Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee

URGENT: Real life threats

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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It appears that User:AGK has sent the following email to another editor

“ Hi. You occasionally edit from U.S. Department of Defense IP addresses. You must be aware that an abuse report will shortly be filed with this organisation, alerting them to your refusal to abide by Wikimedia's Terms of Use. As I understand from previous, similar abuse reports filed with the Navy etc., the DOD take an extremely dim view of employees using their networks in this manner.

If you are in the armed forces, or a civilian employee of them, you are jeopardising your employment and risking real life disciplinary action. Please do not force us to contact your employer.

”

This text has been effectively confirmed by the editor AGK on User talk:Jimbo.

Note that the wording makes it clear that the other editor only "occasionally" edits from DoD (and in fact has not done so for some considerable time) - so choosing DoD rather than Verizon makes it clear that this is not standard "we will contact your ISP" note, with an extra warning but a clear threat.

Secondly mentioning "Wikimedia's Terms of Use" implies official sanction, rather than just an editor who has decided to act form his own initiative.

Thirdly the use of the second person "do not force us to contact" implies a group has sent or authorised this email. Given that the most prominent group User:AGK is a member of is the Arbitration Committee, this has been naturally assumed to be the group in question.

Fourthly, as indicated in the various discussions, it has been considered that this may pass beyond merely a Wikipedia issue, into the realms of criminal law.

Per Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jim62sch#Grave real-world harassment and Harassment and threats specifically "communicating with an editor's employer in retaliation for his or her editing on Wikipedia" I am reporting this to the Committee immediately, by the approved email mechanism.

Because the moderators of the email list have previously set it up to reject my emails, and also in the interests of transparency I will also post to Wikipedia Talk:ARB, and link from the existing discussion.

I would expect that as a result of this User:AGK would be asked to leave the committee, resign his admin bit and undertake not to email users in future.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:38, 15 May 2014 (UTC).

I was the drafter of the Jim62sch decision and am thoroughly familiar with the circumstances underlying that case. I do not consider the current situation as in any way comparable.

As I've indicated in the discussion on Jimbo Wales' talkpage, I would like to see this situation deescalated at this time. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:06, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

No. You didn't. You said you would like to see the Kumioko situation de-escalated. Indeed I made proposals that edit-conflicted with your comment to just that effect. However the AGK situation has gone way past a slap on the wrist - don't do it again. He has lost the trust of the community. His past checkuser actions, edit warring, ridiculous range blocks(which he now denies) could perhaps be forgiven, especially if he had ever admitted fault or apologised. This however cannot. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:18, 15 May 2014 (UTC).

As NYB said, this is not comparable to the cited case at all. Abuse reports to ISPs, sometimes to academic or corporate networks, have long been a process on Wikipedia (although that specific process has fallen out of use), and the release of data for the forming of an abuse report is explicitly authorised by the Wikimedia terms of use. I assume AGK's reference to the ToU was w.r.t. the section that mandated compliance with the binding decisions of dispute resolution bodies. LFaraone 23:27, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

As you say filing abuse reports is no longer done. The dispute resolution body on en: is ArbCom, so that would be representing Arbcom as denied. Laws of agency are quite important here, too. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:19, 16 May 2014 (UTC).

LFaraone, this is different freom an ISP abuse report. In this case AGK is threatening to contact Kumioko's employer, not his ISP. Also, as noted above, the edits from DOD IPs have been sporadic. It is also very different from contacting, say, a company because you can't just be "fired" from the military, especially if you are an active service member and not a civilian. Also, the Abuse reports page has been deprecated and cannot be used. I note that Kumioko would not fit their requirements anyway. Finally, "As I understand from previous, similar abuse reports filed with the Navy etc., the DOD take an extremely dim view of employees using their networks in this manner. If you are in the armed forces, or a civilian employee of them, you are jeopardising your employment and risking real life disciplinary action. Please do not force us to contact your employer" does not sound at all like a standard abuse report. If it wasn't a standard abuse report, which AGK admits to below, than what was it? A friendly reminder? Because it sure didn't sound friendly to me. KonveyorBelt 00:49, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Konveyor Belt - this is because the ISP is his employer. Nathan ^T 00:09, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Sure, but its still rather different. Contacting the ISP is something like IP Number 86.xx is misusing your network, but contacting an employer sounds more like he'd mention real life identities. KonveyorBelt 01:44, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

1. An abuse report would be filed with all the ISPs used, or it would be ineffective. The other ISPs were not mentioned because they were irrelevant to the danger I was trying to draw Kumioko's attention to.
2. The abuse report would have to explain how the subject's actions constitute "abuse".
3. The exchange took place in a private e-mail between Kumioko and I (and a number of other individual editors). The committee mailing list was not connected to the correspondence.
4. As you know, your e-mail has in fact been added to the list of addresses to be automatically accepted.

   Your position does not tally with Wikipedia policy or community practice, nor with ordinary practice in the rest of the internet, because abuse reports is not a legal mechanism. It is a request for a private organisation to assist a private community in stopping abusive behaviour.

Your attention has already been drawn to all of this on other pages. AGK [•] 23:51, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

AGK has already been told that this combative approach is not going to be effective in this case, and has chosen to ignore this advice, attracting more attention to the case he was allegedly trying to obliterate.

Clearly abuse reports are not going to work when an editor has so many hotspots and mobile options. They are a thing of the past if they ever worked.

There is nothing in this defence that advances AGKs case a whit. RF 00:39, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

You tone and language indicates you have gotten very emotional; when you are less so, perhaps you could consider the points I made. AGK [•] 15:08, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Good to know you can read my emotional state from my "tone and language" - except that you can't, and, surely by now should have realised that even if that was your particular forte, it is not wise to ascribe emotions to another editor. Right or wrong it does not make you look good, and, right or wrong, it serves no useful purpose.

So to address your points, as you requested:

1. The abuse report was never going to be effective. You either knew this, or should have known it - as blocking huge swathes of IP addresses didn't work.
2. This is not clear from the email. A significant number of people read this the way I indicated. If you write an email that is widely interpreted as a threat, you are not operating in a way concomitant with being an administrator or arbitrator.
3. I did not bring up the committee mailing list. I would like to know who these other editors are.
4. I don't "know" that my email has been added to the auto accept, I have been told that it has. I have to consider the possibility of a rogue or incompetent moderator as happened before.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:07, 16 May 2014 (UTC).

I too urge the ArbCom to take action with regard to this email. We simply cannot allow users to make threats of this nature, and if such threats are made from positions of power then they are even more serious. We don't want to give the impression that the ArbCom as a whole is trying to bully editors by threatening to jeopardize their employment. I hope the ArbCom will confirm for us that this was merely the action of one misguided individual and was not in any way endorsed by the other members of the committee. Everyking (talk) 00:59, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Salvio said as much on Jimbo's talk page, but that doesn't make it excusable. In fact, forget AGK is a member of ArbCom for a moment and consider his actions as you would any other admin. KonveyorBelt 01:21, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

I know, but I think the ArbCom as a whole should make a statement to clarify it wasn't involved in this. This is a very serious thing, and I don't think the say-so of one other arb is sufficient. We need to clarify, first of all, whether this was misconduct by an individual or by the group. If we can confirm it was just the individual, then consequences for the individual should be considered. Everyking (talk) 01:36, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

• In terms of analyzing AGK's behavior, it is already far serious enough to be considered in isolation from any role he has on ArbCom. It matters little whether he was speaking for ArbCom or not. What matters is the gross misconduct. I don't think we can separate ArbCom members into two persona each; one that is a member of ArbCom and one that is everything else. AGK's behavior casts an extremely poor light on ArbCom, regardless of whether he was acting as part of ArbCom or not. --Hammersoft (talk) 01:42, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

• I do think it matters whether he acted with the endorsement of other arbs, but we can certainly agree that AGK's behavior was unacceptable either way. Everyking (talk) 01:51, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

• I mentioned at Jimmy's talk page, I'll say it again here - abuse reports are a tool that is available to anyone. They are regularly filed, previously through a community process detailed here, but more recently just by individuals. It happens that one of the user's ISPs is also his employer - an employer who has in the past sanctioned their employees over such matters. I personally warned the user in question in the middle of March that continuing on his current path might lead to real life consequences. At the beginning of April, he confirmed that he understands the risks that he might get "a letter to my work or my internet provider". That was 6 weeks ago and he had not relented, even gloating that he would not stop.

  In these circumstances abuse reports are the correct course of action. That's not a "wikipedia" rule - it's what the abuse@ address is set up for. So, the question is - should AGK have let the user know that the report was imminent, or just filed it? I prefer the former. I wouldn't have written that email, but if I were in his shoes I would have written a similar one. Worm^TT(talk) 09:20, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

AGK's use of the word "employees" makes it clear that he recognises he will be alerting Kumioko's employer and that he recognises (or imagines - I question whether it is necessarily so) that this will be very vexatious for Kumioko. That's the whole point of the threat. It's all about contacting the employer and not about filing a routine ISP abuse report (which incidentally based on your link doesn't seem to be active policy these days). It's quite plain that Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jim62sch#Grave real-world harassment applies. The email contains this "As I understand from previous, similar abuse reports filed with the Navy etc., the DOD take an extremely dim view of employees using their networks in this manner." What were these previous abuse reports he refers to? I'm surprised they haven't been raised at discussion on Mr. Wales' Talk page or at the other place. And if indeed the DOD etc. did take a dim view, what precisely was that view and why and what was the outcome? The sentence frankly strikes me as fantasy, or wishful thinking. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 10:47, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Hi Coat of Many Colours - I recognise that alerting a DoD ISP to abuse is akin to alerting an employer and could cause more serious ramifications than "loss of internet". That's what makes the situation different - but the abuse report is still appropriate. Were AGK threatening to write a letter to his employer, or phone him, I would agree - but sending an abuse report - which would be a standard action isn't the same. It might be that there are no serious consequences - I have no idea. I also am not aware of any abuse reports filed by Wikipedians with DoD in the past, the situation that's fresh in my mind though is in the UK vandalism has been coming from government computers and the impression I got was that there would be serious consequences for any employees found to be doing so. I expect the situation to be similar in the States, though I cannot be certain. Worm^TT(talk) 11:29, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Hi W (I think I would want to know you better before I start calling you your full monniker :)). The UK vandalism you are talking about is about illegal trolling, inciting racial hatred and so on. It's not comparable, and moreover these DOD addresses are also used for residential accounts on base. It's not just "akin" to alerting an employer. It is alerting the employer and that was precisely the nature of the threat. AGK was fully conscious of it. Of course it's not a plea, his whole reputation centres around his zero tolerance towards vandals. From his very earliest days he was threatening "implications". Here's one such, to a respected administrator if you please who had displeased AGK's sensitivities by citing a Grand Jury investigation into Roman Catholic sex abuse (no really - do the research yourself). That's the baggage he carries with him. He can't credibly defend his email as a friendly nod and word of advice from the local copper to the local drunk GP (his distinctly curious analogy) But the sentence I quote really does for him, I'm afraid. I'm pretty sure it's fantasy and if that is so then he has no position at all to defend. Rich is quite right here. He has to go. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 12:05, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Abuse reports are not generally available to anyone. IP addresses of named accounts are only available to CheckUsers. The CheckUser ability is wholly within the gift of ARbCom (which I have pointed out previously is a serious governance issue in itself). At this point the kindest thing for AGK, and the best thing for the project, is a speedy expulsion, not a semi-circling of the wagons. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 11:12, 16 May 2014 (UTC).

Not so, the user in question has been editing almost exclusively from IP addresses for months. Worm^TT(talk) 11:29, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

I think you are reaching here. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 11:39, 16 May 2014 (UTC).

It appears to me that you are reaching here. I've seen no evidence that AKG has obtained K's IP address via CU, and it is clearly the case that K has been using IP addresses. What's happened here doesn't justify a "speedy expulsion". Or the scare section heading. Dougweller (talk) 13:44, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

• IMHO, AGK's email was unwise, but not evil and not worthy of sanction. I'm convinced, from long headache-inducing discussions on the mailing list, that AGK's intent was not to threaten, but to warn that something that has been done in the past in cases similar to this would have much larger than normal consequences this time. I see it as an attempt to bend over backwards not to get Kumioko in trouble at work.

Now, the practicality of an ISP report is debatable, but IF it's being considered, such an email prior to the report is important. This was premature, not unacceptable. --Floquenbeam (talk) 13:13, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

No - it wasn't "something that has been done in the past in cases similar to this would have much larger than normal consequences this time", rather it was "as I understand from previous, similar abuse reports filed with the Navy etc., the DOD take an extremely dim view of employees using their networks in this manner" i.e. in the past ArbCom have filed abuse reports with the DOD and they have their expressed considerable displeasure over the issue. Face it. He threatened to contact Kumioko's employers, said that ArbCom had acted similarly in the past (i.e. contact employers) and that in the case of the DOD they had responded with extreme disapproval. That's what he did. That's what you have to defend. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 14:25, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

• • I think using the word "evil" is unhelpful. AGk's action is not appropriate, clearly does not conform to community norms (the procedure is historical), of dubious legality, appears to represent ArbCom when it does not, displays characteristics of gunning personally for one editor (especially when combined with AGK's other actions, over this, blanking archives, edit warring, apparently creating abuse filters - and then lying about it). This attitude is long standing, and is not conducive to good governance. AGK should leave the committee to protect the project, not because he is "evil". All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:58, 16 May 2014 (UTC).
    

    Could I just clarify a few things here. Just because the page is marked historical doesn't mean it's not happening any more, and requests were still being made to the end of 2013. It was marked historical because they weren't being actioned by the volunteers involved - volunteers which by the way included a significant majority of non-admins. As for appearing to represent ArbCom, AGK's email was responding to one of Kumioko's emails to multiple recipients. I believe Kumioko had BCC'd the recipients, so AGK's reply was just to Kumioko, but given Kumioko had been emailing large groups the context implied that AGK was associating himself with the rest of the group, rather than Arbcom. AGK has made this point elsewhere. Worm^TT(talk) 14:15, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

    • So did he speak for the rest of the group? It does not appear so. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:09, 16 May 2014 (UTC).
      

Claims have been made (by Kumioko and others) that he doesn't edit from Navy IP addresses any more (eg. above, "has not done so for some considerable time"). Note that he used them at least as recently as 28 April 2014, to harass AGK as it turns out. Fram (talk) 13:29, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

The boot is rather on the other foot. AGK appears to have thought that preventing Kumioko from signing his name, by implementing an abuse filter was a good idea. That message, left over a fortnight ago, points out how useless this approach was. Had AGK been successful (which he manifestly was not, nor could he be) he would have been forcing Kumioko to edit anonymously - this would not have been a good thing by community standards. What is worse he specifically denies trying to stop Kumioko from using his name. I will leave it to others to confirm whether such an abuse filter existed and if so what the rules said and who wrote them. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 14:10, 16 May 2014 (UTC).

"He would have been forcing Kumioko to edit anonymously"? No, no one forces Kumioko to edit here, on the contrary, he is supposed to not edit here at all, "by community standards". Anyway, why did you claim that Kumioko hadn't been using these IP adresses for some considerable time when that wasn't really true and when the only apparent reason he finally stopped using the ones I checked was because they were blocked, not voluntarily? Fram (talk) 14:14, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

• Rich, I'm afraid that reply doesn't answer Fram's point. AGK [•] 15:11, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Fram's point is non-existent. If there was no ongoing editing from DoD IP then filing an abuse report there would be at best pointless, at worst malicious. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:20, 16 May 2014 (UTC).

Nice evasive answer. You (and Kumioko) claimed that these IPs were long abandoned, which they clearly weren't. Which indicates that your opening post (and posts you made elsewhere) was either misinformed or an attempt to poison the well (Kumioko obviously hasn't the excuse of being misinformed about his own use of some IP adresses). Fram (talk) 12:19, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

The important point is that the wording makes it clear that the other editor only "occasionally" edits from DoD. The parenthetical "some considerable time" is perfectly in tune with a fortnight - there was no ongoing editing. Of course if you find an actual error, please feel free to point it out. There is, of course, no shortage of material to supplement this report if it is required. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:57, 17 May 2014 (UTC).

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. There should be no doubt AGK misstepped here. To be explicit, we're talking trout level screwup, so let's just skip the de-sysop, de-arbcom, de-take away his birthday nonsense.

To address NYB's question about how to deal with a formerly valued contributor turned persistent troll with a plethora of disposable IPs, no need to reinvent the wheel -- we need to simply apply consistently, dispassionately continue the tradition of WP:DENY / WP:RBI via WP:RIS (revert, ignore, semi-protect).

Per the deny protocol, I'm only choosing to comment because no one has addressed the root issue regarding AGKs action. It's not his meant as a warning, comes across as a threat email. It's the Father Knows Best / condescension nature of the email. Contributors (even vandals and trolls) should be treated respectfully like adults. The terms of use make it clear that the greater "we" may take action up to legal action against users who violate the terms of service. Emailing a ISP an abuse report is clearly within that scope. The person's relationship with their ISP is not our concern; in fact, attempts to ascertain that relationship could easily run afoul of the site privacy expectations.

Although I honestly think it's moot per the above, so many editors have commented regarding someone getting fired by the US DOD due to an abuse report, I feel compelled to comment. Don't be ridiculous. It is expensive for the DOD to recruit, intake, train and separate an employee (active duty or civil service). I'm unable to get a solid number: for a solider the non-partisan / non-political US Government Accountability Office attempted to ascertain the cost recently, but gave up due to DOD accounting being so labyrinth to make a defensible number impossible. They did determine it was upwards of $100K. This idea that, oh, we've spent all this money on this person but they're disrupting Wikipedia! so we're going to terminate them isn't reasonable. Separating either an active duty or civilian employee is not a quick or easy task due to due process requirements.

AGK has stated that in the past a Wikipedian was referred for abuse and subsequently terminated. I am in not way disputing that. Post hoc ergo propter hoc remains a logical fallacy. The most likely scenario is that the person was a subpar performer in difficult to document ways, and the abuse report provided an easy to document excuse to separate someone the command really wasn't thrilled with anyway. For anyone, who is not, to use the informal US Navy term, a "dirtball," the most likely response to an abuse report would be a verbal directive to knock it off.

Perhaps there is a need to revisit Wikipedia:Abuse response, given the community concerns. But that should be via an RFC, not a discussion using either AGK or K as a coatrack for "evil admin" / "vile trolls" ad hominem drivel. NE Ent 13:58, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

@NE Ent: It was Risker who first raised the question of contacting ISPs (and inviting Kumioko to consider the implications) in this case here. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 14:52, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

I think that NE Ent's analysis of the situation is spot-on, and the most sensible that I have seen throughout this whole discussion. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:00, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Well-said, NE Ent. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:50, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Seems reasonable. (But then you have the unfair advantage of not going off half-cocked (how'd you do that?).) All the more so contextualized, if such an ISP report was already openly mentioned by Risker on the Pedia. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:15, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

How is this governed?

The AGK and Kumioko business aside, an issue has been starkly highlighted. The project does not appear to have any policy or procedure for how to handle such abuse reports. Ok, Wikipedia:Abuse response has been marked historical (for good reason). But, several templates (examples: {{Shared IP gov}}, {{Shared IP}}) have verbiage stating "abuse reports may be sent to its network administrator for further investigation." Further, Wikipedia:Long-term abuse is active (or at least not marked historical). Am I wrong that there is no policy or procedure for this?

Sure, anyone can make a report about an IP. All it takes is a whois lookup. But, it seems to me the project is opening themselves up for some serious potential harm in allowing abuse reports to come from more 'official' channels on the project (admins, bureaucrats, arbcom members) without having any set procedure for doing so. I can imagine a form letter of sorts to avoid the sort of situation that has evolved in the AGK/Kumioko case.

Thoughts? --Hammersoft (talk) 14:28, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

I suspect this is a point best clarified by the WMF, as the project has evolved beyond recognition since the abuse reports process was created. AGK [•] 15:11, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

As usual, no good deed goes unpunished. AGK told the user about the possible consequences, rather than just filing the report and creating those consequences. I view the warning as a kindness, not intimidation, under these particular circumstances. To avoid future ructions, I suggest that we should create a page that details what an abuse report is, and what the possible consequences may be. After than, any user can say, "If you continue, I will file an abuse report about you with your internet service provider. Please read about what that means. " Having standard text will avoid the risk of a warning being mis-perceived as harassment or attempted intimidation. Jehochman ^Talk 16:23, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Standard text is a good idea. A standard process is also a good idea. But both would require community consensus that community members that it is appropriate to us abuse reports. I would doubt that that would get consensus. Even then it is not true to say that "any user" could file a report, that would only be true of IPs. I would say that abuse reports of that type should be left to the Foundation, for the type of egregious actions we have, luckily, seen very rarely. Note depriving someone of Internet access, deprives their entire household, and can have far wider implications than it did years ago - even medical monitoring is done over the Internet these days. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:41, 16 May 2014 (UTC).

I think you are right Hammersoft. We have no procedure for raising abuse reports. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:41, 16 May 2014 (UTC).

@Jehochman No, AGK did not tell the user the possible consequences. He misrepresented the consequences. It's not true that ArbCom has contacted DOD in the past and it's not true that they take an extremely dim view of abuse of such reports from ArbCom. All that is fantasy and part of an extremely badly judged attempt to put pressure on Kumuiko. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 19:49, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

About "no good deed goes unpunished", it occurs to me that Kumioko's stated goal has been to troll Wikipedia to the point where editors end up expending an undue amount of time reacting to it. It looks to me like he has been very successful at that. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:54, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 1) @Coat of Many Colours: Kumioko emailed me directly, ranting about an administrator. I emailed back and said 'Fair enough, but if you do keep socking and somebody files an abuse report, you could lose your job. Do you understand that?' This did not involve ArbCom and I am not sure why you are talking as though it did. Could you please stop putting words into my mouth? AGK [•] 19:55, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

The email does not say "if" it says an abuse report will shortly be filed with this organisation - note the passive voice, again implying authority rather than just one random Wikipedia editor. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:13, 16 May 2014 (UTC).

@AGK I'm not putting words in your mouth. On the contrary, I'm reminding your apologists what they actually were. Of course Kumioko knew you were from ArbCom. Of course he would have surmised you were acting for ArbCom. Of course that's the impression you sought to give. You need to take responsibility for what you did. Your judgement was badly flawed and your response is immature. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 21:18, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree. It's time for AGK to take some responsibility for his actions, and it's time for the ArbCom to hold him accountable for his actions. Everyking (talk) 22:23, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

In the interests of balance, I am not going to comment further. You ought to do likewise and let other people have their say. One group should not dominate a discussion. AGK [•] 09:48, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

No need to be demure. No one is interested in preventing you from having your say. In fact, a number of people are probably disappointed that the bulk of the discussion appears to be taking place off-line on the arb mailing list and not in public. —Neotarf (talk) 03:03, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

How do you know what volume of discussion is taking place on the arbcom mailing list? Please let us know how ordinary editors like myself can access these statistics. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:19, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Actually the discussions werent on the mailing list but on the functionaries and arbs irc channels. It should be noted that agk got read the riot act in private but no one dares speak up publicly because y hey would be proving kumioko right. And believe it or not, i am not kumioko. So feel free to revert this and blame it on them, but youll be proving his point about silencing critics. I was also the one who posted last time that james reverted. I am not banned and am in good standing but i dont dare make myself known and open myself up for retaliation.2607:FB90:1317:8F9C:14C3:9087:17BD:EE34 (talk) 03:38, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

(Note: there is no evidence known to me that this IP is a banned user whose posts should be reverted as such. The fear of "retaliation" is unwarranted, and he or she should really be posting from his or her registered account, but in the context of this discussion I'd say we let that go.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 05:16, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Er, how about "long headache-inducing discussions on the mailing list"? https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee&diff=prev&oldid=608830238 although it may be OR to assign a statistical value to what level of hot air is necessary to induce headaches in arbitrators. Apparently AGK has convinced the committee that he is only motivated to help Kumioko and be his friend. —Neotarf (talk) 04:09, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

They have met, apparently, so I see no reason they shouldn't be friends. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 06:12, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

I hadn't realised that two of the respondents here who replied to me were on ArbCom, additional thanks for that. I think we need clarification as to whether the community has in the past knowingly contacted employers about ToS abuse (I don't mean criminal abuse) and what policy statements about that have been made in the past. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 10:06, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

See the inactive WP:Abuse response for one effort. Apart from that, any of thousands of editors might have reported abuse. Has anyone mentioned that what editors do off-wiki is generally considered to be none of our business? For example, there are cases where known users have contributed towards outing and other harassment of editors, yet attempts to sanction the users have failed because the issues did not occur at Wikipedia. Johnuniq (talk) 10:29, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for that. WP:Abuse response is inactive as you say, but it concerns reporting abuse to ISPs. This is about knowingly contacting employers. That's right about off-wiki. I suppose we ought to clarify whether AGK's email was a private email (i.e. not his account email) but I doubt it would go to much. Self-evidently he was emailing on behalf of the community. It's quite true that editors routinely use the royal "we" as a means of invoking the authority of the community (I frankly find that irritating), but in this case AGK plainly was emailing on behalf of the community. He surely knew that Kumoiko knew he was from ArbCom and at the very least should have made it clear he was acting in a private capacity if that's his claim now. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 10:53, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Private email? What on earth? My personal private email account certainly does not become the public property of the community (or anyone else) just because I happen to use it to register my Wikipedia account to. Just as it does not become an official contact method of Google Inc just because I also happen to use it to register my YouTube account to. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 11:29, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

I assume that if a long-time abuser uses work computers to troll Wikipedia and it is at a company or organization that is large enough to have a dedicated network, informing the ISP would involve them passing along the abuse notice to the organization. Over 13 years of Wikipedia, I doubt this is the only time reporting to an ISP means them contacting an employer. The difference I see is that AGK gave Kumioko a warning/head's up that this was going to happen, I imagine in most reporting, the abuser is not alerted in advance.

The problem is that there is apparently no active page that logs these abuse reports any more or explains a) when they are sent and b) possible consequences of being reported. It might be commonplace for websites to send out abuse reports to ISPs but a notice of the condition under which this occurs should exist on the policy pages of Wikipedia. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 11:36, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

@ Demiurge. Well yes, of course. To clarify, if he was emailing though his account then that must be construed as emailing on behalf of the community and in his case, by extension, on behalf of ArbCom. What arises is whether they previously have had an exchange of emails (you say above they had met, so it's likely). AGK could then argue his email was "private", at least if it identified his private ISP email address. But the likelihood is that it's a Gmail address or the like, and in that case I can't see the claim is very convincing. And moreover it doesn't reflect well on AGK, Demiurge, that even after an exchange of emails he is apparently unable to show the slightest degree of real empathy, not even venturing a familiar name (it starts "Hi. You occasionally edit ...").

A problem I have addressing the issue here is I feel constrained about quoting the email as reproduced by Kumoiko in the other place, precisely because there may be a privacy issue involved. AGK (who posts in the other place) hasn't denied that's what he sent. May I reproduce it here? Coat of Many Colours (talk) 12:26, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Addendum: actually I see it was quoted in its entirety at the outset. Plainly it wasn't following a private exchange of emails. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 12:29, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

@ Liz. The point is that Wikipedia was knowingly going to contact the employer. This was a "your boss is going to get a call" letter, as succinctly pointed out in the other place. You can have "troll", but this was nevertheless not criminal abuse. It's not even nuisance given that a very great deal of Wikipedia's activity simply is fighting vandalism, indeed that's the sole raison d'être of AGK's account, why Wikipedia has him, why he's there. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 12:43, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

According to information given elsewhere, the email was sent to a group of people. Presumably the others were cc'd and the email was send on behalf of all of them, but there has been no indication of whether they were all arbs. —Neotarf (talk) 13:38, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Then, COMC, it sounds like you believe the warning letter shouldn't have been sent and the abuse report simply filed with the ISP without informing Kumioko. I see the letter as a courtesy but I can see you view it as threatening so there is a difference of opinion on that.

My concern is not this specific case with its unusual circumstances but to get some area of Wikipedia where the process of filing abuse reports is explained, what are the circumstances causing the filing of an abuse report, who can file an abuse report, what are the consequences of an abuse report, along with a log of user accounts who have had these reports sent. That, to me, has a greater impact than simply focusing on Kumioko's case. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 15:15, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

I sense a certain irony in your opening remark, Liz. No quibbles about the second part though, up to the remark about Kumioko's case, where the point is that we in the other place are focussing not on Kumoiko but on AGK's action, and in a broader context on Wikipedia's intentions in general (ToS is about to be revised).

I can't speculate on AGK's motives here without entering personal attack territory. But that wasn't a "warning" letter Liz, it was a threat and the threat was to contact the employers, not just an ISP. AGK should have known it was not very well judged, should have sought advice from his fellow members on ArbCom. You ever received a debt collector's letter, Liz? Or for that matter (in all seriousness and if you're in the UK) from the BBC demanding you purchase a TV license. These are demands which unquestionably threaten "implications" (often fantasy in reality) very carefully crafted by (presumably) lawyers. AGK's effort in the same league, but without any of the subtlety and it really is not edifying that ArbCom is so slow to condemn it, as eventually they must. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 16:00, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

For the sake of transparency let me state for the record that in our mailing list discussions of these issues I supported just doing it and not bothering to warn Kumioko at all. I don't think K deserved any courtesy from us in light of the incredible, deliberate disruption he has been engaging in for several months and if he were to get fired from his job for acting like an ass on their ISP it is no more than he deserves. The vast majority of banned users have the sense to just go away, or to do a "stealth return" and avoid the issues that got them banned.

Once in a while we see someone who instead decides to spend enormous quantities of their time and effort deliberately being a pain in the ass. Old hands will know that K is really a minor player compared to some of the other WP:LTA nut cases, many of whom have been the subject of past reports to their ISPs. The only thing I find to condemn in AGKs actions is his naïveté in thinking K would act like an adult and go away as opposed to screaming like a maniac about all the future abuse of this site he intends to engage in. We've given this troll more than enough of our time. He does not desire to return as a productive member of the community. Nevertheless, he has tried to blackmail the committee by threatening to increase his harassment and disruption campaign until his ban is reversed. I have no patience with and no sympathy for someone who behaves like that. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:33, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

That's a perspective we needed to hear, Beeblebrox, to put this incident in context with how other long-time abusers were handled. It would be helpful if this admin response, and some idea of how often it occurs, would be documented somewhere. It's clear that many editors were surprised at the news of this email message and the abuse response to the ISP and some of this outraged might have been lessened if users realized that this is a standard procedure in WP:LTA cases. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:11, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't really happen all that often because it often doesn't produce results. However, it is possible the DoD would be more responsive at might actually do something. That possibility, combined with the revelation that the DoD was not only the owner of some of the IPs used but also K's employer is why some arbs thought we shouldn't report his mounting abuses. Others felt we should make the report only after giving him one last chance to just cut it out. Websites of all kinds do this sort of thing all the time, and I seriously doubt most of them would even think about telling a troll they were planning to do so.

K wants to go down as the greatest,most disruptive troll WP has ever seen. He has said so again and again on WP criticism sites. Putting aside what an utterly pathetic and sad life goal that is and what it tells us about his priorities, why should we hold back from reporting his abuses to his service provider, regardless of who they are or what his relationship is with them? This isn't about calling his place of employment to get him trouble for editing on company time. I couldn't care less about that. What I do care about is what can be done to stop a sustained and deliberate campaign of harassment and disruption. K is a crybaby and a troll who just needs to go away. If he is so obsessed and irresponsible that he would rather lose his job than cease his trolling that is his problem. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:54, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

why should we hold back from reporting his abuses to his service provider, regardless of who they are or what his relationship is with them: because Wikipedia is just a website, and since it's just a website, it isn't worth doing something that might actually get someone fired for? I mean, even if Kumioko follows through on their threat, what does that really amount to? If they were threatening actual harm against anyone, that'd be one thing, and I don't think anyone would have a problem with contacting ISPs in that case. But I haven't seen any threats of that nature; why would we need to take it to this extreme? Like, do you really think that acting like an ass justifies us in possibly getting him fired? I don't; that's pretty messed up. Even people who are jerks are still, y'know, people, and I don't see what would allow us to do anything like this. I'm sorry, Wikipedia is just not that big a deal. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 01:12, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

If it's not that big of deal, then why even both reverting vandalism? Why even bother to make sure sources are correct for BLPs? Heck, why not just turn Wikipedia into another Usenet/IRC, with a bunch of Jackholes arguing back and forth about the stupidest bullshit they can think of? The reason you don't allow the constant disruption should be evidenced here and on Jimbo's Talk page, it takes up far too much time and volunteer service to deal with. So you just put a stop to it in the best available ways you can. Which includes filing an Abuse@ report. I see a lot of pleading about someone's job, but has anyone thought that you are giving the 'disruptor in chief' exactly what they want? If a certain someone doesn't want to put his employment in jeopardy, the decision is easy. Don't disrupt from that IP. It's not the fault of the person filing a report. And if people really want to drag this around to ANI, there is plenty of evidence that the user used the IPs to disrupt the project repeatedly. It's SOP to file a abuse@ report for persistent disruptions, those that vow to never give up and "become the most prolific vandal Wikipedia has ever seen". And if this drags on and on and on, who is really benefiting from all of this discussion about a community banned former editor? Dave Dial (talk) 01:49, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

"Not contacting people's employers" doesn't imply "don't revert vandalism", as you of course know. Yes, I have thought that this is giving the chief disruptor what they want. Of course that's what it's doing. I'm advocating it because the alternative, where we possibly ruin someone's life because they said some mean things and don't like our website, is not worth it. There is no sense of proportion here; it's ridiculous. And no, as far as I know, contacting ISPs is not standard practice, at least not for anything but the very worst abuse. Kumioko may have promised to become Wikipedia's #1 Enemy (whatever that means), but they haven't delivered on that promise yet, and unless they do in a big way, this is not something we should even be considering. I've certainly never even thought of contacting someone's ISP, much less when I know it to be their employer. As several people have pointed out, the abuse report page has been marked historical, and I don't know of any recent cases where it has been employed (though I certainly wouldn't necessarily know). Do you know otherwise? Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 06:45, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

The 'abuse report page' is not the only way one can send abuse reports. Any editor can send one. I've sent dozens upon dozens of reports, though most not about this project(I think I've sent a couple from here). Frankly, I think any administrator not willing to send an abuse report to an ISP concerning another editor who has broken the TOS repeatedly and blatantly refuses to cease, should turn in their tools. See section 4 - Refraining from Certain Activities, which the editor in question has violated several of the terms, by their own admission. Particularly harassing other editors. It's easy to ignore if you're not the one being harassed. As Jimbo stated yesterday Kumioko is a banned editor with a long history of harassment of other editors, including me. A report to Kumioko's ISP, whether an employer or not, is long overdue. I'm actually surprised that someone hasn't filed one already. Especially with all the attention Kumioko and supporters have drawn concerning this. Dave Dial (talk) 13:42, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Writ Keeper, it's not standard practice because it doesn't usually work. It didn't fall into disuse because everyone decided it was disproportionate. Reporting someone to their ISP because they misuse the service that ISP provides is fully proportionate and rational. If someone happens to work for that ISP (whether they work for the DoD, Comcast, Congress or whoever)... They knowingly took the risk of misusing and abusing the service provided by their employer. That risk, and the onus of the potential consequences, falls on them. It's not on the abused to measure the consequences of reporting and responding to the actions of the abuser. Nathan ^T 16:49, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

It's always incumbent on us to measure the consequences of our actions. Always. And if it doesn't usually work, then why are we considering doing it at all, since there's not much benefit to outweigh the possible harm? Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 18:12, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Why consider it in this case? Well, I imagine you know the answer. If an ISP provides service only to its employees and contractors, whether its the DoD or some other organization, it is much more likely to respond to misconduct by an employee than a commercial ISP is for actions of a customer. As to the issue of consequences, I suppose we will have to disagree and let it go. Assuming Kumioko is not mentally ill and not a child, he is capable of taking the potential for punishment into account when choosing to misbehave. The analogy to a criminal is apt; any robber hopes to get away with his crime, but knows there is a chance he may be caught and go to prison. We report the theft (even if a small personal item, like an iPhone) anyway, because the burden of a bad act should fall on the bad actor and not the victim. Nathan ^T 18:26, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

The LTA page says: "In the vast majority of cases, Deny Recognition and Revert block ignore are more suitable approaches." But judging by User:Newyorkbrad/Newyorkbradblog#Wikipedia and the law of computer misuse, where Kumioko is mentioned by name, it looks like a different approach has been decided on here, but it's not clear why. And if the comment by a user above is correct, AGK and Kumioko know each other in real life. Any complaint sent to Kumioko's employer could state his real name. Kumioko may soon be sharing a jail cell with Chelsea Manning. —Neotarf (talk) 01:24, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

I think it would be good if you reread what I wrote. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:48, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

The only reason the banned user is being celebrated and encouraged is all the excited commentary. It is not our concern if a few editors decide to report a long term troll to their ISP, but if anyone does not want that to happen the best approach would be to stop talking and stop encouraging an attention-seeker. Johnuniq (talk) 02:01, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

@ Newyorkbrad. I want to excuse myself from further comment here. I have a program of edits on Wikipedia I would like to complete and thereafter I shall consider.

Kumoiko's behaviour is not criminal. I doubt it is actionable in civil law. I am quite certain that in the EU at any rate contacting his employers in this way is a infringement of his right to a private life enshrined in Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights. Since AGK is (for now anyway) a citizen of the European Union, I think it would be an honourable gesture for him to recuse himself from further meddling in this affair. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 02:12, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

As someone required to use VPN's for work and other purposes, I can tell you it's pretty easy to leave one turned on by accident when doing a non-work thing from the same computer (it's the other side of forgetting to activate an anonymizing proxy before looking at a privacy invading site like facebook.com). If someone posts a few Wikipedia edits from work addresses by accident, by using their computer at home with the work VPN still activated, it would be pretty obnoxious to jack that up into claiming misuse of an employer's network.

I don't take that "most disruptive user ever" thing of Kumioko even slightly seriously. He said that in a lame outburst in the immediate aftermath of getting banned, then slipped back to approximately the same occasional pitiful whining as before he got banned, and has had pretty low impact on anything I can tell. There are other editors (banned or otherwise) who are far more detrimental to the project. I'd suggest starting with them if Wikipedia witch-hunting is now also being pursued off-wiki. And any such reports should be only done by WMF legal or security personnel (after referral from arbcom/CU, for example). Having Wikipedia editors (including arbitrators) do them is IMHO obviously forbidden per WP:OUTING.

This incident is pretty disturbing and I may write more later. 70.36.142.114 (talk) 06:55, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Template:Cue Until one considers that the user in question (Kumioko) has a pattern of sockpuppetry and long-term abuse, and is currently banned from English Wikipedia for exhibiting such a pattern. That may also be why AGK wants to contact Kumioko's employer (not that I'm endorsing these actions, but still, look at the circumstances). Epicgenius (talk) 16:34, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

For what it's worth, my recollection of the public comments made by Kumioko so far align with Beeblebrox's description "the greatest,most disruptive troll WP has ever seen. He has said so again and again", than with the 70.* IP's description "a lame outburst in the immediate aftermath of getting banned" (my emphasis). It would appear there are also numerous comments (or threats?) Kumioko has made privately rather than publicly. So very few of us here know the full picture. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 17:33, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm with @70 in that there should be some provisions for making abuse reports including a) at what point is an abuse report sent (identification as a "long-time abuser"?) because it shouldn't be an individual judgment call by any admin, b) who can send in an abuse report, c) what the possible consequences of an abuse report to an ISP and d) a log of abuse reports that have been sent, to avoid duplicate reports and for transparency purposes.

I've posted these above (and I appreciate Beeblebrox's response) but I really think that implementing them, even if only a few reports are sent, would dispel some of the outrage surrounding this case. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 17:37, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

How would those limits work? Anyone who is the target of abuse from an IP address, or even anyone who comes upon it, can submit an abuse report. That's whether or not they've seen the project abuse report pages, or LTA, or anything else. Do we want to have another policy that is most likely to be often ignored, that purports to prevent people from filing abuse reports when they themselves are the targets? Given the kind of abuse people have experienced over the years, that seems unwise. I suspect making the list public would be a mistake for many reasons that are generally more important than preventing duplicate reports. There might be room for some public information about when and how CUs make abuse reports based on data from the checkuser tool, but otherwise I don't see the benefit. Nathan ^T 17:47, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it's useful for editors here to speculate about whether or not an abuse report would affect Kumioko's employment. The last time I looked at the "other" website, Kumioko was making it very clear that he is not worried about losing his employment, even saying that he, himself, would be part of the team that would look into any IP abuse complaint. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:57, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

The indent suggests that comment was replying to me, but I'm not sure how it relates to what I wrote. Nathan ^T 18:20, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Nathan, I'm sorry about that. I just put it there in response to the whole series of edits above, and not to your comment specifically, because it wasn't obvious where else to put it. But no, I wasn't calling you out, and I apologize that it looked that way. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:50, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Nathan, it's the same idea as WP:NLT: you can pursue a grievance against someone on-wiki, or you can pursue it off-wiki, but not both. DIY enforcement of the TOS vigilante-style when you don't have the standing to enforce it in a court of law seems completely wrong to me. That's why the WMF (the entity with the standing) should handle it directly. They could delegate it to arbcom or stewards or whoever in an official way, I suppose, with the implication that the WMF will back up any actions taken under such delegation, but people should still not do it unofficially on their own. 70.36.142.114 (talk) 20:31, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, this skittered off into becoming another chastise Kumioko/AGK thread. This was not my intention. There have been other places to do that. I do feel we need to have an established process for handling this for any future cases. But, this thread's unfortunately gone off the rails on that point. Oh well. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:47, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

• Whether people support AGK in this instance or not, I think we can all agree on one thing: abuse reports are not to be taken lightly. My belief is that an ISP should only be notified in circumstances where a user's activities can actually cause genuine harm in someone's personal life. Examples include repeated and malicious posting of personally identifying information, paedophilia advocacy (barring attempts to promote recognition of the condition as a legitimate mental disorder), the crime of stalking, and providing assistance to any unrelated police investigation. I would not feel comfortable jeopardizing someone's livelihood just because they are an unrepentant nuisance on a popular website, especially not if the justification for doing so amounts to "he had it coming". If I were to support this measure against Kumioko, there would have to be significant documented evidence of criminal harassment against one or more editors (generally both on and off-wiki). This means that the threshold must be exceptionally high, and such a motion should probably be initiated by the victims of harassment themselves. If they are using ArbCom as a vector for pursuing legal avenues and their plight is justified, so be it. If AGK, ArbCom, Jimbo Wales, or any other party chooses to go forward with this course of action, it could cost Kumioko his job — and if Dennis Brown's sentiments hold true today, his liberty. Kurtis ^(talk) 19:44, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, actually, I don't agree. Last fall, I looked into WP:Abuse reports, a group of volunteers who sent letters to ISPs in long-time abuse cases and I was told that these letters actually had little impact and that's why the project was no longer active. It was then marked as an inactive, historical project after I couldn't find any previous volunteers who wanted to return and continue with it. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:01, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Can't agree with Kurtis either. Boiling that down, it's a weird position to take - we can only report abuse to an ISP when the abusive conduct rises to the level of criminal activity? Criminal activity should be reported to the police. ISPs aren't cops. Maybe the confusion rests on the nomenclature: An "abuse report" is basically a report to an Internet Service Provider alleging that a particular user (or, IP address) is violating the Terms of Service of a website and / or the ToS of the ISP's service itself. In most cases, the maximum penalty an ISP can impose is terminating the connection. In a small number of instances, the ISP happens also to be the employer of the user. What happens in those cases is something Wikipedians don't have much insight into, and regardless shouldn't bear on whether any individual decides to file a report with an ISP. Nathan ^T 20:24, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Exactly. It would boil down to a proposal that some subset of editors can claim complete immunity from any action on their behaviour purely because they choose to abuse their employer's internet facilities for that behaviour; whereas editors who do not commit such abuse can suffer consequences. It's an entirely irrational suggestion. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:31, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

• • I guess I'm wrong in this case; revisiting my above comment a couple hours later, I now concede that it was far too narrow in scope. I'm also not sure why I had somehow conflated contacting an ISP with contacting the police; I've stricken those parts. A regular report to a regular ISP after extensive long term abuse is probably warranted in some cases. Even so, disconnecting access to a certain website is a little drastic unless there's very good reason to do so. The situation with Kumioko has special considerations that need to be taken into account. Kurtis ^(talk) 21:31, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
    • Additional addendum — I've unstricken the above text from earlier, yet I retain the same caveat regarding my original post being too narrow in scope. Here's my stance: ISPs should generally not be contacted outside of issues pertaining to criminal activity (e.g. stalking), unless there have been extensive long term issues with abuse on a given domain name. An abuse report to an ISP should only be used as a last resort. Kurtis ^(talk) 15:35, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Kumioko has reported on the Other Site that his employer has now received a letter linking his user name with his name in real life. —Neotarf (talk) 20:44, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

I take this claim with the same seriousness that I take other claims made by Kumioko. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:27, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Thus quite seriously then, given that his original report about AGK's email was confirmed by AGK himself?

I'm sorry that Kurtis struck part of his post, because it was a good summary of the real position (as confirmed by Liz, another useful contributor here). Abuse reports which don't allege criminal behaviour don't receive much attention from ISPs and it's not criminal to violate ToS. What is new here, what I don't doubt Risker was hinting at and which AGK duly enacted, was the threat of effectively contacting his employer, and if notifying the employer really had been coincidental (as Risker was careful to keep open), well then there was not much recourse for Kumoiko. But AGK made the threat precise, so that effectively Wikipedia was knowingly contacting the employers. I don't doubt this is where AGK is being attacked for his lack of judgement on the mailing list.

The real problem for Wikipedia here is that some editor might now (apparently has already) contacted the employer (no doubt with diffs and proofs and god knows what else, the usual productions). Coat of Many Colours (talk) 03:35, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

The entity "Wikipedia" has not contaced anything, and per my reply to you above at 10:29, 18 May 2014, events that occur off-wiki are not within the scope of matters requiring attention by this community. About all that can be said is that some editors would be prepared to make abuse reports, and some would not. Personal opinions about whether such contact would be effective are not relevant. Johnuniq (talk) 04:07, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Johnuniq, don't forget the Sandifer matter. —Neotarf (talk) 04:35, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

@Johnuniq That's generally right about abusive behaviour off-wiki, but that's not what it goes to here. Reporting putative abuse to an ISP is necessarily off-wiki. This goes to knowingly contacting the employers by so doing, potentially actionable, and as Everyking notes blow, sanctioned both by ArbCom members (with no record of opposition) and by Jimbo Wales himself. How much more serious does it get? Coat of Many Colours (talk) 08:57, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

I've unstricken that part of my original post, although I do stand by my subsequent concession. Kurtis ^(talk) 15:35, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Sad to relate, Kumioko has apparently been "pretty busy" and thus has not been able to obtain a copy of the supposed report to his employer. He'll be getting round to that as soon as he's not "pretty busy", I'm sure. He also mentioned he's kind of not thinking of releasing it or quoting from it anyway. So, well then. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:30, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

You should probably take the claim seriously. After all, a certain arbitrator had threatened to do it, and his threat was effectively endorsed by several other arbitrators, as well as Jimbo Wales. So clearly they were not above taking such an action, and now the target of the threat says it was carried out. While we can't know for certain, the facts suggest Kumioko is telling the truth. Everyking (talk) 07:00, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

ArbCom needs to deny this

This thread is rapidly generating more heat than light. I respectfully suggest that any outstanding issues are discussed in a new thread, and in a less personal manner than has been the case for some comments on this page, but I would request that you consider whether such a thread was likely to progress the discussion to any useful point. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:48, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Given that apparently Kumioko's employer has been contacted, ArbCom needs to come forward and openly deny they had anything to do with his employer being contacted. ArbCom: Failure to do so is tacit acknowledgement you have done so. If in fact ArbCom had anything to do with his employer being contacted, this is an extremely cold day for Wikipedia. The stakes here are very, very high. Few among us who have access to the Internet from work have never accessed Wikipedia from such locations. If ArbCom is not above destroying someone's job over a ToS violation, then no ethical violation is beneath them. --Hammersoft (talk) 12:55, 20 May 2014 (UTC) If this was actually done by someone, it was not with the approval or knowledge of ArbCom or the functionaries or WMF. --Floquenbeam (talk) 13:09, 20 May 2014 (UTC) Excuse me? <thank you for rephrasing> Not once have I ever said anything against or for you. Off and on I have been an opponent of a number of actions taken by ArbCom, have criticized structural issues that plague ArbCom to this day, and have made numerous suggestions for improving ArbCom. Rare has been the occasion that I have ever called out any particular ArbCom member over any issue, and to my recollection not ever have I done so with you personally. Whenever I have called out a particular ArbCom member, it has been with direct and explicit evidence supporting it. I am not questioning your ethics personally. Had ArbCom made a decision to contact Kumioko's employer over a ToS violation, it certainly would be an ethical violation in my opinion. That would be on ArbCom, not you personally. In fact, this is exactly WHY I asked the question; to separate individual actions from that of ArbCom. If ArbCom had internally voted 7-5 to contact Kumioko's employer, certainly you personally could have been on of the five. The point is whether ArbCom had made such a decision, not whether any particular member had done so. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:25, 20 May 2014 (UTC) So "fuck you" is an ArbCom-approved edit summary now? DuncanHill (talk) 13:29, 20 May 2014 (UTC) So you're so stupid you think everything I write is ArbCom-approved beforehand? Or is this just more rhetorical gamesmanship? Believe it or not, I'm not "an Arb", I'm a human who volunteered to be on the ArbCom. No, it's just sometimes I forget that there is a type of person who sees nothing wrong with casually saying I'm probably dishonest, and thinks they're entitled to do so. I usually remember that I should just ignore such people, but sometimes I forget. --Floquenbeam (talk) 13:35, 20 May 2014 (UTC) Well, fuck you for that stunning example of either assuming bad faith or accusing me of stupidity - or both. Great to see your skills on display. For the record, I don't think you're being dishonest here (and can't recall if I've ever thought that you were being dishonest about anything else you've said or done). DuncanHill (talk) 13:43, 20 May 2014 (UTC)edited for clarity DuncanHill (talk) 14:57, 20 May 2014 (UTC) Floquenbeam, I remind you that I said nothing about you. In fact, I didn't even say ArbCom had done anything in this subthread. I said "If ArbCom had anything to do with..." (emphasis added here). Please, let's all calm down. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:45, 20 May 2014 (UTC) Could the original language be restored with a strikeout, so it can be read without going to the history? I don't think a display of strong feelings necessarily reflects badly on anyone, considering the situation. But the accountability of the ArbCom is at issue here, as it should be. —Neotarf (talk) 14:28, 20 May 2014 (UTC) And a certain attitude is being displayed by the floquenbeam on Arbcom where their response to a request for accountability is vulgar abuse. This whole exercise is proving K's point that a lot of admins including arbs are arrogant tossers who think that they are above everyone else. --92.238.57.40 (talk) 14:46, 20 May 2014 (UTC) (Not banned, just gone because of the arrogant tossers.) No point. The above discussion is clear: Request/demand for denial; Denial (with some unnecessary/rude verbiage). What's been refractored has been refractored -- as an apparent momentary lapse, and can easily be found by anyone. People sometimes take umbrage when a denial is demanded or requested. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:56, 20 May 2014 (UTC) Vulgar epithets to all; with a side of love. Peace!—John Cline (talk) 15:15, 20 May 2014 (UTC) Seconded, (not that I really fucking care very much mind). Hammersoft is quite right, but until Kumoiko provides documentation I don't see how we can progress this. Very likely this was "anyone" (and I'm prepared to believe it wasn't "official" after all this debate). God knows anyone's had enough encouragement. I do hope the initiating parties are now getting a sense of just how divisive their mischief was. They should ask themselves how this could possibly arise. If it was me that had pissed off Kumoiko so grievously, I can promise you that I (like most other reasonable adults, hell most children come to that) would have made the necessary apologies and concessions to restore good feeling or at least an understanding together. The only way that wouldn't have happened would have been if either or both of us was actually psychotic, and that's not the case. So it speaks volumes about the social skills (erm ... mental health) of the parties involved here, does it not? Liz above quite right to insist there should be a properly defined policy here. She wins my vote if she ever goes to RfA. Signing off here. Thanks to all. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 16:16, 20 May 2014 (UTC) Thanks, COMC. I have the feeling that editors keep adding to this discussion without reading the entire conversation that has occurred already. I see it this way: If editors feel that letters concerning long-time abusers should not be sent to their ISPs, that should be the focus of the discussion because this is not the first letter like this that has been sent out from Wikipedia and it is a very common procedure for websites. It's clear given the comments (above) that it is very unlikely to "destroy someone's job" or their life, this was even stated by Kumioko himself. I think dire consequences were stated in the email message to get Kumioko's attention to curb his behavior but, in fact, a report to an ISP is not likely to get someone fired. If editors truly believe this incident is the sign of some Wikipedia implosion or catastrophe, address the policy, not the people and not ARBCOM which had nothing to do with this letter. In fact, this discussion shouldn't even be occurring on Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee as it doesn't concern any acts done by the committee. It's a policy issue. Liz Read! Talk! 17:43, 20 May 2014 (UTC) Just a note - it needs to be remembered that this isn't just a note to an ISP, but a note to an employer. Where the employer and the ISP are known to be the same we can't reasonably wash our hands of the consequences. Having experienced an editor complaining to my employer about my editing in the past, I'm particularly conscious of the effects this can have on someone's real life. - Bilby (talk) 21:58, 20 May 2014 (UTC) I'm sorry that happened to you and I hope it didn't cause you any problems. I would be appalled at any user contacting another user's employer to complain about their editing. However, I would ask you to remember that this is not what we have here. This is a user who was banned by the community. (not ArbCom) When their appeal of their ban was denied they publicly announced their intent to troll and harass certain members of the community until their ban was lifted. The owner of some of the IPs they use to commit these abuses also happens to be their employer. Not the same situation at all. In fact the only thing that kept a report from being filed for so long was concern that it would impact him in real life. And in the end, just so we are clear, no decision was made by the committee. Someone acting on their own filed the actual report. And they were right, there has been constant abuse, ban evasion, and harassment coming from a variety of IPs operated by this troll. K claims to be a grown man, with a military record and a family, yet apparently the most important priority in his life is disrupting Wikipedia and harassing the committee. Don't feel sorry for him, he's an adult who knew full well what he was doing. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:56, 20 May 2014 (UTC) From what I can see of this, what Beeblebrox said here is the right conclusion to draw. And, without intending any disrespect to what Hammersoft meant in opening this thread, I would argue that we are well past the point where ArbCom, and everyone else, really should WP:DENY this, in the sense that the banned user has been getting way too much community attention over what happened. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:19, 20 May 2014 (UTC) I'm generally aware of the issues with this editor, but I'm not in a position to determine if contacting an employer was an appropriate response. It may well have been, although it is not a move I'd generally support. That said, my concern is an attitude that we can do one act (contact an ISP) without also taking into consideration that we are also knowingly performing a second act (contacting an employer). Saying that our intent is to do the first cannot be seen to absolve ourselves of the performance of the second. If the community is comfortable with contacting an employer in this case, then that's where we sit. But the community can't absolve themselves of responsibility and say that it was ok to contact an employer, because all we were doing was making an abuse report to an ISP - that doesn't work. - Bilby (talk) 23:58, 20 May 2014 (UTC) It seems intuitive to me that to enshrine a best practice of not contacting an ISP when that ISP is also the vandal's employer does nothing but give carte blanche to an editor who uses his or her employer's assets to perform said vandalism. I can hardly imagine a more detrimental stance! If clarification of our TOS is needed, then let's clarify; unequivocally, and say that an exception is mandated in circumstances such as these; while perhaps reserving implementation unto a select office, like Arbcom for example.—John Cline (talk) 00:30, 21 May 2014 (UTC) My concern is not that it will always be inappropriate to contact an employer. Personally, I've taken the line that it is inappropriate, but that's a personal stance. My concern is that we have to accept the consequences of doing so, and acknowledge that this is what we're doing. We can't absolve ourselves by saying that we were just filing an abuse report when we are also aware that the ISP is the person's employer. I'm worried that there is an emerging line of argument that we don't have to take this into consideration if it is simply an abuse report, and that seems to me to be a very mistaken line to take. Given that, your approach seems like a good one, as it is tackling both the consequences. - Bilby (talk) 00:45, 21 May 2014 (UTC) Could we get an indication of what was voted on, whether the vote was split, and the Arbcom's approach to the issues? There are partial quotations from individual arbs being posted elsewhere, and while I haven't checked their accuracy, they make it look like committee members were urging the action that was evidently taken. Is there some reason for secrecy on this issue? —Neotarf (talk) 03:59, 21 May 2014 (UTC) I think this is important. All the secrecy just leads to distrust. We need to see more transparency. Everyking (talk) 04:19, 21 May 2014 (UTC) This discussion is totally unhelpful. We know that some editors would not report an abuser to their ISP/employer, and some would. We know that Arbcom is a group of volunteers elected to deliberate on matters they think require their attention. Because Wikipedia is just a website, there is no need for a perfect system of governance with just the right amount of transparency that satisfies everyone. The best thing would be to resume WP:DENY and stop feeding an attention-seeker. Johnuniq (talk) 05:09, 21 May 2014 (UTC) Indeed, no one needed to make a banned user feel special, most elected to WP:RBI, or just Ignore. However, as far as I can see, AGK decided to Blank the user's SPI archive page (which has never been done before) supporting this by: Breaking BRD and editwarring Claiming that the "SPI archiving software" will edit through the blanking (The SPI was later archived manually, and indeed broke) Claiming his edits need several "checkusers or a larger number of editors" to revert Denying that he blocked 68.149.0.0/16 Making personal attacks Used rollback incorrectly When called on this he claims to have read the policy and misunderstood. He then apologises for "confusing anyone". Not for misusing rollback, not for breaking BRD, for edit warring, for out-of-process blanking, personal attacks, ABF.... Apparently create special (if ineffective) edit filters, expending valuable edit filter resources. Make /16 rangeblocks, a blunt instrument, especially where a /19 would do the job Threaten the user's livelihood and liberty, with a misleading email. All this trouble, invention and rule-breaking for "a minor banned, abusive user." This is an allegedly experienced admin, mediator, SPI'er, CU and arb. :These actions are indefensible. Time for AGK to hand in his hat collection. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 15:09, 22 May 2014 (UTC). In this case, the ISP is assigned to the employer. Are we supposed to give him a pass just because he deliberately chose to disrupt the website from his employers ISP?--MONGO 15:36, 22 May 2014 (UTC) How are you defining "disruption"? Eric Corbett 15:52, 22 May 2014 (UTC) Then it ought to be the same as any other employer. Contact the employer, name no names. AGK was not going to abide by that rule. KonveyorBelt 15:56, 22 May 2014 (UTC) AGK said the editor is "a minor banned, abusive user." He took the above list of actions agaisnt this user. Most of us do not rule out large IP range blocks, edit filters and abuse reports as options for dealing with, for example, real life stalkers, those sending threats, long term extreme vandalism. To invoke the full panoply against "a minor banned, abusive user" - even one whose good faith and past works was not as widely credited as this one, would be extreme and worrying. Coming from an Arbitrator it is worse. And backing it up by breaking so many basic tenets, misleading about consensus, and so forth makes it crystal clear, whatever else AGK may have to offer the project, he should not be involved in any sanction related roles. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:34, 22 May 2014 (UTC). A case filed with the committee is the last recourse and they may accept it, but this incessant whine will solve zero.--MONGO 17:01, 22 May 2014 (UTC) And indeed let us hope it doesn't come to a case - ArbCom have yet to reply to my email. Interesting, though, to be asked a direct question, and accused of an "incessant whine" when I answer it. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:50, 23 May 2014 (UTC). Convince us that none of this has anything to do with retribution, retaliation or revenge...--MONGO 01:02, 24 May 2014 (UTC) Funnily enough I was watching Blazing Saddles last night: we are all prawns tossing and turning in the ceaseless ebb and floe of history (*COAT stares straight into camera*), MONGO, never forget that. Retribution, retaliation and revenge would be fair enough reasons to go after AGK if this was just about him and we could deal with it by throwing him under a bus (lordie good golleee how do we do that? we find a bus and we throw him under it m'kay ...). But we do know how all this happened now 1 NewYorkBrad writes a long opinion about computer misuse wondering whether Kumioko can be nobbled by it (observe that computer misuse is not the same as web abuse and of its nature implies that the employer needs to be apprised of the misuse). NYB concludes that he can't, but nevertheless countenances K in the nicest possible way to walk away backwards from the situation whistling cheerfully (know what we mean?) 2 Risker posts bollocks the court case. All we have to do is contact the ISPs (know what we mean?) 3 surmised furious exchange of emails on ArbCom mailing list 4 AGK, who didn't make it to Secretary-General on force of intellect alone, emails K to tell him in the nicest possible sort of way that we at Wikipedia are going to give his boss a call if he carries on like this (know what I mean?) 5 someone points out that's not very fair and probably illegal and AGK should be thrown under a bus 6 further surmised furious exchange of emails on the ArbCom mailing list - what the fuck are we going to do now? 7 Jimbo saves the day. This is the American way so there (*phew*) 8 someone gives K's boss a call. So right. Nothing to see here. MONGO straight, ARBCOM straight, JIMBO straight. KUMIOKO not straight m'kay. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 08:58, 24 May 2014 (UTC) That's a hell of a conspiracy theory you have there.--MONGO 14:58, 24 May 2014 (UTC) It would be a conspiracy if it wasn't completely supported by facts provided by multiple people including the Arbs themselves. All you have to do is red the comments. They have admitted it themselves. Why else would they choose now to review their policies and procedures. So they can retroactively change their policies to allow them to do legitimately what is currently against policies they are ignoring and refusing to enforce on themselves. Several in this string have talked bad about Kumioko, which I used to agree with, but I for one have now seen that what Kumioko has been talking about is correct and have started to think that what they were saying about the abuse on this site has some validity. Not by their actions, but by the actions of the admins and Arbs he has been complaining about. 108.28.162.195 (talk) 16:41, 24 May 2014 (UTC) MONGO in denial. MONGO way over hills on choo-choo train (and thanks IP). Coat of Many Colours (talk) 16:49, 24 May 2014 (UTC) No problem and I should have said this before but it shows a lot about AGK's and the Arbcom that AGK hasn't been asked to resign as an arbitrator. Also, Coat of Many colors. If I may make a suggestion. It might be useful to link to the appropriate discussions in your 8 bullet statement above for those that may not have followed the whole drama as closely. 108.28.162.195 (talk) 18:14, 24 May 2014 (UTC) Between this discussion and the one on Jimbo's talk page, several people have suggested AGK resign. I disagree with this suggestion and I doubt it will happen but it has been brought up. However, the policy surrounding issuing ISP abuse reports is opaque, it seems, on purpose, and it isn't clear if any norms were violated. Liz Read! Talk! 20:40, 24 May 2014 (UTC) Oh hogwash, you can believe that if you want too but AGK and other arbs all violated multiple policies and I haven't even been editing that long. Not to mention this whole mess violates at least 3 of the 5 pillars that are supposed to be the most revered of all rules here. Wikipedia is free content that anyone can edit, use, modify, and distribute, clearly isn't the case; Editors should treat each other with respect and civility clearly wasn't followed and then theres Wikipedia does not have firm rules when it clearly does have not only firm rules, but apparently there are rules that rules can be broken if you are in a certain "trusted" billet like Arbcom. Then, looking under User:Jimbo Wales/Statement of principles we find #7. Anyone with a complaint should be treated with the utmost respect and dignity.. I'm not sure how the way Kumioko was treated can be considered having respect and dignity nor do I think whomever contacted their employer, whether arbcom or not, showed any honor in doing so. I can also see at least 8 from the list of policies here that were violated including No legal threats, Civility and Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point which was obviously a big part of making Kumioko an example. Frankly I think AGK, Arbcom as a whole a number of others should be ashamed of themselves. All this making excuses for Arbcom and its members doesn't help either. Either the policies exist or they don't, we cannot simply choose when they apply to best suit our needs or we are no better than those we are branding as the enemy like Kumioko. 108.28.162.195 (talk) 20:58, 24 May 2014 (UTC) There are rules. There are no rules. (See Tao Te Ching). That sounds flippant, but rules are Wikipedia are gray, as evidenced by the fact that, as 108 mentions, one of the five "big" rules is we don't rigidly follow rules for the sake of following rules. NE Ent 00:06, 25 May 2014 (UTC) @NE Ent: Policies shift and change. There is in fact no policy in place at present that allows the Wikimedia Foundation to make ISP abuse complaints let alone contact employers to make these complaints. If it can genuinely be argued, and I suspect the historical precedent shows that it can't, that making such abuse reports improves the encyclopaedia, then pillar five can reasonably be invoked to support making such complaints until such time that Terms of Service can be amended to reflect the new policy (plainly it's untenable to report an editor for abuse of ToS when that reporting procedure isn't even reserved in the ToS). It's common ground that K's behaviour was not criminal. No doubt it is strictly actionable given that he is making a nuisance of himself, but the chances of a civil action being successful in this case are remote given the energy and resources which the community devotes to these dramas in any case (there is a dialectic at work here is there not? and moreover K can claim pillar five on his own behalf, that he was genuinely trying to improve the encyclopaedia, can he not?). I don't know the law in the US, but in the EU contacting the employers as Wikipedia proposed (apparently has) would be an infringement of K's right to a private life as enshrined in article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights were he a citizen of the European Union. There is moreover a special issue possibly involved here, and that is in the case where Wikipedia brings pressure on a member of the armed forces in this way, then plainly issues of national security arise. Again I don't know what the situation is in the US, but in the UK I think AGK can safely assume he is on the radar at the round house. Other than those general remarks I haven't the faintest idea what it is you're arsing on about. Cheers. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 10:17, 25 May 2014 (UTC) Who said the WMF has made an ISP abuse complaint? Let's leave it up to the legal department to offer advice concerning whether someone's human rights has been infringed. I'm not sure who to ask for advice about a possible issue of national security, but perhaps this discussion is already being monitored... Johnuniq (talk) 11:21, 25 May 2014 (UTC) ArbCom surely acts on behalf of the WMF? Indeed I would be curious to know from the legal department what the situation is in California (location of servers). I'm researching this afternoon. I was pointing out a matter of fact regarding EU law. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 11:49, 25 May 2014 (UTC) See Wikipedia_talk:Edit_warring/Archives/2013/February#Florida_.E2.86.92_Virginia for the "location of servers" discussion. NE Ent 17:36, 25 May 2014 (UTC) Yes, thanks for that. ToS is apparently governed by the laws of the State of California. I should imagine the relevant legislation is this. I considered filing a case with ArbCom, but frankly what's the point? Thank you for your input. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 17:59, 25 May 2014 (UTC) I think this discussion has long since stopped serving any useful purpose. However, there is some very uninformed wild speculation going on here. For the record: ArbCom does not "act on behalf of the WMF". We sometimes have back-and-forth contact with the office for informational purposes but we do not act at their direction and we do not represent the foundation in any way. ArbCom did not act at all in this matter. We do not even know for certain that an abuse report was even filed, much less who filed it. All this talk about server locations, national security, and EU law is a lot of irrelevant noise. I suggest those pursuing those lines of argument/enquiry find something better to do with their time. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:08, 25 May 2014 (UTC) Arguably, vast swaths of the entire Wikipedia:: namespace are irrelevant noise, so there's nothing particularly special about this particular page. Since I'm not being paid to work here, I'm confident that how I choose to spend my wikitime is up to me. (If there's some policy suggesting otherwise, a link would be appreciated). In fact, while I don't agree with CoMC viewpoint, I have no reason to doubt their good faith; accordingly describing their contributions as "noise" is not entirely "respectful and considerate," we do have a policy on that, despite the fact that, collectively, we really don't seem to know what it means. NE Ent 18:32, 25 May 2014 (UTC) ArbCom doesn't recognise the WMF ToS? Wikipedia is an international project: the EU (old country) has its humble place in the grand design. I'm pretty sure there are military out there alarmed by what amounts to the public hazing of (apparently) one of its personnel. Don't bring it, and in conclusion consider boiling your head in acid. Thank you. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 18:29, 25 May 2014 (UTC) "Heads boiled in acid", is this a PG13 thread?--Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 18:46, 25 May 2014 (UTC) Me, I'm still laughing at the theory that ArbCom's review of its procedures is some kind of nefarious cover-up. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:05, 25 May 2014 (UTC) Yeah, to much Games of Thrones maybe? It seem to be going' around. This is becoming a bit much though. Incidentally, Coat of Many Colours, have you spent time in the military? Well, I have. Suprise! And I'm sure that there are as many people in uniform (among those aware of Wikipedia's existence) that have exactly the opposite take; i.e, "Who is this troublemaker? I hope this fuckup doesn't affect our Internet privileges". In other words, they don't want the actions of some fuckup negatively impacting their right to edit Wikipedia. Who the fuck do you think you are, anyway?--Ubikwit 連絡 見学/迷惑 19:39, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

@Ubikwit: Well, regarding the above, you have certainly made this an NC-17 thread in the tradition favoured by your mentor. One of the first people to come to K's defence here was a very respected administrator who certainly has been in the military and who took the issue to Jimbo's Talk page. I would say your response merely hardens my suspicion that at the bottom of all this is some good old fashioned hazing. I have posted a committed identity on my user page, that's who the fuck I am. HTH. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 20:00, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

@Coat of Many Colours: you are entitled to your opinion, but your posts seemed to more than push the bounds in more than one regard. the right to speak one's opinion is not the same as a license to speak as an authority.

I don't even know Kumioko, but I'm fairly convinced that he could probably being spending his time in more productive ways than he has been with respect to this site of late.

You, on the other hand, have a user name that resonates with medieval "coats of arms", etc., so you might want to tread a little more lightly in areas related to the modern military. Your posturing is not impressive to someone like me.

Incidentally, what were your trying to insinuate with the "your mentor" quip. --Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 20:44, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

It's a biblical reference Ubikwit. Sorry about the mentor jibe. I got the impression from your spirited langauage that you were a disciple of BB, but rereading I see that's not so and I apologise. Have you ever looked through Kumioko's edits about the military? They were very fine efforts indeed. Whatever went wrong here, it went profoundly wrong. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 21:07, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

OK, CMC, no problem, apology accepted.

I take it that you mean you user name is a biblical reference. OK, well, then I just exposed my erudition in terms of biblical scholarship... i need to get back around to that eventually, but I've been fortunate enough to make my way to a path that continually provides me with fresh subjects of interest. As I mentioned, I'm not familiar with Kumioko's editing at all. So while I don't have anything against the guy, and would be happy for him if people find a way t rehabilitate his status here if he could become productive again, the conflagration surrounding this incident seems to have grown beyond any sense of proportion. I don't know your history with BB, but the "boil your head in acid" remark was a bit over the top!

By the way, the military was not much fun most of the time, but it had its moments of camaraderie, etc. It also provided me with a modicum of discipline that I believe has served me well. I suppose I owe Wikipedia a debt of gratitude for this encounter, which made me revisit that in a new context. Anyway, hope to encounter you again under better circumstances. Regards. --Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 21:39, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Cheers Ubikwit. Thanks for that. Appreciated. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 22:07, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003 - California Business and Professions Code sections 22575-22579

I see that the preceding section where I raised this has been closed by an administrator. Can I ask AGK to explain to we the community where Wikipedia's privacy policy complies with the above in relation to his advice (which I suggest can only reasonably be construed as a threat) that Wikipedia would post an abuse complaint with Kumioko's employer? The relevant section is at 22575 b (1) and reads: "The privacy policy required by subdivision (a) shall do all of the following:( 1) Identify the categories of personally identifiable information that the operator collects through the Web site or online service about individual consumers who use or visit its commercial Web site or online service and the categories of third-party persons or entities with whom the operator may share that personally identifiable information." Thank you. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 20:25, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

It's all spelled out here. I assume "It is the policy of Wikimedia that personally identifiable data collected in the server logs, or through records in the database via the CheckUser feature, or through other non-publicly-available methods, may be released by Wikimedia volunteers or staff [...] Where the user has been vandalizing articles or persistently behaving in a disruptive way, data may be released to a service provider, carrier, or other third-party entity to assist in the targeting of IP blocks, or to assist in the formulation of a complaint to relevant Internet Service Providers" is the bit that applies, assuming they can demonstrate that the user "has been vandalizing articles or persistently behaving in a disruptive way". Mogism (talk) 20:33, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, thank you. I considered that, but the section of AGK's email I take issue with says "If you are in the armed forces, or a civilian employee of them, you are jeopardising your employment and risking real life disciplinary action. Please do not force us to contact your employer.". Where in the privacy policy does Wikipedia says it reserves for itself the right to contact employers in the way AGK was envisaging? At the least I would expect a qualification such as " ... a complaint to relevant Internet Service Providers (who may be the user's employer)" I don't think it reasonable to argue that the scope of "relevant" extrends to "employers". Jimbo in his closure of the discussion on his Talk page said "A report to Kumioko's ISP, whether an employer or not, is long overdue", so it can only be that Wikipedia reserves for itself the right to report users to their employers and this must therefore be made transparently clear in the privacy policy to comply with 22575 b (1). Coat of Many Colours (talk) 20:57, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

You will have to discuss Jimbo Wales' comments with him. I do not believe he usually monitors this (the Arbitration Committee's) talk page.

I believe the correct interpretation of my e-mail has already been explained elsewhere[1]. To summarise again for you: nobody would, I hope and to my knowledge, set out to contact Kumioko's employer. However, somebody was likely to contact his ISP, in line with Wikipedia's usual approach to ban and TOU violators, and my point was that his ISP is his employer. The law, nor the statute which you have quoted for us here, does not go out of its way to afford undue protection to people who are harmed in the process of doing something they should not have been doing. AGK [•] 21:29, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

• @Coat of Many Colours: You propose that I threatened to sack Kumioko, despite my repeatedly saying I did not intend to do so, and despite Kumioko saying, at one point, that he actually thought, in the end, that it was probably the right thing that he was forewarned about the possibility of an abuse report being filed. You are calling me a liar. Fine; let's play that out. If I were, my actual objective would have been to cause Kumioko's employer to discipline him. Would a far more effective way of doing so not have been to simply write his employer an anonymous letter, and give him no warning whatsoever? Exactly what do you suspect me of here – is it of wanting Kumioko to be sacked, by not getting him sacked? Do you not see the fatal inconsistency in your logic? AGK [•] 21:29, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

• I see no evidence of CoMC calling AGK a liar. It would be best -- before this thread gets hatted and yet another starts -- to dial down the rhetoric; I'd like AGK to strike the "liar" comment or provide a diff. I'll also note that AGK has provided sufficient explanation of his thinking that any reasonable editor would say he's more than met the requirements of WP:ADMINACCT, so he needed feel compelled to answer the same question over and over. NE Ent 21:54, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

• As much as I wish that were the case, CoMC has asserted that my email can only reasonably be construed as a threat, despite – as you graciously describe – my saying, over and over, that I wished to do no such thing. We cannot ignore the elephant in the room: that he thinks me a liar. But actually, it's the flimsy reasoning that troubles me most. AGK [•] 22:02, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

It could not possibly seen as an nice chat. It seems to me that it quacks too much to be called anything else. But hey.....threatening our armed forces to out them over edits on Wikipedia does indeed sound like something that violates our terms of service, our policies and procedures. Not to mention it was just plain rude. But hey....this isn't a love fest. AGK did what he did and there doesn't seem to be much anyone can do about it. He doesn't seem to get the concerns of others and that as well is cool...just not something I support or even understand. But then he did this on his own and not a part of arbcom as i understand it.--Mark Miller (talk) 22:16, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Regarding ex turpi that's a principle of English law which relates to a plaintiff's remedy in law when his own actions were illegal but 1 this isn't about Kumioko's remedies but rather his rights 2 his actions weren't illegal.

That much I can do pissed and half-asleep. The rest will have to wait until I've slept it off. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 22:19, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Please pass a motion authorising discretionary sanctions for Islam- and/or Islamophobia-related articles

Well, you see, I was at the Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions page and clicked on "talk", and this is where I was redirected to. I have no idea where I am or should be, but this is a post about discretionary sanctions.

Having followed Stop Islamization of America for some time, I've been struck (if not exactly surprised) by how polarized the editing is there, and how many SPAs seem to be here solely for the purpose of inserting The Truth™ into that and similar articles. Why don't we have discretionary sanctions enabled for Islam-, or Islamophobia-, related articles? Are they less infested with disruption and POV-pushing and zealots than Tree Shaping? (No.) I know why: because there hasn't been an RFAR about them. (Strangely enough, imo, but whatever.) Isn't it time we had a light-weight DS procedure, that wouldn't need the full majesty of an RFAR, but that would merely after a short (what am I saying?) discussion by arbs determine whether or not standard discretionary sanctions were needed for an area. Oh, look, that procedure already exists: "Discretionary sanctions may be authorised either as part of the final decision of an arbitration case or by committee motion."[2] Great, where should I request that a motion be considered? Here? I'll try: Please pass a motion authorising discretionary sanctions for Islam- and/or Islamophobia-related articles. Bishonen | talk 19:06, 22 May 2014 (UTC).

I full well support this proposal, and am quite willing to bribe any arbs willing to see the sense of it with free trips to Mars or any of the other near planets if that is what it takes. There are quite a few long-lasting controversies regarding matters of religion and law, and about multiple "new religious movements" or religious discrimination of various sorts. Actually, I think they might be some of our most contentious topics. Granted, I can't (or won't, because I'm a lazy bastard) actually name them all here, and I haven't gotten together the material to verify them that would be needed, but I think it would be extremely useful if we knew that at this point we had some sort of comparatively rapid process to finally end some of these topics of long-term contentiousness. John Carter (talk) 19:16, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

This can be done in two different ways: 1. you open a request for arbitration and, if ArbCom is convinced that discretionary sanctions are needed (and sufficient), we can pass a motion in lieu of a case, thereby authorising their imposition; alternatively, 2. one of us may propose, sua sponte, a motion on a different page (Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Motions). In the first case, you'd have to provide evidence of widespread disruption; in the latter, it would be up to the proposing arbitrator, which means that it would probably take longer, unless one of us is already keeping an eye on the topic area at hand. Alternatively, but this is something entirely different, you can ask for community discretionary sanctions on AN. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 21:22, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions aren't as effective if they don't originate from an arbitration case (cf. the failure of community discretionary sanctions in the Troubles). As a consequence, we may not be able to just pass the motion and be done with it. AGK [•] 23:06, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

As I think we all understand how extremely problematic it might be to place all Islam related content (which also relates to the narrower topic of Islamophobia) under discretionary sanctions, I think it would be in everyone's best interests if the scope of any potential sanctions were limited a bit at least in terms of the nature of edits, and I tend to think that the ArbCom is probably the best group of people to try to review such. Certainly, ANI and similar pages would be overwhelmed with input regarding such a potentially broad matter. I would also perhaps hope that an Arbitration case might make some decisions regarding possibly problematic edits regarding some new religious movements. There are a rather large number of such which are in some way "restorationist" groups claiming to have the original, lost version of some older faith at their core, or other serious potentially revisionist beliefs. Unfortunately, many of them are also based overseas, in areas where English isn't the main language, so the majority of the academic material is in foreign languages only a few people can read. The likelihood of prejudicial selection of such difficult to acquire material by individuals with a clear POV problem is, honestly, a fairly frequent concern.

Compiling evidence on a case-by-case basis would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, particularly as, unfortunately, the texts proving bias are kind of impossible for most of us to read. And, unfortunately, many of the somewhat controversial NRMs have SPA editors who seem to be almost single-mindedly interested in seeing the articles support their opinions. As Islamophobia itself is, kind of I guess, an NRM, maybe it might be posible to somehow address issues regarding some of the other less-frequented, but frequently extremely problematic, regardihg some non-Islamic problems as well. John Carter (talk) 23:39, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

@Bishonen: If you propose this on WP:AN I wouldn't be surprised if the community votes to authorise general sanctions (echoing ArbCom discretionary sanctions). If it already has been I apologise but that might be a good place to start before coming to ArbCom. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 06:23, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

@Bishonen: I endorse this suggestion. AN (not ANI) is the appropriate place for this. Wording is important - something about articles relating to anti-Islamic and Islamophobia issues. Although I take John Carter's point, I think we need to start with something more clearcut. I will say now that although a revert restriction sounds attractive at first, I think a significant amount of the problems are about edits by SPAs and sock puppets/IP hoppers, and revert restrictions don't work with them as well. An ArbCom case is also likely to be more drama-ridden then AN, although I could be shown to be wrong. Dougweller (talk) 13:45, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

I too support this approach - though I would suggest WP:VP or a dedicated RFC page for the venue - it is community sanctions after all, not admin sanctions. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:27, 24 May 2014 (UTC).

I'm back

Greetings Arbs, I just wanted to check in and let you I sent you a couple emails. Also, I was trying to be as obvious with my accounts as I could but I see some clever admin (hi Kww, I'm referring to you) decided to blacklist usernames containing Kumioko. It doesn't make it hard on me, just you. I'll stop back by tomorrow to leave a note or 2. Please consider my request in the email. I would really like to end this silliness from me and abusiveness from you. Kumi'sback (talk) 00:08, 28 May 2014 (UTC)