Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/SlimVirgin-Lar/Proposed decision

Parties are instructed to make no further posts to this page pending further input from arbitrators. Other editors are urged to do the same.

Archives

Archive 1

Arbitrators active on this case

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

Unsatisfactory discussion

The nature of the discussion of sensitive information and allegations that has appeared on this page over the past several days is not satisfactory and is undercutting most of the rationale for considering this case privately in the first place.

It is apparent that some users who disagree with the committee's decision now wish to bring additional or augmented allegations to the committee's attention. Assuming that it is not unreasonably late in the life of the case to do this, a matter on which I do not comment at this time, many of these allegations should not be being presented on-wiki or in any other public forum.

It is possible for users in good faith to disagree with all or part of the committee's decision. (I did not support all of the findings in their entirety, indeed.) It also is possible that there may have been some procedural errors or miscommunications made during the case (in one instance possibly by myself, in which case I apologize to the user concerned). There are also issues of judgment and arbitrator discretion concerning which issues should be the subject of discussion in the public decision or otherwise. Users in good faith might disagree that the committee has not expressly addressed certain matters, and I might or might not, as it happens, agree with them.

None of these considerations justifies posting certain of the material that has been presented on this page, which can be read by any member of the general public, in violation of the ground rules that were established when the case was accepted. This is not said in the spirit of censorship, or of indifference to the views or concerns of any of the participating editors, but out of respect for the privacy and dignity of all Wikipedia participants. (We owe no less consideration to BLP subjects who are not Wikipedia participants, by the way, but that is a subject for another time.)

I have consulted in this matter with a couple of arbitrators who happen to be online at this time, but exigencies of time do not permit me to speak for the entire committee.

I instruct the parties to this case, and very strongly urge all other editors, to make no further posts to this page or on the subject of the case pending further input from arbitrators. The Clerks are authorized to remove from this page any material that they find to be inappropriate for posting on a publicly visible page. In fact, it would not surprise me if another arbitrator chooses to blank the entire page. Any removed material shall not be restored to this page except by direction of an arbitrator. To ensure that no material is inadvertently hidden from review by the arbitrators themselves, any arbitrator or clerk deleting material from the page should e-mail a copy to the arbitrators' mailing list.

Proceed accordingly. Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:20, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I have archived all the preceding discussion to a subpage. While we can't put the genie back into the bottle with regards to withdrawing those comments, what archiving will hopefully do is to prevent further "unsatisfactory discussion" on those issues on this page. Daniel (talk) 03:24, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

(Subthread by Will Beback archived too. The point has now been said several times and lacks merit. Drop it. Thanks.) FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 06:30, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree entirely with what Brad has said. I would add that anyone who wishes to make comments on this case would be advised to email them directly to the Committee. --bainer (talk) 03:25, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Thirded. This case began with allegations being made in a public forum which should never have been brought there; it appears that certain parties would like it to end in the same manner. This is thoroughly unacceptable in every sense, and our patience towards the people engaging in it is not unlimited. Kirill ^(prof) 03:29, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Fourthed. My own preferred wording was stronger. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 05:45, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I also agree. Sam Blacketer (talk) 08:28, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Ditto. Everyone knows this case has been handled in private to protect users' privacy. The removed discussions would have had an opposite effect. -- fayssal - wiki up^® 15:36, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm currently unclear whether this removal is intended to have resolved the matter, or if as Newyorkbrad suggests we should expect further clarification. My concerns include:

1. The furtherance of a number of unsupported and false allegations against other editors,
2. The one-sided abuse of a process by editors for whom the process was set up, and
3. A resulting lack of opportunity for others to respond.

With regard to these I am considering in particular the recent close of the C68-SV-FM case, in which SlimVirgin and other parties were specifically instructed to avoid "Uncivil comments to or regarding other editors, personal attacks, and unsupported allegations of bad faith," and others were assured that a breach of these remedies would be directly dealt with in the future.

I will say that I also find remarkable SlimVirgin's acknowledgment that she has been found to have edited with a proxy, and the same one as Crum375, if for no other reason than that both have argued strenuously to ban proxies as unnecessary other than for abuse.[1][2][3] Mackan79 (talk) 16:42, 21 October 2008 (UTC)