Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard

@ArbCom @Checkuser Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive254#Too many indef blocked IPs

Due to the magnitude of the request, I'd like to bring the issue in the attention of ArbCom members and checkusers. Currently there is a serious backlog of indefinately blocked IPs which can be observed at Special:BlockList.

Of these 20,411 are indef blocked single IP and 203 are indef blocked IP ranges. Some of these blocks come from as far back as 8 February 2004. nl:User:RonaldB suggested that of the older indef blocked IPs, "vast majority is dynamic, so indef block is meaningless and superfluous".

I'd like to request a spring cleanup but would like the input of ArbCom members and checkusers. Thanks.

-- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 01:26, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

There are undoubtedly some that can be reverted. However, one must differentiate between hard-blocked and soft-blocked. (Hard-blocked IPs will prevent anyone except for an administrator from editing.) There is also some difference in opinion on how dynamic a lot of those IPs may be: certain IPs show as "dynamic" but in fact are assigned to servers that don't break their sessions for years. Having said that, we did a very big cleanup a few years back, but it seems we've had some creep again. I'd suggest a task group including administrators, those with experience in sock/long term abuse areas, and checkusers be set up. They should probably start looking at the oldest IP/range blocks and work their way forward. While they're at it, the user pages of dynamic IPs should probably be stripped of "sockpuppet" tags (they're actually quite pointless, and insulting to the next user with that IP). I'd also suggest perhaps a very focused look at the last 6 months of indef IP/range blocks to see how reasonable they are. My suspicion is that at least half are unnecessary and/or unhelpful. This would give us some factual basis to initiate a discussion aimed at establishing some guidance/guidelines for administrators placing such blocks. Risker (talk) 01:55, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I feel even the most notorious Open Proxies should be given finite blocks (say 1-5 years) and perhaps be delegated to global blocks. This would give us a mechanic to timely verify the status of these IPs. Exception to that general principle can be made of course. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 03:06, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Your point about global blocking is a good one. Often we will find that when an IP or IP range comes up for global blocking on the checkuser mailing list, it has already been blocked locally; lifting the local block and applying a global block would make more sense. I am going to draw the attention of local checkusers and stewards to this thread via the checkuser mailing list. Risker (talk) 03:24, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I also have meta:User:とある白い猫/English Wikipedia open proxy candidates if they want to go through it. This page lists all indef blocks. It may simplify things if multiple people go through the same list noting what they have checked. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 04:13, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Has there been any progress on the issue? -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 23:19, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately not, because this doesn't fall within the remit of the Arbitration Committee: we resolve disputes, and don't take very much to do with the checkusers over and above electing them. Regards, AGK [•] 19:52, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

The problem seems to me is that sysops and checkusers alike need some sort of "go ahead" to handle the ancient blocks. Perhaps such a discussion on ArbCom mailing list may yield some sort of consensus on the matter. The results would be posted on the noticeboard. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 21:34, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Should I file an arbitration case then? The collateral damage stemming from the issue needs some sort of a review somewhere. This problem wont resolve itself. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 05:02, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

How about posting an RfD RfC suggesting that we remove a bunch of these old blocks and monitor them to see if there is any more disruption, re-blocking as needed? It will most likely come back with an overwhelming consensus to do that, and then you can go to AN and ask for help. I think arbcom is a dead end; this really seems to be outside of arbcom's scope. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:48, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Redirects for discussion? Do you mean an WP:RFC? -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 10:42, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, Typo. So, how do we resolve this? AN went nowhere, and Arbcom isn't the right place. So where is the right place? --Guy Macon (talk) 19:24, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

An issue of this magnitude (over 20k individual IPs) would normally be resolved by ArbCom. No single sysop will want to deal with it nor would they be capable of such an act. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 13:09, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

A solid suggestion would be most helpful. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 20:36, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm not an arbitrator, but I don't see how they would be any more or less equipped to deal with this than than any other group of administrators? As a first step I think the headline figure needs to be ignored - it's just too scary to work with:

• Create a list of all the indef blocks of IPs or IP ranges, one entry per block (not per IP), the date placed and the reason. Order this list by date, oldest first.
• Advertise this list here, at AN, the checkusers mailing list and anywhere else appropriate.
• Starting from the top of the list (oldest first), review the first block and unblock/make it of a finite length/leave as is as appropriate.
• Move that to a separate list of reviewed blocks, and move on.

Alternatively, and more radically, the ArbCom could just issue a statement/motion authorising:

1. The unblocking of all indef blocks placed before $timeago, with a link to that statement in the block log for ease of tracking.
2. The reblocking, by any administrator, of any IP ublocked for this reason, again with a link to the motion/statement. Thryduulf (talk) 17:42, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

With a view to creating a manageable subset, it might be worth separating out all old IP indefblocks that don't include the word "proxy" in the block reason and reviewing those separately. WJBscribe (talk) 19:50, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

My recollection from a years back when this came up before is that a good percentage of the indef blocked IPs are inadvertent - an administrator mistakenly proceeding as if the IP were a registered account. So if you are going to make a manageable subset to deal with first, it might be a good idea to look for default block log comments such as "Vandalism-only account" which are indicative of this kind of slip up. -- Ed (Edgar181) 20:11, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I have created such a list on meta. It wasn't possible to post it on a single page so I broke it apart to groups of 5000: m:User:とある白い猫/English Wikipedia open proxy candidates. I have posted the issue on AN but it was able to attract little attention as the work load is quite significant not to mention the possible backlash of just a few mistaken unblocks. Admins would be more comfortable with some sort of ArbCom statement to back their action so as not to appear rouge. Mind that vast majority of the blocks are over claims of Open proxies which probably aren't even valid anymore or are (globally) ranged blocked. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 22:29, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm confused. Why is this on Meta? Why is it unlinked to the IP's/IP range's contributions? This is actually harder to work on than the block list; at least there I was able to unblock directly. I mean...if you want people to actually review them, this is probably about the hardest way you could do it. Risker (talk) 22:35, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Mind that vast majority of IP blocks are under the claim that they are open proxies. Because open proxies tend to be a global problem, ranges should probably be globally blocked rather than locally. The contributions are not linked due to MediaWiki limitations. Page will simply not load if you have more than 2000KB of content which is why everything is so bare-bone. It is meant to be a checklist of what has been done for that specific IP and whatnot. I also cannot see the relevance of the IPs past contribution as the claim here is that IPs probably changed hands and the original source of any problem isn't relevant anymore.

It is trivial to make a copy of the content there to here if there is anyone here willing to check them. I was hoping to get stewards to check the IPs globally for problems given how the IPs are indefinitely blocked here hence any conclusion here would probably be incomplete. This however never happened. At this point I do not believe anyone is willing to check these IPs due to the amount of work that would involve. So the option is to leave them blocked forever disregarding the collateral damage, or more or less blindly unblock everything before a certain date and re-block if they still cause problems. The latter option would work better if ArbCom OK'ed it IMHO.

-- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 09:48, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the effort of making the lists, but I think they're too big. It's not really a surprise that people aren't willing to go through blocked IPs in groups of 5000 without any links (not even to unblock them). The scale of the task makes it unmanageable. Also, it would be difficult to have more than one person working on any one list at a time due to edit conflicts etc. I think it work work better to break them down into much smaller batches, say 50. Then users/admins who understand how to check for open proxies could each assign themselves one set of 50, work through it, and pick another set once done. I suspect that will seem much less daunting and encourage people to get started. WJBscribe (talk) 11:23, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

This sounds like a job for a program. Doing this by hand is a waste of editor time. I'd suggest the following rules:

• If the IP address hasn't made any edits at all in N (12?) months, unblock it.
• When an IP address changes ASN, unblock it. The IP address space has been sold.
• When the IP-level geolocation info [1] for an IP address changes, unblock it. (That info is not updated as mobiles move around; it's just where the provider is.)
• If the IP address is on a Dialup Users List, it's part of a pool of addresses, and single addresses should only be blocked for N (7?) days or so to avoid collateral damage. In severe cases, where large address ranges were blocked, this rule should not apply.

That will knock the list down to a manageable size. Ask on the bot-owners notice board if anyone wants to code that. John Nagle (talk) 20:15, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Is there a rationale for how this benefits the encyclopedia? Checking open proxies is a lot of work. If you have an unblock request from somebody who claims to be on an IP that was incorrectly blocked, then there is motivation to do the work. And that's for a single IP. Facing a list of 5000 some people would lose their optimism. EdJohnston (talk) 01:39, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

This benefits the project because it adds more edits by more people. The more people who can edit the better, generally speaking. Its like a bot that is currenty running through blocking proxies that have never even edited. Its a complete waste of time and effort indef blocking IP's. I agree with the above that there should be a limit (1 year in my opinion) to any IP block. Especially ranges. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 02:26, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Blocks should have oversight and expiration is one example of such oversight. These IPs are blocked until time ends. There is no benefit of that to the encyclopedia.

It is possible for admins to review 50 of the blocked IPs at a time. No one wants to review a single one of them at the moment.

-- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 19:20, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

What is the message a blocked IP gets when trying to edit, and when trying to create an account? If the message(s) could be improved so admins are directed to active IPs, that might be helpful - and a more productive use of time than reviewing all the IPs. A simple, friendly message, like: "Ooops, there seems to be a problem. Please click "here" if you'd like to edit / create an account." And clicking "here" creates an automated IP block review request which admins can look at. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 01:06, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Blockedtext is what blocked accounts/IPs see. $2 is where the block reason is rendered (so if {{blocked proxy}} is used as the block reason the blocked editor sees the rendered template). Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 06:39, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Editor data from stats:EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm and rangeblock data from Wikipedia:Database reports/Range blocks.

Date	Active editors	# of IP's blocked in rangeblocks
Aug 2009	38,623	6,727,662
Sep 2009	37,255	6,168,382
Oct 2009	38,517	5,791,864
Nov 2009	37,937	5,662,110
Dec 2009	36,683	6,027,875
Jan 2010	38,656	6,258,678
Feb 2010	37,157	5,791,222
Mar 2010	39,082	6,395,728
Apr 2010	37,848	6,950,324
May 2010	38,218	6,954,356
Jun 2010	35,207	7,262,952
Jul 2010	34,851	6,698,654
Aug 2010	35,446	7,101,194
Sep 2010	33,913	6,743,305
Oct 2010	34,486	7,023,560
Nov 2010	33,887	7,675,024
Dec 2010	33,216	7,606,594
Jan 2011	36,671	7,486,394
Feb 2011	35,679	8,130,442
Mar 2011	37,553	7,784,490
Apr 2011	36,291	6,835,140
May 2011	35,949	7,491,804
Jun 2011	34,768	7,420,234
Jul 2011	34,547	7,308,898
Aug 2011	34,703	7,306,442
Sep 2011	33,814	7,279,378
Oct 2011	34,105	7,059,986
Nov 2011	33,523	7,477,354
Dec 2011	33,221	6,996,072
Jan 2012	34,198	7,248,216
Feb 2012	33,260	7,955,768
Mar 2012	33,673	7,790,740
Apr 2012	33,146	8,573,020
May 2012	33,556	9,318,066
Jun 2012	32,363	9,973,050
Jul 2012	33,304	10,735,998
Aug 2012	33,019	11,409,546
Sep 2012	31,005	11,102,978
Oct 2012	32,417	11,465,195
Nov 2012	32,079	11,579,506
Dec 2012	31,416	11,300,434
Jan 2013	33,283	13,395,414
Feb 2013	31,157	13,450,222
Mar 2013	33,181	14,347,258
Apr 2013	33,368	14,178,926
May 2013	33,072	14,774,552
Jun 2013	30,860	13,902,412
Jul 2013	30,866	14,570,453
Aug 2013	30,879	15,434,306
Sep 2013	28,699	14,884,160
Oct 2013	30,917	15,284,292
Nov 2013		15,928,304

Rangeblock RfC from August 2013 at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 105#Mass removal of old indefinite rangeblocks. Feel free to ignore this. 64.40.54.208 (talk) 09:48, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry, my brain is running a little too slow to follow this discussion fully, but it sounds like there are a lot of indefinite blocks that need review? Is there something that requires elevated permissions beyond administrator, or are we just trying to find a posse?--Tznkai (talk) 06:43, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

The blocks needs some better presentation, as discussed above. There needs to be a way of checking stuff and marking blocks as reviewed either way. When I go through Wikipedia:Database_reports/Indefinitely_blocked_IPs I seem to not unblock more and more. Unblocking an indef-blocked IP address should not be done lightly, imo, so you probably want a posse of admins (and users from WP:OP) who are either reckless enough to unblock anything, or feel competent enough to check them at least a bit. I'm sure checking for rangeblocks and dynamic ranges should be done by a bot or script. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 07:30, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm still a believer in that old time Wikipedia philosophy of "the worst thing that can happen is we have to block again" so I guess I qualify as reckless. Is there a specific reason we'd need ArbCom?--Tznkai (talk) 08:05, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

That's fine, each to their own. I guess the reason it's here is because some of arbcom should be competent (or reckless). I'm curious how you'd deal with (from the database rangeblocks page) the "scientology" blocks, and also the "by request" schoolblocks. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 08:11, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Personally? The by request blocks seem to be very old, and I am unaware of any policy or principle that supports them. If a school sysadmin doesn't want students editing Wikipedia, that is on the school sysadmin to figure out, so after asking the administrator hive mind for input, if no justification could be found, I'd unblock them and keep an eye for the almost certainly inevitable penis spam from at least one.

More to the point, if I understand this all, we have roughly two categories of indefinite blocks that need review. One is open proxies, which should either be unblocked locally, or unblocked locally and then globally blocked by a steward. The second group are indef blocks under local policy, which just need to be reviewed. If that is the case, it seems like support needs to be gathered at WP:AN for technically comfortable users for group one, and for policy comfortable users for group two. Or am I missing something?--Tznkai (talk) 18:17, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I think you have it absolutely right, Tznkai. Would you be willing to work with and help White Cat with this? That would help move this away from ArbCom (which isn't really the right place for this) and towards where it might get dealt with. And White Cat, apologies for not responding to the message on my talk page. I did get it, and didn't have much to add to what was said at various other arbitrator talk pages. Carcharoth (talk) 00:45, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I will see if I can do some recruiting, but after the holidays. @とある白い猫:, could you remind me in early Jan?--Tznkai (talk) 17:59, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Certainly @Tznkai: :) Like you said, problem IPs can be blocked again. One note though, the main problem behind this section is ~20,000 SINGLE IP blocks - some dating back more than half a decade. Once those are handled we (well admins :p) can work on range blocks which would require a more in depth analysis. So we have a 4 flavors of blocks (single open proxy, single policy, range open proxy, range policy) to consider.

The reason why this is presented to ArbCom is because a lot of admins are hesitating to engage in this endeavor. ArbCom can simply vote on the matter to establish criteria on how to handle the IPs. An arbitrary cut-off date by ArbCom would for example allow mass handing of the more ancient blocks. Any issues that would be the result of the unblock would be tracked by ArbCom though I honestly can't see what kind of a problem would emerge aside from the casual vandalism IPs normally bring. Perhaps ArbCom can list or task a checkuser to list IPs they do not want to see unblocked.

-- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 04:15, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Would those still interested please continue the discussion and reviews at WT:OP#Proposal_to_unblock_indeffed_IPs_en_masse (section title may change:). Thanks. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 09:39, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

I fail to see the point of starting a parallel discussion. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 17:26, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

As someone pointed out above, this is outside of arbcom's remit. There is no reason to clog up this page with what needs to be done - solid review of some ancient blocks. WT:OP, with the appropriate invitees, is probably far better equipped to deal with them. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 17:36, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

I disagree. Abrcom gives out and takes away checkuser flags. They have private communications among each other and checkusers on problematic IPs and have some technical background to understand the problem better. Furthermore they have the role of being the final step of dispute resolution meaning any disagreement on weather a specific IP needs to be blocked or not could be tossed at them to handle if it comes to that. This makes Arbcom ideal for handling the issue and sysops can act based on their judgement. Very few sysops (if any) would want to be responsible of 20,000 individual decisions which is why people have been reluctant to do anything about it since late April. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 03:49, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

3 things the new arbitration committee needs to address

I have no faith that this will amount to anything but a waste of my time but I am going to present it anyway in the hopes the the newly elected arbitration members will be better than the last and will improve the committee. There are a number of things that need to be fixed in this project/committee but I am going to stick to what I believe are the top 3.

1. First, something needs to be done about the Arbitration enforcement venue and its lead executioner Sandstein. AE has been the sole domain of one admin who simply put follows his own code of justice...which amounts to block them all indefinitely. Many a good editor has fallen under Sandstein's boot based on the excuse that they violated a sanction...which leads me to the second item. My suggestion would be to pull AE directly under the Arbitration committee and either the committee members vote on the sanction or a committee be setup to do so. This one admin with unlimited power to enforce their personal narrow ideas of what sanction is needed needs to stop. Its doing harm to the project and is a leading cause of why the Arb committee is declining in respect from the community. The actions at AE are a direct reflection of the failures of the committee itself. Before people beat me up for calling him out as I did here or tell me to AGF...all you need to do is watch AE for a couple months and you'll see what I am talking about..."guilty, off with their heads!" In the past 3 months I have seen several cases come to AE and Sandsteins block em and move on attitude has been prevalent in every one. Several of which were weeks or month after the incident in question which leaves the only logical conclusion to be that the blocks were done to be punitive not preventative which is counter to our policies. Not that anyone really cares about those these days
2. Get rid of the broadly construed language in the sanctions. If Arbcom can't take the time or effort to word the cases adequately they need to be rewritten or amended as necessary. Not take the lazy way out and write the sanction in such a way that ten people would all interpret it a different way. The addition of "broadly construed" is simply lazy arbitration/adjudication and leads to abuse by abusive admins like Sandstein.
3. Find a way to eliminate the guilt by acceptance that currently exists when a case is selected. I don't really have an answer to how to do this but the current notion that once a case is accepted the result is guilt needs to go. Otherwise people will continue to just walk away when the case is accepted like several have done in the past. Kumioko (talk) 20:37, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

My responses.

1. No, nothing needs to be done (except as always, more administrator eyes are needed). You seem to propose that taking action on people who've violated the terms of a sanction (be it a topic restriction or a behavioral one) is a bad idea. It's not. To be at AE,the topic area already needs to have been involved in a contentious dispute (the Committee has done well in allowing the community to handle less fractious disputes, only highly divisive areas now necessitate full lengthy arbitration cases. If an administrator is repeatedly reversed, then perhaps it would be necessary to limit from acting in that area. However, in the vast majority of sanctions handed down in these areas, it's within the bounds of discretion that administrators are given in these areas. I'd suggest that if you have a problem with the actions of administrator, that you file a RfC (and be prepared to accept things if consensus goes against you).
2. You know why "broadly construed" entered the Arbitration Committee lexicon? It's because without it, endless hours were wasted that a topic ban on Subject A didn't cover the slight variation of Subject A subsection 1. Broadly construed was put in to prevent such endless timewasting and Wikilawyering.
3. You see, this is a double edged sword.. if not a triple or quadruple edged sword (Of course, we're probably dealing with the fourth dimension if we're getting a four edged sword). Cases are accepted usually because of the highly divisive nature of conflicts, and the fact that normal procedures are unable to handle the situation (usually because folks aren't abiding by policy). I can think of one time when this year's Committee attempted to see if the situation would resolve during an arbitration case.. it was the universally panned Tea Party case. To be quite blunt, if there's an acceptance that guilt (somewhere) exists when a case is accepted, it's because in just about every case, there's guilty behavior involved. SirFozzie (talk) 22:05, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

My thoughts:

1. Without commenting here about the AE work of any particular administrator, it is always true that more eyes on the noticeboard would be a good thing. I know that that's easy for us to say, and that there are any number of places around the project that could use more attention, but the more admins acquire experience on AE, the less there will be either an actual or a perceived overreliance on any one admin to make the decisions there. Having the arbitrators themselves run AE would be problematic in terms of giving the arbs yet another time commitment, and would also eliminate the ability to appeal from an AE decision to ArbCom.
2. The idea behind the words "broadly construed" is (e.g.) "if it's borderline whether a given article is or is not within the scope of a topic-ban, err on the side of caution and assume it's included." That is not, however, the same as "if someone could conjure up any possible argument, however far-fetched that it's within the scope, then it's included. My preferred language was always "construed broadly but reasonably," but others didn't care for it. Beyond that, people need to understand that it is impossible even in principle for us to craft remedies (short of site-bans) that allow no room for disagreement or interpretation whatsoever, no matter how much we might want to. Please see my essay on this subject at User:Newyorkbrad/Newyorkbradblog#Clear remedies, arbitration decisions, and AE, as well as the article linked from there.
3. We've had this discussion before. When I vote to accept a case, I am not engaging in any sort of "guilt by acceptance." We have had cases close with no findings of wrongdoing, or with only very general statements and no sanctions against individuals, when that is where the evidence and the best interests of the project led us. (Typically, at that point we are criticized with "so why did you waste everyone's time having a case?") I understand your point that if we vote to accept a case, it is likely that some of us have tentatively concluded that there is some basis for some remedy against someone. But I've asked before and I'll ask again, what is the alternative—that we routinely vote to open cases even when there's no reason to believe that anyone did anything wrong? Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:28, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

May as well chip in - (1) it would be great if admins with spare time should take a look help out at AE. More eyes help spread the work around and possibly for some more even discussion and decision-making. (2) per SirFozzie. People need to stop making borderline edits. really. (3) per NYB. Hopefully, if someone is named in a case and later not sanctioned, keep a handy link ready to the second item should someone bring up the first....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 22:45, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

A huge part of the problem is Sandsteins attitude towards other editors, including admins on that venue. Everyone knows that Sandtein does whatever he wants there and any intervention by other admins is summarily dismissed. He just runs them off. That's why most other admins don't get involved..its similar with how Raul ran the TFA venue. Now I know you all think I am just spouting conspiracy theories but just watch the AE board for a while and you'll see. If admins intervene Sandstein always reverts their work or comes up with some excuse why their action wasn't valid. Now that it has been established that Sandstein rules the AE roost the only way to get others engaged there is to either pull it under Arbitration and allow multiple people to vote on it here or setup a committee of those willing to do so. Otherwise you will continue to give Sandstein a blank check to block everyone submitted to AE. For what its worth I would have even helped there but no one thinks I can possibly be trusted with the ability to delete content and block vandals, so I basically just gave up on the project and went to Wikia. Although I freely admit my attitude is completely different. I have the attitude that we should give editors the chance to fix themselves and give them a chance. If they are skirting the edge repeatedly then maybe we need to modify the case to include that, maybe we need to clarify that is..or is not ok, depending on the case. But this blocking everyone with unlimited latitude just because some POV editor on the opposite side of the argument disagrees with the edit and submits the editor to AE needs to stop.

Yes your right Sir Fozzie I do know, and it honestly made sense at the time. But now that we have had time to see it in action the Broadly construed "fix" is just as bad as the previous problem it was implemented to fix, maybe even worse. I also think as I did then that a large reason for its necessity was because the Arbcom kept writing poorly worded Arb sanctions. If that problem is fixed then some of the wiggle room can be worked out of it. But there is no sense in making the determination so broad that a restriction to editing British topics then extends to every former British Colony (IE the US Canada and Australia. If its necessary to revise and revisit the sanction to close said loopholes then so be it. The problem we are running into know with the broadly construed terminology is that the intent that Arbcom has in mind isn't what the enforcing/blocking admins have in their interpretation and Arbcom isn't following up to ensure its being properly implemented. I also don't think the Arbcom needs to write the sanctions to include every caveat and contingency. We can write them based on the case, and then enforce that. If it needs to be adjusted then we can do that.

Lets be realistic, people edit what interests them. So if you are interested in Law articles and you have a sanction "broadly construed" not to edit law articles, I am unlikely to start editing articles and Tsetse flies. I'm going to find something else that interests me, like Medal of Honor recipients. But then a lot of those are lawyers or were congressmen, or senators who wrote laws. So broadly construed means I can't edit those. What about environmental issues, nope broadly construed puts those out too...you see where I am going here. Before you say I am being farfetched these are the types of scenarios that are being "adjudicated" in AE. Kumioko (talk) 23:08, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Let's be realistic, folks should not be that one-dimensional where they see no value in doing anything here except with anything they're most interested in. And the cases I recall were not that "broadly construed' but tried to dance just outside the forbidden area. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:55, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

As I said before I didn't expect this discussion to be taken seriously but you all are just making excuses and dodging it completely. Yes it would be nice if people were more well rounded but even in the admin community that's not the case. Most admins focus on certain tasks and few use the whole toolset. Most don't know how to update templates, Lua modules or Wikimedia pages, few participate in CCI or some of the other contentious areas AFD, and the like are mostly handled by the same small group. Its just not realistic o think people are not going to do something that's related to what interests the. That's why nearly everyone with a sanction ends up getting blocked (frequently indefinitely) and AE with their block first and don't ask any questions mentality is a driving factor of that. Kumioko (talk) 13:18, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

It is not what they edit but how they edit that gets them into trouble. If someone can only contribute here in one narrow area and has no interest otherwise, then unfortunately if that is a recurrent problem then it leaves the person incompatible with editing nonproblematically then. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:43, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Not really and that comment shows me that you don't really watch AE or what happens to the editors after they get sanctioned. That assessment may be correct in regards to how they got the sanction in the first place but not always true in the follow up blocks. There have been quite a lot of cases where they attempted to edit outside what they thought the bounds of the sanction were and the arguments are reasonable. But when they were sent to AE a certain admin decided that it was somehow tangentially related. Now if the person is under a sanction for something and edits something that clearly relates (Politicial articles and then edits a article for a congressmen for instance) then I don't have much sympathy. But we need to temper the sanction with some common sense and be reasonable. The other problem that appears frequently is when weeks or months go by and they are sent to AE long after the edit was made and they still get a block eventhough there is absolutely no harm to the project. My point is the admin you all have assigned to the AE noticeboard as Arbcom's enforcer is not reasonable and heavily favors extreme's. There is no grey and usually no white in the results...just black. What this has led too is that people who are in the opposing view of the sanctionee almost always refer them to AE and they almost always get blocked. Kumioko (talk) 13:57, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

No person is "assigned" to AE; all activity is voluntary snd at admins' own discretion and interest. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 16:51, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Your right, but here's the thing. The Arbcom members are voted in by the community and AE is an extension of the committee and what happens there directly reflects on the committee. So the responsibility for those admins and actions that occur their fall directly under the responsibility of the committee whether they like that or not. If one unappointed admin takes it upon themselves to be the judge, jury and executioner and the Arbcom does nothing about that, and they haven't for the last several years, then they have given that admin an assignment by proxy. Certainly an AE type process is needed, but it should not nor should it ever have been, one individual. One abusive individual who virtually always favor extremes I might add and generally runs off any other admins who attempt to participate. The bigger problem is that Sandstein has been placed in a position where his determinations cannot be questioned and people are afraid even to do so. Even when he makes an obvious bad decision they are powerless because he has the full support of the committee. In many ways he is more powerful than the committee members themselves. There have been numerous cases where individual arb members didn't agree with Sandstein and they couldn't do anything about his decision. Look at the recent examples of User:Lecen and User:Arthur Rubin as examples. But these are only 2 cases in a long list of questionable decisions. Personally I still think the site ban of User:Rich Farmbrough will go down as one of the most harmful decisions in the history of the project. Kumioko (talk) 17:40, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

(undent)Kumioko, the statistics do not seem to back up your statements. For example, in November, there were 11 filings at WP:AE. Of these, five were closed by Sandstein, and the others by a combination of four other admins. Of the 11, there were two blocks and two topic-bans. In October, there were again 11 filings, four of which were closed by Sandstein and the rest by three others. Of the 11, three resulted in blocks, one in a topic ban, and one in a 1RR restriction. In September, there were 11 filings. Four of these were closed by Sandstein, and the rest by three other admins. Three resulted in topic bans and one in a block (two others were blocked outside of AE while the filing was in process). So, in the past three months, neither Sandstein nor the result of "blocked" has dominated the AE board, and shows a lack of data behind your claims of AE being the "sole domain of one admin" or the result being "they almost always get blocked". The fact that you disagree with Sandstein's actions in some cases isn't justification for making accusations without proof. Dana boomer (talk) 23:52, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Actually I almost never agree with Sandstein's, not just some. I also wouldn't say the accusations are being without proof. Your right, upon review I did see that some other admins were helping out there. I will have to loo back through and do some more detailed analysis for sure. I still stand behind my underlying argument than Sandstein is not fit for the task. Its like putting a deletionist in charge of Articles for deletion or an inclusionist in charge of Articles for improvement. We need someone neutral who will make decisions based on the facts not just block and move on. Kumioko (talk) 04:33, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

But the decision based on the facts has already happened, in the original arbitration case. These cases are often long and complex, a drain on the time and effort of all involved. So to avoid a repeat of that the case often includes sanctions worded in such a way that they can be decided and acted on easily, by a single editor. This is by design, not accident. It has to be an administrator, both as the community has trusted them to make such determinations and as they have the tools to act on any such decisions. We are lucky to have administrators willing to take on these tasks, despite the flak they get.

As for Sandstein I have seen no evidence of their deciding such sanctions wrongly. But I'm sure it could happen – we all of us make mistakes at times and misjudge things. If so a blocked editor can appeal the block. Any other editor can take it to Clarification and Amendment, but they should not do so lightly or frivolously. Posting broad and vague accusations here achieves little.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 01:41, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry that I simply don't see things in the positive light you do. I have seen the abuses at AE for years and unfortunately no one cares. I don't hold Arbcom in very high esteem either. As for admins being trusted that is true to a degree but some admins are better than others, some shouldn't be admins at all. A large subsection of the admin population couldn't even pass RFA in today's environment which speaks a lot about them and the current process. It is more apparent to me than ever that I essentially stand alone in thinking this abusive process needs to be rethought. Much the same about the RFA process it seems. I'm not going to bother following this discussion anymore. I started the discussion in the hopes that some would be willing to discuss the longterm problems associated with Arbcom but it seems I am just spitting into the wind. Kumioko (talk) 04:18, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

@JohnBlackburneThe appeal process does not seem to be working at all now. I just tried to appeal a sanction that was made 9 months ago against 4 editors, myself and 3 long-time users, three of whom stopped editing over the incident. The Arbcom refused to consider the case, and closed it abruptly before I could respond or ask followup questions. Even the admin who imposed it says I have not done any thing to merit even a warning, but his own query to the ArbCom, about whether he could reverse himself, went unanswered as well. I don't see any evidence that the community trusts this process at all. —Neotarf (talk) 14:20, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

That's not really accurate, Neotarf. You did not try to appeal a sanction, you tried to appeal a warning informing you that discretionary sanctions had been authorised for a topic area you were editing in. You are not restricted in any way as a result of that warning and it's impossible for us to unmake you aware of the fact that DS have been authorised, so there is really no point in trying to appeal the warning, which is what ArbCom told you (twice, if I'm not mistaken). Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 14:43, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

@Salvio, You need to look again, the template has been edited recently.

At the time the {{Uw-sanctions}} template was used on my talk page, the documentation for the template was quite clear. The template is intentionally worded to apply only to "disruptive" editors, it is supposed to "identify misconduct", and it is part of "the discretionary sanctions process". The use of the template for preemptive warnings is considered to be "hostile".

The purpose of the template is to formally document wrongdoing. It effectively allows one super-admin,--who may have COI, who may not have time to read the evidence presented at AE, and who has not read the case,--to add an editor as a party to the case after the fact, and to block or ban that user unilaterally, with no evidence, no findings of fact, and no reality check.

In fact, a recent appeal by The Devils Advocate in the Scientology case resulted in that AE action being lifted, and the entry being stricken from the case log. The main difference between this case and that, was a weeks-long acrimonious ANI thread at Abuse of admin powers and Violation of WP:INVOLVED by User:Sandstein and simultaneous discussions at least two other venues. —Neotarf (talk) 07:47, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Salvio is not the first to state that Neotarf can't appeal a mere warning because nobody can "unmake him aware" that discretionary sanctions have been authorised for the area. Not the first to state it and not the first who should know better. Neotarf and others have pointed out several times that the warning template, at the time Sandstein whacked Neotarf and others with it in February 2013, was an accusation of misconduct, saying stuff like "If you continue to misconduct yourself on pages relating to this topic, you may be placed under sanctions" bla bla… oh, come on, you know it, I don't have to quote it again. The accusation isn't in the template any more. It shouldn't have been there before either, or Sandstein shouldn't have been using it for merely making people "aware" of the discretionary sanctions. His doing so upset a lot of people, one of whom left the project, and it's been suggested too many times that it's a trivial matter that they should have shrugged off, the problem is their "big egos", etc. Is it really such a surprise that people who have contributed a lot to Wikipedia don't like being told that they've "misconducted themselves"? In, as Neo says, "Wikipedia's voice"? Neo is still here, but it looks like he's by now rather loosely attached to this ungrateful project. Why the fuck he isn't getting a heartfelt apology from several quarters — you know who you are — instead of all this "oh, get over it" and "no the template doesn't say that now" is a mystery to me.

Anyway. Sandstein acknowledged recently that "in retrospect" the statement by Neotarf here, that he was warned for, "does appear comparatively tame and would not ordinarily merit a warning on its own"; he, Sandstein, was merely trying to "nip a possible escalation in the bud". He thinks Neo should get over it and "simply take the warning as it was intended, as an attempt to help you and others avoid unneeded trouble, rather than as a slight to your honor": i. e. take it as it was intended, rather than as it was actually phrased.[2] I suppose that's as close to an apology as could be expected from Sandstein. I have therefore removed Sandstein's warning to Neotarf from the log.[3] Per some quagmire of bureaucracy or other, it hasn't been "vacated" or whatever, not by Sandstein and not by ArbCom, but I'm against leaving it as a mark of shame in a public log. I'd really like to remove the logged warnings made simultaneously to Noetica, SMcCandlish and probably Ohconfucius (I haven't studied Oh's case closely, though) at the same time, but I haven't done that. (You do it, Floquenbeam.) I'm treating Neotarf as a special case since Sandstein has in practice, and all but technically, withdrawn it in his comment which I quote above. Bishonen | talk 20:32, 19 December 2013 (UTC).

P.S. And Sandstein immediately reverted me. Bishonen | talk 20:37, 19 December 2013 (UTC).

Only a few months ago SMcC posted this wall of text, where he made some very bold assertions of bad faith among WikiProject chess members, and arrogantly dismissed arguments contrary to his preferred capitalization standard by saying they "have been examined in detail and totally shredded". I would prefer that logged warnings regarding his approach to capitalization issues not be lifted. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:46, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I've reverted your action, as you appear to have misunderstood me. I've not withdrawn the warning, and am of the opinion that warnings cannot be undone. Per current practice, warnings are logged to help administrators determine whether discretionary sanctions may be imposed with respect to a particular editor. Because Neotarf was in fact warned, as provided for in WP:AC/DS#Warnings, the log entry concerning them is accurate and should not be removed – whatever one might think about the reasons for the warning. As far as I can tell, this matter was settled by the Arbitration Committee recently declining to hear an appeal against the warning.  Sandstein  20:41, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Bishonen, I 100% agree with you that the verbiage of that warning was a problem, and I've had a similar conversation about this here: User_talk:Sandstein/Archives/2013/December#Arbitration_request. However, I think we can say that having your name listed among those officially aware of DS for a particular arbcom case is not in itself a bad thing and that no judgment is necessarily implied if you are so listed. Can we all agree on that? Again, I'm not trying to justify the phrasing "If you continue to misconduct yourself", but my claim is that receiving the notice as written today and/or being listed at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article_titles_and_capitalisation#Log_of_notifications is not an implication of wrongdoing or misbehavior. Feel free to give me a uw-sanctions and add my name. I don't think that removing names from that log will do anything to set things right for these editors. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 21:23, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

While I agree that it is best not to think of logs as a mark of shame but rather a mere record of events (compare, if I have been pulled to be informed by an officer that my tail light as out as a courtesy and such is stated within police records, I have nothing to be ashamed of) it does not seem like we should always be uptight about our record keeping if a user genuinely feels like it is a mark of shame. So, I do not believe that warnings should fall under oversight, but, if requested by the impacted party, we should strongly consider blanking a log entry as a courtesy, with the understanding that after such an action, they remain on notice.--Tznkai (talk) 21:37, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

But Sandstein still has a point: if Neotarf is ever dragged to AE again for disruption having to do with titling/capitalization, it's easier for admins there to see if he knows about DS at ARBATC if he's listed in that section. You could list me there, too, so that if I'm ever accused at AE people will similarly know that I am aware that there are DS at WP:ARBATC. The problem – correct me if I'm wrong – is that the warning is seen as an official pronouncement of wrongdoing. I think we've heard enough to know that it isn't, from Salvio just above and even from Sandstein who said it is not intended "as a slight to your honor". Can we come to a consensus here to denounce any official implication of wrongdoing or misconduct by those original notices? I can't imagine what else might happen to repair this. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 21:56, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

If it helps to end this tedious recurring debate, we could add something like "Being listed here does not imply misconduct on the part of an editor" to the warning/notification/alerts sections of the case logs, but that would properly be a task for the Committee or its clerks who curate these pages.  Sandstein  22:02, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

(e/c)I understand what you're saying, I do, but I think it misses the point. Our mutual agreement that there is no official implication of wrongdoing would not change a user's subjective experience of wrong doing, and I place the user's subjective comfort over administrative convenience. I think it is more useful to us, collectively, to acquiesce to a request that creates only minor bureaucratic inconvenience to patroling administrators at AE than to preserve an easy to access record. Keep in mind, the actual record will remain in the page histories.--Tznkai (talk) 22:06, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

(←) Sandstein, an alternative might be you adding a notation to the log that the original warning may not have been necessary.--Tznkai (talk) 22:06, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

No. Logs are records of events that happened, not places for commentary. And administrators have better things to do than to conduct this same endless discussion about whether a mere warning may or may not have been necessary, and how any exculpatory note should be phrased, with every other one of the many editors that have been put on notice about discretionary sanctions. At some point we just have to accept that any dispute resolution system, of which this is a small part, will never be able to fully satisfy the more or less tender egos of all who take part in it. Moreover, if I were to add a note with respect to Neotarf only, this would imply by way of contrast that all other log entries (which lack such a note) do imply wrongdoing, which would also be inaccurate.  Sandstein  22:22, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Not true. Every single one of those other names got there through recognized processes, community-voted topic bans, and actions by uninvolved admins; and for every single one of them, there were diffs and evidence presented. Not one of those names was put there by lettre de cachet, and every single other action there can be appealed. Except for the 4 of us. Regards, —Neotarf (talk) 09:38, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

@Sandstein: No, I have not misunderstood you, but you're not making the slightest effort to understand anybody else, are you? Did you read, for example, what Tznkai said about the user's subjective comfort versus the minor bureaucratic inconvenience? No doubt, but did you take it in? Try to internalize what it was about? Did you realize that there are valid, indeed thoughtful, opinions, that are not your own, about this matter? Furthermore, there you go again with the "tender egos" (pretty insulting IMHO) and the "tedious" and "endless" recurring debate. Has it struck you that the debate might not be so tedious if you were ever open to admitting that you might at any time have been wrong about anything? That the endless debate might have had an end by now, if your ego wasn't preventing it? The mystery to me isn't that you have no respect for anybody else's views, but that you get away with it, that everybody bends to your unbendingness, that they ultimately fall silent in the face of your stony repetitiousness. I don't want to be an admin while you are. Bishonen | talk 01:24, 20 December 2013 (UTC).

I wholeheartedly agree with Bishonen! A point I have attempted to make myself multiple times in the past but failed to do so as eloquently as they just did. Kumioko (talk) 01:30, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I've expanded on my post about the review of DSs, and relocated it to the appropriate talk page, which is a much better place for such discussion. Tony (talk) 10:29, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Bishonen, of course I can be wrong, like everybody else, and I'm open to discussing it. But every discussion has to end at some point. For actions in the discretionary sanctions process, there's a well-defined process for conducting discussion about whether such actions are wrong - the appeals process. Neotarf has, after very, very extensive discussions in multiple fora, appealed the warning to our final dispute resolution authority, the Arbitration Committee. They have declined to hear the appeal. That decision concludes the discussion about the warning to Neotarf, and I will not engage in further discussion.  Sandstein  13:08, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

There is one additional problem that I have with your conduct Sandstein that I want to point out. You have on many occassions stated that non admin comments are not important and treat non admins like second class citizens on Wikipedia. I have a major problem with that and your attitude towards non admins is counter to good order in this project. Non admin comments even at AE are important to the cases and need to be considered not ignored which you tend to do. You have even stated plainly that you feel that non admin comment at AE are unimportant and haveno bearing on AE cases. That attitude towards nmon admins is simply unacceptable and is a driving factor for my opinions that your attitude makes you ill suited to be an admin let alone be the executioner at AE. Kumioko (talk) 14:55, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

That's not true. Without non-admins making enforcement requests and submitting evidence to WP:AE, the enforcement process would not function. However, unlike most other Wikipedia processes, the AE forum is not driven by consensus among editors (whether they are admins or not). It serves to collect evidence (in the form of diffs) and pertinent policy-based arguments for individual admins to unilaterally act upon. Statements that do not serve this function, but instead make unfounded accusations against others, or continue the underlying content dispute, are useless and are disregarded, whether they are by admins or non-admins (although in practice the latter is more often the case). Admins are authorized to act (or not act) on AE requests even if every other admin or non-admin in the AE thread expresses the opposite opinion, although if they take action under such circumstances they assume the risk of being reverted on appeal. There is only one one specific, practical sense in which the opinion of non-admins matters less than the opinion of admins: the former are not able and/or authorized to act on requests. I hope this clarifies your understanding of the AE process.  Sandstein  15:23, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Sandstein you have stated repeatedly that the opinions of non admins at AE are irrelevent. Its also rare that an uninvolved non admin goes to AE, the few non admins that do are generally involved with the content dispute and do it to get the individual they don't agree with blocked or banned. The problem is you rarely bother to investigate to see, you just look at the diff and block them. The worst part is in many cases the diff presented is so tangential to the case its far out on the edge of the sanction anyway. Like being sanctioned against editing politicians and then being blocked because they edited Chicago and politicians live and work there. Its a made up scenario but one that fits what happens on a recurring basis because of the poorly implemented "broadly construed" policy. Kumioko (talk) 17:38, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

The message Sandstein is editing warring to keep on the page clearly states If you continue to misconduct yourself on pages relating to this topic so the argument that is "just a notification" is specious. How's this for a solution?: I'll leave a neutral worded notification on Neotarf's page, dump Sandstein's diff and add mine. If, in fact, ego has nothing to do with it no one should care that the notification was done by a worthless < 10% mainspace non-admin. NE Ent 13:03, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Hearing no objections, I'm doing this. NE Ent 13:48, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Reverted per Neotarf's request [4]. NE Ent 21:35, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Discretionary Sanctions: a much broader community review is needed

In the last year that I have been closely following the Committee, I have found that:

1. Arbcom cases are indeed often long and complex. And rightly so, since they take the time to examine the evidence and weigh the facts. They do a mostly adequate job of identifying and limiting disruptive behavior, while leaving good faith editors relatively unscathed and able to continue their contributions.
2. Appeals to the Arbitration Enforcement are unfortunately a different matter--as JohnBlackburne points out, they can be decided by a single admin. This individual is not elected, but exercises unchecked power throughout the terms of successive arbs. The manner of selection is not transparent, and there are no safeguards in place to prevent nepotism.
3. Anyone who is interested in delving into the new Discretionary Sanctions proposal would be well advised to review the now archived community discussion on the subject. The Cliff Notes version: 1) Arbitration Enforcement has a reputation for groupthink, and 2) there is no evidence that discretionary sanctions work. After protests from AE admins, who said the community should not be allowed to comment, the thread was hastily closed and archived. The proposal is now being edited to the specifications of the AE admins. —Neotarf (talk) 05:35, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

@Neotarf: On (2), the manner of selection is WP:RFA, a process in which any editor can participate. On (3), the discussion has been publicised as widely as possible. It is not "now-archived", and nobody said "the community should not be allowed to comment". Your comment is subtly but profoundly misleading on several levels. AGK [•] 07:13, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

AGK, you know as well as I do that different admins are better at different things. Some don't know anything about certain areas. That's just common sense and human nature So to assume that all 1400 admins contain the knowledge to properly adjudicate an Arbcom sanction just because they were trusted not to delete the main page is a fallacy. Besides that RFA has become a joke. The fact is some admins are good at technical stuff and some aren't and I still contend some shouldn't be admins at all. Most people who would do well in the AE arena won't touch it with a ten foot pole because of the current climate there. So I don't buy this we elected them so we trust them with unlimited power and clairvoyance mentality. Kumioko (talk) 12:57, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

• I think the current clarification request on Argentine History provides a good illustration of Kumioko's second point. Sandstein blocked MarshallN20 for editing Chile-Peru football rivalry, as a violation of a topic ban from "all articles, discussions, and other content related to the history of Latin America, broadly construed..." Most arbitrators seem to agree that he shouldn't be banned from this, but even they have to admit that Sandstein's interpretation was perfectly defensible given the "broadly construed" clause. It seems to me that Latin American history broadly construed encompasses everything that's ever happened in Latin America. It certainly appear that this is not what the arbitrators intended. Given that they are now voting to narrow the topic ban and eliminate the "broadly construed" clause, that would seem to indicate that sometimes such a clause is not appropriate in a topic ban. Perhaps sometimes it may be necessary, but can I at least put in a plea for it not to be universally used without consideration of whether it would actually sweep too broadly in the particular context of the topic ban in issue? And perhaps Newyorkbrad's suggestion of "broadly but reasonably" (which seems to jibe with some of the comments by arbitrator about needing to apply common sense and judgment, rather than an inflexible or mechanical interpretation) could be taken up and might address some of these issues? Neljack (talk) 08:13, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

@AGK, my statement was not misleading at all, but as always, I welcome your willingness to engage on the issues. In response to your questions:

1. How can the arbitrators delegate to an administrator the very power the arbitrators were elected to exercise? The new proposal would give sweeping powers to a caste of super-administrators, to act outside of policy, with no possibility of review by other admins. This has been questioned in other forums as well, but there is nothing in the RFC procedures mentioned, or anywhere else that I can find, that would indicate that this is within the remit of the ArbCom.
2. The community discussion was indeed archived. The name of the archived page is Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions/2013 review/Archive 1.
3. One of your AE administrators calls the discussion a “mistake”, saying “this discussion has been inappropriately opened to the broader community”. He adds that participants “clearly know little or nothing” and “have little of value to contribute”. He proposes opening a discussion of “those regularly involved in AE”, to reach a consensus and present it to the arbitrators. [5] Another editor then came forward, having just come across the discussion, and wished to pose some questions about enforcement implementation. She was told to “ask your questions directly to an enforcing administrator” and directed to WP:AE. [6]

So who are these editors, who took such care to make pertinent and insightful observations on discretionary sanctions, and who have now been told by the boys at AE to go away, that they “know nothing” and that their comments have “little value”? Ironically, judging by the user names, they belong to a group of editors that Wikipedia has such trouble attracting and retaining, that nearly extinct species of women editors.

I have read what they have to say. It is worthwhile. The arbitration committee should take the time to listen to them, and to have that broader community discussion. Regards, —Neotarf (talk) 10:23, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

The DSR does not give any additional power to administrators, and makes no negative changes to the existing process. Even if some administrators have been hostile to non-administrators giving feedback (news to me), I am not aware that they have actually prevented the non-administrator's participation. Your description of the DS Review and DS in general is not one I recognise, nor that I think is based in fact. It seems to be a healthy, well-conducted exercise to me. Would you prefer DS be abolished altogether, or the DS Review not happen? What exactly do you want done? I have looked at the recent AE thread concerning you to understand if there is some miscarriage of justice that needs remedied, but it did not illuminate. AGK [•] 17:36, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

AGK, I think it would be a good idea to have a community-wide discussion on Discretionary Sanctions, and it might not be a bad idea if Discretionary Sanctions were abolished altogether. Like death and taxes, conflict on certain topics will always be with us, and in many instances editors who are pushing a particular POV on those topics are neither bad people nor bad editors, but merely individuals who are very committed to a particular view of a contentious issue on which reasonable people seriously disagree both in Wikipedia and in the wider world outside. Obviously Wikipedia has to have a way of dealing with that conflict, but one has only to look at this discussion to see how like a police state it looks, how open to potential abuse it is, and how endlessly complicated and time-consuming it all is, not to mention that it involves the delegation by the arbitrators of power which properly belongs only to them. A much more efficient solution, I think, would be for the arbitrators to simply identify specific pages which are continually problematic (most have already been identified in previous arbitrations), and instruct administrators to impose temporary blocks on editing on those pages whenever the conflict becomes too heated. Nothing will be lost if no-one edits a Wikipedia page for a few days, or even a few weeks at a time. If Discretionary Sanctions are to be retained, however, the very least that could be done is (1) for the arbitrators to identify the particular pages to which DS apply, and remove the phrase 'broadly construed' entirely from current and future DS orders, and (2) attach a time limit to all current and future DS orders so that they automatically expire in a year or two years, with the proviso that they can be renewed if necessary. Otherwise they simply go on forever, even when they're no longer needed because the conflict on a particular topic has died down. NinaGreen (talk) 18:37, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I disagree with some of that (discretionary sanctions simply can't be abolished, and "broadly construed" is the project's best defence against Wikilawyering), but you make a very good point about making discretionary sanctions lapse after a couple of years. I will think on it further – thank you very much. AGK [•] 20:18, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

An obvious solution would be to enable some form of Wikipedia:Pending changes on the ones that are really problematic but this has its own problems. It would also bee good to have something like Wikipedia:Edit filter that could be set for an individuals sanction. Currently the edit filter requires every edit to go through it which means its a pretty heavy load on the server but if the devs developed a User filter that could be set to specific users and their filters it would be a big improvement. I also agree with Nina that the current delegation of authority doesn't work and the Arbcoms hands off approach to AE needs to change. Kumioko (talk) 20:45, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

@AGK, I really don't know what to say to you. I don't have all the answers and I'm sure Arbcom doesn't have all the answers. Ask the community. Or listen to what they have already said. And if the answers aren't readily to hand, the Foundation has boatloads of metrics in their back room, if only the right questions can be formulated. This might be a good place to start (from the archived review):

"Have 'Discretionary sanctions' improved the problem which caused the arbitrators to enact 'Discretionary sanctions' in 2009, or have 'Discretionary sanctions' made the situation worse in identifiable ways? It seems impossible to find out why the arbitrators imposed 'Discretionary sanctions' in the first place, and it seems equally impossible to find out where they've been put in place, how they're working, and how they differ from the ordinary discretion which Wikipedia administrators routinely exercise every day on topics not covered by 'Discretionary sanctions'."

Here's my own question about the current DS review: "What is broke, and why are you trying to fix it?"

As far the situation of myself and the other 3 editors, what illumination would be of use, and in what venue that would not expose me to even more unproven accusations of wrongdoing? Regards, —Neotarf (talk) 09:10, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

AGK, thanks for your reply. How about this formulation of the problem? In an arbitration, discretionary sanctions are imposed against topics, not against individual editors, so the enforcement of DS should primarily focus on topics rather than on individual editors. Thus, the first step in enforcement of DS should always be a succession of temporary page blocks which are not subject to appeal and which can be put in place by any administrator. If that doesn't tamp down the conflict, then uninvolved administrators can be brought in to deal with individual editors, and the latter procedure should be subject to appeal. To make the process work, all pages subject to DS would have to be clearly marked with a hatnote so that any editor coming to the page would be aware that that page is subject to DS. (Parenthetically, it is unclear to me why DS have to be 'broadly construed' because in an arbitration it must become abundantly clear to the arbitrators which specific pages have given rise to the problem, so identifying them in the order imposing DS should pose no difficulty.) NinaGreen (talk) 16:23, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

One other point in terms of formulating the problem. DS are imposed as the result of an arbitration, and the usual result of an arbitration is that the individual editor(s) against whom the arbitration was brought are banned for lengthy periods of time. Why, then, are DS imposed as a result of the arbitration? Is there an expectation that, with those editors gone, other editors are going to pop up and cause further disruption? That seems an indefensible rationale for imposing DS, doesn't it, the mere expectation that new editors not involved in the arbitration are going to pop up and cause disruption? NinaGreen (talk) 15:34, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

FWIW, I iterate my position that "broadly construed" as a term of art has generally worked to the actual detriment of Wikipedia, and ought be removed from all sanctions. Cheers. Collect (talk) 17:47, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

• @Neotarf: You are saying we ought to ask the community while commenting in a thread about an ArbCom-created community review of discretionary sanctions.

  I count two contributors calling for DS to be abolished on the basis that it is unnecessary or irretrievably broken and unfair. As 69 distinct contributors have made over 500 edits in the review, the arithmetic suggests 2% of the participating community agree with your position. The most helpful thing might be to suggest substantive changes that would make the process more fair and better for the encyclopedia. The line that topic areas under DS should be made back into free-for-alls doesn't, at this point, seem likely to attract support. AGK [•] 20:14, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

As the community was told early in the process "ArbCom policies, procedures, and remedies are explicitly not set up to go through normal Wikipedia consensus gathering processes." it's hardly a meaningful metric to count percentage of comments as representing the community viewpoint. If you wish to claim a explicit community mandate you should open an RFC and agree a priori to have it closed by non-committee admin(s). NE Ent 21:21, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

I would not open an RFC on a fringe view. AGK [•] 21:31, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

I think your confusing silence with consent. The fact is very very few even watch this page outside the Arbcom, even less are following this discussion. Most people don't bother to comment because the majority of the project either doesn't care or they don't believe Arbcom will listen. Your right though, it probably is a minority that are asking for DS's to be eliminated but that's also because very few understand them and 99% of those are admins or arbs who want the ability to be able to block with no questions asked or recourse. DS's are too discretionary and too broad and give too much power to too few for too little return on the investment. Kumioko (talk) 22:02, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree with the other editors regarding the phrase "broadly construed", which was interpreted to extraordinary lengths in my own DS case,[7] referring to Wikipedia:ARBPS#Discretionary_sanctions #13.

1. I was sanctioned because I was discussing in one article (not related to pseudoscience, and as mainstream as they come), the use of an academic text book as a source, whose author had written about another subject, also a Wikipedia article, that was in a "fringe" category, and that was in the sub-category of pseudoscience, and apparently because "pseudoscience and fringe theories are so closely linked, that in general, we can probably just treat scenarios as falling under 'broadly construed' ".
2. I was never given "an initial warning". It was argued that it was sufficient being "a named party of the WP:ARBPS case". I wasn't editing the article, having followed WP:AC/DS#For_editors. Allegations were made about my conduct that included no supporting diffs whatsoever, and claims were made about what I might do. --Iantresman (talk) 23:33, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Being banned from astrophysics under a "Fringe science" DS is insane -- did you appeal to the committee? NE Ent 01:05, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

One of the claims of the DS was that I was wikilawyering (no diffs provided). Appealing to the committee could be viewed as yet another example of Wikilawyerign.--Iantresman (talk) 10:17, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Not necessarily "insane", NE Ent. Looking at the discussion(s) in question, it appears that Iantresman was vigorously arguing to add a textbook written by a fringe author containing a large amount of material related to a fringe astrophysics topic (plasma cosmology) as a source for our article on astrophysics. As near as I can tell, he opened this can of worms less than 18 hours after the ArbCom loosened his previous, long-standing topic ban on "fringe science and physics-related subjects, broadly defined". (The ArbCom left in place a 1RR restriction on Iantresman in those areas.) It was his very first non-trivial edit to the article or talk namespaces, and it resumed an argument (in the same talk page thread) that he had originally begun in 2006. The editors at Talk:Dusty plasma#Reference restoration put up with four days of fruitless argument before taking the issue to AE. After spending five years under restrictions in this area (four years under a community-imposed ban for disruptive POV-pushing, followed by about a year of BASC-imposed topic ban to ease him back into the community) one might have expected a bit more caution and restraint before going back to poking the same third rail. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 11:51, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the your comments, but I believe you are taking the opinions presented at face value, but they are incorrect. The book contains nothing on Plasma Cosmology. I provided over 20 sources, and a quote from the book, supporting my discussion, so hardly "fruitless". I requested a source or a quote from the book to contradict me, but it was never forthcoming (per WP:TALK "Deal with facts"). I was cautious, choosing not to edit the article, and to discuss it first, even at WP:RSN. Afterwards, at least one of the editors admitted that he had not even read the book. This is not how editors are supposed to collaborate, and DS was inappropriate. --Iantresman (talk) 13:05, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

"The book contains nothing on Plasma Cosmology" Wow, again with this? In the last AE request I showed that you had used the book to cite plasma cosmology stuff, you had said on talk pages that it was a plasma cosmology book, and I pointed out which parts of the book contained plasma cosmology stuff. And here you are again, claiming that your topic ban was based on wrong facts. --Enric Naval (talk) 19:25, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

It seems to me discretionary sanctions are manipulated for and against some editors. We tend to forget newer editors don't understand the intricacies of Wikipedia culture, which does not mean they are either stupid or uneducated. We have to remember that communities develop their own cultures, norms, language and those inside become so accustomed to that culture, they don't remember what is was like to not understand the new culture they have walked into. Further, within the culture itself certain groups have developed certain language and norms which they then can expect others to understand and abide by. That's why diffs are critical in any kind of sanction , but admins don't necessarily think this is so, and will sanction based on a sensibility or feeling or on their own sub culture. AE with its one admin judgements is a ludicrous institution inside a community this large. No single editor should ever have the power to impose sanctions longer than a week or two, or to enforce DSs. Admins should never be the only ones capable of making those judgements. This gives too much power to individuals and most certainly opens the community to abuse from admins., by the way, another sub culture with a prestigious reputation and both explicit and implied power rather than what it was originally meant to be. Even the well meaning admin should not have the power and responsibility to make judgments that affect editors as they do. So while I'm not convinced we need to do away with DS, I am convinced DR from top to bottom needs to be revamped including AE and arbitration, so DRs are dealt with more on the community level leaving the arbs free to deal with the more complex issues. As for lantresman I agree there were some odd actions on that AE. Some were unfortunately expected, some might have opened the door for something more evolutionary for the project, some were irregular, and some were unfair. But I'd add that lantresman, a clearly intelligent, well-educated editor is relatively new here, and doesn't realize that while in real life we are encouraged to fight for what we think is right, and admired for doing so, here that's not the case. One is expected to "put a lid on it", and accept judgments no matter how unfair they seem. This all points to a need for change, and a need for understanding. Wikipedia is not the Wild West anymore. Like its parallel universe, real life, Wikipedia too must change and become more civilized.(Littleolive oil (talk) 16:58, 23 December 2013 (UTC))

Actually, I first started editing on Wikipedia almost 10 years ago. I completely agree that sanctions are manipulated against certain editors, such as in my Community Ban: it included more allegations without any diffs, and a claim that I had harassed an editor from Wikipedia, which turned out to be someone using four socks abusively, who just continued editing. It took just 5 hours to ban me, and five years before ArbCom would even consider an appeal. My case was part of the reason why the Community Noticeboard was discontinued. You can see why I am interested in checks and balances, and accountability and transparency. --Iantresman (talk) 18:23, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Apologies lantresman. I did what I just suggested others don't do - made assumptions based on what someone said rather than looking at diffs and contributions myself. And yes, transparency , diffs, and if someone asks a question assume good faith and answer.(Littleolive oil (talk) 16:18, 24 December 2013 (UTC))

No problem, thank you for taking the trouble of checking the facts, it's more than most do. --Iantresman (talk) 11:39, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

@Littleonlive oil, you should give specific examples of discretionary sanctions being misused, and examples of editors being banned only because of misunderstandings of "the intricacies of Wikipedia culture". I have seen may claims of unfair bans, but they usually crumble when you look closely at them. --Enric Naval (talk) 19:32, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Agreed - that Discretionary Sanctions need to be abolished. They run roughshod over any dispute resolution that Wikipedia has other than the administrators judgement. No one individual's judgement should ever be used to over-ride a legitimate consensus on any issue (except the obvious current exemptions to consensus (BLP, NFC, ATTACK PAGES ).

So yes, I concur, discretionary sanctions need to be abolished.  KoshVorlon. We are all Kosh   11:53, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

• Sounds like we might do well to look into implementing a sort of nondelegation doctrine, since delegation seems exactly what ArbCom is doing with discretionary sanctions. I know our situation isn't exactly comparable to the concept in American constitutional law, but I would argue that's why a more empowered nondelegation doctrine might be appropriate here than is in place there. In short, I think broad construction might need to be abolished, or implement a more rigorous standard of review for such administrative actions (at present we're looking at something that might be even looser than Chevron review). —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 21:23, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Changes to the Arbitration Committee

Original announcement

Risker, Courcelles, Kirill Lokshin, and SilkTork, thank you all for taking up such a difficult mantle in service to the community. You will be missed. Sven Manguard Wha? 08:06, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Hear, hear! Thank you all! Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 08:25, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you from me as well. Thryduulf (talk) 20:34, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

And from me. Your work is much appreciated. Dougweller (talk) 21:56, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

(Tips hat) -- Thank you for serving the Wikipedia community on the Committee. Best of luck and hope to bump into you guys on articles soon . Sportsguy17 (talk • contribs • sign) 23:03, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree, thank-you very much.--S Philbrick(Talk) 23:33, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Me too! You all deserve thanks, and a well-earned rest. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:21, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Congrats on escaping with your sanity (mostly) intact :) SirFozzie (talk) 04:33, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

My thanks to the outgoing members, and my most sincere condolences to the new arbitrators... rdfox 76 (talk) 05:43, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your service. Cla68 (talk) 16:43, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I, too, appreciate your service, and your diligent and detailed examination of evidence. TimidGuy (talk) 10:51, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Same here. Thank you for all the years you served on the Committee. — ΛΧΣ^{21 Call me Hahc21} 03:20, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Nod, you, and really all former arbitrators, deserve our thanks for performing what is typically a quite thankless task. It is rarely appreciated enough. Thank you. - jc37 16:49, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your service to the Wikipedia community.(Littleolive oil (talk) 17:05, 24 December 2013 (UTC))

I add my thanks as well. To clarify, I mean to say I am also thankful.—John Cline (talk) 17:14, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Regarding incoming arbitrators

Why is Seraphimblade the sole incoming arb being seated without oversight permission?—John Cline (talk) 17:25, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Because he didn't ask for it. T. Canens (talk) 19:31, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

More accurately, because he asked not to have it. All new arbitrators are offered the two permissions. AGK [•] 20:17, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you; Merry Christmas to all.—John Cline (talk) 04:16, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

John, just to answer you specifically, I don't need the oversight permission initially. I'll already be learning checkuser, and intend to mainly use it as need be. If in the future I need oversight to help out with that, I can always ask for it then. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 04:23, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for offering that insight. I was curious if for some reason you felt possessing the permission was some form of liability you did not wish to incur; unable to imagine what it could be, yet curious. Your expressed reason is commendable as I understand you; speaking volumes regarding your honorable purpose. As an aside, The Denver Post link on your user page exposed me to an enjoyable read; I am glad you included it on your page for I can't imagine stumbling upon it by another way of chance. I certainly gained more than I came for. Thanks for giving.—John Cline (talk) 04:55, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, now I know without looking at your userpage that you're Mystrat! AGK [•] 08:36, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Ottoman Empire–Turkey naming dispute closed

Original announcement

This decision was reached without any analysis of the Evidence at 1.4 [8] on the Workshop page. The basis for, [9] and the procedures followed by the MILHIST project, [10] when agreeing to change the name of the Ottoman Empire during World War I to Turkey, were not evaluated. --Rskp (talk) 23:51, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

You made this and several similar comments on the talkpage of the proposed decision, and several arbitrators responded to you on that page, including my comment here. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:05, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

• Yes, I agree you and they responded but without addressing the issues raised. MarcusBritish was among those who responded. Is that editor an arbitrator as well as being party to this case? --Rskp (talk) 00:13, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
  • No. The arbitrators who participated in the case are listed at the top of the proposed decision talkpage, as well as in the votes and comments on the proposed decision page. As I believe you know perfectly well. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:34, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

The evidence at 1.4 on the Workshop page was not analysed [11]. With the evidence overlooked, what was the basis for the so-called 'facts'? --Rskp (talk) 00:45, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

I believe that MilHist followed the correct procedures: a straw poll was opened, !votes were cast, a consensus was reached. I believe, if you have concerns regarding the project's procedures, you should bring them to the attention of the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators as it is outside of ArbCom's remit to determine how a project should operate. No point harking about it here, they're not going to modify or abolish the consensus for anyone. Ma®©usBritish^{chat} 00:53, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion MarcusBritish. I await a response from the Arbitrators regarding why the Evidence was not analysed here [12]. --Rskp (talk) 01:12, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

I already answered you on the proposed decision talkpage, which I linked to above. If you do not accept that answer, then I am sorry, but you have no further remedy. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:14, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

OK. --Rskp (talk) 01:22, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

@RoslynSKP: that "analysis of evidence" section is often left blank, as happened in the last two cases closed before this, Ebionites 3 and the Manning dispute. You can look through past cases here and see that when it is used, it is primarily by parties and may attract little if any Arbitrator comment. You could have used it. NYB is a highly respected Wikipedian and Arbitrator and I for one do not doubt his word that ArbCom undertakes analysis of evidence in every case, and I doubt you will find many editors who would disbelieve his statement. ArbCom makes mistakes at times, comes to conclusions which are viewed as incorrect, and attracts plenty of criticism, both fair and unfair. I have at times wondered how they can see the evidence in ways that differ significantly from my view, but I do not think they skip looking at the evidence and just accept claims blindly or make stuff up. You are perfectly entitled to believe their analysis was poor in your case, but claiming no analysis occurred because an often-unused workshop section is blank is not going to be seen as a credible basis for your view, in my opinion. Also, while ArbCom does at times reverse itself or subsequently decide a remedy needs modification, they almost never directly admit to making a mistake, and I can't recall it ever happening just because one party feels they have been mistreated. Arguing about it now will likely be seen as evidence that sanctions were needed (whether that is fair or not, it is the way the community typically responds) so I suggest you choose a different approach. Some post-case angst is common and will be excused, but try to keep it in check and avoid harming your longer-term chances for relaxation of sanctions. I haven't looked in detail at the evidence and nor will most editors, because ArbCom are united in their views and supported by experienced and respected editors, two factors which increase greatly the chance that ArbCom got it right. You are also trying NYB's patience, which is another bad sign - he is definitely not an easy guy to frustrate. Please, think carefully about what he has said, his advice is mostly very good. EdChem (talk) 04:31, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks very much EdChem for the information and advice. Incidentally I had already accepted Newyorkbrad's last post replying "OK", but it seems to have got squashed out of sequence. But in particular EdChem, I'm grateful to hear from you that other Evidence subsections have also been left blank. I was just expecting something here, and when there wasn't, couldn't understand it. But there was so much to get my head around! Thanks once again, and all the best for the festive season. --Rskp (talk) 04:47, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Rskp: The Workshop page of Arbitration cases is mostly focused to parties and interested members of the community to propose principles, findings and remedies to the Committee to consider. The Workshop is rarely edited by the arbitrators unless the case becomes controversial like the Manning naming dispute's Workshop page. However, most workshop pages go unedited at all, and you can verify this by taking a look at the index of 2013 cases, for example. Cheers. — ΛΧΣ^{21 Call me Hahc21} 05:36, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks for that Hahc21. As you can see from my reply to EdChem, that editor answered my query regarding 1.4 on the Workshop page. --Rskp (talk) 22:24, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks from me to the Arbs for taking this case on and resolving the matter so quickly. Nick-D (talk) 22:36, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Amendment to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Argentine History

Original announcement

Finally "broadly construed" has lost favour due to the 100% likelihood of it being stretched like a bungee cord from Mount Everest. Collect (talk) 00:53, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

I think it is high time we take up "broadly but reasonably construed", as was proposed once upon a time. Adopting a procedure to re-define broadly construed as broadly but reasonably construed may be the easiest way to do this. I suspect Newyorkbrad may have comments to make on this subject.

My own feeling is that 'broadly but reasonably construed' (BBRC) has no practical advantage over 'broadly construed' (BC) because, in the enforcing administrator's mind, BBRC is equivalent to BC. However, BBRC has a theoretical advantage in that it codifies the requirement for enforcement-side decisions as to scope to be reasonable in every sense; BC, on the other hand, is theoretically open to abuse. AGK [•] 13:36, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

As an administrator working at AE, I wouldn't know what to do with "broadly but reasonably". Reasonably meaning what? How does that limit "broadly"? The more ambiguous terms you use in a sanction, the more likely it is that there will be disagreement and appeals, and even more so if the ambiguous terms appear to be contradictory. A much better approach is to circumscribe, in individual sanctions, more precisely the topic area you think is problematic, as you did in this motion. It's much easier to determine whether something is related to the political, economic, and military history of Latin America, rather than to the history of Latin America tout court.

What I mean to say is that you, the Committee, are elected to decide what specific scope the sanctions you impose in individual cases should have. You should assume that responsibility, rather than compound one ambiguity with another and expect editors to figure out what, if anything, you meant to say.  Sandstein  13:59, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

BBRC means (or should mean) that the edit is clearly substantially and directly related to the contents of prior edits on the topic, as defined by the arbitration case, made by the person being sanctioned, on any page which a reasonable person would say "yeah - that page deals with that topic in general and the edit made deals with that topic in specific." Yes -- it is "easier" to define the topic as applying to anything within six degrees of separation of Kevin Bacon, but "easier" does not equate to "logical" nor should editors be afraid that (say) a topic ban for Gnarphism includes editing any article which mentions one of Gnarph's sixth cousins. Frankly, I think "strictly construed" applying to the specific articles and associated talk pages as defined in a case would also work, but the main point it to avoid the Kevin Bacon exemplar. Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:13, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

28bytes resigns

Original announcement

It's all been said elsewhere, but it's terribly regrettable when a few people can force the leading vote-getter in an ArbCom election to step aside. Even without Jimbo's fatuous statement on 28bytes' talk, it would be a very great pity. With ArbCom so controversial, anyone who can unite the community to vote for him to that extent deserves support, not being driven out. Shame.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:05, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Hear, hear. — Scott • talk 14:06, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Well said. Black Kite (talk) 14:09, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Regretfully, we will never know if the same unity would have been shown had all the facts been known. I hope it would have been and am sad to see this resignation, even if it seemed inevitable in the circumstances. WJBscribe (talk) 14:14, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Not inevitable, but from his statement, 28bytes reasoned thought-out personal decision, which should be honored. "Forced", does not, therefore, seem a proper description. But unfortunately, it appears the extensive off-site prying; "outing" (his word); and negative blogging did in whatever joy of service there could be. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:00, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, but I still think "force" is the most appropriate term. I stand by it.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:10, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

There is a broader implication of this resignation, and it's a cause for concern. Lately, the fear of being outed has discouraged a lot of well-qualified potential candidates from running for ArbCom. This fiasco will only worsen that trend. And that's a very bad thing, if we let it stand. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:23, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Filling of vacant seat

As effectively this is a candidate declining to take his seat, should Jimbo not appoint an additional candidate for a one year term (and potentially extend Beeblebrox's term to 2 years)? Is there a reason to treat withdrawal during the election differently to withdrawal after the election, but before the successful candidate was due to take his seat? WJBscribe (talk) 14:14, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

I realize that views differ on Jimbo, and that I am among the less supportive editors. But we all know Jimbo is out of touch with the community. Even with advice, he could not be counted upon to appoint a proper person, and even if he did, the fact that the individual in question was not elected would lead to continuous arguing for his term. Either fill it by election or leave it vacant until December. As for Beebs, I've supported him, most of the time, since his RfA, but by the rules, he won a one-year term.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:05, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

You misunderstand me, I wasn't suggesting that Jimbo appoint anyone of his choice. I was suggesting he do exactly what he would have presumably done had 28bytes withdrawn during the election before the results were announced: (1) appoint Beeblebrox to a 2 year term; and (2) appoint Guerillero to a 1 year term. WJBscribe (talk) 15:09, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

I support WJBscribe's proposal. The next highest ranking candidate (percentage wise) after Beeblebrox (55%) was Guerillero at 54%. It would make sense to appoint Guerillero to keep the committee at full strength. Guerillero is already a Oversighter/Checkuser. Jehochman ^Talk 15:12, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

I could live with that, unless there was sharp dissent in the community to the point where the arbs in question might have difficulty functioning effectively. And as long as it is a community-driven, not Jimbo-driven decision (i.e., he doesn't call up his droves of IPs from the vasty deep).--Wehwalt (talk) 15:14, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

AGK's announcement indicates that the Committee will just go forward with one fewer member, and it's my understanding of the rules under which the election took place that this is the intended procedure. So we should not change it, at least not without a community vote. My understanding is that it was predicated on the idea that the Committee should be able to function with one (or more) fewer member(s) until the next regularly scheduled election. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:20, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

It seems that it is either a choice between treating it as a withdrawal prior to election, or a resignation during term and after appointment. Unless there is some clarifying language already in the "rules", it seems like it should be treated as a resignation (no new seating). Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:30, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

It's a resignation. May 28bytes' empty seat stand as a mute reminder all throughout this term of the poison present in this community. — Scott • talk 16:17, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

I thought the poison was on Wikipediocracy. I could certainly see Dan Murphy's outing of "Mason" on Wikipediocracy as off-wiki harassment of a Wikipedia editor intended to chill their activity on Wikipedia. This particular situation is unusual and I'm not going to call for remedies against Murphy, but others might want to. 50.0.121.102 (talk) 17:35, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

This whole situation is a rubbish outcome to what should have been perceived as a non-issue. The tallest of mountains made from the most insignificant of mole hills. The unerring tendency of this community to over-react to hilariously minor points, and make terrible collective decisions that benefit nothing and no-one, continues to astound me. The best we can do with this now is to take the sensible option and push the candidates one up the order - Beeblebrox to 2 years and Guerillero to 1 - there's no need to complicate this any further. This is not a bureaucracy; let's just do the sensible thing. Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 17:47, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

As Beeblebrox and Guerillero are both beneath 60%, which a lot of people consider to be an important threshold for arbitrators to cross, we might find more consensus to give them both one year terms. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 18:14, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

But that's just completely arbitrary. Why draw the line at 60%? Why complicate the issue further by messing up the tranches when there's no need? Just put the next two guys in. They both got what was the stipulated minimum - a majority. No one voted for Beeblebrox to serve one year only and no one voted for Guerillero as best runner up; they simply voted "yes", "no" or "don't care". Enough people said "yes" for them to serve. Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 19:08, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

• There is no mechanism by which the community, Jimmy Wales, or the Arbitration Committee itself can alter the outcome of the election. If successful candidates elect not to assume their seats, then their seats are not filled until the next election. There has always been the opportunity to build into the election format an option where, if someone resigns a seat, the next successful candidate would take their place, and the community has always declined to go there. The options discussed above are not going to happen absent an extraordinary election or vote by the community, which should probably be discussed somewhere other than this page, as it would not be an action of the committee. Risker (talk) 19:16, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree strongly with this. There are vacancies every year and by established precedent, the open seats sit unfilled until the next election. They are not "awarded" to runners up. Carrite (talk) 21:06, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

• If the community, Jimmy and/or the Arbitration Committee decides they'd like the next candidate to replace 28bytes, that's me, as stated above, and it's a job I'm happy to take up - I wouldn't have run if I wasn't willing to do it. At the same time, I'm not planning on arguing that I should do it - that's for the community to decide. If I'm selected, I'll do the job to the best of my ability: if I'm not, I have a variety of on- and off-wiki tasks to keep me occupied. --Guerillero | My Talk 20:25, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

If the seat is left empty it means that 28bytes could stand for a community re vote on his position at a later date once he feels rested. I haven no sense that he'll do that but one can hope. And I'd add that I find this whole thing shaming. We as a community seem to have a tendency to jump on what doesn't matter, but as a community seem to lack heart. Action on this issue has fatigued one of our finest admins whose record shows clarity of thinking, fairness, and honesty. We cannot control what people do off Wikipedia; We have community issues that should be talked about, discussed not hidden. That an editor chose to discuss those issues in a clear-eyed way, and did not see that it was necessary to tell us doesn't worry me. How many other arbs have discussed Wikipedia issues in off-Wikipedia forums? And where is the line that separates the places where one can discuss Wikipedia off Wikipedia and where one can't, and who is setting that line? (Littleolive oil (talk) 20:48, 30 December 2013 (UTC))

• It is absolutely out of process to expand Beeblebrox's term and I hope nobody brings that idea up again. Carrite (talk) 21:00, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

More to the point is that there is no process of any kind for filling unexpectedly vacant seats on the committee, which is why they have traditionally just been left empty. If the community wants such a process, they will have to create it through the usual consensus-based processes. I think we can all agree that it would not be a good idea for the committee itself to decide who is to be on it and for how long. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:17, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

I for one don't think there is a need to fill the vacancy. I don't think there is a risk of the Arbcom coming to a draw and if they do then Jimbo, in that extremely unlikely event. Could be the deciding vote. Kumioko (talk) 21:31, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

This is not a question for the Arbitration Committee, one way or the other. There is not (as far as I know) any rule or policy that says either that vacancies are to be filled, or that they are to remain unfilled. There has simply been a failure to fill them, at least in recent years. So, at most, one might say there is a precedent for leaving vacancies vacant, but precedents don't always have to be followed. And besides, this is an unusual vacancy: 28bytes's term was supposed to start on January 1, so although he was appointed, he never actually took his seat. I think one could argue that under those circumstances, it would be reasonable for the next people down the list, who received at least 50% of the vote, to be appointed. Of course it would be nice to have actual rules governing cases like this, or an elected body (not ArbCom) that is empowered to decide these sorts of things. (Well, we do have the Election Commission, but I don't think this would be viewed as being within their jurisdiction.) But I guess the immediate question is, where is the appropriate place to discuss this? Neutron (talk) 01:04, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, there was only ever one attempt to fill a seat absent an election. It went very badly, with the newly appointed arbitrator gone from the project within days. There's nothing particularly unusual about this vacancy; in 2009, we started out with one of the 18 seats unfilled (because of the resignation of a sitting arbitrator between the completion of the election and the beginning of the year), and within a couple of weeks another arbitrator had "stepped down". It is a rare year that has not seen the resignation of one or more arbitrators early in the year (February seems to be a particularly common month). Risker (talk) 01:10, 31 December 2013 (UTC)