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Case clerks: Guerillero (Talk) & NuclearWarfare (Talk) Drafting arbitrator: Kirill Lokshin (Talk)

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Amendment request: Rich Farmbrough

Initiated by Rich Farmbrough, 23:06, 28 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]
at 23:06, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Case affected: Rich Farmbrough arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

Finding 8

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)

Information about amendment request

Details of desired modification

Rich Farmbrough has on many occasions, after another administrator has placed a block on his bot account, used his administrative tools to unblock his own bot without first remedying the underlying issue to the blocking admin's satisfaction or otherwise achieving consensus for such unblock (see block logs of SmackBot, Helpful Pixie Bot).

Amend to

Rich Farmbrough has on a number of occasions, after another administrator has placed a block on his bot account, used his administrative tools to unblock his own bot, where this was uncontroversial, and generally with pre-approval of the blocking admin. In addition he has been scrupulous in ensuring that he has remedied any problems, or claimed problems, for which he is to be commended.

Statement by Rich Farmbrough

This is a more accurate statement of the situation. For the existing wording to stand the Committee would have to show that many (I would assume more than five) unblocks did not address the reason for stopping the bot. They will not be able to show this because it is not the case. It is a matter of regret that the committee would wish to publish such falsehoods without even the most cursory examination.

Rich Farmbrough, 23:50, 28 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]

@Arbs. One, or even several is not many.

@Corcelles: Firstly it was established in the case that there is no such thing as process. Secondly in the case you cite the blocking admin had explicitly permitted a self unblock. Thirdly we are going back over a year to find one example, which fails.

@Fozzie: Since I was denied a chance to rebut the case at the time, the committee has left this the only on-wiki avenue available to me. To deny that would not only be ultra vires, and contrary to natural justice but counter productive. Moreover the Committee has added false statements to the case post closure. This is something the committee should want to rectify.

Additional notes. Fram continues to pursue me here. If that is not disruptive I don't know what is. Note that Fram refused to answer my questions on the case, and even changed my posts. Fram says I did not contribute to the case, I made over 500 edits (and I am still waiting for an answer as to how many hours a day I should be expected to dedicate to a case who's trolling tenet was debunked on day 1.

@Fram. Of course hiding the fact that you - like the other parties, are great at lip service to collegiality, but totally unable to put any actual effort into it is not fine. And redacting part of my post to an ArbCom case would seem very foolish, if not downright abusive. Note that another party suggested questions I should ask, I added them and still no response was forthcoming.

@Silk: You seem to have missed the part of the case where it was decided that unblocking one's own bots was totally within process per se.

@NewYorkBrad: You were more active than any other arbitrator, and, going by evidence, paid more attention to the content. AGK was also inactive, and had promised not to vote, but hat has not stopped him voting either on the main case or here.

@PhilKnight , I would be happy with striking the FoF altogether or a compromise wording.

Rich Farmbrough has on a number of occasions, after another administrator has placed a block on his bot account, used his administrative tools to unblock his own bot, where this was uncontroversial, and generally with pre-approval of the blocking admin. While Fram takes issue with one of the unblocks, almost all are uncontroversial, and all were made in good faith and the spirit of collegiality and cooperation we have come to expect from Rich.

@Beestra, It appears that ArbCom have collectively dug in and adopted a position of infallibility. I sincerely hope this is not the case. Rich Farmbrough, 12:41, 30 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Comment by Fram

Rich Farmbrough is still using out-of-context facts to defend himself, even though the actual full context has been presented to him again and again. For all readers unaware of that context, "Secondly in the case you cite the blocking admin had explicitly permitted a self unblock." should be continued with "under strict conditions". The actual self-unblock did not follow these conditions at all. The self-unblock edit summary "Vexatious disruptive block" is quite clear as well.

As for "Since I was denied a chance to rebut the case at the time", this is a rather slanted reading of what actually happened, i.e. that he had every chance to defend himself, but largely ignored discussions (even though people like Dirk Beetstra, Hammersoft and Kumioko found the time and tried hard to do his work for him instead), often failed to provide evidence for his claims, and in general waited until the very last moment, after the proposed decision had been open for quite a while (since 5 May) and arbitrators started voting to close the case (12 May); then he suddenly needed a few more weeks to be able to present his case (14 May: "I started drafting my comments on the new material in the proposed decision yesterday." and "I will need at least a week, possibly two to respond to these matters."). This tactic failed. Like Kumioko said, "he spent a lot of time editing and not enough time discussing and defending". You were not "denied a chance", you choose to spend your time on other things and waited too long before starting your rebuttal; you shouldn't be blaming this on other people or on the ArbCom. Fram (talk) 08:10, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Rich Farmbrough: "Additional notes. Fram continues to pursue me here. If that is not disruptive I don't know what is." You are making claims about a block of Smackbot I made, and the unblock conditions I gave. I think it is only natural that I give my version of that block, as a directly involved party. This has little to do with "pursuing". Apart from that, I was a party to the case, so amendments and clarifications to that case are of natural interest to me. I don't see you complaining that Beetstra and Hammersoft, who weren't parties to the case and not involved with these blocks, comment here, so apparently you are only bothered by people "pursuing you" when they don't support you, which is of course a good method to end with only supportive comments...

@Rich Farmbrough: "Note that Fram refused to answer my questions on the case, and even changed my posts." I presume you refer to my removal of the empty section "Replies by Fram" here? That's hardly "changing your posts", we shouldn't keep sections which will remain empty. Note that the final page still has two other such empty sections, since in reality no one answered your questions there. Perhaps the problem was more with the questions than with the refusal? I can't remember any instance where I actually changed a post you made.

@Rich Farmbrough: "Fram says I did not contribute to the case, I made over 500 edits (and I am still waiting for an answer as to how many hours a day I should be expected to dedicate to a case who's trolling tenet was debunked on day 1)." I did not say that you didn't contribute to the case, please don't make such incorrect claims. Fram (talk) 07:01, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Rich Farmbrough: if you consider an edit summary of "Vexatious disruptive block." (your words at the unblock) as "the spirit of collegiality and cooperation we have come to expect from Rich." (your words used here to describe these unblocks), then I have nothing more to add, really... Fram (talk) 12:46, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Beetstra

As I asked the last time for the previous amendment - could the members of the ArbCom please specify which of the unblocks were out of line, and how they were out of line. This still suggests that ALL of the unblocks of Rich Farmbrough were out of line. A member of the ArbCom provides below one example, SilkTork now defines it as 'several' (which is also not the same as 'many'); I am sure that they can specify more examples to back up their statement 'on many occasions'. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:28, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Rich: As usual. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:15, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Hammersoft

It is clear from the wording Rich proposed that there is no way this amendment would ever be supported by any arbitrator. It is equally clear that ArbCom has failed to make its case for the revised FoF. So here we have one FoF wording that seems absurd being proposed by the target of an ArbCom case, and another FoF that seems absurd that has the backing of ArbCom. Not surprisingly, the body that wrote the latter refuses to consider modification of its version, and has (with SirFozzie's comments) threatened the writer of the former should he continue to make additional requests.

ArbCom has desysopped Rich. They have banned him from any automation (though, can't agree on what automation is). ArbCom considered banning him from the project. Rich has been pushed to the very edge of the precipice on this project. This, for one "wholly out of process unblock". I concur with Beetstra. Please show us the evidence that supports your finding. Please tell me there's more than one or two unblocks where Rich erred. Please. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:33, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion

The proposed amendment is false, full stop. One prime example of a wholly out of process unblock was the "15:56, 2 February 2011 Rich Farmbrough (talk | contribs | block) unblocked SmackBot (talk | contribs) (Vexatious disruptive block.)" one. Courcelles 23:52, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. And speaking as an arbitrator who was inactive due to real life issues during this case, it may be time to classify Rich as a vexatious litigant and formally restrict him from wasting the Committee and Community's time with these requests. SirFozzie (talk) 00:35, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Decline There are several cases of SmackBot/Helpful Pixie Bot being unblocked inappropriately by Rich Farmbrough, and of other admins reblocking with a comment that he should not be unblocking himself, or that issues are still not resolved. I am disappointed that at this stage Rich Farmbrough still appears not to understand why his conduct has been a cause for concern, and that his ongoing behaviour is not helpful to himself. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 00:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I would decline the proposed amendment. AGK [•] 11:18, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain as I was inactive in the voting on this case. Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:32, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The current wording may not be perfect, however Rich's proposed version isn't an improvement, being too far in the opposite direction. PhilKnight (talk) 15:15, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Decline. This is essentially an attempt to vacate a decided case by amendment, and thus a non-starter. Per SirFozzie, the unhelpfulness of these amendments is consistent enough to consider remedies against future abuses of the process. Jclemens-public (talk) 17:46, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Decline. Roger Davies ^talk 19:03, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Amendment request: Rich Farmbrough

Initiated by Rich Farmbrough, 22:14, 26 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]
at 22:14, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Case affected: Rich Farmbrough arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

Principle 1
Finding 2
Remedy 3

Information about amendment request

Allowed to use Femto Bot to archive own talk page, as no other archiving solution has the required responsiveness, nor the ability to split-archive to to-do lists.

Statement by Rich Farmbrough

Allowed to use Femnto Bot to archive own talk page, as no other archiving solution has the required responsiveness, nor the ability to split-archive to to-do lists.

No. Listen. You turned it down because a standard archiving solution would do the job. I have explained that it would not. The request was closed and archived (without informing me - as usual). Given the extra information makes your previous reasoning moot, you should reconsider.

The suggestion was that the matters that were concerning "the community" applied to repetitive edits to many pages. This is an Arb's opinion. this does not fall in that category and should therefore be allowed without quibble.

@Casliber: Archiving my talk page was the key issue? I must have been in a different case.

@Jclemens: You remarked "We can deal with specific requests for clarification that pose real problems. In the context of the case, automation is clearly intended to be that allowing an editor to modify multiple articles or other pages in rapid succession." On that basis this should be a speedy approval. Lets see if consistency rears its beautiful head.

@AGK " No, it is too early, and I see some value to giving the whole issue some time to settle down." yet you wouldn't give me time to prepare a proper rebuttal?

@ArbCom Saying it is too soon is meaningless. The only thing that is likely to change between now and next week, is that one of us dies. Vague doomsday scenarios where the bot goes berserk and "vandalises all of the Wikipedia" are not helpful. The blanket application of the "remedy" to areas where it is not intended does not help anyone. Moreover, coupled with the committee re-writing the case it creates a bad impression of the committee to deliberately force a user's interaction with other users to be more awkward, for the sake of bureaucracy. Rich Farmbrough, 19:36, 28 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]

@Risker: thank you for being the first Arb to approve. Rich Farmbrough, 23:46, 28 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]

@Silk: That "let them eat cake" response wholly fails to address the point. Rich Farmbrough, 03:10, 29 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Statement by Headbomb

I support this. It's completely unrelated to the behaviour that lead to the case, and Wikipedia gains nothing by disallowing Rich to manage his own userspace. This is utterly uncontroversial stuff, and one of the reasons WP:BOTPOL says bots editing the operator's userspace usually don't require approval.

[A]ny bot or automated editing process that affects only the operator's or their own userspace (user page, user talk page, and subpages thereof), and which are not otherwise disruptive, may be run without prior approval.

I hope ARBCOM realize that their "Really, you just asked for some derogation and it was declined... Therefore WP:SPEEDYDENY per WP:IDHT!" does no one a service here. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 13:25, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrator views and arbitrator discussion

Really? We just turned this down a few days ago. Asking this soon is something bordering on, if not meeting, the idea of WP:IDHT -- asking until you get the answer you want is highly unlikely to work here. Courcelles 04:23, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As a noted sage once said.. "it was deja vu all over again.." we JUST declined this and the answer is the same. SirFozzie (talk) 05:19, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No. And Rich... really. You need to step back and internalize why you were sanctioned and the best way forward for you. Repeated requests like these are not demonstrating that you can adapt to your sanctions, modify yourself, and emerge stronger. Your various posts questioning how the committee conducts itself aren't helping any, either. At any rate, my advice to you: go write some content. Demonstrate that you are most concerned with making the English Wikipedia the best repository of human knowledge you can, even without the automation to which you are accustomed. Just avoid repetitive or trivial tasks, and do something marvelous that will compel the committee to reconsider your sanctions. Please--it's the best way forward for you and the project. Jclemens (talk) 05:43, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Rich, my sincere apologies that you weren't notified appropriately. I'll find out what happened there. However, the rest of your responses are not particularly helpful. Please read and internalize what User:Thryduulf said here before continuing on your present course. I share his views on possible outcomes and their relative desirability. Jclemens (talk) 07:39, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, not straight after the case where this was a key issue. Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:50, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Per Casliber, but to clarify for Rich: This key issue is not "talk page archiving", but "automation of any kind", and by extension you cannot be trusted to run unsupervised tools. I imagine something like a talk page archival bot could be a first step towards regaining access to automation, if you ever wished to pursue such a route, but at this early stage I am not comfortable having you near a script, bot, or other doo-dah—even if it were to edit only your userspace. Supposing it messed an edit up (these bots always do at some point), you would be required to engage with an editor or even participate at a noticeboard, and then the whole sordid cycle would repeat itself. No, it is too early, and I see some value to giving the whole issue some time to settle down. Decline. AGK [•] 15:51, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Concur with Jclemens in particular on this matter. Risker (talk) 16:09, 28 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Decline. Manual archiving will do what is required. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 00:21, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As I said when this request was previously before us, my initial reaction is that Rich Farmbrough's using a bot to archive his own talkpage only strikes me as entirely harmless, and my inclination would be to grant the request; however, I defer to the consensus of the other arbitrators who have commented, and who have the advantage over me of having been active throughout the case. Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:35, 29 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Decline. Roger Davies ^talk 19:04, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Amendment request: Rich Farmbrough (Nobody Ent)

Initiated by Nobody Ent at 15:30, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Case affected: Rich Farmbrough arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

Remedy 2

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

Nobody Ent (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request

Rich Farmbrough

Amendment 1

Rich Farmbrough is indefinitely prohibited from using any automation whatsoever on Wikipedia. For the purposes of this remedy, any edits that reasonably appear to be automated shall be assumed to be so.

Change to:

Rich Farmbrough is indefinitely prohibited from using AutoWikiBrowser and any custom automation he has created whatsoever on Wikipedia. For the purposes of this remedy, any edits that reasonably appear to be AWB or custom automation shall be assumed to be so.

Statement by Nobody Ent

Restriction as currently written is overly broad and vague and unnecessary to address the behaviors the community has found to be disruptive. What is "automation" in the context of a internet hosted web server? An absurd-for-explanatory-purposes example: the ping utility tells me that my client is currently using ip address 208.80.154.225 to access en.wikipedia.org, but I don't put that in my browser address bar because DNS automates the process of converting domain names to IPs. The case revolved around customization RF created himself, not standard tools many users use, such as spell check or twinkle. Even a template is a type of automation and is therefore included in the scope of the remedy as currently written.

@JClemens Committee member's interpretation of the current wording are inconsistent [1], [2], [3], [4] and RF's rollback privilege has been removed by arbcom clerk [5] Nobody Ent 16:43, 19 May 2012 (UTC) ...and restored by arbcom member [6] with their interpretation [7] Nobody Ent 19:48, 19 May 2012 (UTC) [reply]

@AGK ya'll can talk about strawman all you want but the diffs above clearly indicate ArbCom has issued a remedy without the individual members actually knowing what it meant. Bureaucratic quibbling over whether this oversight should be pointed out to you via request for amendment, request for clarification, WT:ACN, trouts on all your userpages, email, IRC or smoke signals is contrary to the not pillar. It is ArbCom's responsibility to resolve disputes, not create them, and this ill conceived remedy is causing churn on the noticeboard, user talk , and AN. Nobody Ent 19:48, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Withdrawn, ain't worth the drama. Nobody Ent 00:13, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Hammersoft

I don't think this request is a strawman at all. Already two arbitrators have felt that rollback could be reasonably concluded to be automation. Already arbitrators are disagreeing to the point of revoking/restoring his rollback rights because of this disagreement. The evidence here is already plain; if ArbCom can't figure out what automation is or is not, I dare say the community won't either. The restriction isn't so clear as Jclemens seems to think it is. There's apparently still uncertainty as to whether Twinkle or Huggle qualify as "automation". I have to agree with the filer of this request; the restriction as currently written is overly broad and vague. It can readily be used as a bludgeoning tool to generate an insane amount of drama. At a minimum, it should be modified such that any question regarding whether something is or is not automation should be addressed to ArbCom, and ArbCom required to respond via consensus before any block is applied for violation of that restriction. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:53, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Sladen

Rather than ArbCom trying to decide "is Rollback automation?", it might be more useful if ArbCom simply decided is Rich allowed to use Rollback. This would solve the case-in-point, without getting side-tracked. —Sladen (talk) 22:10, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Headbomb

Back on the proposed decision talk page, I suggested this remedy instead. But it's been ignored. Maybe now it will get some attention:

Rich Farmbrough is banned from mass editing regardless of the method, broadly construed, for a period of <INSERT PERIOD>. That is, RF is banned from both running bots and from behaving like a WP:MEATBOT. This does not cover script-assisted vandal fighting (such as the use of rollback), neither should it prevent the use of assisted-editing to make improvements to specific articles, such as putting the finishing touch on an article after a rewrite/expansion, provided RF took part in the rewrite/expansion himself.

Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 01:07, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Bolded the part that's actually important. Automation itself wasn't the problem. Mass-editing like a WP:MEATBOT was the problem. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 01:10, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Anomie

In this edit, SilkTork stated "There are some that it would be highly unlikely would be a cause for concern if Rich used them (such as the one that with one click closes an AfD and does all the tedious stuff very efficiently)". I don't know whether Rich would do so, but it is certainly possible to use that script in a manner that would cause concern. Recall that Fastily (talk · contribs) recently retired in the face of accusations that he was closing so many deletion discussions so rapidly that he was not exercising due care in doing so.

I think the problem some have with Rich is that he obviously likes to make mass edits of various sorts, to the point where it seems he doesn't pay enough attention to whether the edits are needed or are being done right. The hope behind the automation ban, in my opinion, is that he will direct his skills to making a few quality edits rather than large numbers of sometimes-controversial edits, and possibly that he will use his technical skills to assist others who will be able to make assisted edits in a manner more in-line with community consensus (in this, though, I doubt any sanction would succeed; there are enough editors around who would be happy to boost their edit count by making questionable edits, and enough others who would be happy to be proxy for Rich if they thought they could get away with it).

This amendment is proposing change in exactly the wrong direction. Opening up the gigantic loophope that Rich could go back to his old tricks as long as he uses automation created by someone else is an awful idea. If you Rich supporters really want to do some good, let Rich decide what he wants to do and let him apply for amendments. Anomie ⚔ 02:20, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Rich Farmbrough

@Jclemens: That is a valuable clarification, thank you for that. Rich Farmbrough, 18:57, 19 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]

@SilkTork: Since it was demonstrated neither that I was "not editing responsibly" nor concomitantly that "using automation either encouraged, caused or multiplied" the hypothetical, it is not surprising that this becomes ever more Kafkaesque. I prefer here Jclemens approach that at least addresses the myth, to the suggestion, however true, that I might be banned due to vexatious wiki-lawyering, and should edit accordingly. I have avoided the discussion about what does and does not constitute automation for two reasons, firstly it is facile per se, secondly it gives credence to the tottering edifice upon which the ruling is founded. Rich Farmbrough, 10:44, 20 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]

@WohltemperteFuchs "it's best to simply put in place a clear restriction and then relax on a per-case basis afterwards" .. that's not really working too well right now. Rich Farmbrough, 22:16, 26 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Statement by Beyond My Ken

I believe Headbomb's suggested change is a good idea, except that it should stop after the word "rollback". The remaining text might provide a potential loophole to justify editing behavior which the community has clearly had problems with. I see no need for the use of automated tool to put the finishing touches on articles, this can be done quite adequately by hand. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:09, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Thryduulf

I think that the repeated dramas surrounding user:Δ should illustrate to everybody why simple, bright line restrictions are preferable to loose ones that give scope for wikilawyering (regardless of who by).

In this specific case, it has been demonstrated that Rich has proven he cannot be trusted to use automated tools solely to the benefit of the project. Until such time that Rich regains the trust of the community (which will likely be several months at minimum and definitely not be until Rich demonstrates he understands why he lost it in the first place) I suggest that SilkTork's statement, "[N]o automated tools, and if in doubt if the tool is automated, then it should be regarded as automated.", is the one that will produce the least drama and thus be the best way forward.

As I see it there are only five possible ways forward, in decreasing order of my preference:

Rich takes a step back, groks why he lost the communities trust, lives with and works within the restrictions for a while, then gradually returns to unrestricted editing.
Rich continues to work within the restrictions without fully understanding why his actions led to them; the restrictions remain in place indefinitely.
Rich retires from Wikipedia
Rich breaches his restrictions and gets banned from Wikipedia.
Rich (and/or advocates) wikilawyer around his restrictions causing significant drama until the community looses its patience and bans Rich (and possibly one or more of the advocates).

SilkTork's interpretation of the restriction is the one with the greatest chance of avoiding the least desirable outcome. Thryduulf (talk) 23:10, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Uzma Gamal

"Rich Farmbrough is indefinitely prohibited from using any automation whatsoever on Wikipedia. For the purposes of this remedy, any edits that reasonably appear to be automated shall be assumed to be so. ... Should any user subject to a restriction or topic ban in this case violate that restriction or ban, that user may be blocked." Seems clear to me, particularly in view of Arbitrations findings of fact. If one click of a mouse or one press of the enter key on the keyboard results in two or more edits, that's automation. One click, one edit, is a manual edit and is not automation. There's no need to establish that one click resulted in two or more edits, the edits only need to reasonably appear to be automated for an admin to apply the Arbitration enforcement remedy. In other words, Rich no longer is entitled to benefits of Assume good faith when it comes to the appearance of his multiple edits. As a result, Rich Farmbrough, not the admin enforcing the Arbitration remedy, has the burden of proof and Rich Farmbrough's burden is to make sure that there is objective evidence of manual edits independent of Rich Farmbrough to avoid the Arbitration compelled assumption that his multiple edits are automated. Automation assisting a manual edit is not automation and if an admin knows Rich Farmbrough is using Twinkle, Huggle, Snuggle, or whatever to assist his one click, one edit, then a conclusion that such edits appear to be automated may not be reasonable. The Arbitration enforcement remedy is limited to blocking only, so revoking Rich Farmbrough's rollback rights is not an Arbitration enforcement remedy and not a basis to amend the arbitration remedies. The remedy is may be blocked, not must be blocked, so a decision on whether to block Rich Farmbrough for using MiszaBot, for example, to archive his talk page falls under the exercise of good admin judgment. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 09:31, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@ Beetstra 10:11, 23 May 2012: The remedy reads, "any edits that reasonably appear," not "any edit that reasonably appears." Per the Arbitration remedy itself, the determination of whether Rich Farmbrough is using automation to make edits can be based on looking at two or more edits themselves without having to review the tool or draw a conclusion on the tool used to make those edits. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 10:44, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@ Beetstra 12:02, 23 May 2012: No, that's not right. It's a two part test, not a one part test. The admin first asks whether Rich Farmbrough's edit(s) is from a one click, more than one edit tool. If yes, automation. If no or unclear, then the admin asks whether Rich Farmbrough's edits reasonably appear to be automated. If no, then no. If yes, Arbitration requires the admin to assume that the edits are automated and act based on that. The Arbitration remedy is that the admin then may block Rich Farmbrough. If the admin doesn't think it warranted to block Rich Farmbrough, then they don't have to. If there still is confusion, the solution is not to make a different remedy for remedy 2), the solution merely is to add to the remedy, e.g., 2.1) Rich Farmbrough is indefinitely prohibited from using AutoWikiBrowser. Most people don't use AWB or their own bots, so other than the desyop, the outcome really isn't that onerous of remedy. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 11:50, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Beetstra

@Uzma Gamal: 'If one click of a mouse or one press of the enter key on the keyboard results in two or more edits, that's automation.' - so, using WP:AWB is not automation: one click, one edit. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:11, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Uzma Gamal 2: with AWB, you do multiple edits - 2 clicks, 2 edits - 10 clicks, 10 edits - 5000 clicks, 5000 edits. They are all manual. According to your interpretation, the use of AWB would not be automation, yet, we are talking about AutoWikiBot. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:02, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And I wonder what would happen if Rich would do one single edit with AWB. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:09, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

All parties are reminded to comment in their sections only. Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 15:27, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrator views and discussion

This is a strawman. We can deal with specific requests for clarification that pose real problems. In the context of the case, automation is clearly intended to be that allowing an editor to modify multiple articles or other pages in rapid succession. Jclemens (talk) 16:10, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Note that the content of the amendment request has been substantially expanded since it was initially posted, and my "strawman" comment applied to the less refined request. Jclemens (talk) 02:06, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Per Jclemens' first two sentences. AGK [•] 19:17, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Uzma Gamal 10:44, 23 May 2012: I regret to say that I would find such an interpretation to be the most unadulterated wikilawyering, and I certainly think to refuse to consider for enforcement an automated edit because it was made singly would be to misjudge the purpose of the associated remedy. AGK [•] 21:56, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would be interested in an amendment to clarify "automation" as it is becoming a cause for concern that there is no consensus on the matter. I don't feel, though, that this amendment is helpful as the focus is too narrow. The concern regarding Rich is that he was not editing responsibly, and that using automation either encouraged, caused or multiplied the lack of responsibility. Principle 3 says "An automation tool is a technology designed to facilitate making multiple similar edits that would be unduly time-consuming or tedious for a human editor to perform manually." Any script or gadget or tool that makes a series of edits for the human, can be seen as automated. There are some that it would be highly unlikely would be a cause for concern if Rich used them (such as the one that with one click closes an AfD and does all the tedious stuff very efficiently), but I would say for the benefit of avoiding doubt, avoiding arguments, avoiding wikilayering, and avoiding having to ban Rich from the project, that we should have a simple and clear bright line - no automated tools, and if in doubt if the tool is automated, then it should be regarded as automated. My hope is that 12 months of unproblematic edits would lead to a lifting of the restriction. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 22:48, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Rich Farmbrough. It would be helpful if you acknowledged the concerns that people have about your editing, and gave some thought as to how you might address those concerns. You say above that it has not been demonstrated that you were not editing responsibly. It was found that you have two community restrictions on your editing - [8], and that you had violated those restrictions - [9]. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 09:03, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have any problem at all with Headbomb's proposal and think it addresses the problem very well. If there's any support for this, I'll propose that text as a replacement, Roger Davies ^talk 11:36, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Disagree with Roger, and would oppose that replacement. The need here is a total break from automation. Finding of fact 3 in the case shows why any wiggle-room is a bad idea, and why, in my mind, the remedy had to be so broad. Courcelles 03:13, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Aomie said it better than I did. There's no reason, like the recent Cirt/Jayren466 amendment, that for good cause, specific tasks can't be approved by motion down the line. Courcelles 03:17, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't consider Richrd Farmbrough's wording to be an improvement. On the other hand, I think Headbomb's wording is perhaps slightly better, and if this change is proposed, I'll support. PhilKnight (talk) 17:41, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I can't help but think that making a remedy talking about "mass editing" is going to cause anyhting else other than drama, due to large quanity of discussion about how many edits have to be made to qualify as "mass" editing. It would be good for us to make ..clearer.. what is and what isn't automation, but using terms like this introduces another term whose definition varies by the reader. Courcelles 03:57, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Not finding any of the proposed rewordings to be better than the original, and the initial proposal actually misses the point. I am not prepared to consider a rewording unless there is evidence that Rich's edits are considered to cross the line. Risker (talk) 13:42, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Risker that Headbomb's text offers a good attempt at a solution but it introduces its own problems. While I see vandal-fighting scripts and the like clearly different from automation in the sense of bot-assisted or batch actions, Courcelles makes a good point--based on the evidence in the case, it's best to simply put in place a clear restriction and then relax on a per-case basis afterwards. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 14:22, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Noting that the request has been withdrawn, so further action or discussion here is probably unnecessary. I am willing to consider concrete requests for clarification if uncertainties arise, but I think it would be useful for everyone to allow a bit more time to pass before raising such issues, and for Rich Farmbrough to focus on other aspects of the process that do not come close to the use of automation. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:59, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Amendment request: Rich Farmbrough (Ncmvocalist)

Amendment 2

Unblocking of SmackBot.

Change to:

Rich Farmbrough has on many occasions, after another administrator has placed a block on his bot account, used his administrative tools to unblock his own bot without first remedying the underlying issue to the blocking admin's satisfaction or otherwise achieving consensus for such unblock (see block logs of SmackBot, Helpful Pixie Bot).

Statement by uninvolved (?) Ncmvocalist

I am uninvolved in this case as far as I am aware, but I am still making this request. Frankly, the finding of fact leaves the Community with more to speculate about (and is prejudicial to the subject). I ask that if there is support for this amendment, that this be amendment be passed without delay (before more people read finding as it is currently written). Ncmvocalist (talk) 10:13, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Hammersoft, the current finding is a meaningless observation which only encourages others to further speculate; this amendment somewhat narrows down the reason of why arbs were concerned. Of course, there is no doubt this amendment is also somewhat vague, and clearly, had the drafter of this original finding taken the time to workshop and specify the entries that were especially problematic, this would have been useful to several users - including the subject of the case. But that did not happen; in fact, although the drafter made an observation in his proposing comment, he did not manage to fully incorporate that into the finding. It may not have been intentional, but it's just how it is. Still, at least Jclemens, Silktork and Philknight noticed that more specificity would be beneficial before the case was closed. It may so happen that some other arbitrators did not even notice, or if they did, were 'not fussed either way' that any further specificity was needed (be it before the finding was passed in its current wording, or as you might note from a comment below, in its aftermath) - I think it's a natural consequence of frequently pontificating, but maybe it's just that further evolution is necessary. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:53, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Beetstra

I would suggest to tie it down further, to specify for which specific unblocks this is a problem - this now suggests that ALL unblocks performed by Rich were problematic under the description of this (unless of course the committee wishes to say that ALL unblocks were really problematic and did not resolve the issues for which the block was applied). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:03, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Hammersoft

Since ArbCom is not required to show a tie between evidence and findings of fact (in my opinion, a serious failing in the structure we've asked them to follow), they can vaguely wave at block logs and say there was a problem without actually identifying what the problem was. This is akin to someone in court over a speeding ticket, and when the accused asks for evidence the prosecution says "look at your driving record". Such a response is woefully inadequate, but this is the construct we've asked ArbCom to perform within.

In this particular case, ArbCom could not seem to get its case straight as to what the problem actually was vis-a-vis the unblocking of bots. Evidence was presented which showed admins routinely unblock their own bots and that policy does not address this case. There is an ongoing RfC to address the issue. This amendment makes a statement not connected to evidence nor in anyway showing how Rich's behavior violated policy. As such, it is void. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:08, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Rich Farmbrough

This is terrible revisionism. Arbitrators would do better to simply strike this FoF which

is not backed by the evidence
does not inform any remedies

Changing it as suggested would give the appearance of revising the FoF to desperately find support for the poorly thought out and hastily enacted remedies.

Rich Farmbrough, 12:01, 22 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Guys and gals, - really? You are going to re-write a case ex post facto? This is moving into the realm of farce. Rich Farmbrough, 12:24, 24 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Statement by other editor

{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary. Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}

Clerk notes

This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and discussion

Hard to oppose my own proposed wording, which had two contemporaneous supports. It appears we never got around to modifying the principle, and I unsurprisingly agree that this wording better reflects the issue in this case. Jclemens (talk) 02:02, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I am minded to uphold this amendment in order to clarify the meaning of that finding, but all things considered I am not fussed either way. AGK [•] 10:39, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Supported the wording on the case. It looks like we just didn't get around to doing the modification as Jclemens says. I think we could encourage and support Clerks to be bold when checking through a case before closing, and to raise matters such as this, even if they look trivial. Better to delay the close of a case by a couple of days than to have to go through a post-case Amendment. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 11:07, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it would have been better to make this change. If another arb proposes this change, I'll support. PhilKnight (talk) 17:42, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Fine, with me. Let's make the change. Which is five out of five in favour. Roger Davies ^talk 02:27, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain since I was inactive in the voting on this case. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:02, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm all for the change. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 12:59, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Amendment request: Rich Farmbrough (Rich Farmbrough)

Initiated by Rich Farmbrough, 22:51, 20 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Case affected: Rich Farmbrough arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

Remedy 2

List of users affected by or involved in this amendment

Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that the above users are aware of this request

N/A

Amendment 1

Rich Farmbrough is indefinitely prohibited from using any automation whatsoever on Wikipedia. For the purposes of this remedy, any edits that reasonably appear to be automated shall be assumed to be so.

Append:

Rich to be allowed to use his talk page archiving task. Femto Bot task 2.

Statement by Rich Farmbrough

Note: Editors who have gathered that I am a loose cannon, may be interested to note that the BRFA for this task was almost turned down, since no BRFA is generally needed. However I preferred to have written authorisation. Much good it did me. Rich Farmbrough, 00:36, 21 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]

@ AGK. Not so, Misabot does not archive on request, but by date. Moreover it does not allow archiving to different destinations. Rich Farmbrough, 11:53, 22 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Statement by Hammersoft

Right. Rich is trusted enough to be an editor here, but he's not trusted enough to have a bot that does nothing but edit in his own userspace. From Wikipedia:Bot policy, "any bot or automated editing process that affects only the operator's or their own userspace (user page, user talk page, and subpages thereof), and which are not otherwise disruptive, may be run without prior approval." Any bot that he would run in his own userspace would affect only him, and not the project, unless someone wants to speculatively claim Rich is going to launch a DOS attack. Alternatively, you could speculate that if he's permitted to run a bot in his userspace, he'd maliciously set it free to attack the encyclopedia. If he was planning to do that, he wouldn't be asking permission to let the bot run in his userspace. Wow. The enormous lack of assumption of good faith, combined with the undermining of Wikipedia:Bot policy is stunning. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:44, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by CBM

It has to be asked: why aren't the existing archive bots that everyone else uses good enough? — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:47, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It does not have to be asked. Moreover it does not have to be asked by you, you could have bitten your tongue and walked away. That would have been a wise course of action. Rich Farmbrough, 11:51, 22 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Statement by Sladen

An offer[10] has now been made by User:28bytes to run the archiving task, if Rich provides the source code/accepts the offer. —Sladen (talk) 08:00, 24 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by other editor

{Other editors are free to comment on this amendment as necessary. Comments here should be directed only at the above proposed amendment.}

Clerk notes

This section is for administrative notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrator views and arbitrator discussion

Decline. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 09:05, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
An archival service like MiszaBot will be adequate. AGK [•] 10:34, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Decline Roger Davies ^talk 11:32, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Decline as existing tools will suffice SirFozzie (talk) 21:13, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Decline per above. Courcelles 03:50, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Decline. Risker (talk) 13:43, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Decline no need for his own bot for that purpose, anyhow. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 14:19, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If the request here is that Rich Farmbrough be allowed to use his own talkpage-archiving bot on his own talkpage only, then unless there is some complication I am missing, my vote would be to permit him to do so, on a theory of "what harm could it do?" It is obvious, however, that the arbitrator consensus is the other way, and I defer to it, especially since these are the arbitrators who participated in the voting phase of the recent case, during which I was unexpectedly inactive. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:56, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Decline And this can be archived now with an absolute majority of arbitrators declining. Jclemens (talk) 00:13, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Since the arbitrators did not understand the request, thinking that a standard archiving bot would suffice I have opened a new request. It is interesting that the habit of failing to notify me of anything important happening is continuing. Rich Farmbrough, 23:15, 26 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Motions to block or ban Rich Farmbrough

Motion RF1 (indefinite - one year appeal)

For this motion, there are 13 active arbitrators but 1 is recused, so 7 votes is a majority.

Proposed:

The Arbitration Committee has established (through the checkuser tool) that Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs) has, in recent days, used Wikipedia:WikiFunctions and other forms of automation. Use of such tools is in gross violation of the prohibition on his use of any form of scripting or automation to edit Wikipedia. Therefore, Rich Farmbrough is banned indefinitely from the English Wikipedia. He may appeal this ban after one year.

Votes RF1

Support

Proposed. This was pretty much what the arbitrators who voted to ban Rich in the first place had feared, and I confess myself seriously disappointed that their predictions on the case pages proved correct. AGK [•] 23:50, 31 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Changed to oppose, as explained in my re-vote. AGK [•] 15:07, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Regretfully. We've made the desire that you continue to contribute to the project without using any automation at all as clear as reasonable, and then some. You've repaid us for our leniency by wikilawyering everything in sight. None of this was necessary, and I personally counseled you to take a Wikibreak and reflect before coming back. I wish you had chosen that path, rather than this one. Jclemens (talk) 01:56, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
2nd choice after RF3. The evidence strongly suggests that Rich has been using AWB in one browser and then copying and pasting the edits in another browser, and for two edits he made a mistake and used the wrong browser. As Rich has been caught and now admits using AWB, a ban is the only option. A short block would be inappropriate as it is clear that he cannot be trusted to a) stay away from automation and b) be honest. Even when caught he tried to wriggle out of it until the evidence couldn't be denied. A short block would be like playing battleships, allowing Rich another shot at hitting the target of concealing his automation. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 02:05, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The question is this. Is this a one-time, two edit mistake, or is this trying to modify the tools in such a way as to be undetectable via standard means. What is not in dispute is that Rich made at least two edits using a version that skirts usual controls of its use. The CU evidence, does not, I believe, bear out Rich's story that this was a two-edit mistake. I don't buy it, and the only way left to stop him evading his sanction is, sadly, this. I don't like it, but that's what's left. Courcelles 02:08, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Per Courcelles. Kirill ^[talk] 02:11, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Second choice. Firstly, the apparent deception is an aggravating factor and that justifies extending the ban beyond one month. On the other hand, whether a minimum period of twelve months is too long is an entirely different question. I'm supporting this for now mainly because I'd like assurances from Rich Farmbrough before any ban is lifted and this remedy provides for that. If there's a glimmer of consensus for reducing the waiting period before reconsideration say to three or six months, I'll propose an alternative along those lines, Roger Davies ^talk 05:35, 1 June 2012 (UTC) Striking for now, Roger Davies ^talk 23:42, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Second choice. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 19:36, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Excessive. The case already provides for an initial block of one month. I think that is more reasonable. In particular, refusing to even consider an appeal for a full year is completely out of proportion to the violation. Risker (talk) 02:46, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, here's my (lengthy) thoughts after going over this whole situation in my head time and time again. It's obvious from our review that Rich had no willingness to comply with the injunction. He went so far as to prepare his edits using automation, and then copy them into Wikipedia manually. This does breach the letter of the restriction, and it mangles the spirit of it all to heck and back. For that, I think he needs to take some time away from Wikipedia, get rid of automation, come back as a regular editor, and work his way back into the Community's trust. I think a fixed block/ban of several months would be the best way to solve that. Quite frankly, I don't blame my fellow arbs for thinking the ban above is a fair and just response. The path to getting rid of restrictions you don't believe in isn't to go ahead and violate them secretly, it's to show that the reason for them no lnger applies. However, the fact that when caught he immediately A)Owned up to it, B) Apologized (not to us.. but to his supporters) for it, and C) indicated that he would accept any ban placed here tips the scales for me into opposing this ban and proposing a shorter, fixed term ban. SirFozzie (talk) 03:00, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This situation is problematic and may be deteriorating, and I understand the reasons in favor of the motion; nonetheless, largely per Risker and SirFozzie, I would impose a less severe sanction. Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:12, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Per the comments above, prefer a shorter, fixed term ban. PhilKnight (talk) 03:25, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I can see the rationale, but my preference is a shorter term at this point. Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:50, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Re-voted: Further to this discussion I am satisfied that Rich accepts that, even if his automation is not exposed again by CheckUser, further edits even vaguely reminiscent of AutoWikiBrowser or other automation will be considered a breach of the existing restrictions. I consider this discussion to have extended to Rich an extraordinary final chance, and I will conclude from any further such breaches that the automation ban is completely unworkable and that a site-ban is the only feasible remedy. AGK [•] 15:07, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Abstain

Comments by arbitrators

The explanation given on the ArbCom mailing list is that Rich Farmbrough has used AWB after altering it not to leave an edit summary, but that it has left a trace signature which CheckUser has picked up. Given his clear frustration at the case result in which he was banned from using automation, and which he has been protesting about in various places, and that it was proposed in that case that he be banned because he was likely to do something like this, it seems highly likely that this is what has happened. However, I am prepared to wait 24 hours to allow Rich Farmbrough to explain himself. If he is unable to satisfactorily explain the situation then I agree that a ban is more appropriate than a block because a ban was proposed in the case and narrowly avoided by some of us wishing to allow Rich Farmbrough a chance to prove himself. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 01:04, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Waiting, as per SilkTork. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 01:08, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

First off, Rich, thank you for being honest and forthright, not only to us, but to the supporters who have backed you in these past weeks. That's going to play a role in any vote I make. I think I'm still going to vote for a ban, but I think I might put a fixed-length time ban on the table instead of the indefinite with an appeal after a year that has been proposed. I need to spend some time thinking about it. SirFozzie (talk) 02:04, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Concur. I do not believe we are in a position to do anything except issue a site-ban of significant duration, but I do hope there may be a successful appeal at some point. AGK [•] 11:39, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Motion RF2 (six month ban)

For this motion, there are 13 active arbitrators but 1 is recused, so 7 votes is a majority.

Proposed:

The Arbitration Committee has established (through the checkuser tool) that Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs) has, in recent days, used Wikipedia:WikiFunctions and other forms of automation, taking steps to conceal the automation used in preparing his edits. Use of such tools is in gross violation of the prohibition on his use of any form of scripting or automation to edit Wikipedia. Therefore, Rich Farmbrough is banned for six months from the English Wikipedia. When this ban expires, Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs) must show at least a further six months of trouble free editing before any appeal to remove or loosen the restriction on automation will be heard.

Votes RF2

Support

Rich went to a lot of trouble to try to conceal his use of automation. I don't think we can let that slide without at least some action here. However, the fact that when he was caught, he admitted to it, and apologized to his defenders for disappointing them is the reason I did not support the indefinite ban above. I think it would be best for Rich if he took this time off and came back, and showed that he can edit successfully without any use of automation. SirFozzie (talk) 03:16, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
During the recent ArbCom case, I supported a 3 month ban, so given the recent automated editing in defiance of the ban, 6 months seems about right. PhilKnight (talk) 03:22, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

The evidence is of a willful and highly deliberate effort to circumvent the sanctions. And Rich only fessed up, not when asked, but when shown proof beyond any ability to deny. This won't be fixed by sending him away for 180 days, the problems here are fairly fundamental. Letting him ask to come back in six months would be one thing, but not an automatic return. Courcelles 03:40, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Opposing for the opposite reason as Courcelles; I think that six months is too severe for this first violation of the sanctions. Granted, it is not as if Rich Farmbrough had a trouble-free record up until that point (or we wouldn't have had a case in the first place), but even so. The decision calls for a block of up to one month for a first offense. I think that would be more than sufficient and even that would arguably be excessive. Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:00, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Opposing because such bans, being preventative, shouldn't come with a sunset. As I've indicated in #Votes RF1, I'd consider a shorter ban than a year (perhaps even a much shorter ban than one year) providing there's an opportunity to review the position based on input from Rich Farmbrough about modified behaviour prior to lifting it. Roger Davies ^talk 05:41, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I would be in favour of hearing an appeal after six months, but I have been convinced by previous arguments that fixed term bans are more in the nature of punitive than preventive, and would rather have assurances in six months time that any banned person has recognised they were causing a problem and what steps they would take to prevent further problems. Giving that Rich was informed that his editing is a problem and was restricted in October 2010, which is more than six months ago, I don't see the mere passage of time as being a convincing argument that he will amend his ways, especially as he has long shown that he is in denial that his behaviour is a problem, and doesn't go along with consensus, which is the basic model of how Wikipedia operates. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 08:35, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
AGK [•] 11:31, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
per comment I made above. Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:51, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Per Courcelles. Kirill ^[talk] 14:08, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Per SilkTork Jclemens (talk) 01:42, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Abstain

Comments by arbitrators

Motion RF3 (indefinite - six month appeal)

For this motion, there are 13 active arbitrators but 1 is recused, so 7 votes is a majority.

Proposed:

The Arbitration Committee has established (through the checkuser tool) that Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs) has, in recent days, used Wikipedia:WikiFunctions and other forms of automation. Use of such tools is in gross violation of the prohibition on his use of any form of scripting or automation to edit Wikipedia. Therefore, Rich Farmbrough is banned indefinitely from the English Wikipedia. He may appeal this ban after six months.

Votes RF3

Support

First choice. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 08:41, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
~~First choice. I'm okay with this too. Roger Davies ^talk 08:47, 1 June 2012 (UTC)~~ Striking for now, Roger Davies ^talk 23:52, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Very reluctantly. I'm afraid of all that changes between proposal 1 and this one is when the first appeal will be declined, I would much prefer a fixed length ban. But I hope six months down the road, the ill will and frustration we all feel at being in this situation will have faded and we can grant an appeal at that time. SirFozzie (talk) 10:39, 1 June 2012 (UTC). Switching to procedural oppose, as we discuss something less then a full ban here. if it makes a difference, I prefer this motion over 1, but I'm trying to see if we can keep this open long enough to hash out something agreeable to the committee as a whole. SirFozzie (talk) 23:31, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

On reflection, I agree with Jclemens and Casliber's comments - this isn't substantially different from an indefinite ban. PhilKnight (talk) 23:51, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If and only if motion 1 does not pass, otherwise this is an oppose. Courcelles 13:34, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Second choice. Kirill ^[talk] 14:08, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
First choice. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 19:37, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If and only if motion 1 does not pass, otherwise this is an oppose, per Courcelles. Six months is December, with the same committee. I think Rich's violation of our good faith has been so extensive that I would be hard pressed to imagine a world in which he would be let back in in six months. I personally have no particular qualms with this being more severe than past appeal timetables--not because Rich is any better or worse than anyone else, but because we've never accepted an appeal from a case-banned user in six months during my tenure on the committee, so the fact that we'll "hear" such an appeal is just a polite fiction. Jclemens (talk) 01:47, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

A secondary motive of the first motion is to send Rich away for long enough that he changes his perspective. Half a year doesn't really do that. AGK [•] 11:34, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Per my comments on motion. I understand completely why my colleagues deplore Rich Farmbrough's recent behavior, and everyone can be assured that I am not impressed with it either. Nonetheless, I am not prepared to conclude that this editor must be separated from the project for such a period of time. Newyorkbrad (talk) 12:34, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Help us here, Brad ;) What do you conclude is an appropriate period of time? Roger Davies ^talk 12:48, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A few days would be ample. A month would clearly be enough. I think from his comments today that it is possible that Rich Farmbrough is getting the message, and I want to see how that plays out before we send away for months an editor with close to one million edits on this project. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:26, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This won't work as we'll be arguing about whether to lift it in six months. Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:55, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Concur with Casliber. Risker (talk) 00:03, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Proceedural Oppose. for the moment. SirFozzie (talk) 23:31, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
PhilKnight (talk) 23:51, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Abstain

Comments by arbitrators

Proposing this as a midway point between the existing two motions, and also as it fits better with my own feelings. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 08:41, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Motion RF4 (three month ban)

For this motion, there are 13 active arbitrators but 1 is recused, so 7 votes is a majority.

Proposed:

The Arbitration Committee has established (through the checkuser tool) that Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs) has, in recent days, used Wikipedia:WikiFunctions and other forms of automation, taking steps to conceal the automation used in preparing his edits. Use of such tools is in gross violation of the prohibition on his use of any form of scripting or automation to edit Wikipedia. Therefore, Rich Farmbrough is banned for three months from the English Wikipedia. When this ban expires, Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs) must show at least a further six months of trouble free editing before any appeal to remove or loosen the restriction on automation will be heard.

Votes RF4

Support

Proposing this for two reasons - (i) fixed is fixed, so we don't waste time arguing the point once it's wound up, and (ii) it's a transgression of the decision we made. The reason for the shorter length is because I am still getting my head around the fact we have an editor with a million edits and until very recently was an admin can end up perma-banned so quickly. Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:01, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Equal second choice. PhilKnight (talk) 13:42, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
~~First and only choice.~~ I don't think, for a user who has been on Wikipedia for hours of just about every day for years on end, that this is a "useless" ban; I think this will have a more effective impact than an even longer one, because there is the hope of returning. Risker (talk) 00:06, 2 June 2012 (UTC) Now second choice. Risker (talk) 14:09, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

For the same reasons as motion2,except this one is pretty much useless as a ban term goes, even if you think fixed bans are useful. Courcelles 13:36, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Kirill ^[talk] 14:09, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Useless. AGK [•] 14:50, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Still excessive, in my view, per my comments on the motions above. However, this vote can be counted as very reluctant support if it makes the difference between this motion passing and one of the earlier ones. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:28, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not comfortable making an assumption about someone's mindset in three or six months times - I'd rather get the feedback at the time and make an assessment then. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 00:32, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The time for this is past. We should have banned him for a month right off the bat, to give him time to get his mindset straight. If there's anything I regret about this case, it's not enacting a short-duration ban right off the bat, to get through to Rich that no, we were not going to reconsider things, and his status with respect to the project was changed for the foreseeable future. I'm afraid that by allowing Rich (and certain other editors in good standing who empowered his challenges) free rein to attack the process, Rich developed an "I'm going to get ArbCom!" mindset, which probably helped him justify his WP:MEATBOT behavior. Unfortunate, indeed, but now is not the time for such gentle measures. Jclemens (talk) 01:52, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Motion RF5 (30 day block)

The Arbitration Committee has established (through the checkuser tool) that Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs) has, in recent days, used Wikipedia:WikiFunctions and other forms of automation, has taken steps to conceal the automation used in preparing his edits, and thus is in flagrant violation of his editing restrictions.

Ordinarily, because of the aggravating factors, a ban of significant length would be contemplated. While noting that this editor's prior contributions are not grounds for exoneration, the Committee nevertheless is prepared to accept on this one occasion his past work in mitigation. Rich Farmbrough is therefore blocked for thirty days from the English Wikipedia.

After the block expires, Rich Farmbrough is encouraged to work constructively within the limits of his restriction and advised that once he can demonstrate at least six months of trouble free editing he may request reconsideration of the restriction on automation.

Votes RF5

Support

I am prepared to accept that Rich Farmbrough did not act typically on this occasion and will therefore give him the benefit of doubt. I also see this very much as a wake up call. Roger Davies ^talk 12:36, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
First choice. In answer to your question, Kirill: I believe that if Rich is going to have a change of heart, it won't take longer than 30 days for it to happen. Now, he might never have a change of heart, but it is no less likely to happen in 30 days than in 365. Risker (talk) 14:08, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Equal second choice. PhilKnight (talk) 15:49, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In my view, more reasonable and proportionate than other choices. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:58, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, in line with infraction. Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:37, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Jclemens (talk) 12:55, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Does anyone really believe that Rich will have a fundamental change of heart in the next 30 days? Kirill ^[talk] 12:59, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think that RIch needs more time away from Wikipedia than this provides. SirFozzie (talk) 14:06, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The effort spent to conceal his evasion of sanctions (and no semantics, he flat out knew they were an evasion of sanctions, he was just surprised to have screwed up in such a basic manner. Rich and Wikipedia need to seperate for a time, and then rebuild the bridges he burnt down because he was going to do it his way, come hell or high water. SirFozzie (talk) 22:12, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The length of the ban is not the issue here, it is that we don't know either now or at the end of the period if Rich will be ready to adjust his behaviour. This motion has no mechanism in place for making an assessment of his attitude. That is important because it is Rich's attitude that is the issue. It is not that he has had a heated response in a certain topic area, or with certain individuals which might warrant a short block, it is that his approach to editing sometimes needs adjusting through negotiation and compromise, and he has shown himself unwilling to do that. He has been given a chance to show he can work within reasonable parameters (the same parameters that the majority of Wikipedians use - not unreasonable or restrictive sanctions), and he has demonstrated that he is unwilling or unable to do that, even with the threat of a 30 day block hanging over him. Until he changes his attitude, and is prepared to stop contentious editing on request, discuss the concerns in a reasonable and polite manner, and then make appropriate adjustments to his editing in line with consensus, regardless of whether he thinks it is right or wrong, then he will continue to be a problem. It may be worth going back to the principles and findings in the case to remind ourselves why we are considering this ban. Plus, we have not convened the Committee to decide on an action that a single AE admin can action today - [11]. The reason we are here discussing it is, I have assumed, because we feel that the situation is serious enough for us to go further than the enforcement remedy. Having said all that, I would not object to an indef ban with a shorter review period of three months if it is the length of the ban that is causing this impasse. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 15:27, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Not nearly sufficient for the intentional effort to hide evasion of sanctions. Courcelles 18:13, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Abstain

Comments

General discussion (RF x 5)

Whoa! Do you think I'm a complete idiot? ^{[notes 1]} I just posted on my talk page that I was aware that Arbs could see my user agent string.

I am awaiting the response from AGK to which edits are claimed to have this user-agent string, and have asked Rjwilmsi to email me to establish if there is any possibility that the code could post on it's own.

Rich Farmbrough, 23:58, 31 May 2012 (UTC).[reply]

The privacy policy precludes disclosure of the information in question, but I have responded to your e-mail. AGK [•] 00:42, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that I may have inadvertently made two edits correcting spellings using AWB, although I am still not clear how this happened, I do of course accept that it is a breach of the decision, and accept a ban. Rich Farmbrough, 01:31, 1 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]

^ [Actually it seem I am. But in a different way.]

Rich, I'm willing to listen here. I can accept that you're having a really difficult time making the transition back to editing without tools. I'd really prefer not to impose a longterm ban. But you're going to have to help us here. I suggest you start by reviewing your monobook.js and stripping out anything that could possibly lead you into temptation; just remove those scripts, they'll still be in the page history in the future. (I don't think any of us even considered touching your monobook.js, which I think most editors view as being a very personal page; it would kind of be the online equivalent of rooting around in your underwear drawer.) Second, start looking for categories where you can make a difference without using scripts or AWB or any other form of automated editing. Join the Guild of Copyeditors, or look for references for BLP stubs, or just keep clicking "random article" and trying to improve each article that comes up. This is going to be hard, I know. And perhaps it is necessary for you to take a break for a bit to help you change your editing habits; right now, there is a very good chance that such a break might be of the "enforced" kind. But if you want to continue to participate in the project, this is how it's going to have to be. I'd rather have you helping to improve the project, if you can find a way to do that without extra tools, but ultimately it's up to you to figure out how you can do that. Risker (talk) 02:05, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's extremely positive. I don't have to look for things to improve on Wikipedia - and this is something that NewYorkBrad was interested in, they find me. Either by requests or because I see something wrong. In the latter case not being able to fix it would be an irritant, just as it is in printed matter or on most web sites - but no more after a day or so - and remember I just had a month with no article edits, though annoyingly I did not get much of a break. Similarly doing stuff manually is annoying. But in the short term it's not my loss if one article gets fixed instead of a hundred. And I don't have to deal with people who think I added tags that the Pixie dated, not that I minded. I'm not sure what you mean by "a really difficult time making the transition back to editing without tools" if you mean it in the same way you might say to the engineer fixing your car "I guess you are finding it really hard to do up all those nuts by hand" then yes, having deliberate obstacles thrown in one's path is difficult. Antifacilitation is by no means an unusual trope, but it is always an annoying one (and generally harmful). If on the other hand you are implying that I have a compulsion to use automation, not so. Back when I was sorta half allowed to use automation, compared with now when I'm sorta half not allowed, I was aware that I was doing far more manually than I should, partly because I hadn't invented the tools, partly because of the rules, and partly because it's so much easier just to do a few more edits, than actually crack the process and fix it. And by process I mean both the extrinsic and intrinsic aspects. Rich Farmbrough, 12:59, 1 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Rich, you're not "sorta half not allowed". You're not allowed, period. Similarly, your editing restrictions are still in effect, and you have been violating those as well. There's only so much that people can do to argue against a lengthy ban when you seem to go out of your way to encourage one. I had been letting your edits slide without comment to give you a chance to calm down, but the use of AWB seems to have brought the issue to a head. Can you give any assurance that you will follow the arbcom sanctions and your edit restrictions when you are allowed to edit again? — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:29, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The committee cannot decide what constitutes automation. That was my point. They said I think that rollback is allowed. Other attempts at clarification have failed. Rich Farmbrough, 13:51, 1 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Rich, I don't think anyone (including you) thought that AWB (including your personal modification of it) is anything other than automated editing. AWB is in no way comparable to rollback. Risker (talk) 18:21, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It is quite remarkable that Rich Farmbrough saved any edits with AWB (because he is not listed on the check page). Nevertheless, the ban on automation has been effective, so far, in reducing the scope of the problematic editing, and Rich has taken up editing content on turtles, which is a positive development. Any "nontrivial" use of automation would be visible in Rich's contribs, but I have not seen any evidence of that. Given that there was use of AWB somehow, it appears from the editing history to have been unintentional. I would like to argue for a significant block (e.g. two weeks or one month) in lieu of a one-year ban, with the proviso that additional violations would lead to more severe sanctions. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:08, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Responding to SilkTork's comment of 02:05, 1 June 2012, I agree that is a real risk, but I think that the edit history will reveal if "hidden" automation is used to actually do anything. It's been apparent from the edit history (without any checkuser info) that Rich was still using some sort of code to remove whitespace etc., and was still occasionally violating his edit restriction, but the scope was so small that I didn't see a benefit in raising the issue. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:12, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The job of ArbCom is to to act as a final binding decision-maker.

all models are wrong, but some are useful
— George Box

While arbcom is "not a court" they are much more like a court than a legislature or executive. In the Rich Farmborough decision, rathering than rendering a final decision, in expounding this "relax on a per-case basis afterwards" ArbCom appears to have set itself up as some sort of probation officer / nanny -- not a "judicial" function.

The admissions [12] [13] a change was needed because ArbCom didn't finish the job in the first place are troubling. Traditionally ArbCom has taken the time needed to craft complete decisions (even if some editors complain when they run past decision date estimates).

Unfortunately, now, having painted itself into a metaphorical corner, ArbCom is faced with the ridiculous decision point of banning a long term prolific editor for correcting spelling mistakes??? At least two of you (JClemens, AGK) concurred on 19 May that "In the context of the case, automation is clearly intended to be that allowing an editor to modify multiple articles or other pages in rapid succession." can't find diff right now cause of page move.

But there's good news -- it's not real paint...

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Did Wikipedia elect little minds to ArbCom? I think not.

Do the right thing. Suspend the decision, go back and hash out a workable defined of automation so Rich & the admin corps & the community knows what is allowed and what is not without ridiculous restrictions against spellcheck. Nobody Ent 02:15, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think everyone realizes that going out of your way to edit the source code of AWB so that you can run it violates a restriction against all forms of automation. The name of the program is autowikibrowser, after all. The main question to me is whether a one-year block is proportional. I can see the arguments on both sides, but I think a shorter time off might be reasonable. In any case the issue here is not the arbcom decision, however flawed it might be. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:22, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think before Arbcom decides to ban Rich they need to perform some due diligence and find out A) How did AWB post edits for Rich when he has been removed from the AWB checkuser page and B)Clearly define in non vague terms what his automation ban covers. Its still entirely too wishy washy to be enforceable. Aside from that, his ban is working and holding these 2 unconfirmed edits against him is just petty and not in the best interests of the pedia. This is of course what the Arbcom has been trying to do since the case was opened and it was only a matter of time before something was brought up. I am not surprised that this happened but I am a little curious why the checkuser tool was used to check on Rich's edits unless there was some reason to do so other than just sheer curiousity. Kumioko (talk) 02:32, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Concur with Kumioko. But, it's already 5-0. ArbCom just needed an excuse. Now they have a paper airplane of one. --Hammersoft (talk) 02:39, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Carl: Allow me to explain my own thinking. In discovering these directly-automated edits, we realised that Rich has a copy of AWB on his computer that is tweaked to skip the security check. In reviewing his recent edits (many of which, for example, only remove white-space or single spaces from templates, or change the template's case), it also seems as though he is using automated assistance for those. My own suspicion is that he is loading and previewing the edit in "Rich's AWB", then copying the edit over and making it in his browser; the handful of exceptions where he directly edited from AWB were misclicks. In any case, why do you suppose that he would be any less inclined to automate his edits after a week or a few months than a longer period of time? Where does this end? How much time to we devote to working with this editor to allow him to continue editing, if he'll just side-step us at every juncture and do it his own way anyway?

Hammersoft: You know that we gave Rich a last chance (by choosing an automation ban over a site ban) in the arbitration case. You know that I was the first arbitrator to oppose the site-ban. Now you imply that this is all some form of "cover-up" for a secret plot to site-ban him all along. This is utter nonsense, and you know it. AGK [•] 11:28, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I understand that argument, and I share the concern. I had seen the recent edits already, and it was apparent that he either had code to perform various changes or was going out of his way to make it look like he did. Those who had dealt with Rich before already knew that he had a modified version of AWB on his main account,[14] although I don't know if that ever came up during the arbcom case. I agree that some sanction is justified, but I think that a year is too long given that there have also been some signs of improvement. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:59, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"many of which, for example, only remove white-space or single spaces from templates, or change the template's case" I asked you by mail for an example. When you gave an example you gave you said "apart from fixing the typo". I accept the possibility that I may have made such an edit but I find it unlikely. Rich Farmbrough, 13:46, 1 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]

It doesn't matter; you are entirely prohibited from making various cosmetic changes, whether they are made in conjunction with other changes or not. Arguing about whether other changes were made is just a distraction from the issue. Can you give some assurance that you will follow your edit restrictions when your ban expires? — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:54, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Since I'm recused as an Arb, I'm going to post down here. Rich is in the position of someone topic banned from Israel-Palestine under WP:ARBPIA who had been editing Six-Day War. It doesn't matter what his edits are, he's banned from using AWB and he used it. The thing isn't sentient (I hope) - it didn't turn itself on. But I do think any kind of a ban is excessive. There was a remedy of increasing blocks - block his ass for a month (or however long the first one was). And tell him to strip all the stuff out of his monobook.js...just in case it decides to start editing as well. Elen of the Roads (talk) 10:40, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, Rich is in the position of being banned from Foo, and nobody has defined what Foo is. Some members of ArbCom think rollback is automation and some don't, for example. Is using AWB to find something automation? If it is, why isn't using Google search? Is using AWB to generate an edit that it then copied from one window to another automation? Some arbs think it requires more than that, that it requires changing multiple articles at speed (another undetermined metric). Rich was set up to fail by this decision. I'm not going to claim he's perfect. I'm not going to claim he's the antithesis of perfect. Why? Because I CAN'T using the arbitrary and vague metrics ArbCom came up with. If he comes back from this ban, what's he supposed to do? Say "I won't use automation"? What's the definition? A crime isn't a crime if you don't define what it is. --Hammersoft (talk) 12:58, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You guys are just looking for a martyr arent't you. And you call yourselves his friends. Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:34, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No Elen, I do not call him my friend, nor call myself his friend. I have no friends here, and have no desire to have any. That would require me to be subservient to social capital. I am not. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:36, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Elen, Hammersoft is quite right to take that approach, if he believes it is the right. While we diverge over several points relating to the current situation, we both believe in expressing ourselves without fear or favour. In my case I will do it despite social capital, despite position, despite authority, despite power. This has been ascribed to me being "angry" or "frustrated" or "not internalizing my guilt" or similar motives. It is not, I have seen anomalies, I report them in good faith, and it is interesting and somewhat heartening to see who takes them in good faith, at least apparently. There is more work to do, but it will probably take a couple of years to create and implement the needed reforms, and while I think it important it I am sure there are many in the community who will tackle the task. Rich Farmbrough, 14:10, 1 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Elen no one is looking for a Martyr but what we are looking for is leadership. There is no reason for Arbcom to continue to dodge the question that has been pointed out repeatedly. Arbcom needs to be clear with their determinations or expect pushback from the community when they fail to do so. If Arbcom would make a clear determination of what an automated edit is this would be a big benefit to their credibility but what I and Hammersoft and others have been stating is that even among the members of Arbcom there is no clear idea of what no automation means. There is no standard punishment of violations (thats currently being depated in a motion so thats good). Arbcom has up till recently been free to do as they wish but their decisions have become more and more erratic so additional controls are needed. Thats the bottom line. Kumioko (talk) 14:19, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

All this is flannel. Rich was very clearly topic banned from using AutoWikiBrowser to make edits. He used it to make edits. Arbcom would probably find it easier to impose a lesser sanction if you lot weren't creating drama and posting what to me appears to be frank nonsense all the time, and making it look as if Rich is ignoring the sanction because you are all encouraging him to do so. Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:41, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I view it a bit different. If Arbcom had any clarity whatsoever in their decision or their method for arriving at it a lot of this "drama" would have been avoided. Since Arbcom seems incapable or unwilling to give any definitive statement on the results or methods of the trial it leaves a lot of holes in what and how they arrived their. When Arbcom cannot even define what automation is there is or how it should be enforced pushing the blame on us is just nonesense. Arbcom is the one that set Rich up for failure by creating a vague determination that was left wide open to interpretation or misinterpretation. The way it was worded Arbcom clearly never intended for Rich to be able to edit and it was only a matter of time before he did a series of edits that in some way could be construed as automation. I agree it was a poor decision on his part to make it easy but I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that it would have happened soon either way. If you want us to quite complaining then make better and more clearly defined decisions. Then we will have nothing to complain about! Kumioko (talk) 14:52, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And just to add a bit of clarity, I do view the sanctions against Rich as mostly baseless and banning him or any other long time editor from editing is both counterproductive to building an encyclopedia and pointless. I also think that banning him for a year for breaking a nearly baseless sanction based almost primarily on minor edits is also just about as poor of a decision as anyone could make. Kumioko (talk) 15:01, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No Elen, I am not encouraging Rich to ignore the sanctions. In fact, I very pointedly advised him against it. I understand there's a desire to ascribe feelings to people who are upset about this decision. Please do not do so, without evidence. Thank you. As to the use of AWB; you state that Rich was clearly topic banned from using it. Could you please point to where this was made clear, in that AWB was specifically mentioned? Subsequent to the case closing, there were discussions regarding what on-wiki tools should be considered automation or not. There was no consensus on that, so far as I'm aware. But, maybe I missed it. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:54, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hammer and Kumioko - more flannel. Do you guys not realise that by suggesting that Rich is too...what...stupid?... to realise that editing using AWB counts as automated editing, you're making it more likely that he would just be banned, because really, what would the alternative be for someone who was so incompetent that they didn't think AWB was included in a ban on automated editing. Why don't you buy him a headstone while you're at it. Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:12, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You know Elen for an Arbcom member I am hearing a whole lot of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT or at least{{WP:IDONTCARE]], neither is particularly encouraging. I don't really expect Arbcom to change their minds in this case or even agree with me on this case but if any of what I am saying sinks in and causes mambers to reevaluate how they review and comment on future cases then I feel my time is better spent. As with some of the recent motions for changes which are a positive sign. To answer your question non I don't think Rich is stupid, I do think that Rich, as with many of us are frustrated by Arbcoms complete failure to properly adjudicate the case in a fair and unbiased manner. Kumioko (talk) 15:47, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom has failed to provide a workable definition of automated, AWB describes it as "semi-automated". Nobody Ent 20:19, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You mostly struggled to communicate what was intended the first time; there was some improvements over time, though there were some clearly unanswered questions remaining too. Now, the first thought given to enforcing the existing decision is apparently an indefinite ban motion which locks his ability to appeal until after 1 year. And apparently, even that is headed by the same person who started using CU access in this case. Is it any wonder that you appear, to some people, to invite the sorts of allegations which have been raised here? Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:00, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It is irresponsible to pass unenforceable sanctions; if ArbCom was unable to come up with workable definition of restrictions that would allow RF to edit while preventing disruption due to excessive automated edits, it would have been better to simply ban the editor in the first place. In addition to the previously documented variance in arbitrators statements regarding the scope of the ban, the User rights log, with multiple recent changes including an arbitrator reverting the action of a arbcom clerk, clearly shows that the committee itself didn't know what the sanction meant, let alone the rest of the community. Wikipedia editing is a client server interaction; the only thing that ArbCom has control over is the server side, so restrictions should only reference that. A professional coder could easily implement an automated client that would be indistinguisable from a browser. The fact that AWB user agent strings were detected indicates either programming error or intentional limit testing, not that the sanction is valid. The WP:ARBPIA analogy is a false one, as all involved components of the restriction are server side. As I'm seeing seven votes for one or more of the proposals I anticipate this discussion will terminate soon; if an appeal is heard in the future I urge the committee to ensure any restrictions are clearly defined, reasonable, and comphrehensible to itself, the restricted party, and the rest of the community. Nobody Ent 20:19, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This totally sucks; Rich is useful and skilled. Do-over. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 02:34, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I second Br'er Rabbit here: Do-over (though I do not trust that ArbCom can do it properly - their solution will be the same, or harsher, but still without properly being able to show the proper evidence for it - e.g. ArbCom bans Rich from using automation on his main account while not being able to show that he is substantially and continuously abusing automation on his main account and while not being able to define what is the automation that he was abusing and not being able to define the boundaries of what is automation). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:23, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Adding comment here from User:Varlaam that was added to the voting section for motion RF1. Carcharoth (talk) 07:58, 2 June 2012 (UTC) Excessive. Cutting off the nose to spite the face.[reply]
Fixed term of four weeks sounds right to me. Varlaam (talk) 07:31, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Use of checkuser

Who has been using checkuser to investigate Rich and when were each of these checkusers done? --Hammersoft (talk) 02:57, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Hammersoft, in answer to your query, AGK was the first person to checkuser Rich, which was in the last 12 hours. After AGK informed the rest of the committee of his findings, other arbs, including me, have confirmed the result. PhilKnight (talk) 03:31, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

When specifically in the last 12 hours. Timestamp, please. --Hammersoft (talk) 03:33, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In any event the m:CheckUser policy is quite broad in allowing use to 'limit disruption', there would be no violation if RIch was routinely checkusered during the period that he is banned from using automation. There is no requirement that a separate new reason has to be established for each use of the tool, the arbcom sanction in itself justifies it. — Carl (CBM · talk)

Oh for heaven's sake, Hammersoft. Take a look at Rich's recent editing history. Most of them are almost exactly the same type of edits he was doing before he was sanctioned - except for archiving the talk page of an arbitrator with whom he had just had a recent dispute. That was practically begging for arbitrators to look at his contribs, see he was doing the same thing, and verify that he was or was not using an automated tool. It would have been a great kindness on the part of his supporters to help Rich to adjust to editing without scripts and tools rather than to keep fighting a battle that had already been decided. Now he's shot himself in the foot using a hacked version of AWB, but he managed to screw that up too. Risker (talk) 03:42, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't really matter how or why, the end result is how it was always going to be. He did make it easier for Arbcom to make the decision but the way the sanctions were written it was an open ended noose waiting for a neck. I think its a great loss to the pedia and I hope he chooses to participate in one of the sister projects like commons where his edits are wanted. I have had a problem with the decision from day one and this is just another aspect that sours my opinion of Arbcom and the pedia. Kumioko (talk) 04:04, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I asked for a timestamp. --Hammersoft (talk) 12:49, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yesterday evening (UTC). AGK [•] 13:38, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I want a date and time stamp, for example: 13:47, 1 June 2012‎, for checkusers done towards Rich from 15 May 2012 through now, along with who performed each. Thank you, --Hammersoft (talk) 13:48, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Checkuser logs (and their information) are not public information, Hammersoft, and they're covered by the privacy policy. The subject of the check, Rich, has been provided with information in accord with the privacy policy. I'm going to assume that you have read what is written and can figure out that it occurred between the time that Rich archived Elen of the Roads' talk page, and the time that this motion was made. Risker (talk) 13:55, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not only that but Rich has admitted what he did so there isn't really any reason to doubt or question what the checkuser data says. Regardless of my personal feelings about the validity or manner in which the Arbcom decision was carried out this much at least isn't worth arguing. Personally I still have major problems with the Arbcom decision against Rich, how it was written and other aspects of the case so IMO there are still way too many problems and questions pertaining to the Arbcom decision to justify a year long ban. If I was a member of Arbcom I would start with a month and go from there. In general I would not start with a year long ban for a user unless there where significant mitigating circumstances (off wiki harrassment, severe socking, vandalism, threats, things of that nature). Kumioko (talk) 14:04, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Per Risker. AGK [•] 14:07, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The privacy policy does not cover the date and timestamp on the logs and who performed the check. I am not asking for any identifying information. I am not asking for any private information about Rich whatsoever. I am asking for a list of the checkusers performed from 15 May 2012 through present towards Rich, with only a date and timestamp for each check, and who performed the check. I have asked several times now for this information. I would appreciate a straightforward answer this time. Thank you, --Hammersoft (talk) 14:26, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You have a straightforward answer, Hammersoft: No. Risker (talk) 14:34, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why? The date/timestamp of when checkuser was used and by whom is not covered by the privacy policy. Under what reason is this request being denied? --Hammersoft (talk) 14:45, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hammersoft, the first checkuser was AGK, which was done late yesterday evening UTC, I was the second, again late yesterday evening UTC. I don't understand why you need more precise information. Perhaps you could explain. PhilKnight (talk) 14:54, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I shouldn't have to explain, and I'm astonished that so many members of ArbCom a refusing to provide specifics. Are you transparent or not? --Hammersoft (talk) 14:55, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I can think of a number of reasons:
(1) The checkuser log is confidential. (2) Disclosing data from the log is a slippery slope, and one onto which this project has determined we will not take even the tiniest step. We do not quote the log to those who are not identified to the Foundation. (3) You have not given a good reason to be given any excerpt from the log. (4) Checkusers are accountable to your representatives on the AUSC, to the Foundation's ombudsmen, and to one another—not to you. (5) The log does not exist for you to create drama.
Take your pick of those. I too decline your request. AGK [•] 14:57, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
(1) The privacy policy covers personally identifiable information. I have not requested such information. (2) The slippery slope argument does not hold water. I am not asking for private information in any respect. The data I am asking for is no different than the data available in the various public logs here; just who did what and when. (3) I believe there has been a misuse of the tools. While I have not stated as much here, I have stated as much on Rich's talk page. (4) ArbCom is accountable to the community. (5) You are assuming bad faith. The refusal to provide this data creates drama, not the request. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:02, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I very much disagree with your intepretation of whether or not the privacy policy includes data from the Checkuser Log. It is explicitly a non-public log. If you want to know whether or not *you* have been checked, I will gladly provide that information directly to you via email. You are not entitled to that information about any other contributor to this project. This has nothing to do with transparency. Risker (talk) 14:58, 1 June 2012 (UTC) I shall expand briefly to refer you to the Access to nonpublic data policy, which is to be read in concert with the privacy policy. The checkuser log is non-public and information can be released from it under very limited circumstances. Risker (talk) 15:10, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I might be wrong, but Hammersoft does seem to have a point in part of this at least; the apparent reason for using CU here was, by what I have read above, AGK's suspicion that this user was breaching an ArbCom remedy he supported in that case, and this led him to make a choice to use his tools to investigate. I don't think those privacy-related policies are something functionaries should be using as an excuse for, apparently, making an inflammatory remark or assumption of bad faith (that is, "The log does not exist for you to create drama") against an editor who clearly is concerned by the use of such serious tools. On the other hand, Hammersoft, based on Risker's comment, maybe you could just ask Rich to volunteer the information you are requesting, if in your view, there is no apparent loss to him by disclosing the time at which checks were done on his account (presuming that is all that you are seeking and that is all of the information Rich permits to release to you - the time at which checks were done and who did those checks). Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:39, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The answer is still going to be "No, we are not releasing any checkuser log information about a contributor to this project." If Rich wants to provide Hammersoft with the information he was provided, that is his decision. Hammersoft has not indicated that he is, in fact, concerned about the use of the checkuser tool, and has shown no indication that he believes they were used outside of policy. If he has such concerns, he can request a review by the AUSC or the Ombudsman commission. He doesn't get to have access to information held only in a non-public log. Risker (talk) 15:50, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Risker, I have not asked you to change your answer to him; I have said that he does have a point about the type of inflammatory or bad faith commentary which was used in response to his query, and noted the apparent starting point of his concern. While you have said Hammersoft has not indicated his concern with the use of the tools, if you read his comment above at 15:02, 1 June 2012, it says "I believe there has been a misuse of the tools...I have stated as much on Rich's talk page." Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:07, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies, Hammersoft and Ncmvocalist; Hammersoft did indeed say that he believed there was inappropriate use of tools. I'll point out that the bad faith commentary goes both ways here; it would not matter *who* did the CU, the result would have been exactly the same, and we would still be debating the motions that are here. There's also little doubt that Rich's editing created legitimate concerns for which use of the checkuser tool was appropriate. They look like AWB edits, and they are AWB edits, and all the defensiveness and off-topic argument in the world isn't going to change that. Nonetheless, if Hammersoft wishes to take this to the Ombudsman, he is very welcome to. (I can understand that he would be less likely to want to take it to the AUSC.) Risker (talk) 16:50, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I for one did and still do have concenrs that the use of the tool was borderline abuse in this case however given that Rich has admitted what he did I didn't push the issue. I do not agree with Hammersoft that getting the details of the checkuser reviews would benefit this case but I do think that the use of it was questionable. Kumioko (talk) 15:57, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hammersmith I would suggest that if you wish to push the issue go through the Ombudsman commission. The AUSC is controlled by the Arcom so you are unlikely to get an unbiased response. Kumioko (talk) 16:00, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In regard to Kumioko's comment above, I served on the Audit Subcommitte last year, and I can advise that the Audit Subcommittee only ever gives out information of the type 'no, there wasn't a misuse of tools' or 'yes, there was, and we've removed checkuser priviliges as a result'. Or in other words, the Audit Subcommittee doesn't release this kind of information. PhilKnight (talk) 16:27, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Phil. Just to clarify I wasn't trying to indicate that the AUSC would give the checkuser info but that they were unliklely to find an Arbcom member negligent in the use of the checkuser tool since Arbcom has a defacto control over the AUSC and loss of the checkuser privilage would likely result in the member being removed as a member of Arbcom. Kumioko (talk) 16:34, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Way to go on the good faith Kumioko. Why don't you go tell the non-arb members of AUSC that they are just patsies. Or put your money where your mouth is and ask the Ombudsman to investigate any incident where an Arb has been accused of misuse and cleared by AUSC. Or just take a step back and look at what you are saying. Telling somebody who has signed up to a position of trust, who has pledged to act with fairness and integrity, that of course they're just going to hide the evidence and back their friends, is a huge insult. You need to either put up some evidence, or stop making these massive allegations. Elen of the Roads (talk) 18:12, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Elen, the facts of life are that this sort of thing happens all the time in every walk of life. Taking the Kumiko's statement and turning it into an attack on the one member of the AUSC who has no other connection with the functionary structure, or indeed on the other members of the committee jointly or severally is to miss the point. Even if (as we believe and hope) all these people are fine and upstanding pillars of the Wiki, the lack of separation of functions is not a good thing. In general these types of issue come to a head when there is abuse of the system. In this case we have the opportunity to work on improvements while there is still no serious accusation of impropriety. This should be seen as a good thing, not a bad. Rich Farmbrough, 18:30, 1 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Kumioko, I do not want to explain again why I (or any other arbitrator) ran checkuser queries on Rich Farmbrough. I refer you to our previous statements on this subject, and respectfully ask that you not continue repeating this same, tired line. If you have a concern, refer it to the Wikimedia Foundation Ombudsman Commission. AGK [•] 18:44, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Elen and AGK, You are taking offense where non is directly implied but the bottom line AGK is that your name is all over the subcommittee and all over this case. You have been pushing for a ban from the beginning. It is human nature to support those with whom you have had a positive working relationship with and have grown to trust. Additionally, the fact that Arbcom has a controlling number of votes in AUSC makes it quite obvious to how an Arbcom member would be excused from guilt if an incident were submitted their affecting an Arbcom member. I stated before I haev no desire to pursue the case but was merely giving Hammersoft my advice if he was intent to do so. With that said and as I have stated before. Arbcom has made some questionable decisions lately that give way to a lot of questions. Thats a fact that has been brought up repeatedly by multiple editors and not just my opinion. If you are offended at some or all of my statements then I suggest you devote some time and take this opportunity for growth and developement to address some or all of the concerns about the processes and functions of arbcom that open the door to allegations of impropriety. Kumioko (talk) 18:57, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"...fact that Arbcom has a controlling number of votes in AUSC..." I was under the impression there were three arbitrators and three non-arbitrators. ? Lord Roem (talk) 19:12, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Lord Roem: That is correct; there are three arbitrator-auditors and three community-auditors. (Risker, an arbitrator, is also a part of the subcommittee, but serves in the role of subcommittee co-ordinator: this forms part of the wider role of co-ordinator of advanced permissions, and the role does not give the co-ordinator a vote in our proceedings.) If anything, the community out-weighs the committee members: during the "cross-over" when Keegan was still seated, there were four voting community members and three arbitrators. AGK [•] 20:27, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I was counting Risker as the 4th and extra vote but even still thats 3-3 and an Arbcom member is fairly unlikely to vote another one off so the best that could be hoped for would be a draw. Either way it still proves my point that it would not be the place to take a case involving an Arbcom member. Kumioko (talk) 23:30, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Two misunderstandings 1) Risker doesn't have a tiebreaking vote, and 2) We really don't vote per se anyways. We handle things in the good old fashioned Wikipedia model of consensus. Polls are taken, objections listened to, positions adjusted, and we come up with something everyone can live with, or we would go back for more info if we couldn't get there on a first pass. Cheers, Jclemens (talk) 02:01, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I admit that I misunderstood Risker's role in the process but the second part of your statement isn't exactly true. IN order to garner consensus there must be some discussion and some sort of vote such as a support/oppose discussion. My point though is that if an Arbcom member were ever accused of inappropriately using their tools and were ever to come before the AUSC as a defendant it is unlikely that the AUSC would determine anything other than the use was appropriate. Kumioko (talk) 13:13, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why Arbcom is discussing five motions

To address SilkTork's The reason we are here discussing it is: Having five motions for an alleged ArbCom restriction violation is simply additional evidence of the inadequacy of the automated sanction (previously raised by myself et. al.). If, using Elen's example, someone violates 1rr on Six-Day War arbcom wouldn't even be involved; a utility admin would simply deal with the situation. Because of your role as the final arbitrator for dispute resolution on Wikipedia it is important that you collectively act in a manner that instills confidence in the process. Ya'll got two decent options.

Stop the circle the wagons denialism and go back and fix the remedy. (I understand that much of the nature of the criticism -- arbcom conspiracy theories and demands for checkuser data in blatant violation of WMF policy -- has been way off base, but that doesn't make the decision correct in the first place. ) First choice.
Simply indef the editor and be done with it. Let's face it, no one ends up as a sanctioned party at ArbCom without missing multiple opportunities to figure out how to get along with others. Second choice.
Anything else -- speculating or expecting the editor to "change their attitude" in the face of a vague bogus sanction; or reopening the fracas in 3 or 6 or 12 months -- won't benefit Wikipedia. If RF decides at some future point he wants to be a team player he can file the appeal using the standard protocol. Nobody Ent 16:04, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I think they should stick with the original motion they voted and agreed on of escalating blocks. Otherwise it reduces credibility in the process if they just go back and retry the case every time because it didn't go the way they wanted the first time. Additionally, The problems go way beyond Rich's case. Kumioko (talk) 17:10, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So what positive action are you going to take with regard to the go way beyond problems? Nobody Ent 17:33, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Kumioko, what on earth are you talking about? The case went the way this same committee decided it should go (are we forum shopping ourselves?!)—and as for individual arbitrators, many of the supporters of the first ban motion were opposed to the proposal to ban Rich that was made in the original case. You need to stop posting utter nonsense on this page. AGK [•] 21:02, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What I am saying AGK is that the Arbcom could not ban him like several members wanted to do from the beginning so instead they wrote a loose sanction that no one would be able to follow because its so open to interpretation. Then all they need do is sit back and watch and then when the individual does something that can be construed as a violation they get banned. I also was pointing to the fact that in the original proposal to a vote of 8 - 0 I believe the Arbcom agreed to an excalating series of blocks starting at 1 month. Now you and the other members want to revote because they didn't like how that vote went less than a week ago to be harsher. How do you expect us to not criticize decisions like that? Kumioko (talk) 21:09, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Some good points raised. The reason we are here voting on these motions is that Rich didn't just use automation, but used a system to conceal he was using automation. That ties in with the proposal in the case that he be banned because it would be difficult to enforce the restriction on using automation. Because he has been caught not just using automation (for which an AE admin could block him), but for doing so in manner designed to avoid detection, we need to return to that proposal. That there are a number of motions is because ArbCom is a committee of individuals - we do not have a hive mind, though I suppose there are core values that we share. We work things out through discussion, negotiation, and consensus. I think that, messy though it appears, that we have this public working through of a variety of motions to find the most suitable one, is a good example of the sort of transparency that I and others want from the ArbCom process. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 17:41, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To be frank I still don't think that banning Rich or his bots benefits Wikipedia. Restricting his edits to a vague definition of automation was even more unhelpful and ensured that we'd end up right back here regardless of how he edited. He just gave Arbcom a reason but it would have happened eventually either way. Now Arbcom can point and say see we told you this was going to happen. Kumioko (talk) 18:16, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You are of course entitled to your viewpoint, but it may be helpful to you to know that I didn't want to ban Rich in the case, and did not support that proposal. If Rich had not used automation after being told not to, and specifically if he had not done so in a manner to conceal that he was doing so, then I would not be here now voting to ban him. If there is a conspiracy to ban Rich, then he has played a larger part in the plot than I have. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 18:29, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Kumioko. You seem to be RF's biggest supporter and probably Arbcom's biggest critic this last 2 months. Can you answer a couple of simple questions please? Do you think RF has at any time used subterfuge to conceal his actions? Is technical brilliance more important to you than WP:HONESTY? Leaky Caldron 19:01, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I admit I am a supporter and that's because I think Rich and his bots do more good than harm. Anyone who is responsible for 5+million edits between them and their bots are going to make some mistakes but the majority of his edits are positive. That he spent many hours a day every day for several years shouldn't be a noose. To answer the first question Yes, and to answer the second question no. I don't think the 2 are mutually exclusive either. Kumioko (talk) 19:15, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You might want to correct the Freudian slip in your first sentence. On the wider point, because an editor is exceptionally productive does not entitle them to leave their ethics at the door before entering Wikipedia. Leaky Caldron 19:25, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The concept 'RF concealed automated edits' is doubly invalid: 1. no workable definition of "automated" has been provided and 2. if the edits were concealed, how he get caught? Nobody Ent 19:31, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is absolutely ridiculous: A) By ANY definition of automation useing AWB counts as it (Auto mean anything to you) and B) He screwed up and on a couple edits made a couple edits with his hacked AWB script. Otherwise, he was setting up the edits in an AWB window, and C&Ping to a regular browser window to conceal the fact he was using automation. SirFozzie (talk) 20:43, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ah. So, copying and pasting now counts as automation. Good to know. Unfortunately, that wasn't described in the remedies in the case anymore than the use of AWB was, though I directly asked Elen for a pointer to that supposed conclusion. All of ArbCom keeps spinning in circles saying it's automation, it's not automation, it's automation and any definition will do, not it's not, yes it is, and on and on. I concur with Nobody in the initial posting in this subthread. The onus isn't on ArbCom to ban Rich from the project because they screwed up their case against him. The onus is on ArbCom to grant a mea culpa and fix it. Is it so insanely hard to admit you (collectively) blew it? --Hammersoft (talk) 20:53, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Your right about one thing SF and that's the comment this is ridiculous. Our reasons for calling it ridiculous are completely opposite but there result is the same. a ridiculous scenario that could have been prevented a number of ways not the least of which would have been for the Arbcom to clearly define automation. There is no doubt what Rich did was against the sanction. What I consider a problem is that the Arbcom worded it in such a way that would have eventually led to Rich breaking it one way or another. Yes he used AWB and thats the reason at this point but if he would have used the same edit summery to correct the same typo someone would have complained it was automation and we would still be here. I also do not think that using AWB to generate a change without saving it and then pasting that change to WP manually counts as automation anymore than using word to find typos does. Or does it? How about if I create a template for Infobox person in word and then as I fill it in for individual articles I cut and paste if from word? How about using google search? Does that count as automation? What about using an addin like linky or the Wikipedia toolbar? Do you see where I am going with this? If the Arbcom would have clearly defined what automation was then I would not have a leg to stand on but because Arbcom decided to use a 5th grader version of a sanction that was loosely defined and vaguely written to ensure that the user (in this case Rich) would not be able to follow it, Arbcom has left the door wide open to comments. Kumioko (talk) 20:59, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's a fairly ridiculous argument; ArbCom could have simply indef'd RF from the get go if that was the goal. It's also likely to be counterproductive; attacking editors motivations is unlikely to persuade them to change their action. What goal are you trying to achieve by repetitive badgering approach? Nobody Ent 21:15, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually if you look at the original voting several members wanted to ban him from the start and it was only because the idea couldn't garner enough votes that the chose to go with the lesser option. To answer your other statement I really have better things to do. Every moment I spend here arguing about this means that other more meaningful edits aren't getting done. The reason I persist is because I am getting frustrated by Arbcoms constant WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT and WP:IDONTCARETHEDECISIONSMADE rebuttals and because frankly they did such a lousy job of writing the sanction in the first place (along with several other cases in the last few months that I regret not commenting on then) that I feel obligated to correct for future cases. I do not have anything against the individuals members and respect several of them that I have interacted with before this and have met and personally like several of the ones I have met. That doesn't mean that they are above reproach as a group nor that they are infallible. Kumioko (talk) 21:22, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)"auto" means lots of things to me; meaning depends on context. I drive my auto to work. I do repetitive tasks (e.g. unloading dishwasher) on auto. Is "semi-automation" the same as "automation"? (In the US, semi-automatic firearms are regulated quite differently than automatic). Wikipedia itself describes WP:AWB as a "a semi-automated MediaWiki editor," so no, it's not obvious to me that it what ya'll mean by automation. In any event, what is means to me is irrelevant -- what does it mean to ArbCom? JClemens/AGK's prior definition (high speed mass edits) was quite different than SilkTork's (which included spell check). Nobody Ent 21:08, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The whole point of that type of sanction is to avoid defining "automation". The point of the sanction is that Rich needs to make a complete break from using automated tools. He would have the ability to do so if he chose; many people never use automated tools at all. Instead Rich decided to keep using AWB, sometimes by copying its edits into his browser, and a few times erroneously saving its edits directly. The problem is not that an intentionally vague sanction passed; the problem is that Rich decided to flout it instead of following it. It might be harder for some robot to enforce a vague sanction, but arbcom is a bunch of humans who can handle the vagueness and judge each situation on its merits. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:02, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and why did ArbCom consider to do a checkuser on him? You do realise that those edits CAN be done easily by hand, don't you? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:58, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I see automated editors .... and they don't even know they're automated. The US RBI had to set up temporary DNS servers for folks who had been Zlob trojan hacked because people use automation to connect url to ip addresses and don't even know it. When I'm looking for a policy in Wikipedia space, I type in the search box WP: and the first few choices -- and let automation suggest the possible completions. Automation is a fuzzy concept folks bandy about in casual conversation but it doesn't have a universal definition. Nobody Ent 11:14, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am afraid that I would be awfully pointy if I would now block Rich Farmbrough for using automation (as 'defined' by ArbCom in the restriction) - I do not need CheckUser for that, it is blindingly obvious. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:24, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It is. He failed to manually provide a word count and let automation do it. Nobody Ent 11:39, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, that's another one - one click on a save button - two edits! --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:58, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Concealment

I am annoyed and somewhat hurt that there is a suggestion I concealed automation. I know a similar accusation was made in the case, by an Arb (I forget which, I suppose it must have been Kirill). When I found I had a score of identical typos to fix I seriously considered fixing them with AWB and reporting myself for Arbitration Enforcement, so ridiculous the situation has become. In some ways I wish I had followed that route, but doubtless I would have been tagged as sociopathic, or "pointy" or something. Although I do not make much of my professional history on Wikipedia it includes running security for a major Internet banking property, reading the CERT advisories every day for years, and taking a deep interest in Internet security in general. Should I wish to "hide automation", with all due respect I doubt that the committee would be able to see through it, especially with blunt tools like Checkuser. (I have already told AGK why and how he can see that apart from one or two inadvertent edits, all my edits were made through the standard interface, though this could be hidden it would take more time than has been available, and is of no interest to me. The improvements I suggested to Checkuser should be taken up with the developers without delay.)

I have always conducted myself scrupulously on Wikipedia, editing under my own name, have never sought "office", never traded on my credentials, rarely used email prior to this case, rarely used IRC, believing in openness and honesty. The only information I have deliberately withheld is that private to or tending to damage other people, or posing a risk to the project.

Rich Farmbrough, 22:44, 2 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]

The statements made thus far indicate you made two edits on the Wikipedia server using AWB -- is that correct? If it was your understanding AWB was covered under the ban, why would you even start the thing in the first place? Nobody Ent 23:03, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

AWB is an invaluable tool for listmaking. I wanted all articles which either SunCreator or I had edited, which contained the mis-spelling. Later I widened to all all Chelonian articles and picked up a couple of other issues. There was no intent to edit with it, and I am still surprised that the two edits are adjacent. As I said to AGK, when he raised the issue it was conceivable that I had misclicked either through a motor error or a cognitive error, once or twice or, out at maybe four sigmas three times. He replied that there were plenty of examples which had me doubting my sanity, but it seems he meant two were plenty. In answer to your first question, since the AWB edits were marked minor I am assuming that's all there are. Rich Farmbrough, 23:23, 2 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]

@Rich, @Arbcom: Does reading Wikipedia content with AWB constitute automation? Nobody Ent 23:48, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My approach to this is that the community have raised concerns with Rich regarding some of his edits, and Rich has not been helpful enough in his response to those concerns. It is not the actual edits for which he was brought to ArbCom, it is for his reluctance to deal appropriately with people's concerns. The concerns centred on Rich's use of automation because a) automation is so quick it spreads a contentious edit across a number of articles, and b) individual mistakes are harder to trace when someone's editing history consists of thousands of edits with the same edit summary. But, again, it was not the use of automation that brought Rich to ArbCom, but his reluctance to comply with restrictions on his use of automation. Again, I want to stress that during the case I was not looking at sanctioning Rich for any individual or group of edits, nor for his use of automation, but for his behaviour and attitude regarding concerns about his editing that were made via automation. Was a ban on using automation an appropriate remedy? Even without discussing the actual wording, or definitions of "automation", in retrospect it was perhaps not addressing the real issue, which is Rich's attitude. But how do we address that effectively? The case itself with the principles and findings about collegiality and responsiveness to people's concerns should have assisted in bringing home to someone that an adjustment in attitude was needed. And, as the concerns did centre on Rich's use of automation, then restricting Rich's use of them was appropriate.

Where am I now? Well, Rich can correct me if I'm wrong, but it appears from what I am told, and from what I have looked at, that he has used a hacked AWB in one browser to select changes in an article, and has then copy and pasted those changes over to the article in another browser. Should he have done that? Well, he is no longer an admin so his permission to use AWB would have been removed. Any non-admin user of Wikipedia has to apply to use AWB. He did not apply. He used a hacked version. This, already, is not in the spirit of openness and collegiality. Without going further I am concerned. That he then doesn't make the edits directly in the browser with the hacked AWB, but instead copy and pastes them over, indicates an intent to conceal what he is doing. I am now of the mind that even if Rich was not already under ArbCom sanctions not to use automation, that such behaviour warrants a block; considering all the circumstances, an indef ban seems appropriate as I would now want clear assurances from Rich that he recognises what he has done is wrong, and that he intends to amend his behaviour. Having said that, I am still open to discussing other avenues and approaches to find out the best way of dealing with this situation. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 01:30, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Rich, why didn't you just request access to AWB if you wanted to use it, instead of modifying it to bypass the check page? — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:46, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I just made a suggestion for possible terms that several members of the Committee were thinking about offering to Rich on his talk page. For that, if we do formally give him that offer, automation will mean "nothing more than what you see when you hit the edit button and manually make the changes in the window that pops up". No scripts of any kind, no using any AWB-like tools to prepare the edits and then copying it into a normal browser window, just what any editor new to Wikipedia gets when they hit the edit button. SirFozzie (talk) 01:08, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It appears ya'll are trapped in a conceptual box. You do not, and can not know what happens client side. TCP/IP packets arrive at Tampa or Amsterdam on ports 80 or 443 with some data in them and WP servers send some packets back; all you know is what happens on the server end: If you think you can actually know for sure what's happening client side you're mistaken. Whatever solution(s) ya'll arrive at should be server side, server side, server side. Nobody Ent 02:41, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, there's no conceptual box. Rather, if it looks like automation, it is automation for the purposes of Rich's sanctions, with the onus on Rich to avoid anything that looks like automation. Given the issues to date, I think that's an appropriate way of apportioning the burden of compliance. Rich has demonstrated that he has the ability and know-how to continue problematic editing using only client-side automation. Jclemens (talk) 02:46, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And there's the problem with that approach; it results in personal interpretations as to what counts as "automation". You of ArbCom have already disagreed as to whether rollback counts as automation. By your above definition (loose enough to drive a truck through), ANYthing could be automation. The approach described by SirFozzie at User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough#The_way_forward_... makes a hell of a lot of sense. The above approach does not. --Hammersoft (talk) 03:25, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I know that the community is a big fan of the concept of 'if it is a duck, it must quack, lets see if we can make it quack', but this time this duck does not fly, Jclemens. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:06, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Prejudice(preconceived judgments toward people) is a quacking duck and no sensible person should be using prejudice to make a decision. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 09:31, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"In the context of the case, automation is clearly intended to be that allowing an editor to modify multiple articles or other pages in rapid succession." JClemens, 19 May (emphasis mine)

"if it looks like automation, it is automation for the purposes of Rich's sanctions" JClemens 2 June Nobody Ent 11:34, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And two counts as "rapid succession" now. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:15, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To come back to Rich's original point about being hurt with talk of concealment, there's no evidence that he tried a technical solution to conceal a use of an automated tool. And I don't believe he thought that preparing the edit in AWB and cutpasting it into the edit box was using automated tools. He's like the chap who, having lost his driving licence, has harnessed his ox to his car, and is using this contraption to get about town on the grounds that he's not driving it any more. So I don't think he's actually trying to conceal anything. I do hope that a definition that Rich can understand and sign up to can be worked out, because I think he'll stick to it. Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:14, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

LOL, like an addict agrees to stay away from whatever they are on. No chance. This guy cannot and will not stop. He's totally hooked. Read the history and stop trying to kid yourself. Leaky Caldron 17:18, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's unfair and unjustified. I think there is an element of finding fulfilment through these activities, but we're not talking about addiction to the pokies here. Elen of the Roads (talk) 20:09, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Elen, I honestly do try to assume good faith in my dealings here, as in the real world. Unfortunately my AGF module tends to become blocked by a obstacles called implausibility and common sense. I am aware of the extensive back story here. I have also witnessed the shambolic way Arbcom have dealt with what should have been a simple matter. Desysop. Block. Block again. Ban. Instead of which they are still messing around 3 months later and even asking what punishment the individual is willing to accept! I'll say no more, other than I don't expect RF to be asking his favourite aunt for socks for Christmas. He's too clever for all of you and he'll not be gone for long. Leaky Caldron 20:25, 3 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Good faith - I have not seen from you on any talk page so far, only snide comments here and at arbcom and a verbal assault on a user with vision impairment at Village Pump. Doubtless the good faith is shown amply on other pages, it would be nice to see it extending here.

Clearly your ability to count to 2 has been obscured by this excess of good faith attempting to escape, and while issue could be taken with certain steps in the case, this motion was raised within minutes (possibly seconds) of my email reaching AGK, so they cannot be faulted on that.

Moreover a cooperative rather than combative approach is to be supported, and the case has always been made (although with a fainter and more querulous voice as time goes by) that punishment is not part of the en:WP ethos.

Of course I thank you for the compliment in the last sentence, backhanded though it is, while ignoring the insidious insinuations.

Rich Farmbrough, 21:24, 3 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Your welcome. When you have the time can you cross reference the 10 legitimate accounts out of 11 you created following this discussion (ignoring the one blocked by User:John) with the appropriate userboxes as required by alternative account notification. Leaky Caldron 11:44, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Very funny. Rich Farmbrough, 14:50, 4 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Well it wasn't an accusation, it was a statement of the bleeding obvious. However, upon review I have clearly got it completely arse first for which I publicly apologise to you, Rich. Leaky Caldron 15:03, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. Rich Farmbrough, 00:20, 5 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]

The effort put into protecting RF could be better spend in preventing more of the same

I notice different people here wikilawyering over automation and/or checkusering, trying to somehow save their case by reductio ad absurdum reasoning (similar to "if a bot comes along and completes your edit, then your edit is "automated editing" as well", right...). These are in part the same people who during the case (Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rich Farmbrough/Proposed decision and the like) made claims like: "I would really like to see what happens if Fram is taken out of this - there are more than enough other community members left over who can report errors to bot operators. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:33, 10 May 2012 (UTC)" and "If problems would be reported without Fram being allowed to report them, then we really know there is a problem. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:20, 24 April 2012 (UTC)"

Meanwhile, I have been fixing some 500 errors created by Helpful Pixie Bot at the end of March 2012 (i.e. right before this case started), which had gone unnoticed for nearly two months and which I only found out about by checking User:Jaguars edits during discussions at WP:AN. These errors were not discovered until after the case was closed (and so not used as examples or taken into account), but are quite typical. Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 49 was approved on March 27, and was supposed to have "Estimated number of pages affected: 170". So after two days of editing, about three times as much errors were made as there were pages claimed to be affected by the bot in total. The bot request claimed that "If there is no such interwiki link a suitable annotation will be made to mark the article as inspected.", but in reality if no interwiki was present, the bot used one from its cache, i.e. a usually totally unrelated other article from that Wikipedia version. The result was articles like Nad lipom 35 linking to the Croation equivalent of Anti-communism, or Sandhofen (in Germany) linking to San Pedro de Buena Vista (in Bolivia).

I haven't done fixing all of these yet, but I think I have found and corrected the vast majority of them. Perhaps some of the defenders and praisers of Rich Farmbrough could first try to find and fix some of his problems (there are undoubtedly other ones lying around still) instead of lamenting here and blaming the messengers? Kumioko at least kindly offered to assist in the cleanup of these errors, which was nice, but most of the others seem more interested in protecting RF than in actually finding ways to avoid the creation of these many errors. Fram (talk) 14:37, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Of course it would have been a simple matter for me to have corrected these myself, sans sanctions, and this has already been remarked.

However this discussion is not about why I should use automation, it is about two specific edits which did, so while I thank you for your support in providing reasons to change the outcome of the arb case, this is not the place for it.

Rich Farmbrough, 14:47, 4 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Just to clarify I never denied that Rich and his bots have made some errors, everyone does and I am 100% certain if the bot was still running and or he was still allowed to use automation he would have fixed these himself or at least participated in that cleanup effort. I have defended him because I recognize that although he and his bots do on occassion intruduce errors I have never seen one that couldn't be easily fixed and these things did not "Break" Wikipedia, It merely required an additional edit from time to time and contrary to what some may try and argue is not really a big deal. The fact remains that Rich has skills that are useful to to the pedia and having him on the bench doesn't really do much for the "big game" so to speak. Even now very few of the bot tasks that his bots performed have been picked up and there are a lot of them. This inclines me to believe that a lot of good work is not going to get done. Kumioko (talk) 15:54, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fram, I'm pretty sure from looking at Rich's body of contributions and mine that doing whatever I can do to get him working at full speed is going to be more useful to the project than anything else I can spend my time doing. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 16:39, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Here's an idea. Rather than become reliant on others (whether they be bots, bot operators, or those with specialist or technical expertise, why not try and learn to do some of this stuff yourself? In the process, some people might discover that they are: (a) better at doing the stuff, (b) find ways to improve the standard ways of doing things; (c) teams of people working together on something can sometimes be better than individuals doing lots by themselves. That's one of the points of Wikipedia anyway, distributing the workload and not creating points of failure. If the stuff Rich's bots were doing is not being picked up, that is in part because Rich tried to do too much and created a point of failure. Carcharoth (talk) 17:13, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we're "reliant" on any one person; nobody is talking about failure, why did you bring that up? "why not try and learn to do some of this stuff yourself"—Well, I could, but Rich obviously has more time to spend on this than I do, so again the point remains that clearing any roadblocks for him is going to be higher impact than much else I can do. Also, this isn't what motivates me or seems interesting to me the way it is for Rich, so your idea would be pretty bad in my case at least. Wait, are you seriously suggesting that an editor doing "too much" is a problem? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:21, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

An editor doing "too much" can certainly be a problem, for them and the project. What do you mean by you "clearing the roadblocks"? Leaky Caldron 17:42, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't agree with the arguments that he was trying to do to much or that we should all learn to be programmers. I have been programming in various languages for several years and frankly I'm still not very good at it. I can generally hack out what I want but the code certainly isn't sexy and it frequently takes me far longer than someone who knows what they are doing. Of course these arguments are all moot and it hardly needs to be rehashed since Arbcom already made the decision to ban him from automation and kill the bots. I just wanted to point out yet again that there is an error in the perception of some that the entire community is tired of Rich's edits. Just as there are a select few of us trying to get him back to editing, there are a select few that are trying to stop him, Arbcom just chose to go with the latter because their voice was louder and the message easier to deal with. The end result is that the pedia suffers and the edits that would have been done by a bot in a speedy manner will now be done manually, very slowly, if done at all. In direct counter to the title of this discussion string I want to pose a question to you. Can you show me conclusively that that the errors intriduced by Rich or his bots outwayed the positive edits or the help they provided? Including Rich and his bots I am gettings something like 6 million edits, maybe more. Even if they introduced 10, 000 errors (and I am just picking that number out of thin air) that only equates to about .6% which to me isn't all that bad. Kumioko (talk) 18:43, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And is there any dispute that he would easily/quickly/happily fix those 10k errors if he wasn't forced to edit with his hands tied? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:35, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The 6 million edits and .6% argument is getting a bit tired now. The more edits you do and the faster you do them, the higher the bar should be to get them right. That should be obvious. If large numbers of edits are done fast, even a low error rate means some errors don't get caught at all. That some can't see this is worrying. And typically, for large number of edits done at a fast rate, the error rate should really be 0.01% or lower (and I'm not joking here). Carcharoth (talk) 19:51, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You've just set an impossibly high bar without the use of automation. Humans make errors they do not detect themselves. As ArbCom has repeatedly pointed out, nobody is expected to be perfect (example). A 0.01% error rate means you expect humans to have only one self-undetected error every 10,000 edits. That simply isn't realistic. Dr. Ray Panko of the University of Hawaii notes here a number of cognitive error rates made by humans in various activities. None of them are .01% or lower. In fact, all but three of them are at least 10 times (and in some cases hundreds of times) higher than your suggested standard. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:59, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Caldron; I'm just replying to Fram's post on 14:37, 4 June 2012. I'm not sure how else to clarify what I meant? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:35, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Responding to Erik's question, yes, an editor trying to do too much can indeed be a problem. I'm surprised that you are so surprised at the idea. Over-reliance on a few people to do specialised tasks is an example of setting things up for failure if that person goes inactive or AWOL. If someone does a lot in a particular area, that can reduce any incentive for others to get involved. This is also the idea behind requiring bots to be open-source, or at least to build redundancy into the system. The idea is that rather than have one person be the 'expert' or 'go to' person, that you spread the skills throughout the community, passing on the skills to others, so they can step in at a later point if needed. And you also encourage those you pass skills on to, to pass the skills on in turn, so the community is self-sustaining, and doesn't lose skills when people move on or go inactive. I would hope, if I ever wrote a bot or script, that I'd make plans for others to use it in the event I was ever unable to do so. Anyway, this is getting off-topic. Best continued elsewhere. Carcharoth (talk) 19:47, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Adding briefly to this comprehensive reply, the impact on such an individual should not be overlooked. Pressure brought about by demands and expectations can lead to undue stress, especially when things go wrong. Most people can self regulate such stress, some cannot. Leaky Caldron 19:59, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Carcharoth, your arguments don't hold up either. By your definition if no edits get done then no mistakes get done. How does that help the pedia. I also don't think that the zero defect mentality your comments infer is needed either. Wikipedia isn't perfect because people aren't perfect. Not me, not Rich and not you. I imaging if I colmed through your edits long enough I would find some I perceive to be incorrect too. I don't think the mentality that some editors have of punishing the editors that are the most active is either good for the pedia or an appropriate way to build it. Kumioko (talk) 20:13, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Getting off-topic? Was it ever on-topic in any way? I get the idea of a SPOF, but what does that have to do with Rich? I can not understand what you thought your original note above beginning with "Here's an idea" had anything to do with anything in this section? If someone is running bots that fix spelling how is that a single point of failure? We won't fail, we'll just have a lot more crappy spelling. Great. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 22:08, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Running bots to correct spelling mistakes is trivial. Are you really saying that Rich is the only bot operator able to do that? It is clear that with the motion that is about to be passed, that ArbCom are giving Rich a very generous second chance. I suggest those speaking up in his support, or in support of the bot work he did, use the chance to work with Rich to work out which of the bot functions are indeed 'irreplaceable' and try and work out what to do going forward, rather than continue to (to use an expression used here) put ArbCom's 'feet to the fire'. For the record Kumioko, my comments were not about a zero defect mentality, and debating with you is difficult because of misunderstandings like that where you appear to repeat what someone said but change the wording used and end up distorting the meaning. It has nothing to do with punishment and everything to do with fait accompli. Mass editing needs checks and balances above and beyond what occurs with normal editing, precisely because the edits are done en masse and (usually) faster than others can check, and the two modes of editing aren't comparable. My point about SPOF was prompted mostly by Kumioko's repeated refrain that 'because of a few editors millions of useful edits won't get done' (that is the SPOF, whether other editors will do those edits or not is the question that needs answering). If anyone wants to have a detailed discussion on some of the things discussed here, that is probably best continued elsewhere, as this motions page will likely get archived soon after the motion below passes. I'll repeat what I said above, those trying to support Rich's bot work here (not just Rich as an individual, but those concerned about the loss of edits that would improve the encyclopedia), would do best trying to identify what needs doing there, rather than railing against the arbitration process. Carcharoth (talk) 02:07, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

False dichotomy? I'm not sure this kind of patronizing dismissal is going to be too useful or convince anyone that this arbitration case isn't a problem. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 06:06, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This section is based on an entirely false premise: that editor effort is a commodity resource. Wikipedia is a volunteer based effort -- editors are under no obligation to do anything, we're only obligated to ensure our actions are in accordance with the terms of service of Wikipedia. If I choose to waste my time trying in a good faith if futile effort to get the committee to comprehend how poor a particular remedy was -- as long as done (reasonably) respectfully and not pointy a manner, that's my privilege. Such action in no way obligates me (or any other editor) to fix edits performed by one of RF's bots. Nobody Ent 21:27, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

break (effort)

In his reply to this at the top, Rich claims that "Of course it would have been a simple matter for me to have corrected these myself, sans sanctions, and this has already been remarked." On 27 and 28 March, you made the error described above on hundreds of pages (despite the claim that the bot task would only affect about 170 pages in total!). By 29 March, you had changed your code to add "no interwiki=yes" to pages without an interwiki link, e.g. here. It didn't occur to you to do the "simple matter" of correcting all these errors at that time? As usual, it came down to someone else to point your errors out to you? If you need to change something in your script, perhaps it is useful to check whether errors were made before that change occurred? If you need constant supervision, you are not fit to run bots or other automation. You have demonstrated this need over and over again, right until the start of this case. Fram (talk) 20:39, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fram are you talking to me or Rich? I do not need constant supervision and neither does Rich. Aside from your obvious irritation with imperfect bot edits I think you need to take a step back. Frankly if I had someone hounding me and every edit I made I would likely put them on mute too. There is a subtle difference between identifying complaints and whining and I dare say you have crossed that threshhold several times on Rich's talk page. I understand you don't like his edits but the fact remains the errors were a very small part of the edits he made so we are throwing out the baby with the bathwater by blocking him. There is nothing that can be done about that though, the damage is done, but because of a few editors millions of useful edits won't get done. Kumioko (talk) 21:14, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I waasn't directly talking to you, no, what gave you that impression? As for "imperrfect bot edits", the edits I am talking about were simply wrong, not "imperfect". Fram (talk) 07:01, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately at the time I when I would have been worrying about that I was blocked by as a result of totally fallacious accusations at AN/I. This consequences of this combative and totally un-collegial, not to say foolish, action will ring down the ages. Rich Farmbrough, 02:10, 5 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]

You weren't blocked at the time you corrected the script for that bot task. It gets rather tired, the "I was going to correct it but X or Y prevented it" defense. It still is the same "it's never my fault" defense. But in the two days after you corrected your script, HPBot made over 2000 further edits, and your own account made nearly 2,000 edits as well. Apparently creating the socks categories was more urgent than correcting your errors? As for the "totally fallacious accusations", I suppose that you weren't mass creating these categories in violation of your editing restriction? Somehow your account got compromised or the logs have been tampered with? Fram (talk) 07:01, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Carcharoth, Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard lists at least 16 of the 40+ bot requests that Rich was approved for and I don't see any that deal with spelling so you are over exaggerating the skills necessary to do these tasks but if you believe them to be trivial then by all means take a few of your favorites, submit a BRFA and prove me wrong. I would love to apologize if it means these edits get done. Particularly the WikiProject Watchlist capability formerly donen by Femto bot. I realize that you are a former a member of Arbcom and there is likely some feelings of needing to support them in their hour of need but your comments we assume that we non Arb members are too stupid to know better and that frankly just isn't the case. I personally am glad that Arbcom is letting Rich continue to edit however I wouldn't term it "generous". I don't think its needed at all and frankly its only one of a series of bad decisions lately. The reason its hard to argue with me is because I'm not an idiot and you and other members of Arbcom keep tried to feed me BS thinking I don't know better. For what its worth I am participating in some of the discussions about Rich's Bot tasks that need to be done but the reason I am railing on Arbcom and I suspect that others are as well is because they are making a kneejerk reaction to a non problem because one or 2 admins keep reaptedly submitting Rich at ANI for every edit regardless of whether its right or wrong. People are tired of dealing with the constant complaints and the easiest way to deal with it is be eliminating the guy filling up their watchlists. Kumioko (talk)

Kumioko, my comment on spelling was a direct response to what Erik said about spelling, we may be getting wires crossed here as I was trying to respond to you both in one go. And I'm posting here less in support of ArbCom (I actually think they could have done a better job on the details of the case, but it is difficult to find any case that gets dealt with perfectly) and more trying to point out to those who may not be aware of how quickly things can shut down after motions like this pass. The motion will pass, this page will be archived, some more discussion will probably take place at WT:AC/N (the noticeboard talk page), and then things will start (hopefully) to settle down a bit. Arbitrators will turn their attention to other matters, such as the currently open cases and the evidence being submitted there, and Rich and those concerned with this case will have to live with what the result is. What I'm trying to say here is that at this point (after lots of discussion) a certain amount of pragmatism and practicality is needed. Carcharoth (talk) 02:45, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note that the task which yielded these errors also was run for a while (some 325 edits[15]) on his own account, i.e. another example from right before the start of the case of "running bot tasks from a non-bot account" (i.e. "violations of automation policy") and "undisclosed use of automation". The fact that this run contains the exact same errors as the following bot run (e.g. here and here) shows that it is not a manual run of similar tasks, but a bot running from his main account (the edit summary of the first edit here has the telling "build KB" as well, but that is removed from the second one on). Fram (talk) 14:01, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fram running edits with his own account is hardly unjustified if he is preparing a task for the bot. Sometimes it can be done with a few edits and sometimes it takes a couple hundred to do right. Thats hardly conclusive or wrong doing and 325 edits on his main account is hardly justification to come after him for not using a bot. I do 500+ edits a day and I don't have a bot. This sort of self misdetermination of vague policies is only one of the many many problems I have with this case. You can say that he violated automation policy but that policy is so vague that its almost useless and no body follows it. The only time its even enforced is when someone like you or Arbcom wants to railroad some editor for doing edits. Other than that it is completely ignored. Your comments above are just more evidence that the whole case since even before it was written up has been a hose job from day one. I can't pick out 1 thing that was done right and that includes your misrepresentation of the policy. Even looking at your edits Fram I see several hundred edits with the description "Correct HPBot error, no corresponding Finnish article seems to exist". Do you have a bot task for that? I doubt it nor do you need one but by your own logic you are violating the bot policy. Kumioko (talk) 14:12, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please familiarize yourself better with bot policy and the like. You are not allowed to run hundreds of bot edits from your main account to "prepare a task for a bot" while waiting for approval of a trial run. Your interpretation that I claim that he was not allowed to make 300 edits a day on his account is not what I said at all, please counter the actual arguments I used and not such strawmen. And please be aware that accusing someone of "misrepresentation" is, according to Rich Farmbrough at least, "[...]accusing me of misrepresentation. I.E. lying. That alone is incredibly bad behaviour[...]". Please indicate clearly where I have misrepresented policy, or don't make such statements. Fram (talk) 14:30, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As for the comment you added while I made my reply: no, you don't get it. I make many similar edits manually; he made these edits in fully automated mode, running his bot task from his own account. Perhaps he pressed the "save" button, perhaps he didn't do that, but he clearly didn't make the edits manually or check them, or the errors I found (and which reappeared hundreds of times in the following bot run) wouldn't have happened. Fram (talk) 14:30, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fram quite trying to deflect my arguments as a strawman just because you don't like them or don't agree with them. And I understand bot policy fine the problem is that in many cases the rules are explicitly vague and easily manipulated. That goes for my arguments as well as yours so if you don't like the way I am interpreting them its only because they are not clear to begin with. Check the links you included to the ANI's where you and other submitted Rich to ANI. They clearly indicate your interpretations that running multiple redundant items without bot access is against policy as does the inference of your comments above on this very page. Kumioko (talk) 17:37, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Look, the reason Fram suddenly is posting here is fairly obvious. He sees the risk (indeed strong likelihood) that a ban is not going to be effected, and a "mere" one month block pains him. Last time he looked it was done and dusted. So now he's seeing what else he can throw into the mix. Unfortunately for him, the answer is "nothing". Even though the committee's view of me is significantly less rosy than I would like, or indeed I feel and think I deserve, it is not going to be affected by Fram throwing in stuff that belonged in the Evidence phase of the case (if it belonged anywhere), accurate or inaccurate, so there is really no need to respond to these attempts to inflame the situation. Rich Farmbrough, 22:54, 5 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Please don't speculate on the reasons why people do things, I have refrained from speculating on yours. The reason I posted this is because I was amazed at the lengths some people go to protect you and praise you, while ignoring the many problems there are and were. These are not "attempts to inflame the situation" but attempts to make the situation more clear for the more uninformed readers here, who might get a rather one-sided impression from other comments, which attempt to make this case about a user being nearly banned for one or two tiny errors and a single facepalm comment. While some people are trying to ridiculise things by discussing whether AWB is really, really, really, "automated editing" and whether having a bot make an edit after your edit is a case of you making automated edits, others are actually dealing with the issues which lead to the restrictions, block, and arbcom case. The ban discussions don't come ex nihilo, and the evidence in the case were only examples of a more widespread and too often recurring problem. 07:06, 6 June 2012 (UTC)— Preceding unsigned comment added by Fram (talk • contribs)

Please don't speculate on the reasons why people do things. It is not good faith (or good English) to say "people are trying to ridiculise things." People are raising valid points, albeit some of them are rhetorical, which have been discussed before and will be discussed again. Having you jump in with your anti-bellum prejudice still evident disrupts the attempts to reach common ground. As I have remarked before, in the last analysis, it is this that makes you disruptive, not whether you intend or desire to be. Rich Farmbrough, 16:12, 6 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]

I thought that there was according to you "really no need to respond to these attempts to inflame the situation"? That people bring up the same points again and again doesn't make them any more valid of course. As for my "anti-bellum" (sic) prejudice: attempting to reach a middle ground doesn't mean that only ArbCom and your defenders are allowed to raise points, otherwise it wouldn't be a "middle" ground but a rather one-sided one. I am not pained about the length of your block, or I would have argued at the case for an immediate ban. All I care about is that decisions are based on facts, and these are sadly missing from many posts by others here. Not a new thing in this case, but you are well aware of that of course. Fram (talk) 17:51, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Motion on Rich Farmbrough enforcement

For this motion, there are 14 active arbitrators but 2 are recused (Hersfold & Elen of the Roads), so 7 votes is a majority.

It is not in dispute that, despite being indefinitely prohibited from doing so, Rich Farmbrough made automated edits in breach of the sanction on 31 May 2012.

Accordingly, Rich Farmbrough is blocked for thirty days from the date of enactment of this motion.
To avoid future breaches of whatever nature, Rich Farmbrough is directed:
1. to blank userspace js pages associated with his account/s;
2. to avoid making automated edits to pages offline for the purpose of pasting them into a normal browser for posting;
3. to make only completely manual edits (ie by selecting the [EDIT] button and typing changes into the editing window);
4. to refrain from edits adjusting capitalisation of templates (where the current capitalisation is functional) or whitespace and similar as these can create the appearance of automation.
Further, Rich Farmbrough is advised that:
1. The prohibition on using automation will remain in place and in full force until modified or removed by the Committee;
2. The earliest date on which Rich Farmbrough may request that the Committee reconsider the automation prohibition is 15 January 2013;
3. The Checkuser tool will be used to verify Rich Farmbrough's future compliance with the prohibition;
4. If Rich Farmbrough breaches the automation prohibition again, notwithstanding the standard enforcement provisions, he will likely be site-banned indefinitely with at least twelve months elapsing from the date of the site-ban before he may request the Committee reconsider.

By adopting this motion, the Committee is extending considerable good faith to Rich Farmbrough, despite the aggravating factors, and notes he has unconditionally accepted provisions to this effect.

Votes RFE

Support

Roger Davies ^talk 19:58, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
SirFozzie (talk) 20:10, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support as a whole, although I do not believe that the 30-day block is necessary. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:05, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note that I've made several copyedits. I can go with this as very much a last and final chance. If we are back here in 45 days, Rich will be without excuse. Courcelles 21:24, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support as a whole; this motion has only minor variances (mainly copy edits) from the version to which Rich Farmbrough himself agreed on his talk page. I note that Rich already blanked his .js page a few days ago. I too do not want to see this matter arise again in 30 to 45 days, and I trust Rich will take this to heart. Risker (talk) 21:34, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
PhilKnight (talk) 22:03, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Per most of that said by my colleagues, and further to my own comments on Motion 1, directly to Rich (which although private, are relevant only to him), and on Rich's talk page. I will consider further breaches to have proven that anything except a site-ban is completely infeasible, but hope this motion sets the record straight for the months ahead. AGK [•] 23:38, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:17, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 21:06, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 20:38, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In order to even consider supporting this, it would need to incorporate Rich's acknowledgement of, apology for, and repudiation of his efforts to wikilawyer, deceive the community, and attack the process as a means to attempt to avoid the duly enacted sanctions. The committee has no business "cutting deals" with sanctioned editors who have repeatedly attacked the legitimacy of their sanctions, until and unless the apologies are at least as wide-ranging and without reservation as the attacks have been. Jclemens (talk) 04:31, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see this as cutting a deal, Jclemens, I see this as applying the sanction that we had already approved. I'd put to you that superceding the previously approved remedies and enforcement provisions was where we were "cutting deals". Had another editor taken the same set of facts to Arbitration Enforcement, the result would have been even less stringent than the motion we are currently considering. Risker (talk) 13:00, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Per Jclemens. Kirill ^[talk] 20:19, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Abstain

Comments

Just a note - we are awaiting a final vote from David Fuchs. -- Lord Roem (talk) 19:14, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion by arbitrators

The restriction told Rich plain as day, any edit that APPEARS to be automated would be assumed to be so. So a lot of this is a red herring, the copy and paste stuff, if true, is still plainly against the sanction to the point where Rich either knew better, or should have. Given that, there is no reason at all to think we won't be back here in 30 to 45 days. This motion changes nothing. Courcelles 20:47, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

On the contrary, it puts the Committee in the position of having gone the extra mile, which makes sanctioning him again, if the need arises, in "30 to 45 days" easier and more likely to attract support. When the Committee deadlocks, different solutions have to be found and this motion comes at the situation from a different angle. Roger Davies ^talk 20:54, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The paragraph B should use a word like "directed" not "advised", because this motion is a wiki-lawyers paradise the way it is written. And there is a darned good point below about the way the checkuser clause is worded, as well. Courcelles 21:00, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well copyedit it them, as you wish. I'm unlikely to oppose either change, Roger Davies ^talk 21:04, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Worth noting, Roger, that motion 1 had passed, the clock was ticking, and you stopped it. You had your reasons, which is fair enough, but the Committee was not deadlocked. There was strong discussion on the email list, and you reflected on that and proposed this solution - which appears to be gaining favour. I am concerned that we have here a user who has a history of problems with complying with consensus and has either ignored it completely, used his admin tools to circumvent it, or attempted to evade it as was found in the case and in this situation. However, it appears this motion will carry, and I hope that Rich will take on board that Wikipedia operates by discussion, consensus, good faith and trust - all of which are exemplified by what is happening in this series of motions: the Committee have continued to discuss, and have extended good faith and trust to Rich, and if the consensus is to block for thirty days, that is what will happen. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 23:10, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Moved discussion from "oppose" section because no vote appears to have been entered, and adjusted formatting appropriately. AGK [•] 23:38, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

General discussion (RFE)

There is a typo in C iv "may request the Committee may reconsider." Leaky Caldron 20:03, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Fixed thanks, Roger Davies ^talk 20:05, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I realize that I have been a major thorn for the committee but I appreciate the clarification on his automation. I would recommend for future cases a detailed description of "automation" similar to the one above be used. I also recommend reviewing the wording of C.iii. It could be inferred by how it is written that it wasn't authorized before and opens the door for inferrences that it may have been used inappropriately. Kumioko (talk) 20:17, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, I don't think it's necessary. Checkuser discretion is so very wide that there's really no need to justify use of it earlier. This is more in the nature of a very explicit warning, Roger Davies ^talk 20:57, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No problem Roger thanks. I'm not sure I agree in principle with the statement "Checkuser discretion is so very wide that there's really no need to justify use of it earlier" but thats a matter for another discussion. Kumioko (talk) 21:07, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There's a larger question at play there with respect to Checkuser. Inappropriate for this thread, so will post the remainder of my thoughts to your talk page. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:23, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Typo in the first line; "is not in" should be "is in" Nobody Ent 22:41, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's not a typo; Rich does not dispute that he saved edits using a hacked AWB script. Courcelles 22:45, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Silktork. I am a little bothered by the attitude that you are displaying regarding Rich's edits. There are a whole lot of fabrications and misinformations in your statements above that simply aren't true. Its true that Rich has done some bad edits but we all have, its also true he unblocked his bot, every single bot operator I have ever seen has done so once the problems were addressed but only now is it an issue, A new requirement. To say he has a history in the way you do above though is a pretty big stretch. Has he had some users complain yes, but several of these users are also guilty of hounding and picking at his every edit. I understand you don't agree and you have your own feelings about the situation and that's fine but your stretching the story beyond whats true. Kumioko (talk) 23:39, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I cannot respond for SilkTork, but I do think he is completely correct that Rich's violation of all manner of BotOp, administrator, and consensus policies has been serious enough to disrupt the project; this conclusion, and its factual basis, is not disputed by anyone. For the most part, the only disharmony is about whether to give Rich another chance would be to waste our time. AGK [•] 23:52, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

'not disputed by anyone' you say, for the record is it disputed by me. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 00:03, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Or me? I don't deny that he's made some mistakes but I still think that he does way more good for Wikipedia than harm. Kumioko (talk) 00:12, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@AGK, and agreeing with SunCreator; I haven't commented on the veracity of the first line of this proposal because I could see a narrow defined case where ArbCom thinks it the case that Rich conducted automated editing. But, to now say that it is "not disputed by anyone" is absolutely false. Two edits is not automation. Copying and pasting is not automation. Making copyedits is not automation. I dispute all of those claims, as do quite a number of other people. ArbCom gets to save some face with this proposal by modifying the truth and by finally coming up with a definition of automated, after having their feet to the fire for weeks. That's (barely) good enough. You don't get to stretch it to include a grandiose statement of nobody disagreeing. --Hammersoft (talk) 00:06, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
For the record, I agree with SunCreator as well. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:05, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Also for the record, I have a VERY hard time seeing "Using automation to do an edit, not checking it before you C&P into a new window and hitting enter" is anything BUT. SirFozzie (talk) 05:25, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - "not checking it before you C&P" .. ?? That is the same faulty assumption as that ArbCom used against Δ. And for the rest, well, it is exactly as I said, I'll have a look whether it was still while the case was open, or whether it was already closed - Can ArbCom now PLEASE re-do their 'Remedie' regarding automated edits. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:48, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@SilkTork: Above, you say "motion 1 had passed, the clock was ticking"; I'm confused. Could you point to the procedure, guideline, what have you about how motions pass or don't pass and what this clock is? At one point RF1 AND RF3 were passing (numbers were 6 needed for majority at the time). Was the clock ticking then? If so, which one passes? Does the clock keep on ticking when all active arbitrators haven't voted? Where is this process written down? --Hammersoft (talk) 00:23, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

On Hammersoft's bit about the clock ticking and where this is documented, I believe (but may be wrong on this) that the clock used here is similar to that used at the requests page, in that motions are implemented 24 hours after the vote that causes them to pass. That should be documented at WP:AC/P, but doesn't seem to be explicitly. The closest would be Wikipedia:AC/P#Motions to close. The exact procedure used here should be documented both at WP:AC/P and at the top of this page. In the absence of any explicit procedure, nothing gets implemented until an arbitrator or clerk has actually done the sums and checked if something is passing, and posts some form of implementation notes, and those implementation notes would normally include a time at which the motion will be archived by the clerks. Sometimes this drags out a bit, though, as you are seeing here. It all depends whether you want an ArbCom that can be flexible to give a bit more time to hammer something out, or an inflexible ArbCom where things get pushed through because there is no way of 'stopping the clock'. If this motions page is going to be used a lot, something explicit explaining the procedure here would be useful. Carcharoth (talk) 02:51, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) @Hammersoft - I would like to answer your question from a purely procedural/clerical standpoint. Yes, at one point both RF1 and RF3 were numerically passing. However, as two votes of support on RF3 were conditional on RF1 not passing, those votes were functionally dropped and RF1 would have carried. So at one point, RF1 would have been enacted. Lord Roem (talk) 02:56, 5 June 2012 (UTC) Additional note: Hammersoft, the number of majority was always seven. The original count was incorrect since it counted one arbitrator out twice (inactive and recused), which inappropriately lowered the majority. Seven is necessary with the current numbers. Lord Roem (talk) 03:00, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am reluctant to get in another discussion, but there does seem to be a willingness to go beyond what is found in the case, and since Arbitrators are already aware that there are a significant number of people who have substantial issues with that as a datum, I would have expected them to avoid going further, out of integrity , and not to make unnecessary references to the case conclusions, simply out of politeness, collegiality and caution. For example, without loosing any punch AGK here could have said "Due to the conclusions of the Arbitration case, and the facts of the present incident, for the most part, the only disharmony is about whether to give Rich another chance would be to waste our time."

This would avoid casting additional aspersions, and still provide the necessary conclusion, in a far tighter way, benefiting both the committee and me. (If on the other hand the committee is adducing matter extraneous to either the case or the present incident, then they should clearly state what it is, but there has been no indication that this is the case.)

Rich Farmbrough, 00:32, 5 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]

@Kumioko. I have no problems in itself with Rich using automation, nor with any errors in his editing - we all make errors, and my understanding from Rich is that he has analysed his edits and finds in percentage terms that he makes less than the average user; my problem lies with what might be better termed as the conflict history regarding those edits. Other people, not me, have had issue with his edits. As a member of the Committee I am far more interested in Rich's conduct regarding how he responds to enquiries and concerns about his edits. My feeling is that ArbCom does not get involved in content disputes, which would include adjudicating if removing white space is good or bad, or creating sock-puppet categories is good or bad. I am not concerned about these edits, and will not pass comment on them. What troubles me is Rich's conflict history which has shown him to be reluctant to accept other people's concerns about his edits. While I am not supporting this motion, I understand why it is being made, and why other Committee members are supporting it, and I think it reflects well on ArbCom that this series of motions has been made in order to fine tune a solution until a consensus could be reached. I think it appropriate to leave my oppose to show that not all Committee members support the solution, so the outcome is not unanimous, but that all Committee members will accept the outcome. I like and agree with what has happened here, even though I do not support the actual motion. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 09:27, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You hit an important point, SilkTork: 'Other people, not me, have had issue with his edits'. And because 'other people' have problems with the edits of one ... --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 11:16, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well his "behavior" towards 99% of editors is perfectly fine its the ones that are constantly hounding him about every edit and complaining about every edit he makes that receives the generally negative responses. In general though, looking back on the case what you describe as hardly discussed and what the case seemed to center on was minor edits and how he filled peoples watchlists. I also do not think this is being done until a consensus can be reached. Arbcom isn't looking for a consensus they are looking for a solution. IMO if Arbcom really wanted to the right thing in this case they would have spent a little time addressing these editors and their practice of hounding which the last time I read the rule book is generally not acceptable behavior in WP either. Kumioko (talk) 11:54, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's ArbCom's job to find a solution. If a consensus could have been reached there wouldn't have been a case opened. Nobody Ent 12:49, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

'If a consensus could have been reached there wouldn't have been a case opened.' - Have you seen other forms of dispute resolution before this? And RfC/U on Rich? Did you see why this case was opened? An (hence recused) Arbitrator brought the case before ArbCom, without considering other forms of dispute resolution. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:35, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify, I am talking here about consensus within the Committee. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 13:39, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We are not disputing that, SilkTork. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:44, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, on WP:AN. see also Elen's attempt to resolve. Nobody Ent 14:42, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for not finding the RfC/U as a step in WP:DR ("other dispute resolution mechanisms include requests for comments, mediation or, after all other methods have been tried, arbitration."). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 16:52, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom is commenting in a number of places on Rich using a "hacked" version of AWB, carrying the connotation that this is "bad". I remind everyone that AWB is licensed under GPL. ArbCom has no jurisdiction to prevent, and the GPL license on AWB allows Rich to do whatever modifications to AWB that he sees fit to perform. Anyone can dislike the idea of Rich modifying AWB all they want. But, there is nothing wrong in him doing so.

In my opinion where he made an error was in not modifying the code he was using to prevent it from making actual edits. If he wants to use it to whatever purpose he desires, so long as it is not making any edits there is no wrong being done. I fail to see that using AWB in the manner he was attempting (with it not editing Wikipedia) was some effort to deceive the community or that he was snubbing his nose at ArbCom. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:33, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

RF has validated that description, not worth arguing over. Nobody Ent 14:42, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone can hack AWB under the terms it is distributed, but ti doesn't mean they can then use their hacked version on this wiki. Anyone wishing to use the tool on this project 'MUST be either an admin, or have their username listed at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage. Hacking AWB is fine, using hacked versions on the English Wikipedia is still subject to the conditions of use the "stock" version comes with. Courcelles 14:47, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I partially agree with that assessment Courcelles except that Rich was an admin and AWB allows it to be modified by allowing custom modules which can override established built in functionality. I'm not trying to open a bigger can of worms here but by allowing that we open the door for "hacked" versions of AWB. The fact remains that Rich was and IMO still is a trusted member of the community and that was confirmed by his approval to be an Admin so although AWB cannot be used and modified by just any editor, it is possible and allowed. Kumioko (talk) 15:16, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Like "automation," as first blush this would seem to be a reasonably well defined statement -- but it's not. If I modify an open source browser (e.g. Mozilla Firefox) with 20 lines of AWB, is that a hacked AWB, or a hacked firefox? Is a user's browser even any of Wikipedia's business? Focus on the server (which is what you can control and monitor). Nobody Ent 16:48, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Nobody; Rich wasn't agreeing there was some malfeasance on his part. Rather the opposite. The implication is Rich was intending on deceiving the community. I don't see that. There is absolutely nothing wrong with him modifying the AWB code. The wrong is in the two edits he accidentally did through it, and also that he didn't modify the code to prevent it from doing that. To pejoratively describe his modifications of AWB is wrong. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:14, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not necessarily pejorative. Nobody Ent 16:48, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Much in the same way that a monsoon isn't wet, you mean :) --Hammersoft (talk) 17:48, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the use of the word "hacked" without disambiguation is unfortunate, moreover the writ of ArbCom does not run either to what happens on my hardware, or wetware. That is clearly the reason that

The initial wording was "advised" rather than "directed"
The phrase "what appears to be automation will be deemed automation"
Nobody Ent said "server side, server side, server side"
Pen said (paraphrase) "disruption should be defined as noticeable"

Obviously these arguments are sophistry to most. Rich Farmbrough, 22:07, 5 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]

I'd love to hear one Arbcom member describe how Wikipedia will be a better place after some ban is imposed on Rich...William 18:46, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, an ex-arbcom member pointed out above that now other folks will get to learn how to do what Rich has been doing. Maybe we should ban some more of our most prolific members?ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 21:04, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You can refer to me by name. It is considered polite to do that when you over-simplify what someone says to the point of misrepresenting it, even to the point of being patronising, which is ironic as above that is what you accused me of being. The point I was trying to make above was that some of Rich's bot tasks can be done by others, and something could be worked out regarding the other ones. Those who really believe what they say about some of the edits being vital to the encyclopedia would be doing that (working out how to ensure the edits are still done), and separating that objective from any involving Rich as an individual. The other point is that being prolific is not a 'defense'. Just as good contributions are not just weighed against bad ones (that is a simplistic formula that should never really be used, the real metric should always be the intrinsic nature and scope of any disruption caused), so the number of edits someone has made shouldn't factor into decisions like this. The concerns I've seen from some people thinking that this is some 'campaign' against those with large number of edits beggars belief. Merely having the time and the skill to make large numbers of edits is not enough. You have to be able to adjust and change those edits and even your whole approach, when valid objections are raised. Those doing mass edits also need to realise that making large numbers of edits naturally increases the potential for such objections, and if you are going to develop in that direction, you need to avoid adopting an inflexible mindset. If a team of people eventually managed an array of bots or scripts or programs of AWB-assissted editing that did everything Rich did, and Rich managed to cope with a period of manual editing and at some point return to automated editing, the encyclopedia would look just the same (it doesn't care who does the edits, as long as they get done). Carcharoth (talk) 23:55, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In that big long statement there are a couple of very interesting statements and assumptions. The first one that caught my attention was that you assumed that the complaints were "valid" some where, most where not. A lot of the arguments were based on "minor edits" and "filling up watchlists". Neither of which is a compelling reason to ban someone or even ban them from automation but that's what the majority of this cases evidence was about. Mostly by the same 3 or 4 people. The fact that the case was initiated by a member of Arbcom is all the more compelling. Another thing you inferred was that some of us should do some of the bot tasks if we feel they are important. I would but I had my own problems with running a bot, namely a series of complaints about the scope of WikiProject United States, so now I have no desire to operate one even if I thought they would approve it. Which I don't. The Wiki culture of today would rather edits don't get done at all then to have a few minor edits or mistakes that are easily fixable. I also think its pretty funny that you stated if a "If a team of people eventually managed an array of bots or scripts or programs of AWB-assissted editing that did everything Rich did". This statement actually made me laugh because with all your attempts at minimizing the impact to the pedia that will be caused from this that statement sums it up pretty good. It will take a lot of people and a lot of bots to accomplish the same thing. Because Rich devoted a ton of time and effort to the pedia. The last statement is also kinda funny. The "pedia doesn't care who does the edits as long as they get done". The problem here is they probably won't get done. Kumioko (talk) 00:18, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly, because of the community's attitude, officialised by ArbCom, things will not get done. 'The encyclopedia would look just the same' Those words are very true, the same as now, as more of your knowledgeable editors will simply step aside and Wikipedia will simply not change for the better. You see that Kumioko is already one of them. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 04:07, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

When I was about four years old I dropped a threepenny bit down a drain in the street. I realised that, in a real sense, I would never recover that thrupence. For although I might save up again, I could have had the drain threepence and the saved up threepence. Similarly I could ask my father for threepence, but if he gave it to me, I could have had that and the lost money. I considered searching for lost coins, searching the coin return on vending machines, which had paid off so well in the past. Regardless the situation was unchanged. I was, and would always be, worse off than I was before. Even statistical and chaotic interpretations agree with this analysis on some level.

The same applies here. If people "take up the slack" they could have been doing something else, possibly something they are more suited too.

The second point, of course, is that Cacharoth's argument also assumes that my contributions are static. People may well take up the tasks I was doing in the past (and I have encouraged redundancy in those tasks), but they will not necessarily take up the tasks I would have done in the future. Rich Farmbrough, 16:29, 6 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Exactly! Carcharoth, I never intended to be at all patronizing to you (and I don't think I was), that was supposed to be sarcasm—it never occurred to me that you were in fact trying to ban editors for being prolific, of course! Those who really believe what they say about some of the edits being vital to the encyclopedia would be doing that—an emphatic no, as RF has since pointed out right here. I mean, maybe we'd be doing it, if we'd be doing it anyway. In any case, blocking someone for fixing spelling mistakes is almost surely not part of the best plan for recruiting spelling fixers—my only points being, so it is clear that I'm not trying to insult anyone, is that this can not be seen as a positive outcome of any of this and this oughtn't be used to try to placate those who think these sanctions against Rich are too much considering that no harm appears to have been done. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 16:55, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@JClemens. After the rather scathing comment you left I felt obliged to reply. Rich has not been the onnly one commenting about the process. The fact is this case has invited questions and concerns from the moment an arbitrator opened it, continuing through the assumptions and preconceived notions by the members of the committee through the case all the way until now when a motion to ban him was being considered, which goes against an agreed escelating series of blocks approved by the committee. IF the committee doesn't want criticism for its decisions then it should be making wiser ones than to pass a motion and then come back and create a new one that contrasts it so drastically. Th bottom line is that the process of Arbitration needs a major overhaul and the members an attitude change. I do note that the committee has been very good in considering adopting some new policies and enacting some changes based on comments received by myslef and others in this case but here are a few more suggestions that may help in making some of these changes.

Arcom members should not be making preconcieved notions of guilt
Arcom should be reviewing all the facts of the case including whether the submission is even valid. Not taking one sides word for it.
An arbitrator should not be able to submit a case, this violates COI for several reasons.
If Arbcom decides on a certain remedy then they should stick to that rather than create a new motion to change it, which creates even more anxiety for all involved.
If the Arbcom is going to alter how an existing policy is interpretted, which was done in this case a couple times, then that change should be implemented prior to being used against a defendant in the case.

There are plenty more but these are some for folks to chew on for now. Kumioko (talk) 18:57, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just want to be clear, re: #3 -- the two arbitrators who filed the case were recused from its consideration. That means they are completely uninvolved in any formal discussion of it amongst members of the Committee, obviously cannot vote on any proposals, and are given the same consideration as any other editor submitting evidence. -- Lord Roem (talk) 19:07, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, when we deliberate on a case with recused arbitrators, we generally set up a sublist that does not include the recused arbitrators so there's no chance of influencing discussion (for example, on the Fae case, there are a couple recused arbitrators, so we use the sublist "arbcom-en-b" list for that case's discussion, requests for private evidence/complaints etcetera. SirFozzie (talk) 19:13, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for clarifying I certainly didn't know that you set up a special sublist so that does make me feel a little better. I still have a big problem with Arbitrators submitting cases though, especially 2 of them. Recused or not, the mere fact that they have a certain repore and working relationship with the other members of the Arbcom presents a large shadow on the case. It automatically begs the question of COI and fairness regardless of the utopian notions that we all would like to believe. Its human nature to favor those that you know and its hard to separate that. I do think it would be nice to clarify that somewhere so that its clear to folks that is the procedure. I'm glad I was wrong but frankly that was the first I heard of it and envisioned them discussing the case with the other arbs offwiki (IRC or whatever) even though they didn't vote on its outcome. Its still a problem for me although granted less of one that before. Kumioko (talk) 19:21, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is my feeling too, Kumioko, and though I am not generally in favour of exceptions, it seems to me that giving up the opportunity to bring an Arb case for the term of one's appointment would not be a particularly onerous requirement. It is to be noted that the original proposed decision was something more extreme by community standards (personally I would rather have been banned than loose the sysop bit, but that's just me) than the proposer expected, and certainly Elen has been completely reasonable, by her lights. Nonetheless, fellow arbitrators are the in group, mails do get sent to the wrong list, and if more than a very rare case were raised by an arb, the question of justice being seen to be done, at the very least, would be raised. Rich Farmbrough, 19:48, 6 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Rich, I think the suggestion of giving up the ability to submit a case for arbitration for an arb term is a great suggestion. I doubt there are few courts in developed nations of this world that would allow a panel of judges to make court decisions about another judge who presides in the same court. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:05, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To expand on that slightly, IMO, if the situation was as dire as it has been made out to be by some then there should be more than enough members of the community that would be willing to submit the case for consideration and it would not need to be done by two Arbs who are intimately familiar with the process, how one needs to be worded to succeed and the rules by which the process works. Kumioko (talk) 20:06, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Hammersoft: Interesting you should raise that issue. Actually, the Judicial Conference of the United States will investigate complaints made against Judges, sometimes referring that Judge for impeachment to the House of Representatives or others issuing a reprimand (similar to the one in this RF case). One time, there was a judge who was reprimanded by the same panel of judges whom he worked with. So, your statement that no nation "would allow a panel of judges to make court decisions about another judge who presides in the same court" is inaccurate, at least in some respect. Lord Roem (talk) 20:14, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Hammersoft. It's not as unusual as you think. The UK has a system of Recorders, these are barristers (attorneys) who sit as part time judges for criminal trials. On the days, they're not sitting as judges, they defend/prosecute in the normal way, often in the same courts. There's a civil parallel as well as with deputy Masters, who also sit part time, gaining experience for a permanent appointmnent to the bench later. In any case, law is a small world. Advocates will often know the judges they're appearing before socially and, indeed, with circuit courts, get together with the judge for dinner. Roger Davies ^talk 20:36, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nostalgia

I was just glancing at some of this case. I had forgotten just how laughably appalling the conduct of the case was. Really time to start to unwind some of it I think. Rich Farmbrough, 00:42, 6 November 2012 (UTC).[reply]

[1] [Actually it seem I am. But in a different way.]

[notes 1]

@@ Line 842: / Line 842: @@
 :::::@Hammersoft: Interesting you should raise that issue. Actually, the [[Judicial Conference of the United States]] will investigate complaints made against Judges, sometimes referring that Judge for impeachment to the House of Representatives or others issuing a reprimand ([[Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rich_Farmbrough#Elen_of_the_Roads_reminded|similar to the one in this RF case]]). [http://www.uscourts.gov/uscourts/RulesAndPolicies/conduct/ccd-11-01Order-final-11-17-11.pdf One time], there was a judge who was reprimanded by the same panel of judges whom he worked with. So, your statement that no nation "would allow a panel of judges to make court decisions about another judge who presides in the same court" is inaccurate, at least in some respect. [[User:Lord Roem|Lord Roem]] ([[User talk:Lord Roem|talk]]) 20:14, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 :::::@Hammersoft. It's not as unusual as you think. The UK has a system of [[Recorder (judge)|Recorders]], these are barristers (attorneys) who sit as part time judges for criminal trials. On the days, they're not sitting as judges, they defend/prosecute in the normal way, often in the same courts. There's a civil parallel as well as with deputy [[Master (judiciary)|Masters]], who also sit part time, gaining experience for a permanent appointmnent to the bench later. In any case, law is a small world. Advocates will often know the judges they're appearing before socially and, indeed, with circuit courts, get together with the judge for dinner. &nbsp;[[User:Roger Davies|<span style="color:maroon; font-variant:small-caps">'''Roger Davies'''</span>]] <sup>[[User talk:Roger Davies|'''talk''']]</sup> 20:36, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
+==Nostalgia==
+I was just glancing at some of this case.  I had forgotten just how laughably appalling the conduct of the case was.  Really time to start to unwind some of it I think. ''[[User:Rich Farmbrough|Rich]]&nbsp;[[User talk:Rich Farmbrough|Farmbrough]]'', <small>00:42, 6 November 2012 (UTC).</small><br />