Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case

Requests for arbitration

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Case requests

Request name	Motions	Initiated	Votes
Kevin Gorman		8 December 2015	{{{votes}}}

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Open cases

Case name	Links	Evidence due	Prop. Dec. due
Historical elections	(t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t)	20 Aug 2024	03 Sep 2024

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Recently closed cases (Past cases)

No cases have recently been closed (view all closed cases).

Clarification and Amendment requests

Request name	Motions	Case	Posted
Amendment request: Definition of the "area of conflict" Clause 4 (b)	Motion	none	26 July 2024
Clarification request: Appeal methods for Lima Bean Farmer topic ban	none	none	12 August 2024
Amendment request: German war effort	Motion	(orig. case)	13 August 2024
Amendment request: Palestine-Israel articles (AE referral)	none	none	17 August 2024

Arbitrator motions

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

Kevin Gorman

Initiated by Worm^TT(talk) at 10:28, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Worm That Turned (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), filing party
• Kevin Gorman (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• [1]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Per statement below

Statement by Worm That Turned

Kevin Gorman's recent behaviour left me doubtful that he should remain an administrator. As the only option for removal of administrator user-rights is through an Arbcom case, and given his previous "strong admonishment" I felt I should raise it here.

To provide a bit of background, I opposed Kevin at my Arbcom voter guide. (initial updated) This lead to this conversation on the talk page of the voter guide. Further conversations occurred at his questions page and his user talk page [2][3]

My first major concern, however, was that Kevin has abused the revision deletion tool. He deleted the discussions on his user talk page which highlighted past issues with his behaviour, thereby evading scrutiny during the arbcom election period. I pointed this out by email, so he reversed his action. (deletion log)

My second major concern is regarding a series of unblocks he made yesterday.[4] It appears he has unblocked an entire group of checkuser-block accounts, without consulting the blocking checkuser, or indeed any other checkuser. Given that I no longer hold the checkuser user-right, I make no comment as to whether this was the correct outcome, but the fact that he bypassed the "discussion with checkuser" step significantly concerns me.

Given Kevin's historical outing of Wiki-PR[5] (which he has stated is Arbcom, community and WMF sanctioned - but wasn't), his opposition research last November,[6] and his recent linking of a wikipedia user account to a real person's photo gallery on commons.[7], there is a clear pattern of behaviour that is at odds with community norms and I simply do not believe we can trust Kevin with administrator user rights any longer. He is not open for recall, so I request that the committee look at the case.

Statement by Kevin Gorman

• As a more thought out statement: everyone makes mistakes. WTT acknowledges and is well aware of this. In fact, during one of the highest viewcount periods for ACE guides, he falsely (but accidentally) accused me of previously hiding behind my health status to escape an outright ban, as well as a number of other things. That's a brutally offensive statement to anyone who is disabled (and yes, I am,) but I'm more than willing to put it behind, particularly because I don't and didn't particularly expect to win an arb seat this election, and don't think he did it out of malice aforethought. His statement that I am not open for recall isfalse (as he would have realized had he read my Q&A); I don't have formally posted guidelines for recall, but laid out pretty bluntly what set of actions I would resign my tools under having lost the faith of the community (and 'the community' not being synonymous with 'a WP:CESSPIT poster I annoyed last Tuesday.')

• As far as I can tell, this request concerns a number of things. In one of them, Jehochman deleted an entire thread from my page under a creative exercise of WP:DENY. WTT resurrected part of the thread that I don't think reflected very well on any of its partipants (myself and WTT included.) SB_Johnny stumbled by and suggested that he RD the whole thread, though he ended up just deleting it instead. I went ahead and RD'ed the thread until WTT pointed out that RD1 doesn't apply to usertalk, at which point I undid it within twenty minutes - about the fastest I could get to a laptop. I don't think anyone was harmed by being unable to see a thread on my page for twenty minutes, nor can my actions reasonably be construed to have been conducted with malice.

• I made an unblock of accounts that had been blocked by Mike V and tagged by SPI clerk and admin Vanja. Vanja made the explicit statement that they were based on checkuser data but not considered ordinary blocks, and that I should feel free to unblock if I thought it was appropriate. There is a class currently active at the university in question that advertises that they will be editing Wikipedia, and after a review of their contributions and editing patterns, I'm almost certain that the students blocked were in fact the block in question. I left a thread about the potential unblock up overnight (but failed to ping Mike to it as I should've,) but having not been active at SPI since the last paid editing firm I bopped, had no reason to doubt a fellow admin's word, especially an SPI clerk, and went ahead and unblocked them. Obviously this could've benefitted from further process, but the result was right, and that's what should matter in the end.

• I readily admit to, in the distant past, outing Wiki-PR. I believe such action was necessary to preserve the integrity of the encyclopedia, and is preserved intact in a number of places across the encyclopedia and beyond, including a C&D WMF had Cooley send Wiki-PR. My outing also had the support of the community, as demonstrated by the strength of consensus in favor of the community ban I suggested which in its text outed the founder's of Wiki-PR. This text was later also included in a C&D the WMF had Cooley, LLP send Wiki-PR, and led to a major changes in the term of the use and had broad general support. The "Opposition research" WTT accuses me of engaging in consisted solely of looking at the earlier version of someone's userpage where they self-disclosed the fact that they were a blogger with a vendetta against the targets of gamergate, which I used to shore up a BLP block. A block that has been solidly backed beats a block that has not been solidly backed. Using offsite evidence when it's been linked to by the user onsite is a specific exception to WP:OUTING, and a solidly backed up block is always preferable. I also recently linked a gallery on commons that happened to share the same name as a prominent Wikipedian that was not said-Wikipedian. The link was up for 15-20 minutes at most, and I can't see how it could've damage the reputation of the Wikipedian or been noticed by the public figure in question.

• If anyone has watched my actions change and develop over the last couple years, I think they'd agree that I've become less trigger-happy, not more so. My actions have been taken with greater deliberation, not less. (I'd point to the currently active AN section on JtV as a demonstration of this, seeking feedback of WP:MED participants before moving immunoglobulin therapy live, etc.) None of my recent actions have caused harm to the encyclopedia even where they have constituted technical violations of policies which I have no intention of repeating. Everyone makes mistakes, and my recent serious one (failing to ping a CU before undoing a CU block) while unfortunate, didn't harm the encyclopedia, and won't be repeated. I've already been essentially trouted (as I've previously been,) and there's little doubt as time has progressed I've acted with more deliberation than I did when I was first sysopped.

• I'd point to a couple of the maxims of equity with regards to this arb request. Specifically, since none of my recent actions have caused harm to the encyclopedia and even if a case were taken up, it would probably not result in serious action. Equity does not require an idle gesture - unless voting arbs think there's a serious chance this will result in me being desyopped or banned, there's no reason to do other than what Mike V himself had pretty much already done, trout me. He who comes into equity must come with clean hands - if this is accepted as a case (and I don't think it should be,) because of WTT's recent actions, I believe he needs to be added as a party. And Equity sees that as done what ought to be done - in other words, the Brits' fancy way of saying IAR. Unless voting arbs truly believe that the encyclopedia is likely to suffer further damage by taking action beyond trouting me and saying "read the policies other admins suggest apply more carefully before acting upon them," there's no reason to take a case and spend months bickering over possible potential technical violations (and I'd suggest no motion is necessary, pointing once more to equity does not require an idle gesture, since I've clearly already been trouted.) Obviously, arbcom is not the Court of Chancery centuries ago, but I'd suggest the maxims still reasonably apply as a way of finding the best solution. Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:34, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Kevin Gorman (talk) 13:06, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

• Actually Calla, it strikes me that if this is taken as a case, you'll likely to be expected to make a statement as one of the two involved CU's. So although I trust you to be impartial, it's probably best you recuse anyway just in case that comes up. Kevin Gorman (talk) 20:06, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Courc: Yeah, Mike bagged them and Vanja tagged them. I took Vanja's statement that CU-based SPI blocks were considered to be 'different' than normal CU blocks and that I should feel free to undo them at face value, and probably shouldn't have. SPI is an area I haven't been active in for quite some time, and it didn't sound implausible. However, reblocking forty students that appear to be a legitimate class or desysopping me or Vanja seems to be overkill for a simple misunderstanding. Kevin Gorman (talk) 20:04, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
    • Awilley: the WTT 'ban' was put in place after a thread had been both killed by Jehochman on my talk page and resurrected again, and I only meant it to indicate that I'd really rather not have the thread re-started on my talkpage while I was on a few day road trip. I removed the notice (and talked to Worm privately) within a few hours of getting back telling him he was more than welcome to post on my talk. I have a harder time apologizing for calling Giano a troll, since he's since still been trolling my talk page with socks that do not fit in to our sockpuppet policy. The only RD I've performed on my talk page to kill a nuisance thread was reversed within minutes. Best, Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:39, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
      • Mike: I certainly won't do so again in the future, but since Vanja was an SPI clerk and admin, I assumed something unusual had been written in to SPI policy since the last time I'd been around those parts. That coupled with the thread I had left open on Limelight's page overnight (which I should have paged you to) and some research of my own led me to believe we were dealing with a class. It's not something you could CU anymore on part since it's stale, but there have been instances where I've created 20+ accounts at a time at an editathon or for a class, so CU is a tool that's a lot less useful when dealing with potential class situations - a lot of things that would be normal straight tipoffs just aren't. (This isn't to say I shouldn't have pinged you, and if a similar situation comes up in the future certainly will.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:46, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
• The only serious recent alleged violation was undoing a bunch of CU blocks acting on advice given by an SPI clerk/admin (and keep in mind, I have been inactive most of the year, and thus tend to defer to more recently highly active admins in their areas of expertise.) All other allegations are either stale or lasted twenty minutes or so and were non-malicious (i.e., innocent mistakes.) Given the sheer number of recusals that are going to be involved in bringing this during the middle of silly season, I would suspect it may be drama minimizing practice if @Mike V: makes it clear if he thinks this is a full case or not, and if he does believe it is, for those arbs that are active and not recusing for one reason or another to consider bringing a case (preferably with my notes above taken in to account in deciding case vs no case) with me, WTT, Vanja, and potentially a couple others as named parties. If he doesn't, I don't believe that proceeding forward would likely be worth the drama or effort. (Mike, please know that I wouldn't hold you against it if you suggest proceeding forward, and you are of course also welcome to talk to the committee in private.) This is just exceptionally bad timing for a prominent ACE guide writer to bring a case against an ACE candidate especially when so many sitting arbs/clerks are involved in the election (by my count, something like five.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 03:10, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Timtrent

The mass unblock of people was discussed on the relevant SPI report by Kevin and the blocking admin was pinged, from the Course Instructor's talk page. Substantial time was allowed. He received advice from Vanjagenije as SPI clerk that these were not classic CheckUser blocks, and made the unblocking in good faith.

I am partially involved with this since I made the initial SPI report and drew Kevin's attention to the fact that the editors were blocked. We were having a discussion elsewhere about education courses and the peculiarities seen. It is thus due to my alert that he made his good faith unblock, and that after a considerable delay.

Whatever the merits or otherwise of the remainder of the case against him, this element should be withdrawn, or certainly disregarded, when considering whether it should be accepted.

I make absolutely no comments on any other aspect of this filing. Fiddle Faddle 11:11, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Question by Jehochman

How does Checkuser @Mike V: feel about this request? Jehochman ^Talk 20:19, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Mike V

I left a note on Kevin's talk page detailing my concerns about how I wished he would have discussed the issue with me first before unblocking. While Kevin did ping me on the user's talk page (as noted by Timtrent above), the edit and edit summary seems quite clear that he wasn't waiting for any feedback. In addition, the first account was unblocked at 16:21 December 7, 7 minutes after posting the message with his intentions to unblock. 10 hours later, I reviewed the data again and while there were some concerns, I mentioned at the case that I was willing to assume good faith and trust the provided explanation.

I must say I'm a little confused as to why he undid the checkuser block, especially a month ago when he said, "My first few encounters with things like CU-block, OS-block, and ARB-block taught me that reversing such things out of hand is usually a bad idea ;)" I'm not sure, perhaps he honestly didn't notice that it was a CU block? At the least, I think it would be best for Kevin to realize that he should have discussed the block with a CU and that he should be more careful in the future. (Even if he didn't think it was a CU block, I would have appreciated if he discussed it with me before doing so.) As I've mentioned to Kevin before with the JackTheVicar issue, sometimes there is private evidence at play that other users aren't aware of.

Statement by Awilley

Kevin has been on and off my watchlist recently so I was witness to most of the stuff WTT reported, plus some other stuff that bugs me more. My primary involvement with Kevin Gorman has been trying, rather unsuccessfully, to get Kevin and Giano to disengage from each other. While Giano's behavior was undoubtedly sub-optimal (not asking anybody to make him a party here) Kevin's has been almost equally so, though in a more wiki-lawyery way. Specific behaviors I have a problem with are:

• Name calling [8]
• Assuming bad faith (see extended answers to Q1&2 as an example)
• Petty talk page banning [9]
• Grudge pursuing & dramamongering (Semi-recent example was their vigorous participation in the events leading up to AE1 case)
• Blanking uncomfortable discussions [10] (or rev-deleting them as in WTT's example above)
• Hauling adversaries off to AN/I [11]

This is all behavior I expect to see from silly-season POV pushers, not administrators and Arb hopefuls, and I said as much to Kevin here. I realize Kevin is under a lot of pressure right now, so I would like to see him get some slack; however I believe some sort of admonishment would be helpful. Specifically I would like to see an end to pursuing grudges, adversarial behavior, and name-calling. Consistently choosing to escalate conflict may be a good practice for divorce lawyers who get paid by the hour, but not for Wikipedia administrators who should be trying to model the good behavior they wish to see in others. ~Awilley (talk) 21:32, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

• • @Kevin Gorman: True or False: The best way to deal with trolls is to loudly proclaim they are trolls, complain about them frequently, and take them to a noticeboard when occasion permits.

    I accept the deletion was a one-time mistake, and that you reverted yourself quickly is a good thing. It also appears that you have a bot archiving your user talk page, which is far better than the one-click-archiver fad we're going through where users can instantly remove threads they don't like. ~Awilley (talk) 21:56, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Floq

@GorillaWarfare and Thryduulf: I'm fairly sure I don't want to get involved in the actual case, but I have a question: why is being an ArbCom candidate reason to recuse? How does that affect anything? The voting is over, nothing you say or do can affect the outcome of the election. Does this mean that if anyone ever brings an ArbCom case request about a sitting arbitrator, all 14 of you are going to recuse? --Floquenbeam (talk) 03:35, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Statement by {Non-party}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the case request or provide additional information.

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

• @Kevin: Given I spoke to you about this on your talk page would you like me to recuse from this request? Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 11:19, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Kevin Gorman: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/0/2/2>

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse/other)

• Awaiting statements, but as an observation, the block log shows that Mike V, the checkuser (not the clerk), clearly marked these blocks as checkuserblocks. Courcelles (talk) 19:52, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
• Recuse, as Kevin and I are both currently ArbCom candidates. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:23, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
• Recuse, I'm also a candidate. Thryduulf (talk) 00:15, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
• Awaiting statements. (For those not aware, I am not a candidate in the current election.) Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 03:32, 9 December 2015 (UTC)