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All discussions in this section have been archived as the proposed decision has now been posted.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)

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)

The issue still stands that every editor who has been attempting to make sure the page does not fall victim to single purpose accounts, BLP violations, and what have you, are all being sanctioned and banned from ever editing the topic, again. Also, I find it disingenuous that people on this page are bringing up the Auerbach incident (I had no existing beef with him until he came to Wikipedia) and are alleging that the donation I received means anything when every discussion about it has come up with "he was editing the same beforehand so why does it matter".—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:15, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Ries42 is one of the many accounts who appeared on Wikipedia following the opening of this case who most definitely would be affected by this remedy. Why are we allowing this to continue even at this stage?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 00:06, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Really DHeyward? You're saying that the fact that editors like myself and NBSB are being trolled and discussed extensively on off-site forums where the people who are trying to organize harassment and disruption of this process and website that means that we should have stepped back? You give Gamergate too much credit. They desire for people to quit so they can get their way. It's their only MO. Any level of giving in to a hate group is disingenuous.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 04:19, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm going to second MLauba's understanding of this situation. This is a real world dispute that spilled onto the project and a good chunk of us who are being considered for bans here simply did our best to prevent POV from being skeweed in a way that was not represented in reliable sources as well as to prevent BLP violations, and this has caused what has most definitely turned into a hate group to unnecessarily target us on and off-site. I presented to the arbitration committee evidence of of-site harassment and disruption performed by parties of this case but according to Roger Davies, who was the one who responded to all of my emails on this issue, did not consider to be relevant. And even on this page, TDA's constant accusations of every administrator who dared to step in and deal with the problems are involved simply because they came to the conclusion that the Gamergate POV pushers were the problem rather than the established editors doing their best to prevent POV skewing and BLP violations, that TDA is guilty of himself, which was presented in evidence. MLauba is right that the drafters' only interests were sanctioning the big names rather than acknowledging the real world mob who have doxxed anyone and everyone, who have called in false police reports, and who have set back the video game industry years because they don't like one video game and they think that another person wants to ban their favorite games.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 01:56, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Echoing TRPoD's latest comment, by topic banning everyone who was acting in the project's best interests rather than advocating for a nebulous hate mob it's only opening up the page to this hate mob (that Jimbo has encountered himself), which has been waiting for the "Five Horsemen" to be banned so they can have their way with the page.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 06:42, 22 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 crowdsourcing 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 (since removed as a topic-ban violation) and the accusations leveled by Loganmac on Beeblebrox's talk page encapsulate 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 at least two arbitrators. I ask again if this atmosphere of fear is the dystopian future that Wikipedians want. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 08:46, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

@David Fuchs: What you are describing as some sort of sinister "misuse of sources" is merely a poor job of paraphrasing, and my failure to link the correct source. The Washington Post article in question links to, and is apparently sourced from, a Daily Dot article (also a reliable source) which includes a direct primary-source image of Brianna Wu's tweet in question, which obviously mocks and criticizes Gamergate's illogical claims and harassment. However, that source is not the only source cited for the statement in question. You missed the array of other sources already cited in that line which also support the statements in question — including MSNBC: ...a shocking debate about sexism in the gaming industry ... and the sometimes-violent reaction to women who speak out ... Brianna posted a meme, making fun of Gamergate, she tweeted things which exposed some of the problems with the internal logic of Gamergate ... she posted that., Polygon, Kotaku: Wu, who has written about the harassment against women in gaming, has long been critical of the recently-formed Gamergate movement and what she and others have seen as the targeting of women in the industry., International Business Times: Wu, who serves as the head of development at game studio Giant Spacekat, came forward in July about the harrassment directed at her as a well-known female developer in a male-dominated industry. She's the latest victim of a misogynistic lynch mob that targets women who raise the issue, some of them appearing to do it under the mantle of "gamergate," which is ostensibly focused on the ethics of gaming journalism., etc.

Similarly, the Boston Globe quote states: It mocked members of a shadowy and threatening gaming movement called GamerGate, ridiculing them for, among other things, “fighting an apocalyptic future where women are 8 percent of programmers and not 3 percent. I do not believe it is inappropriate to paraphrase this statement — bolstered by the other sources which, among other things, show exactly what Brianna Wu tweeted — as "making illogical claims and misogynistic threats." The rest of the article's context makes clear the movement's sexism/misogyny, its "threatening" nature is explicitly stated, the threats are obviously misogynistic in nature (see, well, literally every article written about Gamergate for evidence) and the "illogical claim" is the idea that there's something wrong with there being more women programmers.

While you may disagree with this paraphrasing, and it may not be the best paraphrasing, this is hardly some sort of wild, intentional and flagrant misrepresentation of what the sources say about this matter — it was a good-faith effort to avoid quote-farming the sources. I further note that the Boston Globe-based wording you view as objectionable was up for little more than a day, as I shortly thereafter rewrote the offending section to simply use a direct quote and avoid the paraphrasing issue entirely. That direct quote has been stable in the article for three months now. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 14:49, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I note that even today as ArbCom votes, users continue to attack living people who have been targeted by Gamergate, here rewriting an article against the direct statement of the cited reliable source to state that the allegations against Zoe Quinn are not false, merely "unsubstantiated." I point this out because continued vigilance is required by good-faith editors of whatever stripe to ensure that Wikipedia is not used as a weapon of character assassination — concerted efforts to smear Gamergate's targets are by no means finished. If more editors would be willing to step forward, watchlist related articles and monitor for such abuses, those of us who have been dealing with this mess for months could afford to take a step back. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:28, 23 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 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)

Thanks, I've seen that and appreciate the work all the members have put into the many issues that come before the committee. I would also like to ask Ryulong to accept that going off-site to continue Wikipedia related discussions was something that should not have happened, and that should be the reason for a topic ban. Not that many editors don't appreciate the work editors that have been harassed for just trying to protect the project and remove BLP violations, but...In any case, ArbCom members should be aware that 8chan is organizing to disrupt the project and for further harassment of editors.

• Disruption1(Archived)
• Disruption2(Archived)
• Harassment(Archived)

Also, for members to realize how serious some of this is, please read "The invasion boards that set out to ruin lives" I have a bad case of the flu, so I'm off for a while. Take care all. Dave Dial (talk) 01:28, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

@Roger Davies: , Perhaps you should take up @Courcelles: plea for uninvolved editors to make sure that our BLP, RS and NPOV policies are upheld in all the 'gamergate' articles. Because although the fanboys over at 8chan seem to love you now, they may not if you are the one that has to keep the BLP violations off the project. Perhaps Courcelles should add to the proposal that editors should be prepared to be harassed and should not have active links to their real life jobs, Twitter, Facebook or homes readily accessible. I have a feeling there are quite a bit of editors who stay far away from those articles and are more than happy to let others take the heat. Perhaps the members of ArbCom who have !voted to topic ban the editors who have been trying to uphold Wikipedia policies in those articles should take that job it upon themselves. Dave Dial (talk) 02:32, 23 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)

Roger, the message sent by the first draft you and your two peers posted, in particular by mostly ignoring some of the most abject and vile off-wiki harassment established contributors have been subjected to for almost 5 months now for trying to uphold key policies like WP:BLP is "sucks to be you, now go away", instead of "understand the pressure, but don't let yourselves get carried away". The finding and remedies for established editors may be fine when taken in isolation but there is a massive broader context that the PD barely acknowledges (even now after the additions from the other arbs). It's both that absence and that unbalanced big picture message that reads like a clear deterrent to administer in this area. MLauba ^(Talk) 08:13, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

The fact here is that there is no unambiguous evidence of "abject and vile off-wiki harassment" on the /Evidence page or the /Workshop page or in eight thousand words of private evidence submitted by sixteen different people. The other fact is that most of the other side (for want of a better expression) have already been dealt with by community sanctions. It is also very well-established by over a decade of bitter disputes on dozens of subjects, from the Irish Troubles, to the Pakistan-India strife, to controversy over Climate change, to Abortion, that "They made me do it" is never an acceptable excuse and thus dispute is no different. In fact, the dispute resolution policy says that if things get too much, disengage. The bigger picture is not as simple as you have portrayed it.  Roger Davies ^talk 08:41, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I believe you fail to understand what I'm getting at - were I to pick up my mop again and see an escalation on this topic at ANI, the PD here would be a very strong warning to stay the hell out of it. Assigning DS is all fine and dandy, but to my initial point - the PD doesn't inspire confidence that Arbcom will have the back of any admin willing to enforce them. An acknowledgement of the positives (even though this practice has gone out of fashion in the past couple of years at Arbcom) next to the errors committed would have gone a long way to address that. MLauba ^(Talk) 12:56, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't see how you can possibly conclude that from this case. Despite extensive allegations of admin misconduct, and some that has been sub-optimal, we have only commented on one admin, and then with the mildest of mild remedies. We have highlighted the exceptions to 'involved'; emphasised the 'notperfect' provision; and thanked the admin corp for their work. That said, as is always the case everywhere on the wiki, admins are expected to enforce on the basis of site policy, not personal bias, and that will never change.  Roger Davies ^talk 13:06, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

There is, however, no site policy that compels admins to act. What I conclude from the draft you, Beeblebrox and Fuchs posted is that you came down like a ton of bricks on established editors who were trying to uphold core policies, albeit getting carried away doing it, while the vast majority of those who edited and warred against those same policies were treated with kiddie gloves, or completely left out of your draft. Yes, the majority of those established editors also happen to have accumulated a history on the site. On the other hand, organized tag teams of new editors with an agenda do not have this baggage. Your draft in this case appears to be particularly lopsided due to this baggage, at the detriment of the overall benefit to Wikipedia. This is the disincentive I see. MLauba ^(Talk) 14:16, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

And to be perfectly clear: "XYZ has a baggage", "XYZ got sometimes carried away over the past 5 months" and "while getting carried away, XYZ did so in the best interest of Wikipedia" are not mutually exclusive statements. It's that lack of nuance in your draft that is discouraging. MLauba ^(Talk) 14:21, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

First, the PD reflects the evidence available and is also the consensus of more than the three named drafters. Othrs always input as they're being put together. Second, PDs in large messy cases are exceedingly difficult to put together and they always get changed a lot in the course of voting. And you go into them in the full knowledge that lttlewill survive untouched. Third, I don't think anyone has been handled with kid gloves. Fourth, cases slmost never express nuance as they always come down to black and white; it's the nature of the process.  Roger Davies ^talk 16:05, 21 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)

While I recognize the Arbs are probably already set on their position regarding Xander, I just noticed that Gorman was admonished by the Committee early in 2014. I feel you should revisit the evidence I presented regarding Gorman and consider whether more is necessary regarding his conduct since it does appear to be a recurring issue. No matter what the Arbs think of Xander, Gorman did impose a topic ban in a procedurally unsound manner and also engaged in unnecessary opposition research, even reverting attempts to redact it.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 07:14, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

As it concerns Red Pen, I feel that this edit and his comments in this discussion warrant attention. Both were provided in evidence.

More evidence that should be mentioned are the discussions Baranof and Ryulong had with Snakebyte here and here that I noted in my rebuttals section. While Snakebyte did react poorly, it was mostly a product of the incessant and pointless berating of Ryulong and Baranof.

On Tarc, the evidence section shows these diffs of civility concern: [1] [2] [3] [4]. His comments regarding harassment of GamerGate supporters and subsequent reverting over it is also disconcerting: [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]. In that vein I am curious why Tarc's ANI filing is not being mentioned. Not only was he violating his arbitration restriction for the purpose of canvassing reverts or a supervote after starting an edit war, but he falsely implied all the editors in the talk page discussion who disagreed with his edit were SPAs. His attitude regarding compromise or consensus should also be taken into consideration given these edits: [10] [11] [12]. Those concern a case mentioned in evidence where Gamaliel moved against action with the last two sentences of his statement endorsing Tarc's argument about ignoring compromise or consensus because his POV was correct. As far as any improvement in behavior, I do not believe any of that is evidenced in his comments and actions since the evidence phase closed: [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22].

Lastly, I do believe there should be some comment regarding Cuchullain and Black Kite. Cuchullain already acknowledged he is currently involved given his heavy involvement in the Anita Sarkeesian so it would just be about establishing if he had always been involved given that the media had associated Sarkeesian with GamerGate from the outset. In that respect I believe his decision in this 3RR report and this edit through page-protection based off this exceedingly brief and limited discussion warrants an admonishment. With Black Kite I think merely stating that he is involved is sufficient as he has only taken one modest admin action of note outside revision deletions. As it stands, I do not believe Brad's concern about availability of admins is affected since one has already acknowledged involvement, even if belatedly, and the other has not taken any action of note or any recent action. Stating an admin was involved sooner than claimed and admonishing him accordingly would have no impact at all and informing an admin who has barely taken any action that he is involved is also not going to have any discernible impact.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 01:33, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree that Tara should not be characterized as an SPA. She has done a great deal of work on various art-related articles well before GamerGate and the size of those article contributions sufficiently mitigates any allegation of her being a single-purpose account.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 22:32, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Should the Arbs feel like the finding of fact against NorthBySouthBaranof is not sufficiently strong, then they should consider the evidence provided by Akesgeroth. Of specific relevance: [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28].--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 04:49, 23 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)

Thanks for the comment. Just letting you know there's now also a proposed decision re Loganmac. As I've said somewhere above, worth bearing in mind that it's common for new PD's to be added as a case proceeds, and that not all proposed decisions will pass. -- Euryalus (talk) 03:55, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Very glad to see the refinements of the proposed decision- in my initial reaction to it, I was perhaps too hasty to fully consider what proposed implied about the decision and how it might further evolve. Your work is appreciated and the improvements are good. Cheers for the response. PeterTheFourth (talk) 13:30, 21 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)

Table absurd

Ya'll should take Proposed Enforcement Provisions out of the Implementation Notes because it's showing provisions that "require" 8 votes but "have" 0 having a . (No need to explain they don't require votes, I figured that part out). NE Ent 22:43, 21 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)

I'd just like to offer a few thoughts on some of the FoFs and remedies that are struggling. I'm not trying to give a comprehensive party-by-party critique, so no inference should be drawn regarding anything I don't comment on:

• Gamaliel: The issue here is that Gamaliel has offered commentary on content issues as an ordinary editor, and then at some point began acting in an admin capacity. It's a significant straying from best practice, though nobody seems to have questioned any of the actions he's taken. The very fact that he's the sole admin named in this PD might be sufficient remedy, but the proposed reminder is not disproportionate.
• NBSB: I'm in two minds about the proposed findings and remedies. For the most part, he has been attempting to enforce policy but has sometimes done so in a sub-par manner. Ultimately I think all the entrenched editors need to be removed, because it's the only way we're going to get progress.
• TRPoD: As I see it (in case it's not obvious, I was the admin who imposed the two-day block under the community sanctions), the problem with TRPoD's conduct is that his comments have frequently been personalised, condescending, or acerbic (the phrase "acid tongue" was used in one discussion of his conduct, but I can't remember by whom). Taken as a whole, his comments (both on talk pages and in edit summaries) and his aggressive reverting—even on a draft page, were there was no BLP issues at stake—contribute to the toxicity of the atmosphere in the topic area. I'm no saying he's the worst and certainly not the only offender on this front, but his tone conduct has been sufficiently sub-par sufficiently often that I think the FoF is merited. The proposed admonishment is probably sufficient given his previously clean record; hopefully it will get the message across that he needs to tone it down and nothing more needs to be said. If that proves not to be the case, the issue can be brought to AE and the admonishment will be taken into consideration there.
• Ryulong: Sorry, I don't dislike the guy—he's only been polite when we've spoken—but a siteban is the only option. He is a major part of the problem here, his intransigence is a significant part of the reason this ended up at arbitration, and a significant problem elsewhere. Moreover, the issues with his conduct here are exactly the same as the 2009 arbitration case and every sanction in between. He gets into edit wars all over the place, even on Pokemon and esoteric Japanese anime articles, and he approaches things with a battleground mentality. The feud with David Auerbach is one of the most childish, pathetic time sinks I've seen in my five years as an admin. The number of ANI threads and sanctions enforcement requests that were started, derailed, or extended on the issue, not to mention all the other places these two took their ridiculous bickering. Auerbach's conduct was also deeply unimpressive, but he doesn't seem to be the only person with whom Ryulong has carried on childish feuds related to GamerGate—the disputes with Loganmac and Cla68 were equally absurd, though on a smaller scale, and partly resolved by the sanction imposed on Cla68.
• TDA: an FoF on his accusing every admin in sight of being "INVOLVED" wouldn't go amiss, especially if arbs desire some of those admins to return to enforcing policy in this topic area. As is implied in the FoF, TDA is a long-term tendentious editor who moves from one controversial topic area to the next, and has been sanctioned under four different sets of discretionary sanctions. This would have been picked up a lot earlier had we had the central log that is just coming into force. A topic ban would just be kicking the can down the road. NYB well describes TDA's style as locating the editorial controversy of the moment and hurling gasoline on it, so I'm surprised to see him opposing the proposed siteban.
• Tutelary: I understand the concerns regarding the breadth of a gender and sexuality topic ban, but if a siteban is undesirable (and I can sympathise with that, given that she's not a veteran of these disputes unlike some of the others), some sort of broad topic ban is needed. All of the issues with Tutelary's conduct relate roughly to issues that are of interest to both feminists/feminist movements and the "men's rights" movement. If she could be persuaded to edit elsewhere, she could be a valuable member of the community.
• DSA510: I'm not sure a siteban is really necessary, though I understand why it's being proposed. I indef'd him, and I wouldn't have unblocked him if I thought he was a lost cause. Basically, he spent a long time doing little other than making a nuisance of himself, but since the unblock seems to have heeded my advice to focus on the mainspace and avoid GamerGate like the plague (which was the condition of unblocking). I can't imagine him lasting long if he returned to his old ways, so I'd say there's no harm in giving him some rope.

Put bluntly: the community has failed to resolve this, largely because of the conduct of entrenched editors on both sides. The only way it's going to be resolved at this stage is to remove all the warring parties in the hope that more moderate voices can prevail. To do anything else would be storing up problems for a later date, and we get enough of that at ANI. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:17, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Harry, that's actually a very helpful summary. -- Euryalus (talk) 02:24, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

You're welcome, and thank you for acknowledging it. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 03:26, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

@Gamaliel: Acknowledging your objection. It's a difficult call as to where, precisely, the line is. I'd have drawn it more conservatively, and maybe (maybe) I'd have had the foresight to see the accusations of INVOLVEment coming. But then I've spent five years at AE dealing with the sorts of tendentious editors that surface in topic areas like Israel-Palestine, so perhaps that experience makes me much more wary of such things. For what it's worth, I don't doubt your good faith or your personal integrity, and I've never had cause to question any action I've seen you make. While I disagree with where you drew the line here, it looks like you're going to come out of this mostly unscathed, and I'm certainly not disappointed about that. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 03:26, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

• I'd just like to commend Courcelles' proposed wording of "gender-related dispute or controversy". I think that adequately addresses the scope of the issue and prevents this dispute from being exported to another topic area without being hopelessly broad and open to endless wikilawyering. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:15, 21 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)

@Arbs, out of curiosity, are any of these 11th-hour presentations of additional evidence or re-highlighting of previous evidence actually being considered, or are you all at this point just dotting the i's and crossing the t's on a done deal? Are the rest of us who are sitting here waiting for the shoes to drop missing an opportunity? Tarc (talk) 04:35, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Hard people have to make hard choices; we can't fight an anonymous hate-filled mob without getting some dirt on our clothes. IMO I feel I got as little as I possibly could on myself thought this whole affair, and I am heartened that at least some Arbs saw this, but sadly not a majority. I stand behind every action I have taken in the Gamergate topic area, and regardless of who is still standing when this is all said and done, I consider this a net positive outcome, as the topic area will now be closely monitored, and the 8chan/reddit brigade will not have one iota of sway in shaping the article as it goes forward. As for American Sniper, it is an amazingly excellent film. Carrite, you rise and sleep peacefully under a blanket of the very freedom that men like Chris Kyle provided. Remember that. Tarc (talk) 17:06, 23 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. I believe they have been so few over the latter stages of this case that they should be thanked by name as a credit to their calling. Anything that encourages admins to come forward. --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 [29] 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 [30] 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)

Loganmac The SPA thing mainly derives from the overall picture. 8chan (36), Talk:8chan (12); Gamergate controversy (31), Talk:Gamergate controversy (202); assorted Wikipedia space pages (189). Total, 470, which is a huge chunk of your 800 total edits, and that's not counting the user talk stuff. Sorry, but by any reasonable measure, you're an SPA,  Roger Davies ^talk 00:40, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

For what is worth, I'd also like to point out that I contributed to the Spanish encyclopedia [31] and have IP edits when I couldn't get back on this account around 2011 if I remember right. I'd prefer if the actual quality of the edits was at least analyzed to see that I haven't inserted bias and have adhered to reliable sources. My number of edits in the GamerGate article, like I said, is minimal (an average of 6 edits per month), and I only mostly got into the 8chan page after seeing a BLP violation. I think the essay WP:SPA get thrown around too easily when one should look for users that are here merely to disrupt/troll, like I'd understand from newly created accounts who do nothing but edit GamerGate articles. Loganmac (talk) 02:52, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Bosstopher

I was wondering how come there's no FoF's about conflict of interest issues, namely Ryulong (with his money) and Loganmac (with his unrelated doppleganger who just happens to be moderator of the biggest Gamergate subreddit). Also how come Masem's suggestion of 1RR was decided against? Bosstopher (talk) 11:50, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

@GorillaWarfare: On the issue of more diffs regarding Tarc, User:Starship.paint collated a large number (of admittedly dated ones) here Bosstopher (talk) 14:16, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Why does FoF #2 only refer the to threatened doxxing of NorthBySouthBaranof? Ryulong, Tutelary, Titanium Dragon [32] and DungeonSiegeAddict[33], all had their real life identity released against their will, and Ryulong was even doxxed on wiki[34]. Tutelary was doxxed twice once by Wikipediocracy and once by 8chan. Why is the abuse they faced not acknowledged? Bosstopher (talk) 15:15, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

IMO, it is always a bad idea to memorialise doxxing. It gives some people ideas and others the satisfaction that their activities have produced a reaction.  Roger Davies ^talk 13:10, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the response. But in that case why is the harassment NorthBySouthBaranof recieved being memoralised? Also at risk of being annoying and pushy, could you respond to my first questions? Given User:Weedwacker also expressed interest in them, I think other editors would also appreciate knowing the reasons behind those choices if possible. Bosstopher (talk) 20:23, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Weedwacker

I'd like to echo Bosstopher's first comment above me about the conflict of interest issues and Masem's suggestion. I think these should all be addressed by the committee. I also agree with Tony Sidaway's statement above that the topic area has improved under sanctions and will improve with the upgrade to discretionary sanctions, as well as his statement that admins should be thanked for their participation. I have had disagreements with Gamaliel in the past but support the decision that he only needs a reminder. Weedwacker (talk) 20:09, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Avono

Are the two arbs who voted on the alternative findings of fact concerning Ryulong aware of the Auerbachkeller incident? Ryulong has misused sources. Avono (talk) 21:41, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by EvergreenFir

Any findings on those "zombie" accounts in addition to the SPA and throwaway accounts? EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 22:49, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Also, why not try to model the topic bans re: gender/sexuality on the wording used in the paraphilia and Manning cases? Not sure what the hemming and hawing is over the current wording... EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 22:59, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

EvergreenFir - acknowledging the existence of the zombie accounts in these articles, am interested in your view on why they pose a problem. Essentially, what is the difference between an old account reactivated to edit Gamergate, compared to a new account, or an ongoing active account, doing the same thing? In your view, is the issue that zombie accounts are more likely to be disruptive and less likely to approach the articles in good-faith? if so, why should that not be assessed on the basis of the current edits rather than the earlier account history? Euryalus (talk) 03:44, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Euryalus Thought on this overnight and I suppose in the end, they're not much different than new accounts. I guess I would just like to see a mention of them. My experience is that zombie accounts are SPA and POV-pushing and used to avoid autoconfirm restrictions. I guess I find them more suspect than a newer account in that I wonder why they were resurrected (user dug up old account because something impassioned them enough to edit? to circumvent autoconfirm restrictions? because the account is shared by multiple users?) While that's assuming some bad faith, usually some questionable action prompts me to look at edit history in the first place. But as you say, in the end they aren't that much different from new accounts and it's their present edits that matter (unless they've made a history of waking and sleeping the account to pov push or avoid autoconfirm restrictions). Anywho, thanks for asking. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 22:20, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

EvergreenFir, no worries and thanks for the reply. I can't see this affecting any of the PD outcomes in this case, but its an interesting topic. If you or anyone else have further thoughts on SPA/zombie accounts in WP, please let me know (probably on my talk page or by email). -- Euryalus (talk) 00:26, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Ries42

I have stayed for the most part away from this Arbitration Committee hearing as it predates my involvement with the site. The ArbCom process, as I have stated before, is why I initially joined WP. I'm fascinated by it. I do not envy any arbitrator that is forced to deal with any issues here. This is an area ripe for misunderstandings and frankly, no matter what decision is finalized, there will be many unhappy parties.

There has been a lot going on, and every editor involved up to this point has had to deal with issues far beyond the scope any WP editor should ever have had to deal with. Some have handled it better than others. The important takeaway from this, I feel, is that Wikipedia stands for certain ideals and should be able to expect the highest levels of candor, decorum, integrity, and respect for the mission from its editors. It would not be noteworthy or commendable if such were easy to do so. It is commendable because despite the hardships, an editor is expected to rise above both that which would distract him both within and without. This topic has been a trying test, and not all have been able to live up to those ideals. No one is perfect, failing is to be expected. The important thing is to take responsibility and attempt to move forward and avoid those mistakes in the future.

It with this said that I would like to point out a statement that been made on this page. Ryuulong stated this, moments before my statement. He refers to two issues that are in evidence to my knowledge, his incident both on and off wiki with Mr. Dan Auerbach, and his accepting of monetary compensation in relation (though perhaps not directly in quid pro quo) with this subject area. He shows here how he takes responsibility for those actions and how he view his actions.

The question I ask the Arbs, is if they felt that the actions he took were in anyway detrimental to the ideals of WP, is this the mindset you want to encourage and support. The action that is taken here, and the action that is abstained from taken here, will both reflect how Wikipedia is viewed after this case has ended. Ries42 (talk) 23:59, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

@Ryulong: If WP is about who you are, and not what you have to say, then I both deserve to be banned and would not wish to be here. Ries42 (talk) 00:37, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

@Arbs/@Roger Davies:: Should proposal 11 be updated with the new standard topic ban language? Ries42 (talk) 21:54, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Tstormcandy

Disclaimer first: I had originally posted in Evidence concerning the harassment and off-wiki organizational efforts against a number of the editors in this case, but later removed for several reasons including my own username being mentioned on external forums for merely referencing the off-site activity. Since then I've had a change of heart and decided I'd rather be defiant on the matter assuming I could possibly make a difference although I have little power to do so. That said, I'm disappointed that some of that off-site effort seems to have borne fruit against certain editors who were extremely bold and survived incredible circumstances in the pursuit of upholding BLP standards.

It is my opinion that a number of the proposed remedies are in contradiction to Remedies #1 and #10 (AC/DS and SPAs/POV pushing), or at minimum do not adhere to Wikipedia's very real and continuous battle against BLP concerns. As some FoFs and PRs state, topic bans and even full site bans are up for vote for editors and administrators who dared to stick their heads out and perform edits similar to those that would be required to enforce #1 and #10. I feel it sets a poor precedent to put other members and administrators at risk with a threat of retaliation by both off-site organizing and sanctions from within ArbCom itself. My removed evidence could be summarized as "please don't let the bullies win", and although I appreciate that much care is being taken to certify specific FoFs and future disruption to the Encyclopedia can be prevented by various PRs here, an off-site presence will remain and perpetually await new victims.

Few editors will dare to enforce or uphold these matters knowing doing so could instantly poison their entire existence on Wikipedia (or beyond, into social media and day-to-day life), covering everything from topic bans, blocks, calls for desysopping, full site bans, future requests for user rights or in theory even desiring to be a candidate in future ArbCom elections. That someone cared enough to enforce #1 and #10 could forever tarnish their good standing in any way, shape or form is simply unacceptable. I can't pretend to understand the full situation as I did not review evidence or participate in the Workshop for the case, but I must beg the Arbitrators to do what they can to protect persons going above and beyond the call of duty in preserving the integrity of the Encyclopedia even if they have committed other minor transgressions in the process. ♪ Tstorm(talk) 01:18, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Gamaliel

I was going to avoid commenting, but I strenuously object to the characterization of my actions offered by User:HJ Mitchell, that I was acting in the capacity of an "ordinary editor" and only later "began acting in an admin capacity". From my very first comment on the matter in August, I believe I was clearly acting in an administrative capacity. I believe part of the role of an administrator should be to encourage policy compliance, and that role is all the more necessary on articles bombarded with new editors. It's not advocating for one side or another in an editorial conflict to point out that the article needs to follow reliable sources or to point out to editors they can't discount those sources because of their own conjecture or conspiracy theories. How they use those sources (within policy) is up to them, and that is the role of an editor, not an administrator. I believe all my comments were in the capacity of the role of administrator, not editor. Did I do a poor job in that role, as I have in the past? Did I write too bluntly or quickly and make statements that appeared to blur the line between those roles in the minds of some editors? Those are legitimate questions to ask. But to flatly state I was playing one role and then another is not consistent with the facts.

I should also note that HJ Mitchell and I appear to be the only administrators currently working on the GamerGate sanctions enforcement page and to my best recollection at no point has he noted to me any objections about the role I am playing there, any of my decisions, or any of my comments on that page.

I am aware of the balance that needs to be struck between making sure that all administrative actions appear to be above board to everyone and the danger of providing an incentive to troublesome editors to tactically "disqualify" administrators willing to impose sanctions. Given the frivolous nature of the complaints from partisans and the nature of this case, here I dug in my heels and went in the latter direction, but I want to be clear that I am aware that this is a decision that needs to be made, and sometimes the former is the better option. I would love to leave this matter behind, and when other administrators have worked on this matter I have tried to let them take the lead when I felt that I could. In a perfect encyclopedia, a sufficient number of administrators would do what HJ Mitchell has done and help with enforcement, and that way even the most minor and frivolous case of "involvement" could be dealt with by leaving it to others. Harry has been invaluable, and I am grateful that he is there even if I object to this one particular statement, but he does not scale.

On an unrelated note, it has been suggested to me that the Committee should make a strong statement making it clear that they are concerned with the welfare and reputation of those living individuals who have been maligned by editors involved in this case. Personally, I believe that obviously the Committee is concerned with such matters and that they fall under the general BLP findings already offered. But this might not be readily apparent to those unfamiliar with Wikipedia, so I offer this second-hand suggestion. Gamaliel (talk) 02:57, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

HJ Mitchell Thanks for your response. I think we agree about more than we disagree. Gamaliel (talk) 04:35, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

DHeyward I have been on Wikipedia since 2004. Of the articles you mention that I recall, I have not actively edited them since my early years of Wikipedia. Since then I've added over 65 thousand edits to the encyclopedia and interacted with probably hundreds of editors. I apologize for my poor memory, but I do not recall you at all from those articles, nor can I find your user name in the talk page archives of the years where I most heavily edited them. Gamaliel (talk) 04:35, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Liz

My only comment is that there are multiple threads off-wiki that are following these proceedings so fervently, they refresh the page frequently to see if there are any new votes. Yet, they know little about the ARBCOM process and are scrutinizing each arbitrator's vote in a way that I think is unhelpful to the overall resolving of the case. ARBCOM cases always bring scrutiny but I've never seen this vote-by-vote analysis from noneditors. I think the effect of pressure from off-wiki groups should not be underestimated especially if votes don't go as certain groups want. I think all arbitrators should secure your social media accounts, regardless of how you vote. This is not meant to be alarmist, it just reflects a backlash that I've been a witness to for six months now. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:14, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by DHeyward

First, I second HJ Mitchell's characterization. In a very broad sense, noted by the committee regarding involvement, Gamaliel is involved. My personal experience with Gamaliel goes back 9 years to Daniel Brandt, Michael Steel, Joe Scarborough, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and other ancient history articles. Recently it's been Breitbart. Nevertheless this interaction and involvement didn't stop Gamaliel from endorsing a sanction as an "uninvolved" admin. I practically have to invite him to family reunions. He's involved and he doesn't seem to think so.

Second, there are huge WP:OWN issues by NBSB and Ryulong. Their cries that offsite boards are rejoicing is a clue that they should not be editing the articles. The ultimate goal of any NPOV wikipedian is that no one notices your edits and the world could care less if you continue or stop. The real problem isn't so much that the issue is controversial, the problem is that certain editors have become tied to it. The offsite trolls don't "win" when their anthropomorphised enemy loses shape by removing the object of heir scorn. The offsite trolls lose focus and wikipedians no longer fear being associated with an editor that is subject to harassment. A topic ban may seem like punishment, but it is in the long-term interest of Wikipedia. John Glenn flew in space once. Only once. Not because he was a bad astronaut but because his stature was larger than the risk. At some point WP has to realize that retiring personalities from topics is necessary to move forward beyond WP:OWN even if the editors don't like it. --DHeyward (talk) 04:10, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

N.B. Someone pointed out that Glenn flew again at age 77. A 30 year hiatus should be enough and I don't oppose. --DHeyward (talk) 04:38, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

N.B.B. My sentiments regarding Gamaliel are only in regards to articles related to politics. Overall, he does an excellent job as an admin but my history and knowledge makes it predictable (or questionable) as to his neutrality in politically charged topics. I don't doubt his intentions. I strive to be neutral but that doesn't mean I am unpredictable. We are shaped by our world view and "fair" and "neutral" are relative terms. Sympathy falls to our hearts and is inescapable. Knowing where our sympathies lie is halfway to understanding how neutral we will be. I don't expect Gamaliel to be neutral in his assessment of political topics but that doesn't mean he can't be neutral or fair in other areas and his 65k topics and countless editors are not political. --DHeyward (talk) 04:50, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

N.B.B.B. I support a site ban of TDA. Only because I don't see what he would do if the committee just banned him from noticeboards (does he even edit articles?). Gamaliel honestly stated he doesn't recall our interactions and his word is enough. TDA on the other hand would be able to generate hundreds of diffs that are out of context and wikilawyer positioning in the most negative light (he's the lawyer that I want, but the lawyer I despise on the news). I could spend time doing the same but it is vexatious to be so tedious with evidence. I wish I had either the time or magic tool but I simply don't. It is extremely stressful and unnecessary to be subjected to a TDA onslaught. In this case, TDA and I largely agree in conclusion but vary widely in approach. I've defended his targets previously and it is a colossal waste of time. The end result is unchanged but the volume of evidence is 10X what is necessary. --DHeyward (talk) 05:06, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Titanium Dragon

Oddly, I hadn't been pinged by this page until today. In any case, all I've really got to say is a couple things:

1. It should be remembered that the off-site harassment (doxxing) sustained by Tutelary and myself was comparable to that sustained by user:NorthBySouthBaranof and user:Ryulong, and thus giving what "off-site" people want should apply equally to the lot of us. I don't think it should matter at all as far as sanctions go, personally; what is right is right, what is wrong is wrong.
2. I'm really confused why you think there needs to be a "broadly-construed" gender-related topic ban on me; every single complaint has been about GamerGate and nothing else, specifically the Zoe Quinn and the GamerGate articles. I'm not a very active editor on such subject matter, but it feels quite bizarre and excessive given the circumstances. If you feel my behavior on GamerGate was excessive, fine, but why a broad topic ban when I've no history of causing issues in other articles?

Titanium Dragon (talk) 06:01, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Sodaant

General comments about recusals are outside the scope of this case. They are governed by the community approved arbitration policy. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:42, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
My comments are not directly related to the decision itself, but rather the topic of recusals, particularly GorillaWarfare, which has been brought up before my multiple users, with what feels to me are unsatisfactory responses from the arbitrators in question. Part of this I suppose needs to look into what a recusal is really for. In my opinion, its not simply to avoid bias in the eventual outcome, but rather to avoid the appearance of bias, regardless of whether there is any at all. This is very important because people are in general very bad at gauging their own level of bias on a subject. While some bias is inevitable for a case like this, where the events in question have generated significant media attention, there still need to be standards. Personally, I feel that multiple tweets directly related and professing an opinion on the controversy in question goes far beyond that line, even if those tweets were just on a small part of the controversy. A good guideline for recusals here is probably the United States Code section governing recusals, which states that federal judges shall disqualify themselves "in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned." Note that it doesn't say that their impartiality must actually be an issue, just that a reasonable person could question their impartiality. I feel that any sort of reasonable observer would take a tweet like the final one in this image: http://i.imgur.com/bjPHwcl.png to be a pretty clear indication of bias on the subject. (there is a full album that contains other similar images, but I feel that one on its own is enough to make this point) Recusals are of even more importance when handling very high-profile cases, where every possible aspect of the decision and the process to get there will be scrutinized down to the last detail. Lingering questions of bias will taint an entire decision, whether it would have actually made a difference or not. Finally, in the spirit of above, one should not be able to unrecuse themselves from a case, under any circumstances. If anyone feels strongly enough to recuse themselves, they obviously have good reason to do so. Bias is unlikely to simply go away, even if one thinks it does. Once again, appearance matters, and recusing oneself and then reversing that decision simply appears to be the exact opposite of impartial. SodaAnt Talk 07:31, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by TheRedPenOfDoom

How do the arbs see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate/Proposed_decision#Parties_topic-banned_by_the_community and Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate/Proposed_decision#Discretionary_sanctions, particularly "ii) All sanctions in force when this remedy is enacted are endorsed and will become standard discretionary sanctions governed by the standard procedure from the moment of enactment." interacting with the proposals under Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate/Proposed_decision#Tutelary_.28remedies.29? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 07:39, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

The more specific provision always prevails (cf. Lex specialis), therefore Tutelary's community topic ban is replaced by the one we are voting on, assuming it passes, regardless of any more general provision contained in the decision. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 12:03, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Re Tutelary comments-if my comments about gamergaters are in fact referring to other editors, then those COI editors should identify themselves. i will apologize to them. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:55, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

One hopes the arb com is able to weigh what is best for the encyclopedia. from everyone's favorite trollhaven:

"Just a reminder to everyone to not edit on wikipedia anything gamer gate related while this is running as you might change the outcome of the decesions.

not possible, arbs are voting on stuff that they have been looking at for weeks

Well lets not risk it anyway. What harm is waiting just a little longer?

How about when the smoke clears and certain drama queens with selective interpretation issues are out of the way we put together a proper fucking NPOV article. Rushing back in there like an angry horde isn't going to help. That's what people need to be reminded about.

Wikipedia has always been absolute shit on controversial topics, and this entire project is going to remain an uphill trek no matter what the administrators do. The absence of warring administrators will slide right back into warring editors. The only way to keep this article alive is to source it well. "Shut the fuck up and source" should be the motto.

There have been several dozen positive developments since the page got locked down, such as many publications adopting improved ethics policies and the new advertising rules. There has also been a slow uptick in positive media stories. The assertions that this isn't about ethics are going to look far less credible alongside that concrete information.[[35]

] -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 06:04, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I would also encourage the arbs to take a look at Wikipedia:General_sanctions/Gamergate#2014_notices to see the level of disposable meat the offsite forces are able to generate to toss into the grinder. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:01, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by starship.paint

@Courcelles: - regarding your statement on Tarc at 02:05, 20 January 2015 (UTC) ... you may wish to read this at 09:45, 11 January 2015 (UTC) if you want five or six more examples of edit warring. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 11:36, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

• @Roger Davies: in Tutelary's section regarding Loganmac and SPAs. I saw that proposed findings of fact on Loganmac included being an SPA. If so, another party, TaraInDC, should be declared an SPA as well. See all contributions since August 2014. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 03:18, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
  • @Euryalus: - you opposed twice at Tutelary banned. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 07:06, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
    • Thanks Starship.paint. Apologies for the error. -- Euryalus (talk) 07:44, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Tutelary

I've been a bit busy with my own personal life, and when I finally come to take a look at Wikipedia again, the proposed decision was posted! Regardless of whether I'm banned from the site or have my topic ban rescinded, I'd like to give my thoughts on the proposed decision:

• There doesn't seem to be much addressing of the admin complaints in the topic area. Only Gamaliel is mentioned, the other contentious administrator being Future Perfect not deserving a mention?
• There is also no mention of the re-factoring which is suspect to be inappropriate. I know my own evidence section presented a good amount of diffs for this occurring, and even diffs where somebody removed somebody else's post just because they accidentally posted it at the top, rather than the bottom.
• With all of these topic bans and proposed bans, why does RedPenOfDoom get to get off with a simple admonishment? I'd like to reaffirm some evidence I presented in my section, probably lost in the sea of diffs. Note that these are not new diffs, only ones posted on the evidence page might have been overlooked. [36], [37], [38], Implicating editors are 'misogynists', [39], [40], [41], [42] RedPenOfDoom at least deserves a topic ban for this behavior, in my honest opinion.
• The diffs of me reverting closure on the drama boards should be looked at again. One of those diffs wasn't related to GamerGate, and at least 3 of them were me reinstating my withdrawal of my ANI complaint about potential administrator misconduct. I had received adequate response and decided to withdraw due to it being a plausible action, my own courtesy allowed for my complaint. The last of them, reverting closure by Future Perfect and Mdann were right to list and I am thoroughly sorry for them. The context behind my revert of Mdann's closure is that Mdann effectively used ANI to say that 'There was a consensus at ANI to remove the tag' when there was no such thing, and the closing message was wrong, as there was active discussion on the talk page about such. Nonetheless, I should have used the proper channels to challenge such a close.
• There is also no comment about how quickly the community closed the discretionary sanctions discussions (23.5 hours) and how Future Perfect closed an active topic ban proposal on Ryulong. The latter is why I reverted Future Perfect's original closure, as there was an active topic ban proposal proposed on Ryulong yet it was closed nonetheless. Again, I should have used the proper channels to point this out rather than reverting it outright. Discussion is often better than reverting.
• My ban proposal I believe is much too harsh for my own conduct (not that I'm an unbiased source) but from the diffs presented, only one edit to the talk page which was listed. The proportion or the amount of disruption needed to warrant a topic ban or a ban are unknown to me, but I would like to know them.
• Loganmac is not a single purpose account, as his editing background goes far beyond only GamerGate. If ArbCom does engage with this in mind, it might alienate editors who regularly contribute as a single purpose account, perhaps to a single article with no incident. People edit the topics that interest them, who would've thought?
• I'm not sure if this is proper procedure, but there seems to be administrators who are from the last term (which has run out) who are involving themselves in this case. One of these is Newyorkbrad. I'm not stating anything, just that arbitrators who are not arbitrators anymore are acting as arbitrators in this case. I'm not sure if there's a 'grandfather' clause.

Thanks. Tutelary (talk) 19:08, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Strongjam for the note on my talk page about that. Tutelary (talk) 20:35, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Re; Loganmac and SPA. See this diff,  Roger Davies ^talk 00:50, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Konveyor Belt

The amount of proposals on Ryulong has ballooned to a point such that none of them will be passed because every arb has their own first, second, and third choices, and each wants a different level of punishment. Especially the three different TBAN proposals. KonveyorBelt 23:06, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Pudeo

Re Roger Davies in Tutelary's section: NorthBySouthBaranof's last 6000 edits or so are related to Gamergate (add "&offset=&limit=6000" in contribs url). Is he a SPA too, in that case? (And christ that's a lot, my last 5000 edits go back to 2006!). --Pudeo' 02:32, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Willhesucceed

Today was the first I heard of any possible sanctions against me, through a ping. It would have been nice if someone had let me know about it.

I haven't made a Gamergate-related edit in ... months, and have steered well clear of controversial topics for almost as long. Nowadays, I mostly comment on talk pages of which Legobot notifies me. If I do edit something, it's mostly to proofread or source specific video games' articles, with the occasional detour to random articles.

I stopped making edits to the Gamergate page within the first week or so, if I recall correctly, and mostly commented on the talk page thereafter, and haven't done even that in a long time. There's no need to impose sanctions on me. I have no interest in participating in any of the social jockeying or politicking that Wikipedia is so fond of. Willhesucceed (talk) 05:17, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved GoldenRing - topic ban wording

Can I respectfully suggest the following wording to the committee:

X is indefinitely prohibited from making any edit about, and from editing any page related to (i) the Gamergate controversy, (ii) gender politics and (iii) LGBT rights, all broadly construed.

This seems to me to cover the intent of "gender and sexuality" without the problem of covering trivial BLP matters. Sorry if the suggestion comes rather late in the process - I've been camped on a beach for most of the last week. GoldenRing (talk) 12:07, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by TaraInDC

I for the most part have declined to even pay much attention to, let alone particpate in, this case, as anything I might have added in the way of my own evidence has been said better by others, and since checking it at the end of the last day of the (extended) dealine for the evidence phase have more or less ignored the project entirely. I therefor missed The Devil's Advocate's enourmous just-after-the-bell additions (among which was the bulk of the evidence entered against me in the case) until well after the fact, and while I can't say for certain I would have chosen to add to the noise of that page with a reply (which no doubt would have resulted only in counter-replies and counter-counter-replies), the fact is I didn't even have to make that decision because I didn't see it until the opportunity was clearly well past. So for now I'll just note that at the time of the comments which are apparently so severe as to warrant banning me from all gender-related topics (seriously?) it had proved nearly impossible to get any standards of conduct enforced on that page, and the standard of conduct was frustratingly low. I don't see any evidence from after the one and only caution I've received from an admin on this article, from Dreadstar for this edit, at which point Dreadstar began actively warning many editors for personalizing disputes and improved the overall conduct on the page considerably (what do you know, the project works better when admins step up to enforce the rules!)

Broadly speaking, though, any incivility or 'combative' behavior you've seen from the 'five horsemen' is largely due to the extraordinary lenience which obviously disruptive editors have been shown for much of this dispute. This is simply what happens when you go too long without enforcing policies regarding conduct, in any forum. We're talking about a campaign organized by people who have been publicly digging for information on wikipedia editors to add us to their hit list, all in support of a moment that's taken to endangering lives by fooling cops into showing up at innocent people's houses with no-knock warrants. And, to be perfectly frank, as the only one of the so-called 'horsemen' who is plainly and obviously a woman (with the others, to my knowledge, identifying as men or not making their gender apparent), I have felt particularly vulnerable to the hate mob who has spent the last six months terrorizing women out of their homes and their careers. I'd refer you back to Sir Fozzie's comments on a prior arbitration request regarding this off-site coordination, which he referred to as a '"Death by a Thousand Cuts" on the folks trying to edit by Wikipedia's stated policies, continuing a low level harassment (more accurately badgering, but you get what I mean) campaign generally aimed at making them lose their cool and then being sanctioned away from the article, allowing the aggravating parties free(r) reign to slant the article more in their favor.' If you allow these tactics to work here, they're simply going to continue using them, and as has been noted several times, it's simply going to get harder and harder to find new blood on this article or any others this angry and dangerous anti-feminist group takes an interest in.

As for characterizing me as an SPA: I have a years long account history including creating several new articles and participation at multiple WMF sponsored edit-a-thon events. Compare editors who have accounts that were inactive for years with fewer than 30 edits prior to returning to polish gamergate's reputation on wikipedia. The SPA page explicitly states that editing an article primarily or exclusively for a time after establishing a diverse contribution history does *not* make you an SPA. If i'm an SPA by the definition being used for this case, can anyone present another editor with a similar editing history who is also being characterized as an SPA by the committee? -- TaraInDC (talk) 19:58, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Carrite

Can somebody please explain to me how Gorilla Warfare can recuse at the time the case is proposed more than two months ago and then go ahead opining and voting on sanctions when the case comes to a close? Carrite (talk) 13:04, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

@Tarc. How fitting that you cite a Hollywood glamorization of a military sniper as a justification for your behavior on the subject in question. Carrite (talk) 13:08, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Masem

I just want to note that this case has been written on by the Guardian here [43]. The piece seems to be predicting some results before the case is properly closed. --MASEM (t) 16:21, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by {username}

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

Guardian article about the proposed decision

Alex Hern, "Wikipedia bans five editors from gender-related articles amid gamergate controversy", The Guardian, 23 January 2015.

The article alleges that the committee is coming down hard on editors who tried to stop the disruption. I haven't followed the case, so I don't know how accurate the article is, but the allegations remind me of the GGTF decision. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 16:58, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Ignoring matters of opinion the article is completely ridden with factual errors. Did the writer bother contacting Arbcom for a statement before publishing? Because it looks as if he didn't even read the Proposed decision page and is basing it all just off of Bernstein's blog posts. Bosstopher (talk) 17:04, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Jup even the title is inaccurate as the two other motions haven't passed jet. The accusations that the other editors were throwaways is also unfounded and ridiculous. Way to go "The Guardian". BTW is Communications Committee still active? Avono (talk) 17:16, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Is there any truth in the central allegation, namely that editors who tried to protect articles against Gamergaters are being treated harshly? At the GGTF case, two editors who tried to stop the disruption were banned indefinitely (because, I assume, they were deemed to have done it inappropriately), whereas editors who caused the disruption were only topic-banned or not sanctioned at all. Is anything similar happening here, or does the newspaper have that wrong? Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 17:24, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Depends on your perspective, including your perspective of "protect," of "Gamergater," and of "disruption." Thargor Orlando (talk) 17:29, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

WP:There is no justice. This committee should not take sides in an issue but rather concentrate on the evidence they have. Avono (talk) 17:31, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

"Is there any truth in the central allegation, namely that editors who tried to protect articles against Gamergaters are being treated harshly?" - Well, the gamergaters created one of their "operations" 5 Horsemen , targeting NorthBySouthBaranof, Ryulong, Tarc, TaraInDC and TheRedPenOfDoom. You can check the proposal to see what the ArbCom is doing. You can check Wikipedia:General_sanctions/Gamergate#2014_notices to see the accounts that have been editing in the subject area. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:56, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

There is nothing majorly incorrect with the Guardian article, I think ::some people's defensive hackles are being raised a wee bit too quickly, and they perhaps missed the "While that may change as it is finalised, the body, known as Wikipedia’s supreme court, rarely reverses its decisions." line, which is quite true. As most are aware, I am the "false flag" person of whom they speak, and that's more or less the gist of what went down. The only really inaccurate bit is the "No sanctions at all were proposed against any of Gamergate’s warriors, save for a few disposable accounts created specifically for the purpose of being sanctioned," line, which was a direct quote of Mark Bernstein, who seems to be unaware that TDA will be banned from the topic area as well and appears to have just barely skirted an indef block. The Wikipedia is one of the largest websites in the world; it has been and will be covered by many many reliable sources. Many of you should cease being so reactionary every time the site is criticized, as it comes with the business. Tarc (talk) 17:32, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

After a few edit-conflicts... SV, yes that is pretty much the gist. As I noted above, they only whiffed on The Devil's Advocate topic-ban. Tarc (talk) 17:32, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

There's still hope for TDA's site ban... EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 17:39, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

You seem to be failing to note the most obvious error in the article, that 5 anti gamergate editors have been topic banned from all feminism related topic, while at most the number is 3, and feminsim topic bans were only proposed for 4. Bosstopher (talk) 18:02, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

It's pretty telling, when broken down like this, just how limp this decision is. Even with the case being (laughably) "expedited", it still manages to feel like an artifact, considering the speed at which the gamergate supporter accounts filter in and out. The committee seems to feel much more comfortable striking against the easy targets, the people who've stuck through wave after wave of meatpuppetry, and therefore have a history to convict with. The only lesson this proposed decision is teaching anyone is that assuming good faith isn't just a suicide pact, it's a suicide bomb you can use to take out established editors if you've got enough anonymous redditors on your side. Parabolist (talk) 18:10, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

We've had a situation for years where successive committees have sanctioned editors who were trying to stop disruption, adopting a "plague on both your houses" mentality.

That reached its height with the GGTF case, where several men who had caused disruption were not sanctioned at all, or were given relatively narrow topic bans. I see at least two of the same names cropping up in Gamergate. Meanwhile, editors who try to stop sexist disruption are taking a big risk, given the committee's approach. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 18:23, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you to Sarah (SV) for the ping. This may be unnecessary here, but if anyone is interested in my underlying essays, the links are:

• Infamous: http://markbernstein.org/Jan15/Infamous.html
• Thougthless: http://markbernstein.org/Jan15/Thoughtless.html
• Careless:http://markbernstein.org/Jan15/Careless.html MarkBernstein (talk) 18:40, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

@MarkBernstein: Did the article's author contact you before publishing the piece (given that he quotes you and all)? If so would you be willing to contact him to ask for a correction on the factual errors he's made? Bosstopher (talk) 18:53, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

No; he correctly quotes an essay I wrote. I was not contacted, and see no reason why I should have been. I understand that The Guardian welcomes information about corrections at The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London, N1 9GU. MarkBernstein (talk) 19:01, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: No, not really. I can't tell you how many times I've read a poorly researched article about Wikipedia written by someone who apparently doesn't understand what they're writing about. First and most obviously, nobody has been banned yet. That doesn't happen until ArbCom votes to close the case. Second, ArbCom can and does reverse decisions frequently. In the case that I was involved in (you were, too), ArbCom topic-banned me which they later lifted after I demonstrated good conduct in other topic areas. Several other editors had their bans lifted, too. Third, editors are sanctioned for conduct, not their POV. This is absolutely critical to understand. There's no way the press can write a decent article about an ArbCom case without understanding this key distinction. Fourth, I'm not 100% sure which editors edit with a pro-GG POV versus and anti-GG POV, but I believe that TDA's editing falls under the pro-GG side. Fifth, the comment about “throwaway” accounts is mostly true, but completely missed out on why. This is simply the result of who's been editing the article. If there are few or no established editors with a pro-GG POV with conduct issues to ban, then what are ArbCom supposed to do? Ban editors for heck of it? That's not how we do things. Honestly, the Guardian is normally a reliable source, but they really should retract the article.

BTW, the article also includes a quote saying "how poisonous Wikipedia politics has become". Actually, this is nothing new. It's been like this for years in contentious topic-spaces and isn't going to change in the foreseeable future. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:23, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I do think the ArbCom should compile a statement that those involved all agree with for the press if this gains more coverage. HalfHat 19:27, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

The key issue is this: if white racists were to start editing articles about black people, they'd be banned immediately by admins or the community. We wouldn't dwell on details, and it's unlikely that we'd need an ArbCom case. But when sexists edit articles about women, lots of people seem to think it's okay. So the community doesn't ban them, admins are wary of acting alone, things end up at the ArbCom, and even there the central issue isn't recognized. This is systemic bias, and it is present throughout our entire dispute-resolution process. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 19:28, 23 January 2015 (UTC)