uncover it is not easy this way. Is it because neutrality of real world judges is of less importance? Hardly, they do decide about real lives and real properties. But that is just it why judical system do not entitle parties to veto judges easily because this way you allow the unscrupulous ones to fish for their demanded judges and balance quickly disappears. Taad Laet (talk) 23:05, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

In real world courts, Taad Laet, at least in the U.S., recusal by judges because of prior cases is common. Newyorkbrad is a lawyer, perhaps he might comment on recusal, and correct me if I'm wrong. Recusal for any reason that could lead an observer to conclude that a judge is biased is normal. However, Taad's comment is off-topic here.

To return to the topic, the comments above demonstrate the "mutually involved and supportive exclusive faction." They are based on an extreme interpretation of the principle proposed, which is then rejected, it's a classic debate technique, used when one does not accept the basic purpose of some proposal, so one exaggerates it and then suggests how ludicrous it is.

"Cabal" does not establish the illegitimacy of any particular cooperation. That a group of editors cooperate to maintain Global warming, which is where this all started for me, is not illegitimate in itself. We, in fact, could use more of that, but there are certain caveats, and as long as we deny that such cooperative groups even exist, we cannot deal with the problems.

Nobody has proposed blocking or banning anyone because they are a member of a "mutually involved and supportive exclusive faction." However, it does affect our judgment of their lack of involvement, as an example. If you are an administrator, and are a close friend of an editor, and if someone, you believe, is uncivil to this friend, and you block the person, and especially if you block severely (i.e. with a disproportionate term, or with unnecessary insult as part of the block), you have quite possibly violated the purpose of recusal policy. In real life, a judge who is a friend of the victim in a case will normally recuse.

Nobody should be sanctioned for prior "cabal" behavior, nor for future "cooperation," per se. What the proposed principle does is to start to make it possible to warn administrators, in particular, for an appearance of impropriety, that they should recuse. If this principle had been previously passed, what would have happened when I and others warned JzG, long before the RfAr came to pass? What would have happened when I warned and others warned WMC about use of tools while involved, even before the JzG affair? I was neutral at first.

I proposed that it should be routine for admins to recuse upon request, and I still maintain that this is highly desirable. (Routine does not mean "without exceptions," IAR continues to apply.) It does not allow editorial misbehavior to continue unchecked, there are easy alternatives and, I keep pointing out, "recuse" is not a synonym for "unblock." It means that the admin stops touching those buttons personally, and becomes like any other involved editor, free to request administrative assistance if needed. Which, I find, when the case is clear, is very, very easy, it takes minutes at RfPP, for example. It's when the case is not clear that an admin can decide that their special knowledge is essential to understanding what is to be done with a certain editor. And that "special knowledge" is another word for "involvement." Bad idea.

If you can't convince a neutral administrator, if needed, you, possibly, should not push a block button, but it also is not a problem if no disruption results. True vandals don't cry "bias," normally, it's a total waste of time for them. And the response to a cry of "bias," where misbehavior is clear, is quite likely to be a more severe sanction from a neutral administrator. --Abd (talk) 00:25, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I would like to just make a comment about this cabal stuff which I admit is very upsetting to me. I ended up on this cabal as you can read on Abd's evidence (so he says), for iVoting in the fringe case, for supporting his and Hippicrit's ban from Cold fusion and my comment at the very beginning of this case when I didn't think that this case was needed and it should have stayed with the community. The reason though that I am on this cabal list is easy, because I supported Abd and Hippicrit's ban as an uninvolved editor. My question on Abd talk page asking about what he was talking about in regards to some mediation that failed from the start led to more conversation [24], a lot more on my talk page. That question and answer discussion went at the beginning quite well until I felt threatened by Abd for even daring to comment any more about this case to him or anyone else. The conversations there was getting strained but this comment took me by surprise "If you are going to argue that editors should be banned, and especially before ArbComm, there might be some blowback. --Abd (talk) 10:35 pm, 26 July 2009, Sunday (24 days ago) (UTC−4)" Abd boldly made comments like this to me and others as ways to itimate and it worked with me. My time at this project is spent peacefully for the most part. I try to help when I can in different things but I do vandal patrol and have a handful of articles I watch, verification of this can be seen in my contributions. I didn't know most of these editors who were named in the fake cabal. I actually started looking them all up and boy did Abd put a list of very smart and accomplished editors together, a list that I no way should be involved in. They write articles, do FAC reveiws, do so many things that I've never ever thought of doing. Also I'd like to point out that I've never touched any of the Global warming articles or the Cold fusions ones because my lack of knowledge and education tells me to stay away from there and let others more knowledgeable take care of them. Abd's screaming cabals like he has through this case and apparently now for years (seen through difs provided and doing my own reading to try to understand.) is totally WP:UNCIVIL. I seriously don't understand why anyone is taking this seriously from him. But Proposal 6 shows that some are taking it seriously and my read is that if it passes then I am in danger for doing anything now that would give any appearance of collusion because I may agree with editors. I agree that the comments about cabals needs addressing but it needs to be put away as not a serious anything. I for one do not like being associated like this and feel that if this passes I can easily have an editor wikilawyer and say 'oh look a cabal member, lets get her blocked for collusion and/or bad behavior. I will not edit in fear like this, no one should. Sorry but I had to make my say on this cabal garbage now that I know that the arbitrators are reading and listening. New York Brad, thanks for acknowledging that you do read what is written. I am having problems accessing the work page so I couldn't say so until it was sent to me via email. Please, put this cabal to bed, make it a civility problem using it or something but please don't give this ugly accusation any teeth. Thank you for your times, --CrohnieGal^Talk 11:58, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Crohnie, you deserve a response. When an editor becomes involved on one side in a highly contentious dispute, long term, the editor should not be surprised to be named as involved in some way. Just barely, less than any other, you met the minimum standard I set for describing an editor as "cabal," when I compiled the list, which simply means "generally involved on one side of an issue," in this case, rather than specifically involved, which is easier to show when true. (And it carries the implication that the involvement is with a POV or general content or behavioral position that is, if pushed, contrary to policy.) You were never at risk, and you remain not at risk of being sanctioned out of this. There is no danger from "agreement." There would never be any danger from making a comment in a discussion stating your position, as long as it is civil, even if it were blatantly "cabal." If you were to participate in tag-team reversion, there might be a danger, but I'm sure you would be warned first, and I haven't seen you do that. And the other "danger" is that a !vote from you in some process might be discounted as "involved," by a closing admin, or perhaps by ArbComm -- which is why all the cabal evidence was presented. That's all. --Abd (talk) 16:38, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Details on Crohnie involvement by Abd

There had to be at least two prior incidents showing likely prejudgment,[25][26] plus specific involvement in the present arbitration[27] (or surrounding activity, not applicable with Crohnie). Looking a little now, for signs of the kind of "tribal" affiliation that I've called "cabal," I found other expressions of support for ScienceApologist (not necessarily in a bad way), plus [28], a Keep AfD which contained a high concentration of very recognizable names, you voted last, "per Enric Naval," where the views expressed are typical of the cabal approach to pseudoscience: insistence on strong reliable source for positive information, perhaps peer-reviewed RS, but willingness to use weak sources or synthesis for negative. All that the "cabal" allegation means, in the present case, is that you should not be considered neutral or uninvolved. "Blowback" referred to a general principle, and was, in context, absolutely not a threat of any kind, since the "blowback" had already occurred: you were previously mentioned. I was explaining why that happened, not warning you about future retribution. At the time of mention, and your first protests, you were not even "accused" of being a cabal "member," you were simply listed as having participated in the AN/I community ban discussion, with an explicit disclaimer that this, by itself, proved nothing; it was only one discussion, and Short Brigade Harvester Boris, a deeply involved "cabal" editor, long term, had taken it upon himself to tell you about that, thus framing it all in a frightening way. In spite of repeated assertions on your talk page, by me, that there was no risk to you, personally, of accusations of "collusion" or any call for you to be "blocked," you repeat those fears here as if I had threatened you with this. It is, indeed, your apparent ready assumption of bad faith on my part, and your readiness to ignore offenses by "cabal" members, but seize on whatever seems to be a problem on my part, that characterizes "cabal membership." It's "us" vs. "him" or "them." I'd say that the rest of your participation in the RfAr generally -- but not in every detail -- confirms this. There are exceptions, and those point out your lack of solidarity with the cabal, I didn't see such exceptions from "hard core" cabal members, until WMC finally blew some fuses with his block of me during this case, and even then it was transient, with, eventually, me being blamed for baiting WMC into doing what came very naturally for him. Hard core members supported everything negative about me, added plenty of it themselves, and opposed every suggestion from me, no matter how reasonable. The importance of consensus in measuring level of NPOV? Abd's self-serving promise to wear us all out with walls of text and endless debate. Eh? Endless and ineffective commentary, inflicted on unwilling participants, is hardly a way to expand consensus, and any "consensus" that appeared because of editors dropping out due to "walls of text" would be not only transient, if that happened, but it doesn't happen at all. It's a myth. Editors, especially experts, drop out because of frequent reversion of their work on articles, or personal attack, not from too much commentary. --Abd (talk) 16:38, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Abd, I am going to have to politely ask you to refactor the bad faith assumptions that you make above that can be seen and in the hide box. You are assuming bad faith in me for the last time. I didn't and I don't follow anyone. I look at difs and I also do my own work prior to coming to any conclusions, thus the long conversations we had on my talk page. Your "blowback" comment was used to intimidate me and I'm not the only editor who feels that way as can be seen on the evidence page under Phil's Evidence here titled 'Abd mentions process and hints at bad outcomes to those who oppose his positions or actions:' Most of the rest of the stuff has nothing to do with me, I didn't say most of what you have said above. I repeat, and maybe you hear me now, I am not and never have been working in concert with any other editor in a way as you above describe to. You are violating policy esp. civil then you have the nerve to tell me "(And it carries the implication that the involvement is with a POV or general content or behavioral position that is, if pushed, contrary to policy.)" I was uninvolved at the time of the ANI, I am not now for obvious reasons. I'm sorry but Abd has me angry and I will not respond to anything else he has said. Would someone, Hersfold or an arbitrator please make Abd do the right thing and refactor the above comments. Thank you in advance, --CrohnieGal^Talk 18:43, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Crohnie then went to User talk Hersfold and requested clerk intervention. I responded there. I attempted, above, to allay her fears, but obviously I did not succeed. "Pushed" in the comment she cites above refers to edit warring or use of tools, not to the mere expression of opinion. There are those who support blocking for "POV-pushing," I am not one of them. --Abd (talk) 21:47, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are talking about in this statement. "Pushed" in the comment she cites above refers to edit warring or use of tools, not to the mere expression of opinion. There are those who support blocking for "POV-pushing," I am not one of them. Also, please leave my edit alone, thank you. Yes I went to Hersfold, and no it's not me assuming bad faith, though I guess now maybe I am. My apologies to everyone, --CrohnieGal^Talk 22:11, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

explanation of not "leaving" Crohnie's edit "alone." by Abd

Well, your edit, Crohnie, had a missing close bracket in a URL, which then causes the next link after it to be broken. It took me some time to figure out why my link wasn't working. Probably your edit previously caused another link down the page, placed before your edit, to be broken. I suppose I could have simply started my edit with a close bracket, leaving the entire remainder of your post as link text; instead, I did insert the close bracket and the word "Evidence," hopefully improving your edit in appearance. Did it not? If you disagree, you are welcome to fix it, obviously, it was done thinking you might appreciate it. Fools rush in, apparently, assuming good faith and expecting the same in return. Tell you what I'll do. I will, after saving this, do a self-reverted pair of edits, making it the way I could have fixed it without touching your text, then I'll bring it back the way it is now. Anyone who prefers it to be without my unwanted helpful edit may simply revert that, I consent to that, and I won't touch it, and, in the future, I will avoid such actions. Otherwise I will assume that it was proper. Normally, I would not dare to touch your writing, but where text causes damage because of formatting errors, it's an exception. That's why we have WP:IAR. Other editors have fixed my formatting errors in this case, and, far from complaining about it, I thanked them, no matter how hostile they may have been in other ways. Please, Crohnie, your assumption that everything is poison is damaging you. --Abd (talk) 23:01, 19 August 2009 (UTC) Actually, I was wrong. There appears to be a bug in the softare, or at least I could not find a way to close out Crohnie's URL without placing a close bracket immediately after it. Every link down the rest of the section was damaged, and later close brackets, after her edit, were ignored. I could have simply placed the bracket without the word "Evidence" but then her text wouldn't read properly. I'll continue to try just for fun, but I don't think it's important at all, which is why this is placed in collapse! --Abd (talk) 23:18, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I assume from the context above that you mean "intimidate" and not "intimate". Having read both your original statement and Abd's explanation of his actions, and given that Abd has been perfectly clear about his methodology in this case (and that you have been previously made aware of it, [29] and [30]) I am sorry but there is absolutely nothing that should be considered intimidating in his comments. Offering cogent explanations of one's position and clearly attempting to allay one's fears is not the typical style of one who wishes to intimidate anyone. Quite to the contrary, in fact. Continuing to persist in the claim of his having bad faith intentions is ridiculous, IMHO, and that itself borders on a show of bad faith, also IMHO. This is all especially true given your own accusations/implications toward others, [31]. --GoRight (talk) 22:35, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Another comment from the Abd cabal? Hal peridol (talk) 01:32, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Watch out, you can be blocked for making unsubstantiated accusations of cabalism. Trust me, I know. --GoRight (talk) 01:54, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

If I might interrupt this lovefest for a brief return to the original point, the principle in question looks set to pass unanimously. What on earth are these guys thinking??? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:48, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

To be honest, I am sort of curious as to why you even consider this to be an issue. It looks like a slap on the wrist to both sides to me. The admin part is boilerplate don't use your tools while involved ... or just as importantly don't even APPEAR to be using your tools while involved, and the second part is don't make yourself look like a meat puppet. What's to complain about? Or am I looking at the wrong Principle 6 here? --GoRight (talk) 02:03, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps people are hanging their hat on the word "reasonable". If coupled with the proposed finding that Abd's cabalism accusations are unreasonable, then perhaps this makes sense, although this finding will likely be cited as vindication by Abd regardless of any accompanying disavowal of his cabalism "evidence". Interestingly, there are several more substantial examples in this case of users "repeatedly editing in apparent coordination with other editors". But either those are obvious to other "reasonable" observers, or they're not; in the latter case, it's not worth harping on. MastCell ^Talk 17:23, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Concern regarding "Bans" finding

I'm concerned about Stephen Bain's endorsement of the proposed finding on bans, which reads:

Policy as it stands does not authorise administrators to impose bans by themselves, absent available discretionary sanctions. Wikipedia policy need not be written - the description follows the accepted practice - but there needs to be some actual indication that a practice is indeed widely accepted and utilised before it can be considered policy. For example, one would expect to see substantial evidence of the practice being used and supported, or well-received efforts to document the practice. In this case there has been no indication shown that there is such a widely accepted and utilised practice.

At the outset of this case, when the issue of administrative authority to impose such bans was under discussion, Thatcher, Shell Kinney, and myself all clearly indicated that we had used this approach, and that it had been an effective and relatively drama-less part of our admin toolbox (discussion). Without being overly self-congratulatory, I think it is fair to say that the 3 of us are administrators with generally positive records and experience in addressing and resolving difficult disputes. I am therefore at a loss to understand the assertion that "there has been no indication shown that there is such a widely accepted and utilised practice."

Part of me thinks that it might have been useful for the drafter to contact or poll at least a handful of sysops who work at administering difficult on-wiki disputes, to see how widespread this practice really is. On the other hand, I'm to blame since I didn't submit any formal evidence documenting the ongoing and successful use of this practice. I will plead only 2 mitigating factors: 1) it did not occur to me that ArbCom would seriously entertain the idea of unilaterally overturning an active and previously undisputed standard practice, and 2) the evolution of this case depressed me to the extent that I couldn't muster the will to post any evidence. If the description does in fact follow the accepted practice, then I don't see how this finding is tenable. MastCell ^Talk 22:12, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd have to say that this finding disappointed me the most, though I was surprised by many of the workshop motions that were carried over. Bainer's initial proposals seemed completely out of touch and I don't see that's been tempered much by the copious feedback received at the Workshop. As MastCell points out, there were several assertions during discussion on this case that administrative page or topic banning was a widespread and accepted practice. I'd posit that whomever proposed the finding didn't put much effort into investigation. General sanctions don't yet exist for every contentious area on Wikipedia and they shouldn't need to - clueful admins with a mind to help out in difficult areas can re-purpose sanctions already determined by ArbCom to help in similar situations. These bans, unlike ArbCom sanctions, are open to simple community review as happened in this case - more importantly, the community absolutely upheld this ban. Perhaps best illustrating this point is the fact that not a single person commenting during the community review batted an eyelash - if these bans were unique or untested, surely someone would have noticed? Its telling that the only participants contesting the ability of an admin to ban are the banned user and two others who support him so blindly that they are unable to see any fault in any of his actions - this is not a solid foundation for a FOF.

Second to this is a swath of findings/sanctions that seem to put disruption of ArbCom over disruption of the encyclopedia. Sorry guys, we all love you, but you're taking yourself too seriously if you're ready to admonish people over a single case of edit warring simply because it occurred on these hallowed pages. That you let the case get away from you in such a manner should prompt consideration of how the system is failing heated disputes such as this. Put down the stick and back away from the horse - we get that you were properly shocked that, left completely on their own, personal disputes simply fester. Lets use that energy to talk about how to prevent a repeat occurrence instead. Shell ^babelfish 23:18, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

MastCell, could you (and others) give examples of what happened when page or topic bans imposed by admins were contested? Was an independent review of the page or topic ban carried out if requested, and what has the standard of discussion and evidence presentation been like? i.e. How formal or informal were such bans? Carcharoth (talk) 23:23, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Oy. Now you're asking me to do work instead of just talking. :) It has been months and perhaps even a year since I've undertaken anything beyond an occasional half-hearted administrative action. But let's see what's in the archive... TStolper1W (talk · contribs), an editor with a conflict of interest having issues at Randell Mills (curiously, I notice in retrospect the overlap with cold fusion...) back in 2007 when I was more active. Randell Mills is now a redirect, so take a look at the relevant page history. The following is reconstructed from what I can find on-wiki, since my memory of past events is worse than Alberto Gonzalez's.

• Taken to WP:AN/I by another editor here. Little or no response (except for me). I notice that the situation has previously been brought to AN/I, but no one seemed to care about it (here). I look over the situation and decide that while a block might be warranted, I'd prefer to start with an article ban and allow talk page edits (see User talk:TStolper1W#Notice).
• Subsequently, the editor takes up the same cause at hydrino theory (also now a redirect). After some aimless discussion at WP:COIN (can't find link), I impose 1RR on hydrino theory here. Not sure where things went after that.

Sorry, I think there are better cases in my archives, but I'm not up for digging right now. I think this is a reasonable example, though - an editor with a conflict of interest and a previous block for edit-warring and abusing Wikipedia to promote his claims. Multiple requests for outside eyes at AN/I were essentially ignored (here, here, here). I thought these were reasonable approaches (restriction to talk page, 1RR) that stopped short of a block. Maybe Shell or Thatcher have better examples handy. OK, you can desysop me now. :) MastCell ^Talk 00:27, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

If I may, let me make one small distinction here. In your example, MastCell, you are citing explicit policies and specific violations of those policies as being the basis for the bans you issued. This seems perfectly reasonable. As far as I can tell no such reasonable counterpart exists in the case of the WMC ban of H and Abd. WMC merely declared a ban to be in place and deflected queries regarding the basis of his declaration. This make his ban clearly distinct from the type of thing you are mentioning here. --GoRight (talk) 06:07, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

But that's exactly my point. The proposed finding does not make the distinction you propose. I'm not defending WMC's action; I'm concerned about the overall effect of this finding going forward. It would outlaw any administrative page or topic ban. MastCell ^Talk 20:24, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I was quite surprised to see this interpretation by Stephen Bain. I ran for arbcom with the platform that admins would do more sanctions and relieve ArbCom from needing to do as many cases. In my opinion 3 years ago, they were being used well by admins and we needed to encourage more admins to wade into these situations and do them. The point of us (ArbCom) doing "discretionary sanctions" was not to authorize admins to give editing restrictions, but to point out the areas of Wikipedia where admins were needed to step in more often. I see no reason that a Community discussion needs to happen to make an admin's editing restrictions against an user valid. In any case, I feel that we are overstepping our role by binding the Community to stick to a narrow rigid interpretation of policy. FloNight♥♥♥ 00:47, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Examples of topic bans

1. Here is a discussion that led to the imposition of a 3 month topic ban, here is a discussion one month later where the banned editor asks for the ban to be lifted.
2. A community ban from DYK (first discussion, second discussion), The most important underlying problems were concern about plagiarism and writing articles that just weren't right. The intent of topic banning her from DYK was to get her to slow down and do a better job herself, instead of depending on the rest of the community to repair her articles to an acceptable standard after the page has already been on the main page. Lifted upon improved behavior (warning, loooonnnnggg discussion, interesting list of participants).
3. Topic bans reimposed by the community after Arbcom topic bans had expired.
4. Topic ban proposal that failed after discussion. Note that there is no objection to the idea of a community-imposed topic ban assuming it had been supported by evidence.
5. Topic ban Reviewed and endorsed, you can follow the links posted at the review back to the original ban.

It appears to be more usual that topic bans are proposed and discussed on the admin noticeboards before being enacted by a closing admin, although that may be an artifact of my search method. I do not have any problem with an admin applying a ban first and then bringing it to the noticeboard for review. As I said on the Evidence talk page,

“ The correct course of action is to bring the ban up for discussion at the admins' noticeboard, and there is no need to edit to edit the article--no need not to respect the ban--during the discussion. If there is consensus for the ban, then so be it. If there is no consensus, then editor B can edit the article sure in the knowledge that another admin will unblock him if Admin A fails to respect the outcome of the discussion (and there will be no shortage of admins to contact based on that discussion, if there truly was no consensus to ban). Admin A's conduct could then come under scrutiny for acting without community consensus...Finally, I submit as an axiom that any editor who can not stop editing an article for 48 hours while a ban is discussed deserves the ban. ”

Thatcher 17:11, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

While I agree that an inability to postpone editing for 48 hours normally shows a problem, that is hardly proof that an editor "deserves a ban." Nevertheless, in our present case we aren't talking about 48 hours, we are talking about an ultimately indef ban as was declared by WMC. There are lost steps in much of this discussion. I've agreed that an admin may "declare a ban," but simply claim that this declaration does not create any right to block that did not already exist without the ban (assuming a warning, and admins may block without warning, it is merely discouraged). To say, generically, that there is "no need to edit the article" is to deny that need ever exists, because if need exists, it must exist at a time, and that time might come during the supposed effective time of the ban. So an admin may do as Thatcher describes, that's not being denied, but should the editor make a harmless correction, as an example, during the discussion at the noticeboard, and the same admin blocks, that is a block for defiance, not a block for actual disruption, and that's punitive and shows involvement by the admin. Rather, the admin would properly bring the edit, if concerned about it, to the discussion for review and possible block by a neutral admin. By asking the community to support a declared ban, the admin is no longer strictly neutral but is asking for support of a prior action. What Thatcher reports, that it is much more common for a ban to be discussed first before being declared by a neutral closing admin, based on evidence and arguments, matches my experience.

In the present case, there was no emergency. There was a problem with the article being protected in a damaged state, but Hipocrite and I had already agreed to a voluntary page ban on the article, pending, in order to facilitate fixing the article, it could simply have been unprotected so it could be fixed by others. If WMC had asked me to abstain from editing the Talk page as well for a few days, or had gone to AN/I to request a ban, I'd have either abstained from editing entirely, or would have confined myself to a notice as to what was happening. WMC, by using a sledgehammer, a "month or whenever I feel like it" ban, to resolve a fairly simple problem, made it all worse, and, by continuing to insist upon his right to remain in the position of ban administrator, created this case. Note that if he had gone to AN/I, say, and asked for a ban, he might have gotten it, because of the phenomena I've described, I'd have probably appealed to ArbComm but the appeal would have been of my ban, and would have included no charges of admin abuse by WMC, his situation would have been like that of the rest of the "cabal," I might have claimed "involvement," but only as needed to follow WP:BAN, i.e., "consensus of uninvolved editors." There were very simple ways to have dealt with whatever legitimate problem existed, but they were not chosen, and requests to take one of those paths were ignored. If we leave it ambiguous about the declaration of "bans" by administrators, we will encourage other admins to fall into this same trap. I'm not out to punish WMC, I am much more concerned about future incidents that don't involve me at all. It's even possible that by continuing to offer my opinions here, I will sufficiently irritate some arbitrators to increase the risk of a ban decision for me, but I have to take that risk. I do follow IAR, which requires me to place the welfare of the project above my personal editing "career". --Abd (talk) 22:20, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I really hope the Arbitrators are reading every word you write, abd, because there are some things you just don't get. If Admin A bans editor B from editing an article, and editor B edits the article, that is a violation of the ban and is absolutely blockable by any admin including Admin A. Period end of sentence. There are no exceptions for "minor", "helpful", or self-reverted edits. Partly because "minor" and "helpful" are often in the eye of the beholder, and partly because boundary testing by banned editors is simply not tolerated. Your argument is not grounded in any serious interpretation of any policy or practice. Topic bans imposed by Arbcom are not subject to this special "minor helpful edit rule"; editors whose accounts are blocked are not allowed to make minor helpful edits. Why do you think this rule uniquely implies to admin-imposed page bans? As a matter of course, blocks and bans are enforced at the admin's discretion, a block might not be placed for various reasons even if there is a clear violation. But if it looks like an editor is gaming the system, or testing boundaries, even by making helpful edits, then a ban is appropriate.

The other thing I have to object to is your characterization of WMC's page ban as "month or whenever I feel like it". The wording is, after all, available to every one. The solution which will please no-one is: User:Hipocrite and User:Abd are both banned from editing cold fusion, and its talk page, for an arbitrary time of approximately one month, during which time we'll see if a stable version developes. There are at least two specific durations listed there, one month and when (and if) a stable version develops. Had you not appealed to the noticeboard, you could have contacted WMC after a month and asked him to lift the ban. If the article stabilized beforehand, you could ask then. Since you appealed to the noticeboard, the ban was confirmed for a month duration. Why is this confusing? Thatcher 22:49, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Abd didn't appeal. Enric Naval took the ban to the noticeboard to get community review. Admittedly, Abd was the second person to reply to Enric Naval's post at ANI, but the point stands that when a big step like that is taken, it should be the banned person making the appeal or request for review, not someone doing it on their behalf. Carcharoth (talk) 23:57, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Let's remember here that Abd announced beforehand that he was going to defy his ban to force WMC to block him, so it was clear that he wasn't going to take that step, he was just going to plunge forward. --Enric Naval (talk) 02:08, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

@Thatcher: WMC's original wording made it appear as though 1 month was the target, but his subsequent comments and actions have made it clear that he considers the ban to be indefinite until he decides it is over, which I suspect will be never. WMC stated somewhere that it was indefinite and his supporters have pointed this out. Indeed the month is long past and WMC still asserts that the ban is in place. So no, there was no clear statement of one month OTHER than in the close of the AN/I discussion. --GoRight (talk) 06:10, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Thatcher, thanks for those examples. That is helpful. To pick up on one point here that I think is important, you say: "I do not have any problem with an admin applying a ban first and then bringing it to the noticeboard for review." That sounds too much to me like an admin carrying out an action and then going to a noticeboard for validation or rubber-stamping of their decision (especially if that noticeboard is AN or ANI). The correct action would be for the admin carrying out the banning action (whether page ban or topic ban) to inform the editor so-banned to, in the first instance, talk to them (the admin) about the ban if they have any questions or objections, and to let the editor so-banned know where to appeal. That gives the editor who is page-banned or topic-banned the opportunity to make their own appeal in their own time, rather than letting the admin (or other editors) present the appeal in the form of an "endorsement".

Sure, both editor and admin might describe the circumstances differently, but consider the situation where an admin turns up at a noticeboard and presents such a ban for community endorsement (maybe while the editor so-banned is not around). There is a very real chance that there will be pile-on supports before the editor who is banned has had a chance to say anything. This is similar in some ways to admins who carry out a controversial block, and then immediately start an ANI thread to (take your pick) defend the block/pre-empt someone else starting the thread/allow a genuinely independent review.

If an admin feels their actions are solidly based in policy, there should be no need to start a noticeboard thread to get their actions endorsed. They should be prepared to wait for any appeal or objections, and defend their actions at that point, rather than trying to pre-empt things by turning it into a community topic or page ban.

Compare the situation of a page or topic ban to that of a block. We have the {{unblock}} template that in theory attracts an uninvolved admin to review the block. Now imagine the blocking admin placing the 'unblock' template on ANI and asking the community to endorse the block. That is what you are proposing be done with admin-placed page and topic bans. As I've said, that is not ideal. What is needed is to allow a page-banned or topic-banned editor the time and space to make their own appeal, and for the banning admin to take responsibility for the ban (and the consequences if the ban was inappropriate), rather than asking the community to endorse the decision (that is a waste of time for the community until the banned editor is ready to appeal).

In other words, the culture of asking noticeboards to endorse decisions made by individual admins undermines the responsibility individual admins need to take for their actions. Carcharoth (talk) 23:51, 19 August 2009 (UTC) More in next post...

Interesting argument about endorsement vs appeal, I had never thought of it that way. Thatcher 00:24, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Never ever? What about the point that admins should stand by their actions and only defend them when objections are made, rather than asking for community review and endorsement? Can you imagine an admin turning up at a noticeboard and saying "I've banned editor Jones from this page, and they've objected. I've told them they are free to appeal to this noticeboard. Before I present my case for the ban, I will let editor Jones have his say first. Once we've both had our say, could the subset of the community who is present at this noticeboard please discuss the page ban and either endorse it or reject it. I suggest allowing at least 48 hours for the discussion (timed from the point where we've both had our say) to ensure a wide range of editors see the discussion, and an uninvolved admin can then close the discussion and enact the result. Oh, and if you participated in the previous discussions on the talk page, have heavily edited the page in question, or have any past history with either of us, please state that so the closing admin can take that into account." Does that sort of thing happen often? [That's a rhetorical question.] The last bit, about people disclosing their prior participation and history with the parties, is too idealistic, of course, but you can hope. Or an admin being told they are going to be "taken to ANI" following a controversial but necessary block replying "sure, no problem, just make sure to leave a link to the discussion on my talk page so I can give my version of what happened", as opposed to the pre-emptive "I've blocked you, and I've started an ANI discussion about it here". Carcharoth (talk) 00:46, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I do recall blocking someone for revert warring and being harrangued, "don't you know that when you block an established editor you are supposed to post it for review?" But I suspect that was a special case. Best not to go into it. :) Thatcher 00:59, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Following on from my 23:51 19 August 2009 post above, there is an alternative approach, which is that of imposing a temporary page or topic ban until there has been a community review. But that still runs up against the problem of admins (or editors on the 'other side') presenting the case for the ban first and (even with the best of intentions and efforts to be objective) skewing the result their way (this 'first mover advantage' is seen in RfCs as well, where the first view posted often gains disproportionate support compared to later options). In my view, the only real way around this is to either: (a) wait for the banned editor to submit their own appeal (there is a certain logic to this, since as the restricted party, it seems fair that they get to present their case first, and also because in a review by the community, some will be more willing to wait to hear what the banning admin has to say, than they would be to wait for an allegedly disruptive editor to answer allegations made by an admin); or (b) arrange for the banning admin and the banned editor to prepare their arguments and present them together (or, more practically, to hold off from discussion and any expression of support or opposition, until both sides have presented their case for or against the ban). This might seem incredibly bureaucratic, but it is standard practice in many places on and off Wikipedia to let the main parties to a decision have their say before commenting for or against that decision. Some of these points were being made by Abd, but they rather got lost in the noise, I fear. Carcharoth (talk) 00:02, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

If you look at these two discussions [32][33], Abd was nagging WMC while refusing to bring the matter to either Arbcom or ANI, and then he announced that he was going to defy his ban, so I had to drag him to ANI before he made some POINTy disruptive edit. I had the same problem with JzG's RfC, I had to nominate his draft for deletion, ask that he was given a 30 day ultimatum, and then having to remind him to fill the RfC after those 30 days. Lesson learnt, next time I'll let him defy his ban and get himself blocked. --Enric Naval (talk) 02:01, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

This is so remarkable I'll interject this: Enric nominated that file for deletion? Take a look and see who nominated it. That editor hasn't edited since the beginning of May, except for one odd edit Aug 8 to Cars-R-Coffins. Or is he still editing? Doesn't matter, really, but that was one weird comment. That was not a draft RfC, it was evidence that had been presented to ArbComm already, in the RfAr/Clarification filed by JzG, and it had some impact. Sure, the eventual RfC used much of the same evidence, but it required a lot more work. I'm a volunteer, I can only do what I can do. Enric created an AN/I report, one guaranteed to be disruptive, to avoid a minor alleged POINT violation? Editing a page properly isn't a point violation, that's a total misunderstanding of WP:POINT. --Abd (talk) 03:45, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

@Enric: "... so I had to drag him to ANI ..." - No, you didn't have to drag him there. In fact your opening of that thread was totally premature and disruptive. WMC had declared a ban, Abd had denied the ban, neither had taken any action. Without having taken any action (i.e. Abd editing the page or WMC blocking Abd) there was really nothing to discuss. It was totally disruptive on your part, IMHO. --GoRight (talk) 06:32, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

P.D.: I think, Carcharoth, that you don't realize until what point all this mess is Abd's exclusive fault. --Enric Naval (talk) 02:11, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Carcharoth, by the way, is writing what I'd write if I had the skill.

Consider what would have happened if Enric had not gone to AN/I, and I assure the Committee that he did not do so to protect me. He had already declared that I should be banned, long before. I would have eventually edited Talk, probably. Likely WMC would have blocked me. I would have put up an unblock template with careful evidence, but the primary evidence would have been that the edit I was blocked for was not disruptive, because you can be damn sure that I'd have been extraordinarily cautious, as I was when I edited Talk during this case. I'd say, 90%, I'd have been unblocked promptly (as I was during this case without even requesting it). And the ban would have been history, if WMC had blocked me again, it would have been open and shut to ArbComm, very simple case. If he didn't block me again, no ArbComm case, far, far less disruption. It got vastly more complex because Enric took it to AN/I. There was no actual disruption at the time, just my notice to WMC that I was withdrawing my voluntary cooperation. Two editors in dispute. My being blocked for a harmless edit is very little disruption, and I was willing to allow that in order to quickly resolve the dispute. If the matter went to AN/I, it probably wouldn't have been me to take it there. I would not have taken WMC to ArbComm over a now-moot violation of recusal policy against me, personally. Somebody else took my first WMC block to AN/I, the block where I was truly surprised to be blocked, because of strong precedent I had observed, which also caused damage to a completely different editor, PJHaseldine (who had been making self-reverted edits while under a community ban, and it had been working, there had arisen cooperation between him and an editor who had sought for him to be banned.) The pile-in at AN/I in that other discussion led to the conclusion that any edit was a ban violation, even self-reverted edits, which in the case of the other editor was preposterous, it was thinking like this that WMC previously called "stupid." He'd been right. I did not put up an unblock template for that block, because there was a community ban, which would have been very difficult to challenge at that point, and the block was only for 24 hours. Challenging blocks on the basis that an admin is biased is a formula for rapid denial of the request. Maybe I'd have gotten a sympathetic response, based on the harmlessness, but with a community ban, that would be more difficult, and for 24 hours, it wasn't worth the work and the risk. --Abd (talk) 03:29, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I totally agree, which is why I claim that Enric was being needlessly disruptive by taking a dispute in which he was not even involved to AN/I. --GoRight (talk) 06:32, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

← I'm a little concerned by the talk of "first mover advantage" and by the idea that asking for noticeboard review is somehow a strategic ploy. I can only speak for myself, but I find these sorts of community review essential as a sanity check. I have regularly submitted my actions to WP:AN or WP:AN/I for review, not out of a desire to get "the first word" in, but out of a desire to see if people think I've acted reasonably.

Most applications of administrative tools are gray areas; this place is notorious for inducing a loss of perspective; and I genuinely want to know if I'm imposing sanctions that the community disagrees with. Under those circumstances, I find it extremely useful to submit actions for review on the noticeboards. If the "first mover advantage" is as substantial as Carcharoth supposes, then we have a problem with our noticeboard culture. But the solution is not to discourage one of the only avenues open to admins to get a sanity check on their actions.

I see Carcharoth's point that it may be preferable to submit proposed actions rather than present a fait accompli for endorsement. As a counterpoint, noticeboard discussions tend as often as not to bog down in back-and-forth between involved parties and to reach no clear conclusion. In those cases, I believe that the outcome should default to the administrator's judgment. After all, admins are theoretically selected on the basis of trust in their judgment. In a case where there is truly no clear consensus or compelling argument either way, it seems logical to defer to that judgment. MastCell ^Talk 17:36, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Findings regarding recusal

While I'm not comfortable with a few of the proposals, I guess it depends on what direction the votes go. But I'd like to suggest that a finding for or against (obviously, I lean towards against) the claim that WMC was involved prior to banning Abd would be wise. As I see it, the case was brought on three questions:

• Is an admin permited to topic ban a user?
• Should WMC have recused based on prior involvement with Abd?
• Did Abd warrant being topic/page banned?

In the end these issues seem to have been largely dropped in favour of WMC's behaviour during the case and his behaviour in the past, (an approach I'm uncomfortable with), but currently there are two proposals tackling the first issue, there are some that tackle the third, yet the only proposal which tackles the second is Allegations of a cabal. My concern is that a finding in relation to WMC's behaviour in the case will be read as supporting the claim that he was involved prior to the case, and this is likely to prove problematic. - Bilby (talk) 00:25, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, there are lots of reasons to consider WMC as involved. Certainly he wasn't involved in the article, directly and defenses of him based on his not having edited the article for a long time missed the point. My claim of involvement centered upon two pillars: one was personal dispute in the past, mostly over his use of tools while involved and his long prediction of and support for a ban of me, as most clearly manifest during Wikipedia:Requests for comment/JzG 3. He wasn't "neutral." He may be asserted to be "content neutral," but that then takes us to the second pillar, the cabal. The cabal was defined based on content positions, as to general principles. In the actions he took with respect to cold fusion and me, he was supporting cabal editors, as they have supported him whenever his prior actions-while-involved were questioned. "Cabal" simply refers to habitual support that reflects a bias, a preference for the positions of friends and an identification of others as "outsiders," them, not "us." Absolutely, I'd like it for ArbComm to address this issue, but it is a complex one; my plan had been to present specific proposals, but it became personally impossible for me, I was overwhelmed. I'm content to have been able to raise the issue without being immediately banned!

To answer the questions posed by Bilby, my views:

Strictly, no, an administrator has no right to block an editor for a nondisruptive edit, and there is only one exception: bans. An administrator cannot create such a ban, alone, and then strictly enforce it by blocking for a nondisruptive edit. Administrators may block for ban violations, but only for bans where they are not involved, where there has been community or ArbComm process establishing the ban. Discretionary sanctions are a subcategory, but WMC did not depend on any discretionary sanction, and no such sanction existed. (I approve of the establishment of discretionary sanctions for Cold fusion. It's about time, actually.) An administrator may, however, say, "I'm banning you from the topic," but this is really only a strong warning that the admin considers all edits to the topic, or nearly all, to have been disruptive; however, the misbehavior should eventually be specified, and, hopefully, addressable by the editor. It is this kind of ban which has been considered common practice, and I'm pointing out, it's an error to treat this the same as the other kinds of bans.

Were it not for the enforcement problem, we would not block for nondisruptive edits even if they did violate a strict ban, because this would be, clearly, punishment for past misbehavior. But because we ban to avoid problems, and we don't want to have to consider each edit, it is impractical to require specific nondisruptiveness for true ban violations, because we want such bans to be community enforced, by neutral administrators. Thus we do allow (but we don't require!) that admins block for harmless edits under ban. In fact, blocks by neutral administrators for such edits seem to be rather unusual. While it is possible I would have been blocked for the edit to Cold fusion that WMC blocked me for, it is probably unlikely that a neutral administrator would have made that decision. I might have been warned not to repeat it. Or not even that. I didn't see any administrator warning ScienceApologist for making spelling corrections, only his friend, Hipocrite, and he certainly wasn't blocked for those edits, he was eventually blocked for clear expression of disruptive intention.

Yes, WMC should have recused. His edit under protection was an improvement over the version as protected, and that, alone, would not have been a problem. However, his ban of me was based on his very strong prior opinion about "walls of text" and my alleged meddling in policy; I'll note that he specifically suggested I stay away from policy for a month and maybe, then, he would consider lifting the page ban. Page bans by specific administrators are problematic if maintained for any substantial time, they create involvement and a coercive relationship, it's a formula for recusal failure. WMC was attempting to coerce me, to keep me away from policy by holding forth the carrot of being able to return to my favorite topic if I "behaved." I don't know what he was thinking. Recusal policy is more important to me than any particular article, I am not an SPA, I merely focused recently on a topic where I became particularly qualified, semi-expert.

I have yet to see any evidence that I did anything at Cold fusion that warranted being page-banned. Certainly WMC did not present such evidence at the time, even when asked by another editor, and that's in my Evidence. Nor was a bannable offense cited in the AN/I discussion that community-banned me. I have been unable to understand FloNight's proposed findings; perhaps my mentor will explain it to me, if they pass and I'm still around for it to matter!

Bainer has it more accurately. Definitely, my style is a problem for some people, that is undeniable. Whose fault that is does not really matter. (I also support the principle about good faith not being a reason to not sanction. There could be rank incompetence, for example, and the welfare of the project require even a site ban.) If I want to work for consensus, and I do, then problems with my style must be addressed. It's unclear to me that a page ban, or any ban, will accomplish this. However, please note, if I were allowed to make self-reverted edits, if these edits were explicitly declared to not violate my ban, and that any registered and responsible editor could revert them in, taking responsibility for their appropriateness, I could handle any ban and still do my work. And it would address all those complaints about my long posts and claims that nobody reads them but they drive "experts" away (I doubt it!). However, I still wouldn't, based on evidence presented, understand the ban, in comparison to how other editors are treated, and sanctions against me for pursuing what was my right, ArbComm consideration of administrative recusal failure, could be chilling to others who see such abuse. Indeed, I encountered, during this process, an editor who told me, by email, that I was right, but he wouldn't be presenting evidence because he expected there would be retaliation, he didn't want to end his wikicareer.

The original case was filed based on recusal failure. It was not filed as a ban appeal; at the time of filing, I had no reason to doubt that the community ban had expired, so there was only WMC's allegedly involved ban, so determining recusal failure would address that, or alternatively, the same would be accomplished by holding that administrators cannot unilaterally ban, i.e., threaten to block an editor for a nondisruptive edit. --Abd (talk) 01:25, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

This is why I believe a finding on whether or not WMC was involved prior to the ban is worth adding. Clarity would be valuable. Every issue raised above has been addressed in the proposals bar this one. Personally, I stand by my belief that insufficient evidence was presented to show prior involvement by WMC, but that is for ArbCom to decide now. - Bilby (talk) 01:42, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

The above is the reason why currently suggested remedies for Abd are insufficient. It's the classical WoT, with the same classical Cabal allegations, the same wikilawyering, and the same waste of everybody's time as before. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:11, 19 August 2009 (UTC) (for the Cabal)

Thanks, Stephan, you make my point, efficiently. This is the edit summary for the comment above: "TLDR".[34] If he did not read it, how can he confidently describe the contents? This kind of knee-jerk assumption and repetitive, automatic response, is exactly what a "tribal affiliation" generates. Multiply this by a dozen editors piling in to a discussion, you get serious participation bias, and repeat it over many incidents, "cabal effects." Without any specific "collaboration," but the effect just as if there were. --Abd (talk) 11:40, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

What this shows is that you are incapable or unwilling to recognize sarcasm (or, to be fair, that my sarcasm is too obscure). It also shows that you are prone to jump to wrong conclusions and overgeneralizations. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:13, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Unlike anyone else? What was the sarcasm, the TLDR or the text above? Go ahead, defend your own sarcasm, it's befitting. That has been, indeed, the norm during this case. I'm not being sarcastic. Remember, TLDR on Talk or other discussion pages is the core of the only basis that is reasonable at all for my being banned from anything. If my comment above is truly too long, then, of course I should be sanctioned. I agree with Bilby that it is up to ArbComm to decide now, but I don't agree that insufficient evidence has been presented about WMC involvement, but I do see it as possible that it has been buried in the noise. I have offered to answer questions from arbitrators, and I remain open to that, but none have been asked that I can recall. --Abd (talk) 18:50, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

You're somewhat incomprehensible. I'm not claiming you are being sarcastic. What "has been the norm during this case"? My "TLDR" comment was sarcastic and your reasoning from it faulty in assumptions and execution. I don't need to defend the occasional sarcastic comment - why should I? And no, your walls of text are not "the core of the only basis that is reasonable at all for [you] being banned from anything". What is similarly disruptive is your permanent use of veiled, semi-veiled and open innuendo and threats against nearly any editor who has a different opinion from you. May I suggest that you spend part of your energy to reflect on your behaviour towards Crohnie, retract your comments about her, and apologize profusely? Ask some people you trust if bringing her into this can possibly be justified in any way if you cannot see the absurdity of this yourself and don't trust me on this. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:10, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm getting plenty of advice from people I trust, Stephan. You, unfortunately, are not one of them. I'll still listen and consider, but .... did I bring Crohnie into this RfAr? How did she show up here? Have you reviewed the history in detail? Did I attack her and she responded? The matter of my comments is before Hersfold, and he'll decide, I assume. --Abd (talk) 02:59, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Content dispute?

I noticed Stephen Bain wrote Blocking a user you are edit warring with so as to 'win' the content dispute is a large error in judgment. That's true as far as it goes, but it's not clear what specific content dispute you're referring to. Clarification would be helpful to us onlookers. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:54, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Exactly my thought. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:18, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Good question. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:46, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't know which situation he was referring to, but this would apply, for example, to the blocking of an IP during this case that I refer to in my evidence. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 22:48, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

"Purported"

Can we do away with the word "purported", please? I have occasionally applied topic or page bans where no Arbitration remedy exists, and topic and page bans appear to be accepted by the community when reviewed on the appropriate noticeboard. Most often such bans are applied after discussion, but sometimes topic and page bans are applied first and then brought to the noticeboard. To me, the use of the word "purported" undermines the entire concept of topic and page bans when applied outside of Arbitration remedies, and as long as the community is accepting of these bans, it is not Arbcom's place to undermine them with loaded language. It would be more appropriate to say, "WMC applied a topic ban, which was later affirmed by discussion on the noticeboard" or "WMC placed (or even declared) a topic ban on abd, which was later confirmed" (to distinguish from the case, "Smith applied a topic ban, which was overturned by the community two days later after discussion.")

Admins apply blocks and bans, which may be affirmed or overturned by other admins. Calling the page ban "purported" gives it the stink of illegitimacy, which it does not deserve, especially as it was affirmed by consensus. Thatcher 13:50, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

While "purported" remains neutral on the legitimacy of the ban, in theory, attributing the ban specifically to WMC, as with "declared a page ban" does adequately express the situation, even more so if it is noted that the validity of his ban was challenged. (And not just by me.) My view is that admins cannot "strictly" ban, i.e, independently set themselves up to block for non-disruptive edits. Thatcher, if you personally banned someone, then blocked them for an edit that was useful or harmless in itself, you acted improperly, in that sense, but the usual case is that the block is for continuation of disruptive behavior, not for harmless edits, and that is proper. So probably most blocks for violation of "administrative bans" are proper. Using the term "ban" for both kinds of bans (administrative warnings and community/ArbComm strict bans) is what causes the confusion over this. It might be better to use "strict warning," such as "I am strictly warning you that I consider your involvement with (topic or page) disruptive, and by continuing to edit in that topic, you are risking a block from me. Please discuss this with me before making any more edits that might violate this warning, I will not warn you again."

Noticeboards don't use deliberative process, they are terrible places to make decisions where there is any controversy. Involved editors pile in, quite effectively, because they already have their minds made up and can quickly comment. Truly neutral editors will see the report and not comment until later, if at all, unless evidence presented is clear (and the first evidence they see is typically presented by the complainant). I'd urge a review, for the present case, of the AN/I report that resulted in a community ban for me, apparently confirming WMC's block. One of the reasons I knew this was headed for ArbComm, and the reason I asked for a rapid close, accepting the ban, was that I knew this would have to be resolved by ArbComm, for most of the editors voting to confirm the ban had already called for me to be banned, previously, with RfC/JzG 3, as shown in my evidence on the "cabal," and that included WMC, so his mind, as well, was already made up and he merely found an opportunity to express it, as did most of the others.

So, sure, even most of the time, an administrative ban may be just what the community, upon even careful deliberation, would confirm, but the exceptions can be doozies. Truly, we won't know if the ban was actually properly confirmed ("consensus of uninvolved editors" is how the policy reads currently) until this case determines a ban or not, and it seems that, at this point, there is not yet any ArbComm consensus for that, there is difference of opinion (from a very small sample). RfC/JzG 3 showed that there can appear to be a clear community consensus (2/3 majority in that case, 25 editors supporting that I be banned, vs. about half that, not) for something that a wider community, which ArbComm represents, would not confirm, and did not confirm, upon examination of evidence and arguments, indeed, the opposite. I've seen problematic "community bans" before, based on biased discussions at AN/I, the "uninvolved editors" requirement is frequently ignored in closes. --Abd (talk) 15:11, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

We could go with stated Abd was banned or declared Abd to be banned if a simple statement is not good enough. Given that the act of banning comprises solely the statement, I am not clear on why this matters or even of what a "purported" ban would consist. - 2/0 (cont.) 15:37, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Since the ban was subsequently confirmed during discussion, it is simply misleading to say anything implying that the ban's legitimacy was or is in question. --TS 16:12, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Two different bans. Yes, WMC declared a ban. Yes, a group of editors on AN/I confirmed a ban. However, WMC's ban was a bit confusing. A month. Or not, whatever he felt like in a month, based on his judgment of my entire wiki behavior, in matters that had nothing to do with Cold fusion, the pages covered by the ban. And I already knew, and the record shows, what he thought of that other behavior (his prior opinions, expressed, about my warnings to him about usage of tools-while-involved, when I was completely neutral, and his prior comments supporting that I be banned, in RfC/JzG 3, all of which is in evidence, are the basis for my claim of involvement, not his POV on the article itself, beyond the relatively minor matter of dispute over his edit under protection, which was based on political considerations and his "amusement," I believe he used that word.) (WMC is quite honest in the sense of being frank. If anyone was surprised at his block during this case, they hadn't been paying attention to what he'd been writing. I still couldn't be sure that he would go ahead and block, but he simply went ahead and did what he'd been saying he could do.)

So when the editors piled in at AN/I, and I knew that this was going to have to go to ArbComm anyway, because, from prior experience with the RfC mentioned, I could expect maybe 2:1 for a ban even after neutral editors started showing up. I asked for speedy close for several reasons, and I stated them. One was to obtain a neutral closing admin, who would have the authority to decide on matters like term. Heimstern popped in and said he was granting my request, and declared the ban. He was then asked by Enric Naval, a party to this RfAr, what the term was. I wrote that if the term was one month or less, I would not challenge it, I would be completely content with his decision; if it was more than that, I'd want to talk about it and consider my options.

Heomstern chose one month, and Enric Naval accepted that, as did I, and nobody challenged that at the time. Challenges to this only arose during this case (other than WMC's continued insistence that he remained in charge, and he ignored the closing admin's statement). Two different bans, one a community ban that expired more than a month ago, the other by WMC that he claimed remained in effect, to be personally enforced, and which did not stand, and that was demonstrated during this case. If a strict ban by an administrator is a bad idea, one allowing an editor to be blocked for a non-disruptive edit, a community ban that places a single admin in the position of being an ongoing sole judge of an editor's behavior would be worse. I'd have been at ArbComm absolutely ASAP. But that isn't what happened, and I doubt that a neutral administrator would have so concluded.

There is a third ban, declared by Rlevse, which was, explicitly, only pending resolution of this case, declared after the blocking flap that demonstrated that WMC was inclined to completely disregard recusal policy, no matter how blatant the situation, which I knew already but which was difficult to prove. That ban I likewise accepted as reasonable. So when we talk about "the ban," what ban? Which one? There were three. All were page bans, but with different terms and maintained in different ways. Two were placed by neutral parties: Heimstern and Rlevse. One was placed by an admin with an axe to grind, not about Cold fusion, but about me. I think it's pretty clear. Any questions?

On the other hand, I don't see any disagreement at all about "declared by WMC." Hopefully, the decision will address the issue in detail of what administrators can and cannot do on their own "declaration," aside from emergencies. --Abd (talk) 19:42, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

The most correct move would have been to take myself the ban back to ANI after one month, but since Abd was saying that he would respect the ban and since he said that he wanted to appeal it to Arbcom.... I certainly didn't expect him to declare at mid-case that the ban didn't exist and try to post again at the page.... Had I known how this would end I would have dragged him to ANI for community endorsement of an indef ban on the page (which I suspect that I would have gotten) so that he couldn't wikilawyer his way out of his ban. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:19, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Being taken to AN/I twice by Enric Naval, as would have been the case with the above, and unless a second ban were declared by a "consensus of uninvolved editors" -- which I read as meaning editors who do not already have an axe to grind with an editor to be banned -- the only difference would have been (1) Enric Naval would have been made a party immediately by me, instead of adding himself as he did, and my evidence would have focused on his abundant misbehavior, as it has not, and (2) there would have been an active community ban, during this case, and I would not have made that edit to Talk:Cold fusion. Arbitrators have noted that my continuation of abstinence from editing that page was voluntary, and if it was voluntary, I could change that, and I did, providing notice in a very public place as well as, I think, on my Talk page. That is not "wikilawyering" at all. From the beginning of this mess, back in January, Enric Naval has taken an intransigent position, and he came to the point of edit warring a few days ago on Talk:Cold fusion, basing his repeated reversion of the restoration of my comment that had been removed by WMC, as against other editors, not me, on his claim of a valid ban. There has been no authoritative confirmation of an valid ban standing at that time, and quite a bit of evidence and opinion to the contrary, hence Enric's action during this case would,in fact, be sanctionable, at least by admonishment, and should not be ignored. --Abd (talk) 22:37, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Further, the claimed right to total exclusion of material from banned editors, even when restored by independent editors, is one of the issues raised in this case. To my knowledge, that right never existed. Editors are allowed to revert content from banned editors, but not to edit war with other editors to keep it out! --Abd (talk) 22:40, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

My "intransigent position" got built over time as you kept ignoring first gentle advice, then requests, then warnings, and finally formal warnings, and you kept flooding the talk page with increasingly fringe proposals, until the talk page became an exercise in frustration, and working in the article became plain imposible as you kept opposing every change that could possibly make CF look bad or fringe, and you kept opening new discussions while leaving old discussions abandoned, and mixing topics in your new posts. As WP:TINC says, you had no "enemies" but you managed to create a lof of them over time, congratulations. --Enric Naval (talk) 01:21, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

P.D.: Notice the quotes in "enemies" and let me define it as "people who you managed to completely piss off so much that they no longer welcome you here", with "here" being Cold fusion and its talk page, with possible future extension to all of wikipedia if keep refusing to learn to behave. --Enric Naval (talk) 01:35, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Abd is back engaging in wikilawyering, and also making wild and unsupported claims that there was some kind of "piling on." We simply must ensure that this blatant attempt to delegitimize our Wikipedia processes is knocked down. --TS 22:06, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Tony's comment ignores the evidence that was already presented. I'm willing to answer questions from arbitrators should any doubt that "piling on" is a real phenomenon. The evidence is there, but perhaps I didn't explain it well enough or provide enough detail. I've done analyses like this in the past, it's simply a lot of work, but if it is important, I'll do it. I can show it with incidents that don't involve me at all. --Abd (talk) 22:37, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Suppose I present a petition to my workplace cafeteria demanding that they stop serving meat, and it fails. Later I present a petition demanding that they only buy meat products from a list of approved humane vendors. Should anyone take seriously the claims of "pile-on" or "cabalism" if the same people signed both petitions? Thatcher 22:51, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

It might be selection bias at work. Ideally, you would want to not ask the questions at the same time of day when the same people are in the cafeteria. There is a lot to be learnt from the way people in the real world carry out surveys, or carry out medical studies, in ways designed to avoid bias in the results. Wikipedia isn't very good yet at really surveying properly for opinions, or presenting things in such a way as not to skew the results. Carcharoth (talk) 00:28, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

But RFC participants are not a random sample of Wikipedians and have never pretended to be. Of course the people who self-select to comment on Abd's RFC are likely to self-select to comment on a page ban, and are likely to have the same views. But that's not evidence of a cabal, that's evidence that Abd has annoyed a bunch of people. Abd can't legitimately argue that the page ban is invalid because the people who endorsed it are the same people who commented against him at his RFC. Thatcher 00:37, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. But it might be an argument to move further up the dispute resolution ladder. If it was exactly the same people, there might be a case for asking that at the next stage, some attempt is made to get uninvolved editors commenting. If someone went to three different venues to raise an objection to an action taken against them, and the same five people turned up at each venue and argued against that editor, is that forum shopping or wiki-hounding? Whenever I look at a discussion, it is the truly outside views, from those not previously involved, that I look to, in addition to the opposing views. There is always a good argument, in my view, for getting fresh views at each stage of a dispute. Rehashing the same arguments between the same people just perpetuates a dispute and often escalates it or makes it personal. Carcharoth (talk) 00:56, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

It's almost worth all the hassle, getting here, to read Carcharoth's responses. I could write a book based on them, and may, but won't present the draft here today! --Abd (talk) 02:17, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Isn't moving up the dispute resolution ladder moving up to a more self-selected group in most cases? It takes a level of determination to get to be an arb, for instance, which is usually coupled with a strong sense of how things should work. These senses of how are markedly different, but there are still biases among a self-selected group. Carcharoth for example was the one who waded into some specific numbers on the issue of Abd's excessive verbiage. Probably the right person to do it since he had the perspective of someone who had similar concerns about excessive verbiage raised about him. Allowed him to provide another perspective, a useful one. If you ignore either the involved or the uninvolved you're making the same mistake to me. The truth is like something you can't see, but it casts a shadow. Every different perspective is like a light that hits it, giving you more to deduce from. Even if you go find that one ideal light, you still only have one shadow. You've got to apply the principle of charity and assume that what someone is saying makes sense from their perspective, and then try and figure out how what you think and what they think can be about the same thing. WorriedScientist (talk) 08:42, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Has anyone, in this case, toted up the names on the ANI thread and the RFC? Are the any noteworthy new voices? Thatcher 00:57, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

There was no "Abd's RfC," there was RfC/JzG 3, which was written by me and certified by Durova and others. I did show, at two different places, the names. I will organize it better and link to it. --Abd (talk) 02:17, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

extended comment by Abd on how involved factions, piling in quickly, influence outcomes

Thatcher, the RfC is one that was very narrowly focused, it laid out the evidence that was later presented before RfAr/Abd and JzG, it was all clear. (And, as a result, the ensuing RfAr quite easy to deal with.) The people !voting for me to be banned were mostly very familiar names. They were denying what ArbComm later confirmed, and they were asserting (about me) what ArbComm later rejected. Neutral editors will also be influenced to join a consensus. The problem is that editors who don't recognize a cabal will read the arguments given and AGF, they will assume that it is unbiased. As you imply above, Thatcher, if so many editors are mad at an editor, why, this editor must be doing something wrong. Maybe. Maybe even usually. But not always. To actually review a set of comments as Carcharoth describes and filter out who is involved from who is not involved is quite time-consuming, and to independently investigate a case that appears, say, on AN/I, is likewise a big job. It often doesn't happen at all. I looked recently at the !votes in the discussion that banned NYScholar, and found that, if I set aside the comments of those who had previous conflict with NYScholar (in my primitive search for it), there were lots of !votes left, but from over 73.33% for the ban (the closing admin presented this proof of consensus to four-place accuracy!) before considering involvement, I think it was one vote more than half that were against the ban. Further, looking at the later !votes, which tend to be more neutral, for reasons I've explained, about two-thirds were opposed to the ban. Now, this doesn't mean that the ban was wrong! Those angry editors do count for something, but, to me, it meant that a strict site ban was probably not the best solution. I offered to help, but NYScholar was essentially too stubborn to help (in ways and for reasons that remain mysterious to me), and because I was unable to gain the cooperation I'd hoped for from the original complaining administrator, I couldn't do anything. But the example stands as one where an analysis of the votes indicated that this was not a "community ban," but an "administrative ban," one supported by a discussion but not by a consensus of uninvolved editors, with certain increased flexibility. With a neutral administrator actively monitoring, an administrative ban can be quite a good solution, and the admin can precisely target it and adjust it, in cooperation with a mentor. (The closing admin first claimed that he had closed based on the votes, that it wasn't his decision, but the community's, but then later claimed that the decision was based on the preponderance of the arguments, which would be characteristic of an administrative ban, community bans being rather unusual in Wikipedia decision-making in having a suggestion in the policy requiring "consensus of uninvolved editors," a separate and additional requirement, never considered by the closing admin at all, over "preponderance of evidence and argument.") I come across cases, from time to time, and investigate, it takes many hours, and when I present the evidence, it often shifts the result, but the norm is that nobody ever does that who is neutral. Where is the motivation? It is a major flaw in our system, until we raise up a class of editors whose job and calling it is to investigate conflicts neutrally and present what they find, and another class with specific skills in dispute resolution and finding consensus between opposing parties. Real life, there are people who are really, really good at that. If we had that, my guess is that most of what currently takes a mess of a noticeboard tangle could be resolved in small discussions, as is contemplated in DR, as small as two plus a facilitator. If the evidence were all laid out, and we have a tremendous advantage over RL courts, unimpeachable evidence is the norm, it being only interpretation that is a problem, faced with clear step-by-step process, editors would abandon indefensible positions fairly quickly, and, where not, everything would be ready for ArbComm, maybe with an RfC in between, just to broaden it. Usually, as it is, with what we have, the results are approximately correct, that's why we've gotten away with such a mess for so long. But when mistakes are made, they can be big ones. We do better at ArbComm, because AC has some semblance of decent process, still a mess, but much better than exists elsewhere. --Abd (talk) 02:17, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

• Sorry, didn't read. Simple question. You say "most of the editors voting to confirm the ban had already called for me to be banned, previously, with RfC/JzG 3, as shown in my evidence on the "cabal,"". I would like to know, from you or someone else, if there were any participants in the ANI page ban discussion who did not advocate banning you at Guy's RFC, so I can read their comments in the archived discussion. Thatcher 02:24, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Just as a clarification, there seems to be an ongoing claim that there was a request to ban Abd at the JZG 3 RfC/U. The Outside view by Spartaz stated "I firmly believe that ABD needs to drop this now and stop wasting our time. I suggest that if he cannot do this he should be topic banned from anything to do with Guy, Cold Fusion and Black/White lists." The suggestion was that Abd should be topic banned if he fails to modify his behaviour, not that he should be topic banned immediately. Thus the support was not for a ban per se, but for a ban in the future if things don't change. - Bilby (talk) 02:49, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I was just looking at that; the statement was supported by 29 editors, more than any other statement on the RfC except for Guy's response to the RfC, which also received 29 support votes (and no, not the same 29, although of course there was overlap between the two). And by the way, since Abd's assertions about the "cabal" seem to be getting more credence here than they deserve, in spite of the FoF that says there's no credible evidence establishing the existence of a cabal, and since I've been named as part of this "cabal" which seems to be continually redefined as the case goes on, and which now seems to be denoting "people who piled on to ask for a topic ban for Abd," I'd like to make it clear that I did not comment either in the JzG3 RfC or in the AN discussion confirming Abd's page ban from the cold fusion talk page. Woonpton (talk) 03:08, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Here you go, from Wikipedia:Requests for comment/JzG 3, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive544#need_review_of_the_topic_ban_of_two_editors_from_Cold_Fusion. (I have eliminated any editor who was named in the RfC or who endorsed any view. These 'strict' exclusion criteria caught a number of editors who did not endorse the limited, future, potential topic ban described by Bilby above.)

Comments from editors who don't appear on RfC/JzG3

Endorse the topic ban for both editors. This is getting tiresome between these two. Additionally, Abd seems to clearly be on a WP:POINT-making streak, and additional action may need to be taken, unrelated to his involvement at Cold fusion, but related to his disruption since than, such as taunting admins to block him and reneging on a perfectly reasonable voluntary self-ban for no good reason. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 03:39, 11 June 2009 (UTC) Support the ban. Abd's comments on the subject seem to be rather poor attempts at justifying his behavior or finding a loophole that would excuse him. If he's interested in resolving the issue, there's a mediation open that he can participate in. Shell babelfish 07:13, 11 June 2009 (UTC) Endorse. From the back-and-forth I've read, apparently Abd is unable or unwilling to express himself concisely, and has additional problems with bowing to consensus once consensus is reached. The harangues I've waded through add little to the discussion in which they're placed, and seem to serve to quite annoy those who are working to actually improve the article. Unitanode 13:03, 11 June 2009 (UTC) Endorse particularly in the case of abd, about whom i think its a pity this isn't indefinite. Really, some bold admin should do the encyclopedia a favor and just make it a permenant ban from the topic now and save a lot of time and tears.Bali ultimate (talk) 13:06, 11 June 2009 (UTC) Support. I've been watching this ongoing dispute since around the arbcom case with Jzg and Abd. I have never edited the article in dispute but I have been watching the developements due to my interest in the WP:REHAB project and doing research for the project. Watching Abd wikilawyering like s/he has been is very sad to watch. I did read all of the threads here including Abd's long response below. I don't understand why Abd keeps bringing Hipocrite into discussions here since he is not disputing the ban. I think from all I've read that Abd has worn out the patience of the editors at this article and pretty much every where else. I find some of what Abd has said to WMC about taking it to arbcom or other places about the ban is crossing WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL. Abd has to stop the WP:TE and WP:Wikilawyering. If this does go to arbcom, I am guessing they aren't going to be too pleased to see another case so soon. So yes I think it's time for Abd to find something else to do and leave this alone for awhile. If not, than maybe a wikibreak maybe in order to think about what everyone is saying. Thanks for listening, --CrohnieGalTalk 13:15, 11 June 2009 (UTC) Endorse. I've also been watching this dispute, and the broader issue regarding Abd's behaviour, for a long time now, though I have deliberately tried to stay out of discussions myself. I basically agree with ChronieGal's comments above. I find Abd's involvement very disruptive and I endorse the topic ban. It's most unfortunate that instead of accepting the topic ban in good faith he chose to waste our time with lengthy attempts at Wikilawyering his way out of it. I'm also very concerned about Abd's behaviour more generally. Every time I see his name he seems to be at the center of some contentious dispute with someone and I honestly feel that he is on a fast track to some sort of broader sanctioning, perhaps even a ban, because of his disruption. It's very sad and regrettable because I do believe that he has good intentions and means well but the community's patience and tolerance for this sort of behaviour isn't limitless and if he continues in his current vein it seems inevitable to me that the community is going to have to deal with much broader sanctions than just a topic ban. I feel the community's patience is starting to be exhausted and I would urge Abd to reconsider his behaviour on this project and to spend some time quietly editing the mainspace in some non-controversial subject areas without involving himself in any disputes and arguments with other editors. Sarah 02:45, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Interestingly, none of those endorsements specified any time limit for the ban placed by WMC. For the record, there were no previously-uninvolved editors who objected to the ban. Two editors offered objections: Abd and GoRight. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:57, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

That's correct. I appreciate the work that TOAT did in compiling this. It's also true that there was no specification of any particular bannable behavior, just general impressions reported. It's also true that the comments noted by TOAT included reference to opinions formed during the JzG case, where the editors assumed that if there was disruption, and I was part of it, it must be my fault. Nobody has mentioned that Durova certified the RfC and Jehochman filed the RfAr. Also, two editors specified that they were endorsing a "one month ban." Just not the ones not excluded by TOAT's criteria.

The AN/I report was filed at 02:49, 11 June 2009. I requested speedy close at 17:58, 11 June 2009, because I knew, for sure, by then, that the best I'd be able to do, keeping it open, as I certainly could have -- supporters would have started to notice, for starters, beyond GoRight, and I did not canvass -- was maintain disruption for longer, with results being iffy. That is only 15 hours. I specifically asked that supporters not comment there, it would merely increase disruption. I do recommend reading the report carefully, especially after gaining some evidence-based understanding of the events preceding. --Abd (talk) 05:39, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

list of all editors with time of first edit, description and some analysis by Abd

The editors, in sequence of first edit, were: Enric Naval 02:49, 11 June 2009 (UTC) (filed complaint) Jayron32 03:39, 11 June 2009 (UTC) Endorse the topic ban for both editors Abd 03:42, 11 June 2009 (UTC) GoRight 04:02, 11 June 2009 (UTC) Bilby 04:12, 11 June 2009 (UTC) reviewing that ban before things escalate any further seems wise to me ... Endorse one-month. MastCell Talk 04:00, 11 June 2009 (UTC) This is mostly ArbCom's fault, for not making it clearer in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Abd and JzG that Abd's approach was problematic seicer 04:26, 11 June 2009 (UTC) Endorse the current topic ban for both editors as well. Mathsci 06:31, 11 June 2009 (UTC) Endorse topic ban ... By trying persistently to rebrand cold fusion as "emerging science", he has become a disruptive fringe POV-pusher. Verbal 06:42, 11 June 2009 (UTC) Abd is hostile, and longwinded rants such as his were directly criticised recently by ArbCom, as was Abd's failure to use DR correctly. II 06:57, 11 June 2009 (UTC) Support one-month ban. If Abd is really motivated, he/she can spend that time gathering materials to replicate cold fusion... [153 peer-reviewed papers replicating excess heat, some exact replications, and it's pretty expensive, I have, in fact, looked into it. The SPAWAR co-deposition technique is probably the cheapest and is reported as 100% reliable, no problems with palladium microstructure. Excess heat and radiation every cell, and quickly. It's the CR-39 radiation detectors and processing them that is expensive. Calorimetry is also quite a pain if one is not an expert.] Shell 07:13, 11 June 2009 (UTC) Support the ban. ... If he's interested in resolving the issue, there's a mediation open that he can participate in. [I was participating at that time, and that continues, unless I'm topic banned.] Hipocrite 12:44, 11 June 2009 (UTC) I didn't read the walls of text below this from Abd, I'd merely like to say that any conclusions he has drawn about me or the reasons I have done or not done something are disuputed by me. Unitanode 13:03, 11 June 2009 (UTC) Endorse. From the back-and-forth I've read, apparently Abd is unable or unwilling to express himself concisely, and has additional problems with bowing to consensus once consensus is reached. Bali ultimate 13:06, 11 June 2009 (UTC) i think its a pity this isn't indefinite. CrohnieGalTalk 13:15, 11 June 2009 (UTC) Support. I've been watching this ongoing dispute since around the arbcom case with Jzg and Abd. TenOfAllTrades 14:23, 11 June 2009 (UTC) You included explicit threats of escalation directly to ArbCom, and intimated that WMC was risking his admin bit by crossing you. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 17:52, 11 June 2009 (UTC) Just to clarify, the action Abd refers to as WMC "edit(ing) the article under protection" was solely to restore the article to the pre-edit war version as suggested by GoRight. [SBHB was correct, but GoRight then clarified this further.... the version WMC chose was not "the" pre-edit war version, but one from more than two weeks earlier, with quite a bit of work undone by WMC's edit. In fact, what had happened was that the article had been, for about two weeks before that, steadily regressing under pressure from Hipocrite, and any improvements -- as later validated in some cases -- were promptly reverted out by Hipocrite -- and I'd stopped even trying for a while, leading to an appearance of stability. But the article was again stable after the first edit war and there was no dispute over that.] comments after request for close: Count Iblis 01:20, 12 June 2009 (UTC) Abd's only option now is to contest this ban in the US federal court system. Sarah 02:45, 12 June 2009 (UTC) Endorse. I've also been watching this dispute, and the broader issue regarding Abd's behaviour, for a long time now, though I have deliberately tried to stay out of discussions myself. Heimstern Läufer 04:30, 12 June 2009 (UTC) (closer) Comments Note that I have never claimed that the community ban was invalid. I accepted it, it was valid. It also expired, more than a month ago. On the matter of term: Enric Naval called the term, in his filing, "one month," and then noted that WMC later modified it to indef. What editors would retain from this is unclear. Two editors explicitly endorsed a one-month ban. One editor considered it a pity that it was not indef, showing a belief that the proposed ban was one month. No editor showed a belief that they were endorsing an indef ban. A few did suggest more severe remedies, but Heimstern's decision of "one month" from the discussion, and from my acceptance of one month as well, was very reasonable, and accepted by Enric at the time (on Heimstern talk). No coherent evidence of misbehavior was presented, rather, each endorsing editor seemed to have different opinions of what the offense was. It is likely, then, that early !votes, especially, would be based on prior impressions, and I'd been quite visible due to RfAr/Abd and JzG, with many assuming that I was disruptive merely from that. Any non-administrator who challenges administrative abuse or a strong faction is likely to gain a reputation for disruption. Jayron32 was the first person to endorse the ban, at a point when I had not responded, and he referred to a "POINT-making streak." No allegation of any actual POINTy behavior had been made at that point. Later, POINT violation was alleged about the edit leading to the first block, but I've presented evidence that I had strong reason to believe I would not be blocked, it was not a POINT violation. The only reasonable claim of a POINT violation has been for my edit during this case to Talk:Cold fusion and, I claim, that likewise was not a point violation -- but on this I will concede a reasonable appearance. Jayron 32, however, already had a "streak" in mind two months earlier. When I scroll down the AN/I report page, I can see names of editors. Most reports, I do not recognize the names of most of those commenting. This report leaps out at me. This is characteristic of AN/I reports; it's natural, but dangerous. People comment on cases that interest them. Why are they interested? Most AN/I reports only attract a few comments and they are rapidly resolved. But some become long discussions; and these attract editors with axes to grind, prior judgments ready-made to express, and this phenomenon is not at all limited to situations involving me. Very few of those commenting show that they have actually done research, few bring in additional evidence, they just comment off-the-cuff, plikely with already-formed impressions, or sometimes ad-hoc, and when I've become familiar with a case, I can see that these comments are too-often quite ignorant, have missed important points, etc. This is a generic process problem that I'm sure skilled closing admins are aware of. They are the reason we don't "vote." --Abd (talk) 05:39, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Anyone reading Abd's post above should note that some material is quoted from the AN/I discussion verbatim. The complete comments of some editors have been included, while Abd has cherry-picked phrases and sentences from others. He has added his own emphasis in places. For comparison, the comments which I quoted are quoted in their entirety, exactly as they appeared on AN/I. My list includes only the editors who were completely uninvolved in RfC/JzG3 (by even the most elastic definition of 'involved'). I had a free half-hour, so here are some more statistics.

• 19 editors commented (plus one closing admin).
• 6 editors had no prior involvement, all endorsed the ban;
• the closing admin (also uninvolved by any definition) confirmed the ban;
• 2 editors (Abd and GoRight) offered an objection;
• 11 editors (who had been mentioned or involved in RfC/JzG3) endorsed the ban.
• For those interested in length of comments, the total discussion included

• 45900 characters of wikimarkup from those 20 editors;
• 13700 characters and three subsection headings from Abd;
• 9600 characters from GoRight;
• 6200 characters from Enric Naval, who filed the AN/I request and was the most verbose 'anti' editor;
• 4600 characters from the six uninvolved editors;
• 700 characters from the closing admin;
• leaving 11100 characters of discussion (including some rather elaborate sigs) from the ten remaining 'cabal' members.

Abd and GoRight between them generated 51% of the pre-close discussion; Abd alone was responsible for 30%. 'Cabal' members (including the opening statement) added 38%, 13% of which (about a third) came from Enric. Totally uninvolved editors managed to squeeze in the remaining 11%. Make of the analysis what you will. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:49, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any problem with TOAT's analysis, it adds to mine, though some of the data presented doesn't present obvious significance to me. Yes, my quotations were cherry-picked. There were certain points to make, and I selected comments that showed those, out of the many comments made. For example, I made sure to include all reference to length of the ban. There was no comment that explicitly considered the ban being endorsed to be indefinite, or subject to WMC's discretion, and three comments that clearly endorsed a one-month ban. One of these expressed a desire to approve an indef ban, that it was a "pity" that it was not, which shows clearly that this editor perceived the declared ban as being one month. I recommended a reading of the full report, after having become familiar with the underlying facts in this case, because then an arbitrator can see the state of knowledge of the !voters and what they were basing their votes on. --Abd (talk) 21:41, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

So much for learning from this case. Abd in one swoop has managed to skew a discussion that clearly went against his point of view so that can claim he was in the right and go even further to call everyone opposed to him ignorant, hasty, ill-informed or worse. This is a version of consensus I am just not familiar with. Shell ^babelfish 17:04, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Heh... thanks, Abd. I'd forgotten that I put the blame squarely on ArbCom. What a well-selected quote. :) MastCell ^Talk 17:52, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Mastcell you traitor, I'm gonna sanction you real bad :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:46, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, I did predict that you guys would be duly punished by a case not unlike the current one... MastCell ^Talk 20:53, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I thought you'd be amused! Sure. Until certain systemic problems are addressed, cases will arise over and over. It's a mistake to blame Wikipedia problems on individual editors or even cabals. The problem is the system, certain deficiencies, almost always, and ArbComm is presently the only means we have to address systemic difficulties with any coherence. What is today, a "cabal" would be, tomorrow, a purely useful part of our structure, if we play it right. However, as long as we deny that cabals exist and have certain negative effects, we will be unable to accomplish this. --Abd (talk) 21:47, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

General comment

I expect to be voting on this case by tomorrow. I will be reading the threads on this page and taking the input there into account in casting my votes and posting any alternative proposals. I know that there will be rolling of eyes that I am the one saying this, but comments that are reasonably straightforward and succinct will have the greatest likelihood of influencing me and, perhaps, the other arbitrators. There is also no need to repeat on this page any point that has already been made on the workshop more than eleventeen times. Thanks to all, Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:52, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry. Did you mean "eleven"? Mythdon (talk • contribs) 22:53, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

No, eleventeen is an Indeterminate number between "For God's sake shut up already" and "Why did I run for Arbitrator?" Thatcher 22:56, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

;-) Paul August ☎ 22:59, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I've never heard of "eleventeen" before. Mythdon (talk • contribs) 23:03, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Try Wikitionary: eleventeen. Paul August ☎ 23:16, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I use Wiktionary a lot. Mythdon (talk • contribs) 00:01, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I never edited the workshop...Thatcher 22:54, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Eleventeen is bigger than Umpteen or is it the other way around? How about a Finding of Fact on that issue? --Abd (talk) 23:29, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

• How about everyone shuts the &%¤# up and leaves the arbiters to try and make sense of this trainwreck. Spartaz ^Humbug! 05:55, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
  • WP:CIVIL - Please read. Mythdon (talk • contribs) 06:12, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Desysop

Temp desysopping seems to me to fall into the punative category. If an admin has lost the trust of the community to the point where desysop is required, they shouldn't have the tools returned without a demonstration that the trust of the community is regained. If they haven't lost trust to the point where permanent desysop is required, temp desysop is simply a punishment. Viridae^Talk 23:22, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

No, we do not give punishments, but rather write remedies to fix a problem. I view it as "an involuntary break" that will benefit WMC and the Community after the case closes. He is someone that wades into these area more often than the average admin, and so he is more likely to be involved in messy situations with errors. Rather than an admonishment alone, I think that he needs some time away from doing this work now. This sanction, followed by restrictions will make it easier for everyone to move on when the case closes. If the problems continue after his return then a desysop with return of the tools through a RFA would be needed to show that he has the trust of the Community to do admin work. As well, I'm not discounting ArbCom sanctions will also have a similar effect as a punitive sanction as a side effect. This is similar to how preventative blocks also have a punitive factor to them as well. FloNight♥♥♥ 12:26, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Good point, though not commenting on William M. Connolley's case. Mythdon (talk • contribs) 00:03, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec)I agree with Viridae. I've proposed that, when an admin fails to follow recusal policy, ArbComm suspend the status until the admin can satisfy ArbComm that the offense is not likely to continue, presumably by showing, as a minimum, an understanding of the problem such that threat of "punishment" isn't the only reason the admin refrains. Suspension would be a public thing, showing how seriously we take recusal failure, but the "satisfaction" could be, and probably should be, private. It can be difficult, sometimes, for a person to publicly admit an error, but administrators are also extremely valuable resources for the project, and we should provide an open path, relatively easy, to "rehabilitation" without humiliation, that at the same time fully protects the project, and that does not depend on the function of "admonishments" -- which, frankly, don't work if the admonished adminstrator does not understand the basis.

The same principle could apply to any sanction or admonishment or advice. ArbComm gave me advice in RfAr/Abd and JzG. It's entirely possible that I did not understand the advice. I can certainly say that I tried to follow it. Were any steps taken by ArbComm to ensure that the advice was clear and understood? If I started acting in ways that showed a failure to follow the advice, was I warned by anyone connected with the committee? No, but for me to say this is not to complain about the committee, for the committee may not have the resources to do what I'm suggesting; however, becoming aware of the problem might lead to solutions. There has been much moaning on these pages about the uselessness of admonishments, and I'm sympathetic. Telling someone that they did a Bad Thing rarely does much good. Making sure that the message has been effectively communicated and understood, which probably requires personal back-and-forth, is what has the potential for effecting change.

I would be happier with a remedy that "Abd is topic banned from Cold fusion until the Committee is satisfied that he will not repeat offenses there," than "Abd is topic banned for one year." If I can show, and have shown, that I understand and therefore am unlikely to re-offend, to continue the ban even another day is punitive. On the other hand, if I don't understand, one year is not enough and probably will just increase resentment or various negative beliefs about Wikipedia, on my part and maybe that of others. ArbComm can delegate the "negotiation" involved, with the delegate bringing back any proposals for changing sanctions. It can be quite efficient. --Abd (talk) 00:06, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

(multiple edit conflicts) In practice, temporary desysops are for cases where it is recognised that an admin has gone too far, and that message needs to be sent to other admins, but the admin has done and does good work, and a full desysop might risk that admin either not asking ArbCom for the bit back later, or running an RFA and failing. A temporarily desysopped admin could run for RFA anyway, but the temporary nature of the desysop argues against that course of action, whereas a fully desysopped admin will often run and fail, or lose interest in the project or in being an admin. Of course, a temporarily desysopped admin who gets into trouble later, will almost certainly be desysopped with prejudice. In a way, temporary desysops (there haven't been that many of them) are more like a final warning for admins. Something in-between an admonishment and a full desysop. I personally appreciate the arguments that it should be all or nothing, but that makes adminship too much of a big deal. It should be easier to remove and restore the admin bit, and temporary desysops are part of that process as far as I'm concerned. Carcharoth (talk) 00:14, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Not that I am commenting on William M. Connolley's case, but, let me say this. If an administrator does not get the job done, then shouldn't they lose their privilege as one, and be required to show that they've regained community trust? "A full desysop might risk that admin either not asking ArbCom for the bit back later, or running an RFA and failing. " - In case that happens, we'd just have to deal with it, and, if they haven't learned their lesson, actually be happy with it. "I personally appreciate the arguments that it should be all or nothing, but that makes adminship too much of a big deal. " - Adminship is a big deal, but not so big of a deal that it should be restricted to a special set of users like Oversight and Checkuser are. Ryulong was an example of an administrator who tried to clean up the mess, but yet when that mess is cleaned up, he created another mess. If you cant get the job done as an administrator, you should not be an administrator. Mythdon (talk • contribs) 00:21, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Mythdon, you shouldn't be commenting on Ryulong. That almost certainly breaches your ArbCom sanctions (you are under conduct probation with respect to Ryulong). Could someone please check that and deal with this, please? Carcharoth (talk) 00:57, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I thought I was allowed to comment on Ryulong. Am I restricted from interacting with or commenting on Ryulong? I've struck the comment. Mythdon (talk • contribs) 01:08, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Did I make a personal attack, or an inflammatory remark? Mythdon (talk • contribs) 01:24, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Simplest for you not to bring him into unrelated discussions, even as an example. It's just not worth it. As you've been told many times before, if you have questions about what the remedies and restrictions in your case mean, then ask at arbitration enforcement. They are the admins who will be interpreting the remedies. If they can't agree on what the remedies mean, then ask one of them to file a clarification. Please don't file a clarification yourself. And please don't answer here. If you want to discuss this further, go to arbitration enforcement. Carcharoth (talk) 01:27, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Mythodn, taken on its own, the comment is a needlessly inflammatory one. Takne in conjunction with your behaviour recently it becomes a case of violating Wikipedia:BATTLE#Wikipedia_is_not_a_battleground. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:03, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, okay. Could you please explain why you requested enforcement even after I struck the comment? Did you not notice that I struck it? Mythdon (talk • contribs) 02:06, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

advice for Mythodn from Abd, comment about administrator error

Mythodn, let me highly recommend that you lay down and play dead. Or figure out something to apologize for and do so profusely. That is sincere personal advice that assumes you value the ability to edit here. Your comment above was gratuitously offensive, both with the specific remark about a specific administrator, completely unnecessary here, but also with the general principle you proposed that implies that administrators who make mistakes should not be administrators. This is a wiki. Mistakes can be fixed. The basis of my case here, was not that an administrator made a mistake. Everybody makes mistakes. It is that he -- I claim, ArbComm decides! -- continued to make the mistake after it was pointed out and he had abundant opportunity to fix it, with many legitimate options open. Unless an error demonstrates serious and irremediable incompetence, not merely a mistake, admin privileges should not be removed simply because of error, but only if we expect that a serious error may be repeated. Basic rule: if an arbitrator starts yelling at you, so to speak, and especially if you have two yelling at you, and especially if it is Carcharoth and Casliber, and you want to debate the point, do so quietly and privately, maybe by email. If it's really important, sure. Speak truth to power, but you should be prepared for the fact that most people who try this get incinerated, because the "truth" they tell isn't. If you are going to do it, make sure your own behavior is unimpeachable. Now. If I can just figure out how to follow my own advice..... I try, but I do make mistakes. --Abd (talk) 02:51, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Ok, now I am intrigued - "especially if it is Carcharoth and Casliber" - means, erm, what exactly :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 07:20, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Please do not expect comments from me to have an "exact" meaning! However, I'd stand with it. If you and Carcharoth tell me to go soak my head, I run, not walk, to a sink, fill it with water, and immerse my head. The full response I wrote, iin collapse below, started with this direct response, but then "wandered" into discussion of this case and both the excellent qualities of the apparent decision as it is shaping up, a possible problem with it if one remedy passes, and other related matters. What I'll ask is that if any arbitrator reads the full comment and finds it useful, that the arbitrator bring it or part of it out of collapse, or bold it, I consent to whatever refactoring is considered useful. Otherwise I have no desire to impose my Walls-o-Text (TM) on any arbitrator. Reading this is certainly not obligatory. --Abd (talk) 21:08, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

full comment by Abd, long

(I did this with a stream of snowmelt once when a friend, irritated with me, said "Go stick your head in the creek." I recommend it under the right conditions, which probably include good physical health. Ah, she was beautiful ....) If you tell me to shut up, I shut up, immediately. If you tell me to sell all my stuff and move to a commune in Texas, well, I'd have to think about it.... If you tell me to believe such and such, I'd say that belief isn't something subject to volition and I can't go there. But I'd still think about it.... Specifically, Carcharoth has my total trust in terms of understanding of the wiki in theory and practice, as well as general intelligence and cautious, thoughtful consideration. Add to Carcharoth an independent voice, about whom I have no held negative impressions and some positive ones, also an arbitrator.... I'd have to be awfully certain before I'd oppose such. It's hard to imagine, and I have a very active and fertile imagination. It's been claimed that I don't listen to advice. I "listen" to all advice, but I can't follow what I don't understand or don't have the tools to apply. Further, some of the advice or "feedback" that I don't appear to listen to comes from hostile editors who don't understand my motives, goals, experience, or understanding. That doesn't mean that they are wrong, just that I'm obviously not sufficiently prepared to "get it." Along comes someone like Carcharoth to explain it to me, or someone Carcharoth recommends, and it becomes much easier. Jehochman once held the view of me that is common among cabal editors, as expressed here, such as that of Raul654 (though not nearly so extreme) and he gave me a warning, once, that was soaked with this attitude. That warning turned into a block by Iridescent. In a self-RfC, a process I more or less invented, and which worked, created to advise me, I began examining, first the warning. Was it true? Very small consensus, among friendly editors. No, it was not true. Okay, that's a basis to expand, so I went ... to Jehochman, and invited him to review it. He declined. A lot of text, I understand, why should he waste his time, water under the bridge, etc. Ah, but not water under the bridge for me, for the feelings underlying that had never been addressed and they would lay around, bumps under the carpet, to trip over. So I wrote, well, this is a dispute between you and I, can you suggest a mediator? He wrote, "Carcharoth." (This was before Carcharoth was elected to ArbComm). At this point I knew that our dispute was resolvable. I enthusiastically accepted, and we both went to Carcharoth talk and asked for mediation. Carcharoth accepted, but said that it might be some time before s/he could get to it. After some time, we asked again. Carcharoth wrote, "Can't you guys work it out?" So we did. There were no more problems between Jehochman and I, the contrary. We cooperate excellently and, indeed, pleasantly. What happened? It's a very important point. We agreed on a single thing, initially mutual respect for Carcharoth, probably helped along by a skillful reframe of the problem as being due to our collective failure, for to answer "No, we can't" to Carcharoth would have been an admission of incapacity, and we are both men, and as such normally disposed to never admit total personal failure. (That can be a problem, to be sure, but here it was turned to good use.) If you can get two contending parties to agree on a single thing, you have started to resolve the dispute. You build from there. Depending on how deep the dispute is, it may take more or less work, but as soon as two people dedicate themselves to finding consensus, they can, I have never seen it fail. It gets more complicated when there are more than two contending parties, which is why the best DR is between two people, with a third person, if necessary, functioning to catalyze or facilitate consensus. Then, if there is a third, the most congenial of the two with the third works on including the third, and it can expand. (If the a facilitator abandons the goal of consensus between the two and instead aligns with one party, we have a three-person mediation, a new facilitator would be needed.) What blocks this, most often, is a belief that "consensus" is going to be the view of one party or the other, that the problem is to convince the "wrong" party of the "truth." And then sometimes what passes for dispute resolution on Wikipedia seeks to blame one of the parties. Blame never resolves disputes, unless it is voluntarily accepted, i.e., "I was wrong, I didn't see ... etc." Or "I was in a lot of pain that day and I wasn't thinking clearly." If the entire Wikipedia community screams at me that I'm wrong (it wouldn't, because the "entire community" is either asleep or, if awake, it is far wiser than that, so let's reduce that to, say, a dozen editors !voting to ban me in an AN/I report), that I'm a problem, it's not going to convince me that I'm a problem, only that they have a problem with me. Did any of these blaming editors, complaining about my behavior, try to mediate a dispute with me? Even once? The only one who attempted any mediation was Hipocrite, and he stacked the participants, but, hey, I can deal with that, and I accepted. And two minor disputes have been resolved very satisfactorily and we have turned to a larger and more important one. DR works. But far too many declare bans, push block buttons, or jump to AN/I. Can you recall an incident when someone became convinced that they were wrong because someone accused them of misbehavior at AN/I? What happens is that some people will shut up, become more careful, but not that a dispute is actually resolved. (I'm sure that it happens that people accept and "get" criticism at AN/I, but I'm also sure that it is a relatively rare exception, and, more likely, an ultimate resolution, if it comes, comes despite the AN/I "community" expression of blame.) What would the "entire community" do, if it were awake? It would identify someone I could respect, someone who has the ability to communicate with me, to understand me and to respond as I may uniquely need, and it would send that person with its message. Ahem. It would provide me with a mentor. Sometimes we choose mentors for the wrong reasons, maybe even most of the time. If the job of the mentor is seen as to simply force the editor to accept what the editor doesn't understand or has been fighting against, to be an assigned "probation officerit will probably fail." (However, some real-life probation officers are quite good and function more like a good mentor, without enabling bad behavior.) Rather, if we frame the job as seeking consensus between the editor and the community, with the mentor being a facilitator, the possibility of success is far higher. The mentor, seen this way, should have sufficient trust from both the editor and the community to be able to moderate and mediate the communication, the same as a mediator between two individuals. At present, the only way for the community consciousness to express itself coherently is through ArbComm, so the mentor should be acceptable to ArbComm and the editor, and the more that "acceptable" has the kind of "Yes!" that I experienced when Jehochman suggested Carcharoth, the more likely is success. But this carries with it a corollary: that the "community" is not a fixed position or decision, but that it is living, and can adapt to what will represent expanded consensus. So the mentor must have access to ArbComm, and, for efficiency, it could be to a single arbitrator, who would then suggest, to the Committee, possible modifications of findings or remedies. The goal is always increased consensus, not pandering to minority opinion, giving up what is important to satisfy "POV-pushers" or the merely stubborn. The key is to reduce difficult and complex problems to discussions between two consenting people, where finding consensus is far more efficient and far less disruptive and tedious. It can still be work, but work undertaken voluntarily. This is, all of it, very traditional process stuff, applied to Wikipedia. Notice how it would apply in my situation. I'm alleged to be very difficult, and incapable of controlling my writing, with "walls of text." A mentor who could not handle walls of text would be a bad choice for me. (I know of a mentorship where the editor was a voluminous writer, and the mentor appears to have had no tolerance for it. Bad choice. It failed, as could be predicted, and the mentor ended up supporting the ban of maybe not impossible, I saw evidence of willingness to change. We didn't find out, because we site banned the editor, even though willing new mentors appeared.) I have, by the way, served as advisor to people who were much worse than me with voluminous writings, several long emails each day, day after day. Even where the volume is truly too much, there are ways to deal with it, very simple ways. So, suppose I'm topic banned, based on a finding of tendentious editing. With the mentor, we explore this. Where did I go wrong? What's likely is that I was ineffective or less than skillful in certain ways, but that there were other problems having nothing to do with me. So we could address my problems, and if the result would be that the mentor considers the ban no longer necessary, or even considers it harmful, the mentor would go back to ArbComm and report this. No consensus between us, nothing goes back to ArbComm (or possibly a negative report.) Until then the ban would stand, and if the mentor asks for it to be lifted, or possible adverse findings rescinded (ArbComm does make errors of fact from time to time), ArbComm would decide. Privately, but announcing the result, and not based on pestering from me. If ArbComm is going to change an FoF, it might announce it and allow time for additional evidence to be presented. But a nondisruptive path would be opened, and nothing would be presented for general comment unless ArbComm had already decided to take it seriously, so comments in the nature of "This is totally stupid, why is it even being considered to unban this useless POV-pusher" would promptly and properly be removed by a clerk! Because ArbComm would have already decided that it wasn't totally stupid! And it just wants the community to have a chance to prevent some possible error. (Or, if it's clear enough, ArbComm simply decides without holding a "hearing.") I do know that there are FoFs in the present proposed decision, with some support, that are factually incorrect or that are an imbalanced view. But to contend with this now would be to simply create more disruption. I would much rather trust in the ability of ArbComm to correct errors than to insist upon perfection in the ArbComm decision. I remain ready to supply evidence for anything I have written, but only, for the most part, on arbitrator request. Overall, as the decision is shaping up, it validates my decision to bring the matter here, and I see this as-yet-vague decision as improving the situation. Not as much as it might have, but definitely more than other means that might have been open to me, such as asking for an AN/I review again. It's not hard to imagine what would have happened with that, just look at this case! Editors are generally more restrained before ArbComm, and this case is actually not an exception! Discretionary sanctions for Cold fusion is excellent. Confronting WMC's long-time use of tools is excellent. Suggesting to administrators that they avoid the appearance of impropriety as well as actual impropriety is excellent. Insuring that I have a mentor is excellent. Topic ban for anyone involved, not excellent, and unwarranted on the facts, especially as apply to me. (There are some editors for which I'd think a ban reasonably appropriate, based on behavior before the committee, but I would not have, for any article editor, sought sanctions, because I don't see sanctions as resolving disputes, and resolving disputes is my goal.) In summary, we have already, before me, banned the most knowledgeable editors, experts in the field or related fields, who have participated in the article: ScienceApologist, Pcarbonn, and JedRothwell. (We also blocked IP that appears to have been expert, that was one of JzG's actions, he thought it was Rothwell from the apparent POV, but he didn't geolocate and he missed that the characteristic Rothwell signature, always there was missing.) I was skeptical in January, I firmly believe in NPOV, RS, and UNDUE policies and place them above my own POV -- and I have POVs! -- ; all that happened is that, having the general science background, I read the sources, and became convinced that this wasn't just pathological science. Are we going to continue to ban everyone who actually studies the field? If my behavior there was inappropriate, the specific problems should be addressed, before it is concluded that overall participation is impossible. Pulling the plug on participation for those who actually do the reading is chilling, and who therefore try to improve the article according to what they find, civilly and according to guidelines, is guaranteed to result in a deficient, impoverished, and slanted article. Discretionary sanctions, by all means! Enforced by neutral administrators. That's all we need. If Cold fusion had been under discretionary sanctions in May, it would have been easy to deal with Hipocrite, I doubt that article protection would have been needed even once. With the edit warring on June 1, he'd have been blocked instead of the article being protected, his behavior was totally outrageous that day, and if any arbitrator does not understand why I say this, please ask! So: mentorship for me and my problems and discretionary sanctions for the article and its problems, and a clear reminder by ArbComm, to a series of administrators who have been denying it, that administrators are required to recuse when involved, and that it is wise to recuse when there is even an appearance of involvement. And possibly more. That's not bad at all! TIA, ArbComm. --Abd (talk) 21:08, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Unaddressed issues

I decided to cross references Abd's misbehaviors discussed on the workshop with the remedies being proposed here. (Note that I am not considering the mentorship, because while theoretically its yet-to-be-negotiated terms could deal with some of these issues, the track record of arbcom-imposed mentorships is dismal. As such, I am discounting it a-priori)

Type of Misbehavior	Arbitration remedy
Meatpuppetry/proxy editing on behalf of banned users	Nothing
Wikilawyering	Nothing
Disruption of dispute resolution proceedings (both his own and those involving others)	Nothing
Personal attacks	Nothing
Ignoring Warnings	Nothing
Driving away subject matter experts	Abd is banned from the cold fusion article, any content related to cold fusion, and any talk page discussion related to cold fusion for one year. So one year of peace on cold fusion articles only, then nothing.
Revert warring	Abd is limited to one revert per page per week for all contributions across Wikipedia (except for undisputable vandalism and BLP violations), and is required to discuss any content reversions on the page's talk page.
Drowning out others with numerous overly long talk page posts	Abd is limited to one post per day to any talk page in all namespace except for posts that are approved by his mentor(s)
Using talk pages as off-topic discussion forums	Abd is limited to one post per day to any talk page in all namespace except for posts that are approved by his mentor(s)
Making veiled threats against others	Nothing
Falsely claiming the existance of a cabal against him	Worse than nothing - he's already using principle #6 to claim vindication.
Conducting breaching experiments	Nothing
Fringe POV pushing	Abd is banned from the cold fusion article, any content related to cold fusion, and any talk page discussion related to cold fusion for one year. So one year of peace on cold fusion articles only, then nothing.

In short, this decision as it now stands is grossly insufficient. Raul654 (talk) 22:57, 20 August 2009 (UTC)