Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard

User:Rodhullandemu discussion archived

Original announcement

Entire thread(s) archived with extreme prejudice.

All right, what little valuable discussion might have been in those threads have run their course. Some valid points were raised regarding how decisions of the sort should be made and/or announced, but process discussion does not belong in the thread for a specific incident.

As for the incident itself, there is no point in rehashing it here any further. The person concerned (note the very deliberate use of the singular) is well aware of further avenues of progress if he chooses to avail himself of them. — Coren ^(talk) 17:52, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

As a WikiGnome I have archived the WP:CENT listing to the RFC that was contained in this thread. If you disagree with my interpertation, feel free to undo my changes (1 to WP:CENT and 1 for the archive) Hasteur (talk) 22:37, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

No, thanks for cleaning up after me. I didn't think about that crosslink. — Coren ^(talk) 23:52, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, but Coren here has played into the hands of the ruling bureaucracy by unilaterally stifling further debate. It is not up to one editor to establish consensus, and although many issues have been rehearsed here, not one has been resolved to the satisfaction of the community as I see it. Many questions remain open, and sidestepped by ArbCom. The privacy issue is a non-starter, and for the sake of clarity and openness, I hereby authorise and invite ArbCom to open a full case against me, with full disclosure, including emails, and that includes their own internal discussions. The downside of that, of course, is that (1) they will expose their disreputable procedures; (2) they are already on balance largely disqualified from adjudicating on this issue, having come to a conclusion without due process and (3) despite multiple input from disinterested editors, they have failed, and abjectly so, to validate their own position, even ex post facto. To quote new and inexperienced Arbitrator Elen of the Roads, "This isn't going to go away". If they had any honour, they would at least offer a middle position, but they haven't. It's about time they did. Rodhullandemu 00:02, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests#Rodhullandemu. Hasteur has filed a request for arbitration. Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:15, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Poor form, Coren, to try to shut down a discussion of an action that on first impressions seems hasty/harsh. Stifle (talk) 15:23, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

• I suggest that Rodhullandemu simply make a request for adminship and see what support he has from the community for his continued use of the tool. 62.25.109.195 (talk) 18:36, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
  • That well is poisoned. Even if it's a completely idiotic decision by the Arbitration Committee, it carries a good deal of weight at RFA. I know this from experience. ;-) --MZMcBride (talk) 20:53, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
    • And that is why I am not prepared to take that course in the face of the blatant injustice I have faced from ArbCom. The least they could do is to recognise their abject failure here, wind back the clock, and offer me a holding position which would at least recognise that on balance, my contribs here utterly outweigh temporarily, and unsupported allegations. But they won't do that, because they are convinced that they are right, despite community input. I've never been impressed by arrogance, and particularly blatantly unjust arrogance. Rodhullandemu 00:15, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

• Setting aside whether justice is something we should be seeking on a collaborative encyclopedia project, you have three basic avenues. You have the community and the tools we use to gauge community consensus such as RFA and RFC, you have ArbCom, and you have Jimbo Wales. You are refusing to appeal to the community, and you are refusing to appeal to Jimbo. You are simultaneously demanding that ArbCom reverse their action while adamantly insisting that they will not.

The couple dozen or however many of us who show up on these pages are not the community. We're not even a representative sample. If you want to claim the community has your back, prove it.--Tznkai (talk) 02:45, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

• Wrong. You are setting aside basic human rights that are independent of venue. I have been denied the normal venues for response, especially RFC. It has already been pointed out by others that RFA in these circumstances is a poisoned well, so that, today, isn't an a reasonable option. As for an appeal to Jimbo, I know that he is fully aware of all this, and if he has any honour, will step in when the time is right, if only to prevent Wikipedia's processes being shown to be utterly foolish and arbitrary. What has happened in the last seven or eight days is so far from his values that he now must do this if he believes that this encyclopedia has any chance of survival with its present form of governance. It may be hard, but it does need doing, and rapidly. Rodhullandemu 03:59, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

• Human rights? Which one of those is being violated here? I must have missed the part about Wikipedia in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yeah, Armcom screwed up badly here. But claiming that your human rights are being set aside? The Wordsmith^Communicate 04:26, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

• So how ArbCom has/is handling your particular situation is an indication of how the entire project governance is doing? This incident is the one that is going to break the site's governance? Are you really that important? Are any of us? Are even all of us who are even peripherally aware of this particular incident, combined, actually that significant?

Something else to think about. Lets say, for the sake of argument that it is true that ArbCom denied you fair process (whatever that means) but they also genuinely believe that you are no longer fit to be an administrator, and this is based on incontrovertible facts. In some legal systems, we're willing to keep people in positions of responsibility for the sake of preserving the institutional fairness, even if it becomes clear they are unfit or even dangerous. Wikipedia is not such a system, never has been, and I doubt ever will be, even though so many processes have managed to accumulate over the years. Process can of course have value. It can make things easier, and more fair, and more clear, and many cultures encourage it. But at the end of the day, at Wikipedia we've always cared about getting the results right more than we've cared about getting there right. The point of being that, if there is reason out there for genuine, reasonable people to think that you're unfit as an administrator, the end result will be the same. The only difference will be the amount of pain and posturing we all go through.--Tznkai (talk) 17:17, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

The odd thing here is that many members of the Committee have been such for a long time, and many others are students of its work... yet at nearly every opportunity, they completely fail to demonstrate that they have learned even the most obvious lessons of the past. Secret trials, protestations of "secret evidence" (soon contradicted by those same speakers), paternalist insistence that its "for your own good" despite your disagreement, etc. It just reeks. So you tried to do it "gently and humanely" by doing it in secret, and presenting Rod with a decision already made; big surprise his reaction wasn't quite what you'd hoped. Even assuming your expressed motives represent the whole, will you in retrospect concede that your actions were self-defeating? And that this should have been obvious to anyone who has followed ArbCom for more than the last year? (For what its worth, the best irony in this was "Stop and breathe" followed by "You disgust me." I chuckled.) Nathan ^T 00:41, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

You've pretty much nailed it. Thanks for doing so. I fight on. Rodhullandemu 00:45, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Unless of course, there have been successful applications of the taking care of things quietly approach. I mean, I don't know, and wouldn't know, since if they were successful, I wouldn't know. But, at least some success hidden from view is consistent with my belief that the majority of ArbCom is neither stupid nor crazy. They do however, tend to burn out. And a major factor in burn out is wiki-life under the microscope, subject to a vicious peanut gallery never deterred by incomplete information. And, as we all know, endemic exposure to the raw nastiness of this place causes Bad Things. A gradual but definite crescendo of antisocial behavior, long inactivity, and finally punctuated by high drama.

Yet, despite this long, repeated pattern, notice by experienced ArbCom watchers like you, dear reader, we still continue to collectively poke and prod what are supposed to be our best and brightest (which we seem to be running low on) inexorably down the path of burn out. You'd think it'd be obvious.--Tznkai (talk) 01:20, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Fair comment, and I certainly won't argue the point that biting criticism is a source of dismay and the cause of some dissociation for arbitrators. On the other hand, they signed up specifically to make decisions that are often high profile (within our own little world) all while knowing, as they must have, that these decisions are often the subject of a great deal of argument. Previous committees and observers have suggested various ways of alleviating this pressure - introduce procedural rules that are binding on the committee, develop a settled set of controlling precedents, etc. All methods designed to establish a credible, consistent institution and to protect members from having to repeatedly make controversial decisions as though they were of first impression. Unfortunately, the committee in its wisdom has decided that it must have complete freedom in virtually every situation - and each time it avails itself of this freedom in a novel way, substantial criticism is the inevitable result. Nathan ^T 01:35, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi Nathan, as far as I know, this was first use of Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures#Level II procedures, so I'm not sure your comment that ArbCom repeatedly makes 'controversial decisions as though they were of first impression' applies in this instance. There have been various discussions over the years looking at ways to remove admins whose conduct is below the standards expected, and these procedures were formulated last August. In my view, we should resolve this case first, and then organize a discussion about how we can improve our procedures. PhilKnight (talk) 02:46, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

"Should we impose permanent sanctions on someone, without giving them the right to reply to accusations, offer evidence or even see the case against them?" I'm pretty that question has been answered before, conclusively. If the rules on procedure were binding (i.e. if the committee recognized that private proceedings using secret evidence against an unsuspecting perpetrator were not permitted) then this would not have happened. Nathan ^T

Still less should they take one position in private, and another in public. It is said that a "foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of a tiny mind" (R. Waldo Emerson), but equally, we elected these people not to appear foolish, to establish consistency, and not exhibit tiny minds. Thus far, I, and others, remain to be convinced. Rodhullandemu 05:23, 5 March 2011 (UTC)