Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Banning Policy/Workshop

Main case page (Talk) — Evidence (Talk) — Workshop (Talk) — Proposed decision (Talk)

Case clerk: TBD Drafting arbitrator: TBD

Purpose of the workshop: The case Workshop exists so that parties to the case, other interested members of the community, and members of the Arbitration Committee can post possible components of the final decision for review and comment by others. Components proposed here may be general principles of site policy and procedure, findings of fact about the dispute, remedies to resolve the dispute, and arrangements for remedy enforcement. These are the four types of proposals that can be included in committee final decisions. There are also sections for analysis of /Evidence, and for general discussion of the case. Any user may edit this workshop page; please sign all posts and proposals. Arbitrators will place components they wish to propose be adopted into the final decision on the /Proposed decision page. Only Arbitrators and clerks may edit that page, for voting, clarification as well as implementation purposes.

Behaviour on this page: Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at fair, well-informed decisions. You are required to act with appropriate decorum during this case. While grievances must often be aired during a case, you are expected to air them without being unnecessarily rude or hostile, and to respond calmly to allegations against you. Accusations of misbehaviour posted in this case must be proven with clear evidence (and otherwise not made at all). Editors who conduct themselves inappropriately during a case may be sanctioned by an arbitrator or clerk, without further warning, by being banned from further participation in the case, or being blocked altogether. Behavior during a case may be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision.

Motions and requests by the parties

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Proposed temporary injunctions

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Questions to the parties

Arbitrators may ask questions of the parties in this section.

Proposed final decision

Proposals by User:Tarc

Proposed principles

User talk pages and a degree of latitude

1) Per WP:UP#OWN, users do not own their talk pages; such pages are subject to project policy just as any other. In reality, there has been a long-standing tradition of leeway, e.g. users can instruct other users to not post on their page, and are generally exempt from 3RR to remove unwanted messages and the like.

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Jimbo Wales' user talk page

2) Jimbo Wales' talk page is unique; while technically he is a user and it is his user's talk page, Jimbo's role as nominal project leader, "benevolent dictator", or whatever makes his talk page a sort of catch-all communication portal from the outside world to him. Sometimes a possibly banned user will use this to communicate, and many times Jimbo himself is ok with this, e.g. here. This communication should be allowed, per discretion of a talk page owner, and the discretion of a project founder.

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Banned is banned, respect to the project means you respect the rules handed down. Consensus is made that a person is banned, usually this is because of problems following policies, why would we want to continue and reward that behavior by allowing them to flaunt it further on these special pages. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 12:27, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

"Banned is banned" is simplistic, black/white, either/or thinking. We're neither machines nor a bureaucracy, we can decide if the greater good of project improvement would be served by giving some things like this a bit of leeway. A banned editor may take a beautiful photograph of a plant or animal and upload it; would you deny it form being considered at Wikipedia:Featured pictures? A banned editor may raise an interesting point about a contentious area of the project. Why silence that question just because of who the asker may be? Even worse in all this was when I took the question on as my own, you STILL objected. Worse still was Johnuniq removal of my completely original re-phrasing ofthe original question. Tarc (talk) 13:35, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

You made it very clear here [[1]] that it was your intention to post it on their behalf and attribute that to the poster. That's a clear example of offering to proxy for a blocked user, you stated earlier you didn't know who they were nor did you particularly care, a reasonable person could infer that means you knew they were someone operating as a sock. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 13:56, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

That diff in particular was a request for assistance from a user who was being harried by you and Smallbones, so yes, I re-phrased their question under my name. That was done per advice given at WP:ANI, where several editors suggested that to "take ownership" of banned content would make it my own, thus immune from yours crusade. That practice represents a long-standing community norm, where usable content can be salvaged from potentially disputed creators. If you have a problemw ith that, then I suggest taking it up at the Village Pump or a site-wide RfC. It is done all the time. Tarc (talk) 14:30, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Two things, One there is no request for help there, however let's assume that there is one and you thought it was a request for help at that point by your own admission you were editing on their behalf in violation of WP:EVADE. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 14:44, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Ahh, yes, in my mind I was mixing up that section with the other section. Either way, we're getting a bit afield from the point of this principle, which is Jimbo Wales' open door policy for his talk page. No person, on or off-wiki, has ever said "Tarc, will you edit this for me?". I cared not a whit for the suspected identity or identities of "SpottingTOU" or "The Rewarder"; all I saw at the time were editors with no block records, no sanction, no topic ban, being endlessly censored in contravention to Jimbo's wishes for how he, in my interpretation of his wishes, has expressed how he wishes his page to be open to all but the most plain trolling or harassment. Tarc (talk) 15:02, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

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WP:DUCK is an essay, not policy

3) Too often (and I myself have been guilty of this) we enforce "the duck test" as if it were site policy, and it has led to the stifling of many conversations just because it "sounds like" something a known banned editor would say This essay should be deprecated, and users forbidden from acting upon it without evidence from a confirmed sock-puppet investigation, or a block of the suspected account. While an editor is unblocked and under no editing restriction, their edits are not to be subjected to blind reversion.

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People can be denied the right to edit, they cannot be denied common courtesy

4) Even banned editors are human beings, and apart from the truly sociopaths (e.g. banned pedophiles, stalkers, etc...), should not be treated like pond swill. At the end of the day, all they have done is broken the rules of a privately-operated website. They have not committed high crimes and misdemeanors against the state.

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What "here to build an encyclopedia" means

5) Specifically, AGK's unfortunate "not here to build an encyclopedia" acceptance comment, and to a lesser extent the comments of GorillaWarfare and Seraphimblade. After 10 years in existence, the project has shifted somewhat from content creation to content curation. There are many things that one can do for the project besides the actual writing of prose; first and foremost is the never-ending policing of content for the obvious vandalism and the sometimes-not-obvious WP:BLP problems. There are articles to delete and articles to keep. There are deletions/keeps to review. There is dispute resolution noble (MedCab) and foul (AN/I). There's the Reference Desk. The point is, the yardstick of "does editor X contribute enough article content?" as a measure of an editor's worth is about as obsolete as it'd be to ask Danica Patrick about her dexterity with a buggy whip.

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I agree the comment made by 4 arb's is unfortunate as it appears their mind was made up before the actual case opened. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 12:23, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

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Proposed findings of fact

Smallbones and 3RR

1) Smallbones has frequently claimed a WP:3RR exemption for his 25+ reversions of a possibly banned editor, though in discussions on Jimbo's page, AN/I, and the 3RR noticeboard, this claim has not borne fruit. Per WP:UP#OWN, "..as may edits from banned users...'". May, not must.

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Tarc and 3RR

2) I egregiously violated 3RR, and claim no exemption or right to the 25+ reverts on the days in question. It got to a "well we're way past 3 now, so..." point and the rest was history. I will note that the 3RR filing was declined, though.

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Hell in a Bucket and casting aspersions

3) Several times, Hell in a Bucket 1, 2 3 referred to another editor (i.e. me) as a troll for restoring the edits of a possibly banned user.

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I don't know what else to call the countless insults and attacks you were making via edit summaries and edit contents a partial listing is found here [[2]]. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 11:52, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

You are being a bit untruthful at the moment. Your accusations of "trolling" had nothing to do with that, you were directing them at me for the sole reason that I restored the edits of an editor you suspected was a banned one. Read the 3 links I provided above; "your horse is dissecated[sic] now, now move on to your disruptive trolling", "Congrats Tarc take a bow for helping them troll Jimbo", and "Tarc is trolling on behalf of a banned editor". Tarc (talk) 12:19, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

I guess I'm not seeing what's untruthful in telling you to move on from a closed issue which was my comment saying cunt, queer, nigger, and moving on to what I classify as trolling behavior in this overall incident. I'll let others decide for themselves based on the evidence left on the table to see whether they care to agree but I'd seriously review what's in my evidence and maybe you can see how antagonistic you actually were, your own initial statements at the case request acknowledge your comments and summaries were "flippant." I am going to let others weigh in though because at this point anything further just clouds it for others. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 12:46, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

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Proposed remedies

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Proposals by User:Konveyor Belt

Proposed principles

On talk pages

1) Wikipedia is an collaborative project where editors are supposed to use talk pages in a civil manner.

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On User Talk pages

2) User talk pages are the domain of the user that owns them and have a certain degree of autonomy.

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The role of Jimbo

3) Generally, Jimbo in particular is allowed even more autonomy than the ordinary user.

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Blatant trolling

4) Whether it's by a banned user or not, blatant and obvious trolling should always be removed.

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Legitimate questions and comments

4.1) However, legitimate contributions should generally not be removed, especially on Jimbo's talk page given his open door policy.

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Administrators, the duck test, and banned users

5) Generally administrators should be the only ones to determine banned editors. WP:DUCK may apply but it is only an essay. Admins can and should certainly use DUCK evidence, but extending this power to ordinary users is unmistakable power creep.

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Proposed Findings of Fact

What is and isn't 3RR

1) WP:3RRNO only applies to reversions of banned editors, not other editors who restore removed content.

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Smallbones and 3RR

2) Per the principles above and the evidence of reversions, Smallbones broke 3RR by reverting Tarc three times: [3], [4], and [5].

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Tarc and 3RR

3) Tarc broke 3RR with his reverts of Smallbones: [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12]

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Battleground and Tendentious behavior

4) Tarc and Smallbones both vowed to continue reverting eachother, showing clear battleground and tendentious behavior.

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Ininitally, yes; if we're being honest, I have no idea when the original revert-war would have ednded. Black Kite stepped in and manually archived the section. Later on, however, I disengaged. Smallbones did not, and on Aug 14th continued policing Jimbo's page, reverting an editor (who at the time was not blocked) 4 times ((1, 2, 3, 4). Even when I made it my own question, I reverted ONCE when this was very improperly removed, but did not do so again when it was reverted twice by Hell in a Bucket 1, 2. Later on I "took ownership" of the comment, but this was reverted by Johniniq. I did not revert at all, it was restored by a 3rd party. So originally, yes, we warred away on Aug7th and thereabouts. Later on, I bowed out. Tarc (talk) 20:22, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

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Jimbo and the open door

5)His open door policy is just that: open, and really other editors should not judge for him what fits through that door.

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For the record, Jimbo did not write the page notice stating that he had an open-door policy. He has made various statements at various times about what/who he does and does not allow on his talkpage. This proposal can be read in two ways: a) determining whether or not Jimbo (or potentially others) can decide what policies/guidelines do or do not apply on their own talkpages, or b) determining the appropriate conduct of other users with regards to what they should or should not remove from his page. The former will have a certain amount of impact on the latter, and warrants a firm decision - yes, users can decide policies do not apply; no, users cannot; most users can't but Jimbo can. Also, if the answer is either "yes" or "Jimbo yes", precisely which policies are at issue would need very careful discussion - stuff like WP:OUTING should always be a "no", whereas other stuff might be okay. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:29, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

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Tarc admonished

1) Tarc is admonished for battleground behavior.

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Smallbones admonished

2) Smallbones is admonished for battleground behavior.

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Proposals by User:Count Iblis

Proposed principles

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a bureaucracy

1) We have rules to facilitate building the encyclopedia, therefore a rule may be ignored if sticking to that rule isn't going to help.

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Jimbo's exceptional status on Wikipedia

2) Jimbo is the sole editor on Wikipedia who has the authority to intervene outside of the regular process in administrative processes, review ArbCom decisions and if needed, ask ArbCom to review decisions.

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Restrictions do not apply to all pages

3) To allow restricted editors to communicate problems, certain pages are always exempt from the imposed restrictions, Jimbo's talk page is one such page.

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Chelsea Manning ArbCom case

1) This posting by Sceptre on Jimbo's talk page was an important posting to get the wider community involved in the dispute. It however led to Sceptre being inappropriately blocked as posting on Jimbo's talk page should not have been considered to be a violation of her topic ban.

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Inappropriate behavior by Admins on the Amanda Knox and Murder of Meredith Kercher pages

2) On the basis of postings on his talk page by banned editors, Jimbo has intervened in a dispute on the Amanda Knox and Murder of Meredith Kercher pages. He has found that the editors were inappropriatly blocked and demanded that the blocks be reversed (e.g. this editor).

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Could you provide diff's for that? Worm^TT(talk) 10:19, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

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I'll digg up the relevant diffs. The point of this entry is to serve as an example of an intervention by Jimbo that has helped Wikipedia. Here "helping" is understood in the WP:IAR sense (which is why I mention this principle above). Count Iblis (talk) 17:42, 3 September 2014 (UTC). I just found this discussion on Jimbo's talk page. From this link it's not difficult to digg up the other postings by Jimbo and the measures taken. Count Iblis (talk) 22:18, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

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Proposals by User:Example 1

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Analysis of evidence

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General discussion

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