Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case

Arbitration Committee proceedings

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Case requests

Request name	Motions	Initiated	Votes
YellowMonkey		30 November 2010	{{{votes}}}

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Open cases

Case name	Links	Evidence due	Prop. Dec. due
Venezuelan politics	(t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t)	20 Apr 2024	04 May 2024
Mzajac	(t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t)	—	Case suspended

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Recently closed cases (Past cases)

Case name	Closed
Conflict of interest management	13 Apr 2024

Clarification and Amendment requests

Currently, no requests for clarification or amendment are open.

Arbitrator motions

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

Requests for arbitration

YellowMonkey

Initiated by Serpent's Choice (talk) at 16:38, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Serpent's Choice (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• YellowMonkey (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• YellowMonkey notified [1]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/YellowMonkey
• Various aspects of this dispute have been discussed at AN/I (here, here, and several others), YellowMonkey's talk page ([2] and many others), and various other venues (including here and here). Because this arbitration request alleges substantial noncompliance with multiple aspects of the admin policies over a long period of time, and because the introduction of evidence supporting these allegations has made the environment at the RFC increasingly heated, I submit that further formal dispute resolution outside of ArbCom is likely to be counterproductive.

Statement by Serpent's Choice

The current RFC for YellowMonkey is not formally closed. Because it has expanded considerably in scope, and because so much of the discussion centers around contentious administrative actions, opinions about how -- or whether -- to proceed have been mixed. Regardless of how it closes, it has moved well beyond its original purpose and much of what has been discussed is now outside the remit of RFC to address. If the Arbitration Committee is willing to accept a case regarding the administrative actions of YellowMonkey, I am prepared to offer additional evidence to support the following claims (limited diffs cited for brevity, substantially more detailed analysis forthcoming upon acceptance -- I'm probably going to technically exceed the length guidelines as it stands):

• YellowMonkey has consistently acted not in compliance with the blocking policy.
  • He has failed to provide appropriate (any) warnings.
  • He has failed to notify the blocked user. No diffs for these two at this stage; however, note that he has not had any interaction, including block templates, on the talk pages of any of the 80+ editors he has blocked since at least 1 June 2010.
  • He has set block log messages that fail to provide sufficient context for other administrators.
    • Most commonly, this consists of the blocking reason "sock", without any indication of the purported puppetmaster, almost always without any SPI or other on-wiki evidence for the block. [3] Note that these are not "Checkuser blocks" as defined in the ArbCom statement [4] (because they are not so noted in the block log), and so are expected to be subject to on-wiki review. In contrast, YellowMonkey does mark some blocks as Checkuser blocks. [5]
    • In the case of one (admittedly problematic editor), he blocked with the reason "Block evasion" without providing supporting evidence and without the simultaneous blocking of any other accounts (that would have been used for the evasion). [6]
  • He does not mark accounts blocked as sockpuppets with {{sockpuppet}}. Any accounts he has so blocked that are marked have been labeled later, by other editors or admins. Example: [7] versus [8] but note that he has not used this template since at least 1 June 2010.
  • He has issued indefinite blocks in situations not described as appropriate by policy. In particular, he has indicated accounts are spam or vandal accounts and issued indefinite blocks, even when some contributions appear helpful (or at least in good faith), and without prior blocks [9] [10] or, at times, any prior warnings whatsoever. [11]
  • He has issued indefinite blocks of IP addresses without {{indefblockedip}}. [12]
  • Several uses of the tool were in and of themselves problematic. The block of Yogesh Khandke (talk · contribs · block log) and the two indefinite blocks of Quigley (talk · contribs · block log) are foremost among these, but the block of Abhayakara (talk · contribs · block log) also deserves attention, as does the "useless block" unblock of Dr. Blofeld (talk · contribs · block log). Each of these circumstances generated a substantial amount of community discussion and will require more space to discuss than is appropriate in the initial request.

• YellowMonkey has consistently acted not in compliance with the protection policy or the guide to semi-protection.
  • He has applied semi-protection without "heavy and persistent" vandalism.
  • He has applied lengthy semi-protection as its first application to an article. For this and the above, see especially any of his semi-protections of Australian school articles, such as [13] which received a 1-year semi-protection following one inappropriate edit by an IP.
  • He has applied semi-protection on articles in which he has substantial involvement as an editor. In particular, this applies to Ngo Dinh Diem, which he has edited over 200 times since 2006, and protected repeatedly since 2007 [14] including indefinite semi-protection on 11 May 2010 that was overturned 4 days later via RFPP, only for him to re-establish it on 7 November 2010 despite only three IP-vandalism edits (from two IPs) in the previous 30 days [15][16][17] and despite the presence of a different IP that had edited constructively during that time. [18]
  • He has not applied protection templates to the articles he has semi-protected since at least 1 June 2010.

• YellowMonkey has not acted in compliance with the deletion policy.
  • He deleted articles outside of any process. After this AFD was closed "no consensus", he deleted (and salted) the article anyway [19] claiming interference in AFD by socks. DRV agreed with the deletion on its merits, but noted the failure to adhere to process. Likewise, although upheld at DRV due to copyright violation, the copyvio state of this article [20] was not established at the time it was deleted. There was no AFD, PROD, or CSD justification given; this action was taken unilaterally.

• YellowMonkey has not, at times, displayed the decorum expected of an administrator.
  • Comments about the WMF outreach to India that are intemperate and reflect bias. [21]
  • Comparing the On This Day section of the Main Page to a "toilet exhibit" and an Indian slum. [22]
  • Making unsupported accusations of Communist bias in an RFA. [23] [24]
  • In general, he has not communicated his intentions, and has rarely responded to concerns about his actions. When he has responded, such as in the current RFC, his responses have been limited, lacking in an appreciation of the wider context, and historically, have not resulted in any changes in behavior.

To the extent that the Arbitration Committee is concerned with the concept of "standing" for filing parties, I was not in any way involved with these circumstances prior to my evidence-gathering efforts at the RFC; indeed, due to personal reasons of health and workload, I have been at best an intermittent editor for the past year or two. However, it is my belief that this is a situation with a strong tendency to evade review, because the editors with the strongest claims to involvement in the dispute are often not entirely faultless, and are likely to be wary of the "conduct of all parties will be examined" environment of ArbCom. I have never operated an alternate account, edited in the principle areas at issue, or (to the best of my recollection) had any direct or indirect contact with YellowMonkey or any of the other most-involved editors. Rather, I am filing this case as a representative member of the community at large, in no small part because I feel that my evidentiary contributions to the RFC convey to me a burden to act responsibly upon them.

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.