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Case requests

Request name	Motions	Initiated	Votes
Magioladitis user talk page deletions		27 March 2017	1/2/0

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Open cases

Case name	Links	Evidence due	Prop. Dec. due
Historical elections	(t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t)	20 Aug 2024	03 Sep 2024

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Clarification and Amendment requests

Request name	Motions	Case	Posted
Amendment request: Definition of the "area of conflict" Clause 4 (b)	none	none	26 July 2024
Clarification request: Appeal methods for Lima Bean Farmer topic ban	none	none	12 August 2024
Amendment request: German war effort	none	(orig. case)	13 August 2024

Arbitrator motions

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Magioladitis user talk page deletions

Initiated by Fram (talk) at 07:33, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Fram (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), filing party
• Magioladitis (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• [1]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Link 1: [2] section "User talk page deletions"
• Link 2; WP:ANI#Magioladitis deletes thousands of user talk page edits and doesn't get the problem

Statement by Fram

Magioladitis has on 24 March 2017 reshuffled their user talk page archives with page moves, copy-paste moves, and deletions. More than 5,000 talk page edits were deleted. I notified them of the problem[3] with a link to an example page which was then a redlink with a log of two page deletions and a notice that more than 500 edits were deleted. His first reply: "Moreover, all entries are accessible via the main talk page's edit history."[4]. I pointed out that this wasn't true with very specific information.[5]. More denial[6] and rebuttal[7] followed. Still, Magioladitis claimed "No edits were deleted afaik."[8]. Another admin confirmed that edits were deleted[9]. Magioladitis then tagged the section as "resolved"[10]. · Magioladitis maintained that everything was fixed[11] and started claiming that my complaints weren't specific enough. They gave WP:OWNTALK as justification[12], still didn't understand the problem[13], and maintained that they had the right to delete these and that everything was in the edit history[14].

At the ANI discussion, Magioladitis maintained that OWNTALK permits them to do with their talk pages as they see fit, and that it wasn't true that thousands of edits were deleted from the edit history. Comments like "After a talk page stalker contacted me I spotted the issue and fixed it." (not true) "It does not contradict my claims. All entries are visible via edit history." (yes, when others restored the edit history, not after the original actions, so their claims are clearly contradicted), "Fram I replied to you in very short notice. In contrary to other messages your message was unclear. You pointed to a page that has been moved and nothing else." (I pointed to a page that was deleted twice, not moved), "PS The "thousands" is an overestimate" (no), "I took action within a few hour" (They took no action), "The problem is that judging by Fram's comments I understood they only meant that the entries have been removed/deleted by the Archives. They never mentioned the revision history." (I mentioned the history in my very first post and afterwards), "Everything is in place. I could have done it by myself but Fram was pressing for faster response." (completely false), "Moreover, you overestimated the size by a size of 10^3 haven't you? " (no), ...

I have no problem with an admin making mistakes, that's why I contacted them on their talk page and not raised a fuss about it. But when an admin is incapable of seeing the problem (multiple times), correcting it (needing another admin to fix this simple problem), reading the logs, understanding policy (WP:OWNTALK), or of admitting an error, and continues to shift the blame to others through a series of falsehoods, then they no longer can be trusted with the admin tools.

@Opabinia Regalis, "While Fram argues that misunderstanding the problem is "gross incompetence" incompatible with adminship, check how many admins actually in practice do any history merging. In short, I agree with DGG, this in isolation is troutworthy, not arbcomworthy." I don't claim that "misunderstanding the problem" is gross incompetence, I claim that the combined number of problems (like an incapability to read logs (like the difference between a move and a delete they performed, or the number of edits Graham87 actually had to undelete), and an incapability to read complaints (very common with the older issues which lead to the other arbcom case as well, and here again apparent), and an incapability to answer correctly to questions, and an incapability to accept responsability for their actions (they only dropped most of the dismissiveness and blame-shifting after three ArbCom members were ready to accept this: it shouldn't take such kind of pressure to be correct and factual for an admin), and an incapability to understand or apply policy properly) ... If they had started with "I don't understand, can you explain?", "Oops, I messed up, I'll correct this" or even "Oops, my bad, but I don't know how to undo it", then we wouldn't have ended up here. If they had even commented at the ANI, after Graham67 had corrected the problems and many people had commented, with something like "Oh shit, I totally misunderstood, I did indeed delete thousands of edits, thanks Fram for bringing this to my attention and Graham67 for correcting it!", we would never have ended up here. But what we got, until some ArbCom members increased the presssure a bit (instead of considering this kind of behaviour "trivial", good going DGG!), is the complete opposite, with an admin unwilling or unable (or most likely both) to act upon a valid complaint or to even take it serious. And this not from some admin in good standing, but days after another ArbCom case imposed restrictions on them. Fram (talk) 08:21, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

@Magioladitis: "It was a misunderstanding of what Fram actually meant. I thought they meant "removal of talk page entries" because they could not find them. This is the reason I mentioned the WP:OWNTALK. I was pretty sure that Fram was referring to the actual visible entries and not on the revision history." I see you added basically the same claim to the discussion on your talk page, after you've archived it (a nice way to make sure you get the last word, editing a section after it has been archived). Anyway, this is my initial post to your user talk page, with emphasis added: "You have been deleting and moving around your talk page archives. It looks at first glance as if in the process, hundreds of user talk page edits have been permanently deleted. This is not allowed and a misuse of admin tools. Can you please either indicate where the hundreds of deleted edits in the history of e.g. User talk:Magioladitis/Archive 7 (and the other archive pages) can be accessed by non-admins, or correct your error and make sure that no talk page edits are inaccessible any longer?" This coupled with a link to a page which was a redlink with only two deletions in the log and the note "view or restore 500 deleted edits?", comparable to what you can see when you now access User talk:Magioladitis/Archive 10. Your actual replies on your user talk page also indicate that what you are claiming now is simply false. Your first answer said "I seen nothing suspicious in the edit history neither." (so you were well aware that I was referring to the edit history, but were somehow incapable of recognising the problem anyway, hence my desysop request for gross incompetence and trying to coverup your own inadequacies by shifting the blame to the messenger). Your second reply: "No edits were deleted afaik." Again, you were aware that "deleted edits" was the claimed problem, but you were too lazy or incompetent to actually check this, even though I had given you a very easy link directly to a page with hundreds of deleted edits. You simply cannot be trusted with the tools or to handle questions and complaints correctly and to answer truthfully. Fram (talk) 09:02, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Magioladitis

See my comments in ANI.

1. It was a misunderstanding of what Fram actually meant. I thought they meant "removal of talk page entries" because they could not find them. This is the reason I mentioned the WP:OWNTALK. I was pretty sure that Fram was referring to the actual visible entries and not on the revision history.
2. I use a bot to archive pages so I expected no data loss during the merge of my talk page archives. I have forgotten than in the early years (Archives 1-8) I used a different method. I used to move the file in Archives and recreate the file. My bad.
3. I responded to Fram very quickly without fully checking their complain. Still the problem was resolved and I even asked for help in order to resolve earlier.
4. I (wanted to) merge(d) my archives and not delete them. This is what finally happened afterall.
5. Fram mentioned a 1.7 Gigabyte page which ofcourse was never created.
6. All edit history was revived and I admitted mistake. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:48, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Diannaa

Just want to point out that because the archives were deleted and/or reorganized, all the wikilinks to those archives at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Magioladitis are either broken links – they don't point to the relevant content any more – or are red links to archives that no longer exist. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 19:19, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Hchc2009

I'd observe that the first complaints of evasion of the Arbcom sanctions have been made by other editors at User talk:Magioladitis#Two edits. Hchc2009 (talk) 19:32, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Statement by BU Rob13

This is outside scope of this proceeding, but on the "enough is enough" topic, here are edits already violating the cosmetic editing restriction: [15] [16] [17] [18] [19]

WP:ADMINCOND is the relevant policy to consider here, as the "harm" of deleting the revisions was undone quickly enough to not come close to actual abuse of tools. In particular, "consistently or egregiously poor judgment may result in the removal of administrator status". No-one can argue that this particular action was "egregious" on its own, but is it part of a pattern of "consistently ... poor judgement"? That is the only relevant question the Committee could take up. I make no comment on whether the Committee should take it up. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 03:01, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Statement by Cwmhiraeth

Before the committee decide whether to accept this case, can I urge them to consider Fram's motives in bringing it. Is Fram really concerned about the loss, probably inadvertent, of the history of a user's talk page when merging archives? Is this really a serious matter, seeing that there is no requirement to archive one's talk page, and deleting the content is permissible (apart from certain notices)?

Or, on the other hand, is Fram continuing the "attack" strategy outlined in the Case request I put forward on 26 October 2016? That concerned Fram targeting certain vulnerable individuals by humiliating and bullying them, and in the case of Nvvchar, demoralising him to the extent that he ceased editing altogether. In the current Case request, you can see Fram's eagerness to have Magioladitis desysopped, requesting this be done "for gross incompetence and trying to coverup your own inadequacies", and accusing him of being "too lazy or incompetent to actually check this" and "you simply cannot be trusted with the tools". Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:59, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Statement by {Non-party}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the case request or provide additional information.

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Magioladitis user talk page deletions: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <1/2/0>

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse)

• am leaning to accept as it involves review of tool use but will await more statements. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 08:25, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
• I'm also leaning to accept, pending more statements. If not the use of tools in this specific instance, then the continuing issues which present themselves re Magioladitis (getting to enough is enough territory). Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 09:17, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
• Me three. Magioladitis, it is a good idea for you to make a brief statement/rebuttal here, rather than point at some other place (I looked at the discussion yesterday, and you can't easily point to something that big, with so many comments). I would also like to see a statement or two. Also brief, please. Drmies (talk) 14:10, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
• I'd like to hear comments from Magioladitis about WP:DELTALK which is referenced in WP:OWNTALK, a rationale they used for their actions, about why they deleted their talk page archives. Mkdw ^talk 16:49, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

@Magioladitis: I'm having a little trouble understanding the rhyme and reason for this process. The user talk discussion about this issue is a good example. You archived the discussion to Archive 8. You then moved it to Archive 4. It now sits at User talk:Magioladitis/Archive 4#User talk page deletions with one other discussion from 2017, in the middle of the archive among an entire page of discussions from 2014 and 2015. The discussion is effectively buried in such a way that someone must be searching for it and explicitly go out of their way to find it.

WP:OWNTALK and WP:ARCHIVE give editors a fair amount of latitude on how archives are kept (short of talk page deletions). The issue has now been corrected but only following a lengthy process. This comes on the heels of a case based upon the foundation that semi and fully automated processes by you have caused problems in the past and not been dealt with in a perfunctory manner. I find reasonable legitimacy behind the concerns that these recurring issues are not systemic in nature. I'm leaning to decline on this case but for me this is strike two in an exhaustive process. Mkdw ^talk 17:15, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

• decline I consider this trivial. Yes, it might e a signal thatthere will be additional problems, but I think we should wait for them. DGG ( talk ) 00:14, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
• Accept, although I would not be averse to resolving this by motion either. Kirill Lokshin (talk) 00:31, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
• Decline, with a trout. The facts of the matter seem sufficiently clear that I do not think a new case is needed. It appears that Magioladitis decided to reorganize his talk page archives, believing that he was not losing any edits, but forgot that he'd used two incompatible archiving systems and ended up botching it. Fram then complained, and Magioladitis misunderstood the question because he hadn't yet realized the problem with the old move-archived pages. The two then talked past each other for several conversational turns on Magioladitis' talk page and then ANI, meanwhile Graham87 helpfully fixed the problem, and for some reason this arrived on our doorstep three days later. While Fram argues that misunderstanding the problem is "gross incompetence" incompatible with adminship, check how many admins actually in practice do any history merging. In short, I agree with DGG, this in isolation is troutworthy, not arbcomworthy.

  All that being said: Magioladitis, it's good to admit that you made a mistake, but much better to not make one in the first place. (I think you still have some cleanup work to do - for example, why on earth is the section Fram started on your talk page about this issue on March 24, 2017 now in archive 4 of 8, along with copies of posts from 2014-15? Why are archives 6 and 7 empty? Maybe another error, considering that archive 5 is a browser-achingly large 764K?) We are rapidly running out of ways to tell you to slow down and be more careful. Your comments have centered on the fact that you were rushing to respond. Don't do that. Take the time to respond to critical posts thoughtfully and thoroughly. At your current rate you'll be back here again soon enough, having finally caused a problem that actually matters. Opabinia regalis (talk) 01:41, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

• Leaning towards accept. Doug Weller talk 18:37, 28 March 2017 (UTC)