Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate/Proposed decision

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

Case clerk: TBD Drafting arbitrator: TBD

Behaviour on this page: Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at a fair, well-informed decision. 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 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, clerk, or functionary, without further warning, by being banned from further participation in the case, or being blocked altogether. Personal attacks against other users, including arbitrators or the clerks, will be met with sanctions. Behavior during a case may also be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision.

Comments before proposed decision is posted

All discussions in this section have been archived as the proposed decision has now been posted. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 00:18, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

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General comments

Statement by Ryulong

Why are "gender and sexuality" included in all of the topic ban proposals?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:15, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Because we don't want this dispute, or clones of it, exported into parallel areas elsewhere on the Wiki, and because we want those t-banned to move on completely,  Roger Davies ^talk 23:27, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

It just seems unnecessarily broad when the issue is more narrowly feminism vs. men's rights.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:31, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

WRT Protonk's section

Right. Everyone who has been listed as one of "the 5 horsemen" or whatever is being topic banned except for it seems TRPoD without any acknowledgement of anything that has been happening in the real world while this case was in drafting hell. Only the established editors are getting punished while leaving room for all of the single purpose accounts to make themselves obvious to require a separate later discussion to result in a ban. I don't care if I'm banned from the topic area as I've already done that somewhat voluntarily. But booting me from the site is ridiculous and only playing into the hands of a bunch of people who killed someone's dog today through a false police report.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 00:02, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Are you kidding me, Roger? I sent in a bunch of evidence through email. On him and others. Why hasn't any of that been considered?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:51, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

We've put very robust steps in place to deal with any new incoming SPAs. But we don't have the resources or the mandate to deal with serious and systemic off-wiki harassment issues. You really need to take them to the WMF and/or law enforcement.  Roger Davies ^talk 00:09, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

But what about the obvious SPAs that are here now? The ones that you haven't bothered to cover? Loganmac is the most prominent of them and per the private evidence and what has happened while all this was behind closed doors shows that he cannot be neutral.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 00:19, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I interpret the "Single purpose accounts with agendas" remedy as allowing uninvolved administrators to topic ban SPAs who continue to edit with an agenda in that topic area, regardless of whether they were also doing so before this case. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:24, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I mean the editors who are active now and have been active since this real world event started who have done nothing but try to sway the content of the article to cast them in a better light when the media does not and has not, particularly when this was covered by Nightline less than a week ago and in that time have resulted in multiple false police reports on people who simply don't agree with them, and apparently today led to a dog getting shot by the cops. Gamergate has been the only topic where I've engaged in this. I'm one of the most prolific contributors to this website, and there's a proposal to have me indefbanned because I was drawn into a real life dispute against my wishes when there are pages across the web attacking me for my participation. I can live with a topic ban. I don't edit the central page now and everything else I've done has been to question validity of sources and minor grammar fixes on peripheral articles. But this is playing into the hands of what the world at large is recognizing as a right wing hate group.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 00:31, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

And I'm going to mirror something that NorthBySouthBaranof has said: there are so many people in these proposed decisions that have been subject to harassment and character assassinations off-site not only by the main stomping grounds of the topic matter but by parties of the case who are not being sanctioned at all. There is no reason I should contact the WMF regarding the harassment offsite when I sent to the arbitration committee several emails detailing parties to this case and other users who have participated in directed discussions to harass and demean me and others all because they think that they should be able to write the page about their movement and ignore the only reasons they have remotely got any press because of a constant application of the No True Scotsman logical fallacy and would rather present information in incredibly biased sources that are in no way valid reliable sources for Wikipedia, anyway, to push information. It is insane that the committee has decided to not sanction the most egregious performers of offsite harassment in regards to onsite actions but instead are proposing that every editor who has been subject to this harassment is to be banned in some capacity. The committee, and frankly Jimbo too, should not be caving into the demands of an out and out hate group because my presence and others is apparently damaging to the project when we should not be pandering to these people in the first place.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 00:52, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

And they are prematurely dancing on our collective graves right now.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 00:57, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by NorthBySouthBaranof

I find it somewhat ironic that the PD's "history of the dispute" section cites specifically several diffs illustrating the vicious campaign of off-wiki-organized harassment I have been subjected to, and then proposes to give these harassers exactly what they want by topic-banning me. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:29, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

To be quite clear, ArbCom, what you are doing here is giving into an off-wiki-organized harassment campaign, and don't pretend everyone doesn't know it. You've just written the blueprint for any contentious topic area to come — have anonymous trolls on throwaway accounts and IPs bombard BLPs with character assassination attempts, then harass and attack the established editors who respond to those efforts until enough "evidence" is ginned up to provide a pretext for topic-banning those established editors. I eagerly await the Gamergate 2 ArbCom request, when another set of established editors such as Tony Sidaway, Protonk or Bosstopher become the targets of 8chan and KiA. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:08, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

This is not the first time that a dispute has been imported and it won't be the last. We have put robust measures in place to deal with incoming issues,  Roger Davies ^talk 00:11, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

So you're not denying that you're basically giving 8chan and KiA what they want in hopes the problem will go away. Good to know what level of support established editors who work to defend BLPs from off-wiki-organized character assassination campaigns will have going forward — none at all. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:14, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not saying anthing of the kind. We have put robust measures in place on-wiki; these apply as much to BLPs as anything else. There's nothing more we can realistically do.  Roger Davies ^talk 00:21, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Roger, you just voted to topic-ban or outright-ban four of the five established editors who were targeted by 8chan and KiA for a vicious off-wiki-organized harassment campaign because they dared to try and stop Gamergate trolls from using Wikipedia biographies as a weapon of character assassination against Brianna Wu, Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian. Please stop pretending that your actions here don't speak louder than your words. I'm OK with knowing that the ArbCom has no spine and gives in to off-wiki harassment campaigns, but it would have been better to know that before, so I wouldn't have wasted my time trying to stop Gamergate trolls from comparing Zoe Quinn to a prostitute in her Wikipedia biography. Someone else can do the dirty work from now on. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:25, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Removing BLP violations is a laudable activity. Edit warring and enflaming issues are not. It is in fact possible to have one without the other. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 00:36, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

The evidence cited shows that I engaged in one edit-war on the article, in the first week of September, and frankly some of the linked edits (this one in particular) involved reverting material on BLP grounds — the statement that <redacted> is untrue and actually portrays Eron Gjoni, of all people, in a false light. I admit that my behavior has not been perfect, but "enflaming issues" seems thin gruel for a topic ban. And as per Ryulong above, yes, inevitably KiA and 8chan are now celebrating wildly at the scalps they are about to claim. That was predictable. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:58, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Roger: What admin is going to risk taking those actions under DS, knowing that if they make decisions which Gamergate supporters oppose, they will be targeted for a vicious harassment campaign by an anonymous off-wiki mob and dragged before ArbCom with entire chanboard threads devoted to crowdsourcimg evidence against them? You are setting admins up to be GamerGate's next harassment targets, with the visible scalps of myself and others providing proof of the efficacy of their tactics. It is unsurprising that most admins have declined to put themselves in such a position, and I applaud Gamaliel and HJ Mitchell for being willing to step up and make decisions which invite such abuse. I would not wish upon anyone what I have been subjected to. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 01:30, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

The below statement from Singdavion encapsulates what I and others have been warning about. Any editor, administrator or even arbitrator who makes a decision that Gamergate disagrees with is going to be subjected to aggressive, hostile "investigation," claims of bias, accusations of "collusion", doxxing and anonymous abuse based on the slightest bit of personal information that can be teased out about them. This is literally the Gamergate playbook, as evidenced by the multitude of international media stories published on the issue. It will not stop with this arbitration proceeding, as is now patently obvious — it will start up again the moment any other editor or administrator acts to prevent their POV-pushing attacks on living people from infiltrating the encyclopedia, because they will be targeted for the same attacks just as surely as I and others have been. They are, even now, brazenly attempting to influence the arbitration proceeding by attacking the character of an arbitrator. I ask again if this atmosphere of fear is the dystopian future that Wikipedians want. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 08:46, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Protonk

Is there a reason the committee totally ignored loganmac's conduct in the topic area? Protonk (talk) 23:39, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Because there's virtually no actionable evidence,  Roger Davies ^talk 23:45, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

ell-oh-ell. Protonk (talk) 23:46, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

@Protonk: check the PD --Guerillero | My Talk 05:23, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

"With the exception of arbitrators and clerks, all editors must comment in their own section only"
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I was wondering this too.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:40, 19 January 2015 (UTC) I am now greatly regretting the fact that I didnt bother sending any email evidence to this case... Assuming the thing about changing the sanctions to arbcom sanctions passes, will I be able to use privately submitted information in a request for enforcement? Bosstopher (talk) 23:47, 19 January 2015 (UTC) But seriously. This is and was a topic defined by SPAs, canvassing and harassment of editors by people acting off site. If we can't at least topic ban the editor responsible for a huge chunk of that (now a mod of KiA), then what have we really accomplished? You knew this was the case when you took it and you took an extra month in deciding but somehow that escaped your attention. Protonk (talk) 23:49, 19 January 2015 (UTC) It's obvious at this point that this decision is about giving KiA and 8chan exactly what they want. Congratulations, ArbCom, you're a hero to anonymous troll chanboards that have been the subject of international media condemnation, have viciously harassed Wikipedia editors and repeatedly attempted to character-assassinate their opponents via their Wikipedia biographies and related pages. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:54, 19 January 2015 (UTC) Right. Everyone who has been listed as one of "the 5 horsemen" or whatever is being topic banned except for it seems TRPoD without any acknowledgement of anything that has been happening in the real world while this case was in drafting hell. Only the established editors are getting punished while leaving room for all of the single purpose accounts to make themselves obvious to require a separate later discussion to result in a ban. I don't care if I'm banned from the topic area as I've already done that somewhat voluntarily. But booting me from the site is ridiculous and only playing into the hands of a bunch of people who killed someone's dog today through a false police report.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 00:02, 20 January 2015 (UTC) Are you kidding me, Roger? I sent in a bunch of evidence through email. On him and others. Why hasn't any of that been considered?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:51, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

"But we don't have the resources or the mandate to deal with serious and systemic off-wiki harassment issues. You really need to take them to the WMF and/or law enforcement." Roger Davies, no one is asking for the arbcom to act off site. We're asking for the arbcom to ban someone on wikipedia. What's the reason why action wasn't taken on site for this obvious and ongoing disruption? This isn't just a "oh, my preferred outcome didn't happen." The community placed faith in you to handle a situation that couldn't be resolved without "private evidence" and you essentially told us to piss up a rope. Protonk (talk) 00:21, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Further, we went through this entire case and this is still our expectation of discourse. Nothing has fucking changed. The GG article will still be an unreadable mess and community sanctions will still be invoked for arbitrary and totally unimportant things. What a complete embarrassment. What a waste of everyone's time. Protonk (talk) 02:46, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

This comment by DD2K encapsulates my frustration perfectly. Every single active arbitrator should read that comment and reflect on what sort of message you want to send the community. And when you decide, don't be surprised to learn that the community is listening intently. Protonk (talk)

Statement by DSA510

I thought I was already topic banned 5ever. Don't need to tell me twice. Besides, the KDE articles are very nice and tasty. The GamerHate article is ugly and boring and I'm writing about it on my blog anyways, so I don't see the need to topic ban me twice. Will I have to change my signature now? --DSA510 Pls No AndN 00:16, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

The proposal is basically an endorsement of the community topic ban, and a conversion from that to an ArbCom topic ban. There's no topic banning you twice happening here. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:26, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)You aren't topic banned twice, you preexisting topic ban is now an arbcom topic ban and any appeals should be to the committee. Due to the fact that many users like to engage in endless wiki-lawyering about such things, we simply have tried to make it clear that all sanctions previously imposed by the community are now arbcom sanctions. I don't know what you mean about your signature but I'm guessing it's something silly that doesn't really matter. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:27, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Not helpful or constructive. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 00:57, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Sexy. And apparently, according to people who read too deep into things, my signature is some sort of rape joke. Or something. And said rape joke is dark magenta and green, which is the color of that GamerHate girl or something? --DSA510 Pls No AndN 00:41, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by {DD2K|Dave Dial}

It is incomprehensible that ArbCom has Tarc(who was barely involved) banned from the project, TaraInDC topic banned, and doesn't even list LoganMac. There is no reason or excuse for that at all. Incomprehensible and egregious. Just the off-site harassment should have been enough for a perm ban. What the Hell is going on here? Dave Dial (talk) 00:41, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I just want to add, I know this is volunteer work and that ArbCom members spend a lot of time devoting themselves to help the project when they become ArbCom members. But I think what others are saying is that by sanctioning long-time editors who have had to deal with deplorable, egregious off-site(and many times on-site) harassment, while letting one of the main coordinators of that harassment go unmentioned, tells regular editors(volunteers themselves) and admins that protecting the project from BLP violations coordinated from off-site will not only get you sanctioned, but the perpetrators will be rewarded with no sanction. Because I can put my hand in front of my face and tell you that I'm invisible, and if you say you can see me, you're in trouble. Take care all. Dave Dial (talk) 03:18, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment. Just letting you know there is now also a proposed remedy relating to Loganmac. Worth bearing in mind that it is common for additioal remedies to be added during the PD phase, and that not all listed remedies will pass. -- Euryalus (talk) 07:02, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Hell in a Bucket

I think the proposed decisions to ban Tarc, Tutelary and TDA seem a bit on the harsh side. Tarc has seemed to responded well from the last case in my limited observations of him since then. I likewise think the banning TDA or Tutelary seems overkill. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 00:46, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Cryptic

One has to wonder where exactly the committee expects to find uninvolved administrators to implement remedy 10, given how clear the eventual result will be. —Cryptic 00:53, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by MLauba

Good luck with finding any admins to enforce the DS for you. The message this PD sends is loud and clear: Arbcom doesn't have your back. MLauba ^(Talk) 01:15, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

You'll have to explain that ... you seem to have it the wrong way round.  Roger Davies ^talk 01:21, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by The Devil's Advocate

There is an error with regards to the claim about past misconduct. You claim I was sanctioned in "May 2012", but that is referring to a sanction on a completely different editor. I was sanctioned in October of 2012 with a one-way interaction ban under the discretionary sanctions, which was made mutual by ArbCom along with several other similar interaction restrictions in September 2013 due to the other party's conduct with regards to another person who had a one-way interaction restriction with him. Said party was site-banned soon after for conduct towards yet another person in violation of the newly imposed mutual interaction restrictions. Furthermore, the 2013 Scientology restriction was lifted by ArbCom because it was generally recognized as a wrongful sanction. The 2013 "warning" regarding Pseudoscience that you describe as a sanction is because I made two reverts on an article that had recently been subject to 1RR. As I said at the time, I had not been aware of the 1RR being imposed and gave a reasonable BLP concern regardless. Outside of the blocks in this topic area, only one of which stuck, the only block I received after 2012 was rapidly reversed as being inappropriate.

My other concern regards the claim of BLP violations. As far as I can tell this must be about the singular comment I made on a BLP talk page, but I felt I gave a very reasonable response regarding it in my e-mail as I felt there was a legitimate BLP concern to keep in mind regarding content on that BLP. I am not sure why that singular instance would be enough to warrant mentioning it when Ryulong, Baranof, Tara, and Red, have all engaged in blatantly derisive unsourced and unnecessary commentary regarding living subjects on various discussion pages in addition to some BLP-violating edits in the article itself without BLP violations being mentioned explicitly in their respective conduct findings. With concern to the rest, I see most of the evidence concerns my edits regarding Anita Sarkeesian and in that respect I raise no objection to being barred from anything about Sarkeesian. The conduct I have encountered on that page is probably worthy of its own arbitration case if it continues, but I would rather stay away from it as the environment is much too stressful and it would make it harder for me to waffle on my already stated commitment to avoiding it.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 01:50, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I believe I fixed the date issue in this edit. GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:50, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

As far as findings regarding the cases, I would suggest this section of evidence should be given greater consideration. Many of the comments Red, Ryulong, and Tarc make in that section are beyond the pale and more worthy of mention than the comments being used in the current findings. Baranof's comments regarding Gjoni noted in that section and his edits noted here, suggest his opinion regarding BLP changes based on how much he likes the person. There is private evidence I submitted to ArbCom a bit ago regarding his history in that regard on another event from earlier in 2014 should Arbs be interested. All of this should be considered with regards to Tarc.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 06:37, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by PeterTheFourth

Very odd that Loganmac, an editor who has been very explicitly coordinating harassment on a very publicly linked account on Reddit, faces no sanctions. Given the severity of some punishments (indefinitely banning Tarc, for example), it's odd to see somebody who seems worse in behaviour get away without even a warning. Is the arbitration council concerned purely with editors past records, and not at all for their present behaviour? Recidivism seems the only reason for some very, very harsh measures. PeterTheFourth (talk) 02:29, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by NE Ent

Re:

• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate/Proposed_decision#Gamaliel
• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate/Proposed_decision#Gamaliel_reminded

While I understand the committee's reasoning here, in this particular context -- given this was an acrimonious external conflict imported wholesale, the administrators who were willing to step up and volunteer in an exceedingly difficult arena deserve not only our thanks, but a broadly construed application of WP:NOTPERFECT. Vote no on both of these. NE Ent 02:47, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I broadly agree with you --Guerillero | My Talk 05:45, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Comments from Harry Mitchell

• I have a few minor nits I might wan to pick, but I'll wait for a more civilised hour before deciding whether they're important enough
• I don't know what the shitstorm about Loganmac is about, but if he behaves disruptively on the wiki after this case, bring him (with diffs) to AE
• The proposed sitebans are correctly aimed at the most tendentious and recidivist editors, though Tarc seems to have mellowed significantly in the last few months. Has ArbCom ever done something like a suspended sentence? That might be more appropriate in this case. Note that I closed a recent enforcement request against Tarc with a formal warning rather than tangible sanctions because of a lack of evidence of recent disruption. I wonder if the message for the previous cases has sunk in, but only relatively recently? The others all have redeeming qualities, but have caused immense amounts of disruption in this topic area and by taking feuds started on GamerGate articles to other areas of the wiki. The broad topic ban might work for Tutelary with the rest of the major players gone, and if she could be encouraged to channel her energy into less controversial/more useful activities.
• I think it should be acknowledged that Ryulong and NBSB have been the primary targets of some really nasty harassment (I've seen worse, but this is probably in my top 25—have a look at the Dragonron SPI, for example), but that that doesn't excuse misconduct. In fact, this reminds me of the Fae case, which set the precedent that editors should distinguish between harassment and good-faith concerns, and that pointing to the harassment you've received does not absolve you of responsibility for your edits. I think NBSB's heart is in the right place, but we've reached a point where all the entrenched editors need to be removed if we're to have any hope of this dispute settling down.
• I was surprised by the lack of a finding against Cla68, who was sanctioned by a clerk for misconduct during the case, and whom I blocked and topic-banned for further misconduct while the case was ongoing.
• It should probably be noted somewhere that Xander756 is indefinitely blocked. I assume the topic ban is intended to come into force in the event that he's unblocked?

—My thanks to the drafters for the obvious thought and care they've put into sifting through this mess. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 03:28, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Tarc

As Chris Kyle (or the movie version thereof) said, "I'm willing to meet my Creator and answer for every shot that I took." I entered a contentious topic area to protect living people from abuse at the hands of the identified "pro-Gamergate" editors named in this Arbitration, as well as the hordes of SPAs on the periphery. I do not care about the topic itself, I just cared that the organized 8chan/reddit trollfest needed to be thwarted. And thwarted it has, as mainstream media has come down hard against them, and that isn't going to change regardless of who and who is not still standing as an editor here in the morning. My transgressions in this area were mild, were quite a long time ago in the grand scheme of GG, and have nothing at all to do with past Arb cases. Aside from a brief dust-up this past week, I've barely been involved in much editing at all, it was time for a break.

Several of you bent over backwards to retain Corbett in the GGTF case despite his Mt. Everest-sized "recidivism", drafting a heightened civility parole to do so because he is a vested editor. Try doing the same for those editors who were doxxed and harassed for 4+ months when they stood up to a bunch of attackers who continuously and egregiously violated WP:BLP. Tarc (talk) 03:58, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Obsidi

I think the siteban of Tutelary, Tarc, and The Devil's Advocate are a bit too harsh. I would be fine with topic bans for all of them. I am a bit surprised that with an explicit finding of battleground conduct that TheRedPenOfDoom wasn't topic banned. --Obsidi (talk) 04:04, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I vehemently disagree with the use of this diff to support the allegation that Mason was POV pushing. He was talking about impartially presenting facts which we can "source to RS" and to not include "claims about others without evidence." As Mason says "We're not here to judge them, right or wrong." This is far from pushing a POV. Several of the other diffs used to claim Mason is POV pushing are where he is trying to explain the difference between facts and opinions in a way entirely consistent with NPOV policy and specifically WP:IMPARTIAL. --Obsidi (talk) 08:55, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Spirit of Eagle

I’ve attempted to stay out of the GamerGate debacle, but this needs to be said: For the last few months, I’ve been watching the non-stop attempts of GamerGate supporters to add personal attacks to articles, harass editors and in general turn Wikipedia into a propaganda mill. The editor’s currently on the chopping block have for the past months attempted to prevent GamerGate abuse, and have suffered through heavy harassment from GamerGate as a result. Yes, they have sometimes behaved uncivilly, made some rude comments, and perhaps even edit warred a bit. I am, however, asking the arbitrators to please consider the relentless abuse the editors on the chopping block have had to work through, and to think about what kind of message banning them while letting an organizer of harassment completely off of the hook is going to send to us. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 05:02, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Tony Sidaway

Arbitration cases can appear rather brutal on the surface when, as here, they concentrate on using their huge fiat power to set the table for a stable editing environment. Reading the proposed decision with an eye to those remedies that appear most likely to pass, I don't see much to complain about, and I applaud the proposed move to Discretionary Sanctions. I'm satisfied that the sanctions regime already operating has been responsible for the very great improvement in the editing environment over time, but the promotion is due and will amplify this trend.

One thing is missing: a proposal of a vote of thanks to the "happy few" administrators who have stepped up and enacted General Sanctions enforcement, while most others (albeit with good reason) shrunk away. --TS 05:07, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Loganmac

Mhm how am I a single-purpose account? As far as I can tell I have made edits to several wide ranged topics. And Roger Davis said a few minutes ago that there was "no actionable evidence" but voted yes to topic-ban me.

And I kinda fail to see how this [1] is WP:BATTLEGROUND when I was just describing the general state of the article, I really don't get this. And this was kinda adressed by Jimbo [2] when at first info on GameJournosPro was being kept out. Two of those were rude maybe, and I apologize, but these were almost 6 months ago, my conduct has been, and more when compared with the general state of the Talk page, civil and at times unnatached (I don't remember the last significant edit I made to the actual GamerGate article). My edits to the Milo Yiannoupoulous article was reordering and copy editing, no actual info was introduced. My edits on 8chan were mostly to fix BLP issues linking Fredrick Brennan with child pornography. It's sad in my humble opinion to see my vote being one sided while votes on other users who have long-standing histories of uncivilness are divided, when I haven't even been blocked since my account creation in 2007. I'd also like to point out that there were only two cases against me in the General Sanctions board, one got boomeranged and the other was closed as "lamest request ever". Oh well Loganmac (talk) 06:23, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

As Singdavion pointed, I don't feel fairly judged by GorillaWarfare at all, I ask that she please reccusses like she did before Loganmac (talk) 09:20, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Singdavion

Hi, I'd like to bring up the issue with one of the voters, GorillaWarfare. The information I'd like to note goes as follows:

1. The fact that she has recused herself before on topics related to these. Here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate#GamerGate:_Arbitrators.27_opinion_on_hearing_this_matter_.3C7.2F3.2F1.2F0.3E
2. And the contents of this image proving that she is very biased toward the topic at hand. http://i.imgur.com/4459wfN.png

Should be forced to abstain. Thank you for your time.Singdavion (talk) 08:43, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Heya. Figured this was going to show up here after bubbling over at 8chan for a while. To save you the trouble I've linked my Twitter account and website—I don't know if I've ever given the link on-wiki since it doesn't really come up much in conversation, but since you all were having trouble finding it, I thought I'd help out and eliminate outing concerns.

I did recuse on this; I then changed my decision. I emailed the clerks list to update them on this, and Sphilbrick made the on-wiki change.

Regarding my tweets, I don't think that condemning parts of Gamergate that doxxed or harassed women is reflective of my bias (or even particularly controversial)... Considering that the 8chan thread from where you came linked to my dox, looked through my offwiki sites, and then decided my decisions were based on being "a chick", a feminist, an SJW, etc., and compared me to someone who wanted to kill Jewish people, this is all a bit ironic.

Also, fair warning: It's 4am my time and I have class in the morning, so I'm about to drop offline for the night. Apologies for delays this may cause. GorillaWarfare (talk) 09:04, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I am not here to argue and nor will I. All I'm going to say is this: Stop backing your ideology and start backing Wikipedia. Abstain from this vote and keep this case fair. Thank you Singdavion (talk) 09:10, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Per WP:ARBPOL, "Requests for recusal after a case has entered the voting stage will not be granted except in extraordinary circumstances." The evidence you present does not meet that standard. -- Euryalus (talk) 09:21, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Note that Singdavion has been in breach of an already imposed topic ban with these postings here, so I have blocked them for a week. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:27, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. -- Euryalus (talk) 09:31, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

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Editors may make relevant statements addressing general aspects of the proposed decision (which are not related to proposal).