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Arbitration Committee proceedings
Request name Motions Initiated Votes
ARBPIA 3   23 November 2011 {{{votes}}}
Unblocks and enabling Motions 26 October 2011 {{{votes}}}
[edit]
Open cases

Currently, no arbitration cases are open.

[edit]
Recently closed cases (Past cases)
Case name Closed
Venezuelan politics 25 May 2024
Request name Motions  Case Posted
Amendment request: Conduct in deletion-related editing Motion (orig. case) 4 June 2024
Amendment request: Article titles and capitalisation none (orig. case) 13 May 2024
Clarification request: Extended confirmed restriction none none 29 May 2024

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

Requests for arbitration


ARBPIA 3

Initiated by Peter cohen (talk) at 13:49, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
  • N/A
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried
  • N/A

Statement by Peter cohen

I think the time has been reached for another ARBPIA case. The specific trigger has been the recent ANI thread where the person fixing a CCI was accused by the copyright-violator of being motivated by bias, then when a third-party admin blocked the violator, he was in turn accused of being biased against one side of the debate] because of his history as an active admin at WP:AE. Both WP:AE and WP:CCI are thankless areas where very few editors are prepared to do the donkey work. These editors need support from the community. When their credibility is attacked, they need support from the community and from Arbcom.

I also feel that recent developments require a renewal of commitment to previous Arbcom actions. Instead of being a place to talk about the moderation of behaviour, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration/Current Article Issues is very much part of the WP:BATTLEGROUND. Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (West Bank) has been subject to interpretations that stretch my personal ability to WP:Assume good faith though may not stretch others'. When the previous solutions are being abused or thought to be bring abused, then Arbcom needs to look at them again.

(More to follow but this should be enough to test whether there is a feeling of whether my calling for a case is premature or timely. I'm off to IPCOLL to invite people to add themselves as parties. I would rather have the obvious people on each sides volunteer than be nominated.)--Peter cohen (talk) 14:16, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My thanks to Michael for his evidence. I've toned down what I've said above somewhat.
In reply to Risker, I would not regard an Arbcom case that purely resulted in half a dozen topic bans as useful. What I'm looking for more is an examination of how the current weapons such as AE, IPCOLL, the naming conventions etc are functioning. My perception is that there is more battleground behaviour taking place in what were once areas used to resolve issues. And also some of the AE admins are being accused of being partial, which is no good.
A further issue is the socking by Canadian Monkey (talk · contribs · count) who was topic banned under two different identities in one of the previous ARBPIA cases. People who react to his socks and try to deal with them are vulnerable to be being accused of a battleground mentality in the process of doing so. I'm aware of a user on the other side of the battle who editors also think is topic banned sock. So this can be discussed as a more general issue and nto made specific to the one person.--Peter cohen (talk) 22:51, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Michael Netzer

Thank you Peter cohen for bringing this to Arbcom.

In understanding passions that drive the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it's not a big wonder that it reverberates loudly also at Wikipedia. But regardless of how aggressive or loud both sides might become, the integrity of the encyclopedia remains contingent on a fair balance of information. It would not be objective to infringe on positions such as "the villainy of occupation" or "the appropriation of a people's land", by the same measure that it would not be so for "a people's historic belonging in their homeland" or "the aggressions that wrought the calamity".

There are two issues, which seem to be intertwined, that I've tried to point out in articles on settlements (and perhaps others in the IP area). They both rest on previously achieved agreements: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (West Bank) and Wikipedia_talk:Legality_of_Israeli_settlements.

It seems to me that these agreements have been applied a little too aggressively by some editors, in a way that overextends their original intent. My involvement in the editing of Alon Shvut drew me into a series of lengthy debates with editors who seem to have imposed a standard that shifts the weight in the article (and subsequently other articles where the same standard has been applied) towards an over-empahsis of some issues of the conflict, to the detriment of others that would produce a more balanced and objective representation.

Though I would not envy arbitrators who'd need to review the lengthy discussions that have led us here, it seems to be a necessity for understanding the nature of the dispute rising from them, certainly better than any collection of diffs could tell. The relevant sections on talk pages are:

I'd think the various positions are made clear by everyone's arguments in them. I've summed up mine in the beginning of the subsetion at IPCOL: Main Points. My primary concern is to know whether Arbcom ratifies the 5 main points of my summation derived from the two agreements (without exclusion of anything else in them), and whether a clear statement on these issues can become a more enforceable policy.

This is only an opening statement and will certainly need some elaboration. I somewhat shudder, however, at the possibility that the same drawn out and often tangential argumentation that's characterized the discussions so far will repeat itself here, so I'll try my best not to feed the fire. I'll comment more if asked for clarifications or if there seems to become a serious need for it.

Thanks again. --MichaelNetzer (talk) 22:16, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Peter. I understood your concern from the beginning and appreciate the clarification. --MichaelNetzer (talk) 23:09, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Jsolinsky, the debates grew from failed attempts to resolve edit conflicts through existing procedures. The other choices were to either engage in disruptive edit wars, or ignore a serious POV push that's being aggressively applied on these pages. The atmosphere there is one of a visceral battleground of political rhetoric and intimidation. The debate reveals serious disagreements on the word, spirit and intent of existing compromises. Arbcom's clarification of what the previous agreements intended is very much needed, and cannot be brushed off by trivializing the heat rising from the debates. --MichaelNetzer (talk) 03:41, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I posted a somewhat lengthy appeal to arbitrators but was advised to shorten it. It was as succinct as possible given what it needs to say. I've seen another one like it here but I can't be sure it permits me to do it also. So it's now in a sandbox page. I ask arbitrators and anyone interested to read it in the following link:
Appeal to Arbitrators --MichaelNetzer (talk) 06:40, 25 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Nishidani

Background WP:WESTBANK was devised to resolve chronic edit-warring over the vox propria for that region. For 2 years, experienced editors on both sides abstained from inserting the casus belli terminology, 'Judea and Samaria' arbitrarily into articles on settlements. Michael in his sandbox appeal to Arbitrators writes:

I'm not sure what happened over the last two years because I wasn't involved with this area of the encyclopedia. What I do know is that when I did become involved about a month ago, the terms were pretty much non-existent in articles about settlements. I soon discovered that some editors who sought to prohibit the use of the terms reverted an edit that added it.

Exactly. That was the result of a policy-based consensus he alone started to insist was misguided.

What we now have is an innovation, in which one editor has begun to assert that WP:WESTBANK has not been understood, and that in fact one can begin to reintroduce 'Judea and Samaria' (settler POV) as gloss where The West Bank is identified as the area where settlements are established. Those party to the original agreement say the Protocol established a strict delimitation on the term 'Judea and Samaria' (being a settler POV) and this innovation therefore constitutes an abusive misreading of the Protocols (WP:WESTBANK #4#6). It is not a content issue primarily - we haven't edit-warred - but a rerunning of the pre-Arbpia dispute, which I, for one, thought resolved. So clarification is required. Has the ARBPIA agreement of 2 years ago been thoroughly misunderstood by nearly everyone, as Michael Netzer claims may well be the case in his reply to my comment here and here? Nishidani (talk) 09:28, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If one can, as these two editors have tried to do, gloss The West Bank by Judea and Samaria in the article on Alon Shvut, logically, every settlement in the West Bank can be glossed in the same way. In short, propositionally, Michael and Gila are asserting that where you have The West Bank, you may add Judea and Samaria. That makes all of the work and extensive negotiations undertaken two years ago essentially void.

My understanding of the protocols (#4) is that The West Bank is the default term ('is to be used'). If the precedent Michael and Gilabrand are trying to insert is established, it strikes me as linguistic legerdemain, it would mean that #4 is not to be taken the way, for 2 years, everybody save anonymous and automatically reverted IP editors have construed it to mean. It means that the IP editors' abusive defiance of our common understanding of the protocols was actually prescient and correct. We chose The West Bank as the default term for wiki's neutral voice. If it is to be accompanied invariably by the settler-partisan gloss 'Judea and Samaria' the whole point of the protocol is lost.Nishidani (talk) 23:22, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To provide arbitrators with a thumbnail quote from one of the world's leading authorities on this subject:

'Judea and Samaria are the biblical names for the general areas south and north of Jerusalem (respectively). Historically, they include substantial portions of pre-1967 Israel, but not the Jordan Valley or the Benyamin district (both within the West Bank). For political purposes, and despite the geographical imprecision involved, the annexationalist camp in Israel prefers to refer to the area between the green line and the Jordan River not as the West Bank, but as Judea and Samaria. Ian Lustick, For the land and the Lord: Jewish fundamentalism in Israel, 1988 (1994) p.205 n.4.

Statement by Jsolinsky

I'm new to these disputes, having become an active editor Israel and Palestine related articles very recently.

I think that the previously existing compromises are excellent, and do not need to be changed. I do not believe that any Arbcom case is required. Jsolinsky (talk) 23:47, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I also believe that the scope of the debate surrounding this matter is grossly disproportionate to the actual underlying disputes which are, themselves, amenable to being addressed through existing methods of dispute resolution. Jsolinsky (talk) 00:00, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In general, it not reasonable to expect a global compromise like WP:WESTBANK to provide an unambiguous resolution in every instance to which it is applied. Reasonable people can disagree about what the compromise means in the context of a given article. We have existing procedures that can be used when reasonable people (or even questionably reasonable people) disagree about a particular article. Rather than having a freewheeling debate and attempting to impose some global solution, the disputes should be addressed at (and in the context of) their source. In my opinion, this is happening because people on both sides WANT to have a freewheeling debate. Arbcom does not exist to provide a forum for pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian editors eager to score a win in editor on editor combat. Jsolinsky (talk) 00:00, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Sean.hoyland

I've not been involved in an ARBPIA case so I'm not exactly sure how they work but I do wonder whether it may be worth revisiting the wording of the discretionary sanctions. It's always struck me as odd that while editors are absolutely required to edit from a neutral point of view in the topic area, many don't. Obviously this won't come as a surprise to anyone but why isn't it a surprise ? There's a rule, people don't follow it, and nothing happens to them unless they happen to break a technical rule about revert counts etc. Is the "Editors counseled" section of the discretionary sanctions clear enough ? It says

  • 5) Editors who find it difficult to edit a particular article or topic from a neutral point of view and adhere to other Wikipedia policies are counseled that they may sometimes need or wish to step away temporarily from that article or subject area.

Should it say something like the following ?

  • 5) Editors who can be shown to be consistently editing a particular article or topic from a non-neutral point of view without a valid reason and not adhering to other Wikipedia policies are counseled that they may be topic banned.

I know many people have reservations about trying to measure neutrality or expecting individuals to be neutral but editors are already expected to be able to reliably assess neutrality, recognize non-neutrality and help build neutral articles. I can imagine scenarios where an editor might make a whole bunch of edits to an article or topic that is hopelessly biased and needs fixing. Those edits, taken out of context, might superficially resemble the actions of a non-neutral editor but real POV pushing, consistently non-neutral editing, is usually pretty obvious. I don't think the message that editors must edit neutrally is getting across and I don't think there are working mechanisms in place to deal with editors who consistently edit in a non-neutral way, use low quality or partisan sources to POV push, tendentiously challenge reliably sourced material etc. I don't know what the solution is but I don't think the current wording of the discretionary sanctions is helping. Sean.hoyland - talk 19:29, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Zero0000

The purpose of the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (West Bank) is to prevent the ideologically loaded phrase "Judea and Samaria" being used in the voice of Wikipedia instead of, or with equal status to, the neutral common English name "West Bank". There are of course those, of which MichaelNetzer is currently the most insistent, who don't like the convention and are attempting to thwart it by a combination of violations, endless rhetoric, and wikilawyering. This needs to stop, and the convention needs to be enforced. Examples of the argument presented are:

  • "Based on Article #5, it should be possible to say 'Alon Shvut is an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, administered by Israel as part of the Judea and Samaria Administrative Area.'" — This simply ignores the wording of article 5, which prohibits the use of this formula when "referring to a specific land area". The very reason the words "referring to a specific area" are present there is to prevent the purpose of the convention being circumvented by adding the word "area" to an otherwise forbidden phrase. The positive aspect of article 5 is to permit articles like Judea and Samaria Area, which is about an Israeli administrative unit, not to allow this alternative way of saying some location is in "Judea and Samaria".
  • "the West Bank, a geographical area historically known by its biblical names Judea and Samaria" — this again is a stunt intended to bypass the intention of the convention by pretending that the word "historically" somehow makes article 6 inapplicable (which lists allowable uses that do not include this one).

There is no point in having conventions if they aren't enforced, and to the extent the wording of conventions is ambiguous they should be interpreted according to their clear intent. I don't know the best way to handle this, but there should be a way to get an enforceable decision regarding the interpretation of a convention. If this request is not the right way to do it, please specify what is. It does not work for interested parties to discuss it, it needs outside intervention, either arbcom or some collection of uninvolved admins. Zerotalk 11:01, 25 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

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

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/1/1/3)

  • Before joining ArbCom, I was an admin who was active in WP:ARBPIA arbitration enforcement, and in this context, I'll recuse. PhilKnight (talk) 19:36, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment- Not sure a case is actually needed here, as the editor involved is currently indefinitely blocked and the community appears to be addressing this situation as I write. Perhaps the folks who might otherwise post here would do a greater service to the project by helping to conduct the CCI and the necessary restorative edits. Risker (talk) 21:48, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I agree that there are still issues in this area that need to be resolved. However, I am not yet convinced that this would be the best place to resolve them (SPI for socking, the CCI investigation continuing etcetera). I will wait for further statements before issuing a formal decline however. SirFozzie (talk) 23:12, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Leaning oppose, per Risker and SirFozzie, but willing to be persuaded by additional statements that there are ArbCom-level interventions needed, again. Jclemens (talk) 02:41, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline - I was involved in the beginning of the current flareup but have been diverted for a time. Now we might need a motion to get some fine tuning done at West Bank naming guidelines. I will read and see what we need to do. We do need to do something, just cogitating for a bit. Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:32, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline. John Vandenberg (chat) 15:07, 25 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unblocks and enabling

Initiated by Georgewilliamherbert (talk) at 08:04, 2 November 2011‎

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
  • [1] Mkativerata
  • [2] Kaldari
  • Georgewilliamherbert filing party
  • Notification to Malleus per his informal request to be notified [3]


Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Georgewilliamherbert

This is an unfortunate situation and one I would much rather not be filing. It involves longstanding editors and administrators who are generally productively active in some of the most problematic areas on Wikipedia today. However, it's only the most recent in a very long history of similar block/unblock cycles, which have been periodic and persistent enough to earn a specific nickname - "enabling unblocks". At some point this requires a systematic response rather than ongoing disruption.

In short summary, this incident proceeded in the following sequence (ANI archive thread [9]:

1. Malleus Fatuorum (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) and Tbhotch (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) got into a name calling dispute on Talk:Manchester United F.C. arguing over singular vs plural grammar.
2. Tbhotch reported the incident to ANI
3. Mkativerata responded first, arguing that neither party was in the right and that administrators should not intervene
4. Further comments from Guerillero, Tbhoch, John, Wikidemon, and Quinn follow.
5. Kaldari responds with: "I warned Malleus about making personal attacks last month. Clearly he hasn't taken it to heart. Blocking for 24 hours. Kaldari (talk) 02:57, 26 October 2011 (UTC)" [10]
6. SandyGeorgia commented that the block was asymmetrical despite roughly equal misbehavior, with a brief exchange with Tbhoch.
7. Kaldari answered: "I blocked Malleus because I recently warned him against exactly this sort of behavior. If the other party also warrants blocking, let me know. I am not familiar with that editor's history, however. Kaldari (talk) 03:08, 26 October 2011 (UTC)" [11]
8. Bushranger edit conflicted with Kaldari, roughly supporting his position / noting long history w/Malleus.
9. Volunteer Marek objected to the block. Discussion with all of the above except Mkativerata, eventually adding Dayewalker, followed.
10. Kaldari left a warning for Tbhotch at 03:12. [12]
11. Tarc called for unblock in a new subsection at 03:23. Bushranger opposed, further discussion followed with several additional users. Rough even split on the block.
12. Mkativerata unblocked without participation in the ANI discussion and without an effort to contact Kaldari, at 0345. Unblock message was: "(ANI is clear. I made the call not to block. An editor does not get blocked because one out 2,000 administrators happens upon ANI and decides to. First come, first served.)"

Per policy: Wikipedia:BLOCK#Unblocking Except in cases of unambiguous error, administrators should avoid unblocking users without first attempting to contact the blocking administrator to discuss the matter. If the blocking administrator is not available, or if the administrators cannot come to an agreement, then a discussion at the administrators' noticeboard is recommended.

A number of similar issues have been addressed by Arbcom relating to Arbitration Enforcement blocks, and a somewhat stricter guideline was laid down as a result of those cases. This case requests review for similar persistent non-AE problem related blocks.

The issues with this unblock include:

  1. Failure to establish unambiguous error. There was considerable noticeboard discussion, including a number of admins who believed the block to be flawed or in error. However, there was a significant body of discussion there prior to the unblock, which was approximately 50:50. The assertion in the unblock message "ANI is clear" was a mistake, false, or intentionally misleading.
  2. Assertion of an oft-repeated but never policy-recognized first mover advantage for noticeboard respondents. If the first administrator who responds to a noticeboard request declines to do something, that has not in any meaningful sense prohibited others from acting after seeing the discussion. Indeed, it cannot; it would punish administrators who were in the process of responding elsewhere, or were unaware of the filing of a noticeboard report. It establishes an unreasonable first mover advantage in administrator disputes, which Arbcom has repeatedly stressed it does not want to see happen on the project, with considerable community support.
  3. Failure to make a good faith effort to contact or notify the blocking administrator. As the ANI thread demonstrates, Kaldari was online and responsive during the time period.
  4. Failure to make a good faith effort to participate in the noticeboard thread. The thread was active and available; Mkativerata made one and only one edit in the thread, at the beginning. He made no effort to engage in the discussion there.

A number of valid questions were posed regarding the block - SandyGeorgia and others on the lack of symmetry, several on whether it rose to requiring administrator intervention. Mkativerata raised 3 in the discussion that followed on his talk page:

"(1) Why did Kaldari block an editor in a dispute when an uninvolved administrator had already decided not to block either editor in the dispute? (2) Why did Kaldari do so without consulting that admin or getting consensus for the block? (3) Was Kaldari involved, having been very recently been in direct conflict with the editor he blocked over an article matter?" [13] -Mkativerata

I do not know if or assert those those concerns are all necessarily factually true or correct, but they were raised and discussed.

Arbcom may wish to consider the wisdom of the block. Kaldari is a named party.

My primary focus here, however, is the unblock. In my opinion, this was the latest example of enabling unblocks, done in a disorderly manner and without respect for or consideration for the blocking administrator. It is entirely possible that the block was not in keeping with best practices, unfair and asymmetrical, downright mistaken, or any of the other objections prove sufficient to overturn.

Such unblocks are disrupting the ability of Wikipedia to handle disputes. They are disrespectful and abusive to other administrators, policy, and the community as a whole. The policy was written to allow admins to do the right thing, but strongly encourage them to do it civilly and constructively and collaboratively. That has manifestly failed here as it has repeatedly in the past.

This is an ongoing, oft repeated pattern. We need to establish that this is not OK behavior by administrators.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 08:04, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Responding to Mkativerata's first reply, I refer to this discussion on my talk page regarding the discussion and proto-filing [14]. I repeat my words from there:
It's a disputed and controversial block, not a bad block. There is a difference. I believe the difference is subtle but pertains to when the "except in cases of clear error" in the block policy kicks in, and that particular point has been much ignored and abused. That's the point of all this. With a disputed consensus on ANI, with due notification and discussion, an uninvolved administrator can without controversy or without abusing the policy unblock someone. But - I argue, and I believe importantly - should not simply pull the trigger. Several strong opinions that its bad do not a consensus make when there are countervailing opinions that it was good. Unambiguous bad blocks without support clearly meet "clear error". This incident was exactly and precisely on the line of the problem, and is in fact a perfect test case.
This only "enshrines" an advantage to the first blocker to the degree that absent unambiguous consensus, admins should make a good faith effort to either discuss at the noticeboard and obtain consensus, or discuss with the blocking administrator, prior to unilaterally acting. The community has invested significant faith in the good judgement of admins in giving them the mop; other admins should respect that and not overturn one another without regard or consideration. This is not "don't overturn them". The investment of 15 minutes of discussion prior to the unblock would have eliminated the basis for this complaint. If one is not willing to invest just that much time in community discussion and consensus-building, and at least an effort to notify the blocking admin, should one be wielding the mop? I am not proposing that one must *get* consensus or blocking admin's agreement - just make at least a good faith effort to discuss and get input anytime it's not legitimately "clear error". IDONTLIKEIT is not "clear error", and admins mistaking the two are the crux of the matter. We trust each other to overturn each others' actions when warranted - but not that much. Either put the effort in, or put up the mop. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 08:54, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Re striking - with respect, no. If I believed ANI had been clear and supporting the unblock (at the time of the unblock, or any time since) we would not be here; that would meet the "clear error" criterion already established. It was not, and your insistence that it was despite my multiple requests on your talk page is why we are here. Controversial - and 50/50 is controversial - is not "clear error". Controversial is grounds for unblock, but not for unblock without good faith efforts. So here we are. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 09:01, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Again with respect - this is the first time in several days of talk page discussions you've stated that interpretation or intention to your block message. If that's what you intended, no, it's not at all clear in context, nor was it the impression I (and several others) got from it. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 09:11, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Having reviewed and reflected, I now AGF that Mkativerata's "ANI is clear" was intended to convey something other than how I (and a number of others) read it initially, and not an intentional misrepresentation of the disputed consensus situation on ANI, rather a restatement of his own position there. I hope that he will take some responsibility for the phrasing having confused and greatly concerned a number of admins and editors, but I am reasonably convinced it was not malign, and have struck that section. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 08:00, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Re the Arbs' "This is not worth demopping / settle by restatement motion / minor compared to other admin problems this week" comments (rolling several up into one response) -
  • I don't (and didn't) think it's necessarily anything like a demop, though my faith in Mkativerata's judgement as a result of the incident and subsequent discussion is reduced. However,
    • Admins are practically impossible to sanction in any way short of Arbcom (not totally, but in any feasible sense)
    • This is an ongoing, oft-repeated (if not everyday) problem. It's persistent. If a motion doesn't have teeth here, it will come back. Several others have commented on this aspect of it below.
  • I am happy with a motion that will be sufficient to settle it, if you can craft one.
    • I don't think simply restating existing policy and reminding people will have enough teeth.
  • Re minor compared to other admin problems - True, but the long-term pattern here has to be considered. By itself this incident would be worthy only of letting settle into the dustbin of ANI history. As an ongoing pattern, it becomes something which calls out for review and response.
This is a good test case for the problem for a number of reasons. One, the admin who unblocked is not generally otherwise engaged in borderline behavior that I know of. Two, It was a rough 50:50 breakdown of opinion on ANI after the block and before the unblock. This puts it clear of both "clear error" where a rapid unblock is already permitted, and "community consensus support" where an unblock would be at least controversial and likely improper.
The reasons that seem to be being taken as justification to decline are also reasons to accept, IMHO.
Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:43, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding Roger Davies recent comment "Enforcing as written" -
Is that not what the underlying case request was all about, after all?
Arbcom set such a restriction against wheel-warring that the community *can't* enforce it as written. The rules form an unsatisfiable paradox. The only way out of this is either Arbcom step in proactively - somehow - or get out of the way, i.e. let a little wheel warring happen when admins do something wrong.
I know why you're reluctant. But if not now, when, and the phrase "Pour encourager les autres" becomes more necessary the longer this can is kicked down the road.
If this continues, forcible desysops will become necessary for one of these incidents. Guiding hand now, or hammer tomorrow? Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 07:53, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Mkativerata

I am accused of failing to comply with a policy. What does that policy say? "Except in cases of unambiguous error, administrators should avoid unblocking users without first attempting to contact the blocking administrator to discuss the matter." I didn't do the should bit. Normally I would, but I chose not to here. The policy leaves it open to me to make that decision: it says should, not must, and properly so.

The reasons I unblocked Malleus Fatuorum without discussion are:

  1. I had decided the matter already. An editor (Tbhotch) requested administrator intervention at ANI in respect of a dispute between him and another editor, Malleus Fatuorum. I was the first uninvolved admin on the scene. After reviewing the circumstances I made the "call", a decision, not to block either party: [15]. I felt well placed to make that call: perhaps unusally for an active admin, I am neither a friend nor a foe of either editor involved in the dispute. I believe I have never edited either of their user talk pages. As the matter had been dealt with by an uninvolved admin (me), a block should not have been unilaterally imposed by Kaldari. I assumed he either deliberately overrode my decision or (carelessly) didn't see it. So I fixed it. As it was a short block, I fixed it quickly. Then came the only thing I regret about my actions: an overly firm message in Malleus' block log. The "First come, first served" reference in the log is a reference to the quite sensible principle that a decision on a matter reported to a noticeboard may be made by the first uninvolved admin to do so. "ANI is clear" meant (contrary to Georgewilliamherbert's assertion) that it was clear from ANI that I had made a decision on the request for intervention.
  2. There was clearly no consensus in support of the block, as is clear from the state of ANI at the time. As there was no consensus for the block, I felt it well within my rights to unblock Malleus, reflecting my original decision. For a 24 hour block, an editor shouldn't have to wait longer than 47 minutes to be unblocked when consensus doesn't support the block.
  3. It was a short block. Discussing the matter further would have only prolonged two things: first, the ugly ANI thread; secondly, the situation of Malleus Fatuorum not being able to edit because he had been wrongly blocked out of process. The correctness of my judgement is confirmed by the fact that shortly after my unblock, the ANI thread was closed and the heat disappeared (that is, until Georgewilliamherbert showed up).

There are times when acting boldly and quickly and ignoring a policy -- which in this case isn't even mandatory -- is proper. This was such a case.

Georgewilliamherbert criticises the first mover rule. But he essentially proposes a first blocker rule. That any admin can block an editor no matter how many admins have decided not to; and that the block will stand until the blocking admin is convinced to rescind it. That ain't right.

If Arbcom is being asked to change policy in this case, it shouldn't. The policy that I'm accused of violating says "should" not "must" for good reason. In general, such wording is the essence of IAR; in the specific, such wording in this policy reflects the principle of "anyone can edit", by not subjecting editors to unilateral blocks that cannot be quickly reversed when demonstrated to be wrong or out of process.

If Arbcom accepts this case, it should of course also examine the conduct of Kaldari. Kaldari blocked an editor over the head of another admin. He also did so having only recently (in October) been in a direct dispute with the editor he blocked: see, among other things, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wife selling (2nd nomination). I wasn't aware of the involvement at the time of the unblock but it provides after-the-fact justification for my action, not that any is needed. --Mkativerata (talk) 08:36, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Georgewilliamherbert: please strike: "The assertion in the unblock message "ANI is clear" was a mistake, false, or intentionally misleading." As my statement says, you have the wrong end of the stick on that. --Mkativerata (talk) 08:54, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
George, read carefully please. "ANI is clear" meant (and it is quite clear from the context): "it is clear from ANI that I had already decided not to block". The statement is not an assertion of consensus. I want you to strike the words because you are ascribing to my words a meaning that I clearly did not intend. I will happily have you question my judgement, but not my honesty. --Mkativerata (talk) 09:03, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
George, you never asked what my block message meant. You're now casting aspersions that I'm making up this interpretation after the fact. Read the whole of the block message. It's tolerably clear what I meant: ANI is clear. I made the call not to block. An editor does not get blocked because one out 2,000 administrators happens upon ANI and decides to. First come, first served. The sentences run together. It's plain English. --Mkativerata (talk) 09:28, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Does Arbcom (apart from Risker) have any clue what it thinks will be done with this case? Your own policy says that your functions are:

  1. To act as a final binding decision-maker primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve;
  2. To hear appeals from blocked, banned, or otherwise restricted users;
  3. To handle requests (other than self-requests) for removal of administrative tools;[1]
  4. To resolve matters unsuitable for public discussion for privacy, legal, or similar reasons;
  5. To approve and remove access to (i) CheckUser and Oversight tools and (ii) mailing lists maintained by the Arbitration Committee.

1, 2, 4 and 5 clearly don't apply. So unless anyone is actually requesting that Kaldari or I are to be desysopped (and I haven't seen any suggestions to that effect): what on earth are you doing, and on what basis do you suggest that you have jurisdiction? --Mkativerata (talk) 21:03, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would add to SandyGeorgia's excellent summary of the problems with the motion, that "defer from" should obviously be "refrain from". Or just "whether that to be to impose a sanction or not to impose a sanction". There are many many problems with the content of the motion, but please please please at least fix the drafting. This is not pedantry. The Committee has seen previous cases (eg requests for amendment and clarification) arising from problems caused by the Committee's drafting work. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:30, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Malleus Fatuorum

Georgewilliamherbert's version of the truth is very far from the truth, particularly as it ignores User:Kaldari's involvement. I may add to this statement later. Malleus Fatuorum 09:32, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to know why it is that editors like MONGO and others are being allowed to use this request as yet another stick to beat me with; I didn't unblock myself, obviously. Is this just to turn into some kind of kangaroo court, or is there going to be some order imposed here? Malleus Fatuorum 04:25, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I want to respond generally to the point made by a couple of editors, even though it ought to have no prima facie bearing here, which is that User:Georgewilliamherbert has in some sense "got it in for me", and that was his primary motivation in initiating this case. Certainly George and I don't agree about what I consider to be his very prissy interpretation of civility, and he doesn't agree with my rather more robust interpretation, but then I live in England, not California, so there's an inevitable cultural divide. But what's equally true, I think, is that George would not have initiated this case had it not involved me, and therefore he is being somewhat disingenuous. I don't accuse him of deliberate misrepresentation of his motives, but of, perhaps unconsciously, reacting to an opportunity to unleash the dogs of war, as we've seen with statements such as the one from User:MONGO. Malleus Fatuorum 01:15, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Balloonman: it should be "arse", not "ass", at least here in good ol' blighty. To call someone an "ass" is to call them stupid, whereas to call them an arse is a comment on their behaviour, not on them. We clearly have a language problem here on Wikipedia, in that words carry different meanings in different parts of the English-speaking world. And by what contorted logic is it acceptable to call someone a dick but not an arse? The only difference I see is that one has an essay whereas the other doesn't. Malleus Fatuorum 01:33, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • @MONGO: as this case is supposedly not about me, is there any reason why I should be subjected to yet more of your long-standing abuse? And just for the sake of clarity I don't ignore policy, I simply interpret it differently from you. Malleus Fatuorum 03:18, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • @John Vandenberg: "... I think ArbCom needs to start accepting civility cases in order to explore this territory properly".[16] And thus the dishonesty here has now been revealed. Malleus Fatuorum 01:01, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by tangentally involved Black Kite

As I noted at the time, Mkativerata beat me to the unblock button by a matter of seconds. I would have unblocked for these reasons;

  • The incivility was very minor ("arse" in the UK is a far more minor epithet than the US equivalent "asshole") and led me to believe that Malleus was being blocked because of who he was, rather than what he'd done (some of the later statements on ANI back up that belief)
  • The block was premature - Kaldari should have waited for consensus to emerge at ANI, especially as at least one admin had already refused to block; any block can always be re-instated if there is such consensus for it
  • The block was unbalanced - Tbhotch was equally incivil and yet was not even warned until Kaldari was called on it by other editors
  • Malleus' frustration was understandable - an experienced copyeditor being called on a matter of grammar by someone who admits to having a shaky grasp of English
  • Blocks are preventative, not punitive - what was this block preventing, given that the very minor spat had ended around a hour before the block?
  • As Mkativerata says above, regarding contacting the blocking admin, blocking policy says "should", not "must". I did not see the point of wasting time and expanding drama by jumping through this hoop, especially as Kaldari had already clearly made up their mind on the issue. The encyclopedia was clearly better served by Malleus being able to edit.

I also note that - although I didn't know this at the time - Kaldari was clearly at least semi-involved, having been in a disagreement with Malleus only the day before. By all means we can have a discussion about WP:WHEEL and the second mover advantage - there have been spectacularly bad unblocks performed in the past - but this is a particularly bad poster child to use for that particular discussion. I strongly suggest rejecting this case. Black Kite (t) 09:55, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • @MONGO: "Adminstrators should only unblock if there is a clear majority supporting it." You fail your entire argument with that sentence, because there was no majority to block in the first place; indeed, at the time Kaldari did, nearly every argument was against it. You appear to be saying that the first admin to act is always right, which is clearly ludicrous; a situation which is confirmed when you then go on to mention "clique supports of Malleus". Black Kite (t) 19:12, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Fetchcomms: "Why people are still spending their time bickering over this petty block is perplexing.". Well, there's only one person you need to thank for that. Perhaps George would like to explain why he brought a matter that was done and settled to this venue? Black Kite (t) 21:46, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Pedro: Completely agree, and clearly my comment above was too subtle; the fact the GWH has an enduring dislike of Malleus is well-known; I thought that was so obvious that everyone could see it, but clearly that doesn't appear to be the case. I too hope that the Arbs grow a spine here, but I'm not too hopeful. That doesn't detract from the fact that a sensible discussion on first/second movement in admin actions would be useful, but being a cynic I suspect that this will, as per usual, descend into something worthless. Black Kite (t) 00:23, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Kaldari; the answers to your questions are (1) "No, but you should wait for consensus to form on the block, especially if is not preventative (which this one wasn't) and (2) Yes, but not by administrators who had been in conflict with the blockee only the day before, and especially if your block is asymmetrical (i.e. you don't even warn the other editor, who had been equally if not more incivil, until you're forced to by other editor's comments. Sort of gives it away, really). Not rocket science, really, is it? Black Kite (t) 19:10, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Outside comment by Collect

I fear the issue is not formed symettrically -- the rules about "wheel war" are pretty well settled -- but that supposes that there is a difference between a "positive action" (i.e. a block) and a "negative action" (i.e. a specific decision not to block)

The clear logical position is that both, when posted as a "decision" ought to be treated as equals. Clearly a "discussion" is not the same as a "decision" but where the post states it as a "decision" the two possibilities ought to be deemed equal, and reversal of a "decision" is "wheel war."

Proposed motion:

Any decision by any administrator, posted as such, whether to block or 'not' to block, to undertake a specific action or 'not' to undertake a specific action, shall not be reversed by any other administrator without full discussion, and subject to clear consensus.

The Wikipedia procedure where there is a disagreement is not to reverse a decision, but to review the decision, with the premise that a consensus is needed to reverse a decision made in good faith. I suggest the committee adopt this position in order to prevent further argumentation and that this is doable by simple motion. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:33, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@ScottMac: The motion is in "legalese" and basically is trying to make my proposal above seem exceedingly easy to understand. Collect (talk) 20:27, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Cube lurker

This sort of frivolous blocking has long been a scourge against editor morale. This case would do far better focusing on adding true accountability to admins who cause trouble cluelessly using the block button instead of trying to make an example of the admins who are forced to clean up their messes.--Cube lurker (talk) 12:38, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Additional Motions The motions have drifted into making Findings of Facts without proper evidence submission and discussion. IMHO it's going well beyond what would be expected in a motion only resolution and sets a dangerous precedent.--Cube lurker (talk) 17:08, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Floquenbeam

  1. What Black Kite said.
  2. The only thing worse than a second mover advantage would be a first mover advantage. Just as, in editing, BRD can be annoying, but BDR would be far worse. WHEEL is written the way it is for a reason.
  3. Mkativerata clearly did not break policy here. If you want to change policy, or have a discussion about what WHEEL should say, have an RFC on the policy talk page or VPP or something. ArbCom doesn't change policy.
  4. Kaldari's level of "involvement" is a little troubling, especially since they do not seem to recognize it, but I don't anticipate it resulting in any sanction from ArbCom; I suppose some clarification of "involved" might be useful.
  5. With all due respect to the Arbs, it seems unlikely that a good solution to the underlying issue of how to handle eggshells armed with hammers on the internet is going to come out of this case.

I'd suggest declining this case. --Floquenbeam (talk) 12:56, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by not-terribly-involved SarekOfVulcan

While I think that Mkativerata was correct to unblock in this case, as he had already made the uninvolved-admin call on AN/I and the unblock message is clear (given the explanation above, though I initially read it as GWH did), I would urge Arbcom to discuss this in more detail, as I've had blocks overturned in the middle of AN/I discussion that was tending towards, or strongly, supporting the block.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:04, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Extended content
@Alexandria - I unblocked Malleus early not because I thought I was mistaken, but because I was sure someone would overturn it because it was Malleus, and I didn't feel like dealing with the associated drama.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:37, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
@Trusilver - invoking Godwin's Law on purpose doesn't work. :-) --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:00, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
@Mathsci - I'm not sure how you get "just venting" from You simply display your ignorance.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:16, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
@Balloonman - precisely. It's the larger problem I'd like to see addressed, rather than this block/unblock in particular. Hatting above comments as irrelevant to this goal.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:48, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved 28bytes

Administrators must be free to undo administrative actions that clearly go against consensus. Kaldari's block was indisputably such an action. Georgewilliamherbert states above in his timeline that "further comments from Guerillero, Tbhoch, John, Wikidemon, and Quinn follow" immediately prior to Kaldari's block. Well, let's look at what those further comments are:

  • Mkativerata: "Are you asking for administrator intervention? If so, my call is not to do anything. If you'd been called an ignorant arse without any provocation, maybe, but this thread is a classic escalation of insults from both sides (eg 'Knowledge god' a sarcastic insult you've left out from your summary above) that should go completely unsanctioned, if anything just for the sake of bringing an end to it."
  • Guerillero (replying to Tbhotch): "you brought it on yourself"
  • Tbhotch: "In Spanish we have a proverb 'eye for an eye and everyone will end up blind'. In this way have I start to attack him as well. If the answer is yes please let me troll the page of the user who has called me Mexican fajita and faggot for two years."
  • John: "Toys back in pram please gentlemen. I am still at somewhat of a loss to see why my question about singular or plural on a Featured Article seems to have precipitated such passion, and feel faintly bad about it. But I think talk page discussion will be more productive than a drama contest at this board in terms of resolution."
  • Wikidemon: "Is 'arse' in British English truly as bad as 'asshole' in American English? It sounds a lot more civil(ized), particularly imagining the accent."
  • Quinn: "Calling someone an 'ass' or and 'arse' is not productive. At least with 'ignorant' or 'a know it all' you can at least justify the meaning (well intentioned or not), but probably nothing to be done on either side except to say 'cool it.'"

What I see here is that, aside from Tbhotch, no one is calling for a block, and in fact three editors (including two admins) are specifically recommending no action be taken.

Now, it could be that this early consensus to drop the matter is mistaken and that a consensus would later emerge that supported a block. But to see that discussion as it stood then, with Mkativerata's definitive rejection of a block, and no other editors aside from the complainant suggesting administrative action be taken, and simply ignore that consensus and unilaterally block anyway... well, it's not something a responsible admin should do.

If Kaldari had been the first to respond to Tbhotch's complaint, investigated and decided a block was warranted, then a unilateral unblock would have been inappropriate. But that's not what happened here. What happened here is that Mkativerata was the first to respond to Tbhotch's complaint, decided a block was not warranted, then Kaldari unilaterally overrode his judgment with no consultation whatsoever.

If it's inappropriate to override a fellow admin's judgment by issuing a unilateral unblock, it's far more inappropriate to override a fellow admin's judgment by issuing a unilateral block.

The suggestion that we owe deference to a blocking admin, but none whatsoever to an uninvolved admin who takes the time to investigate a complaint and decides not to block, is something ArbCom should soundly reject. Consultation can't be a one-way street. 28bytes (talk) 13:46, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Balloonman: "...when two admins differ on the status of a block, then the person should remain unblocked until/unless consensus can be determined..." is the most sensible approach to this I've seen. Adopting this approach would make for much more consistency and much less needless drama. 28bytes (talk) 20:43, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Ludwigs2

Having been on the receiving end of this very problem (as evidenced by a previous ArbCom case), I suggest that this is a something that needs to be resolved, but needs to be resolved in the opposite direction from what GWH suggests. GWH wants to strengthen the already too prevalent 'Tombstone' atmosphere on contentious pages, in which minor civility issues are left to fester until some admin gets annoyed and shoots down one side with prejudice. Note the problems that come from this:

It imposes biases on articles
Almost invariably, the first admin to 'get annoyed' is going to be one who has strong opinions on the matter and has been watching the page. s/he may be 'technically' uninvolved, yet still carry distinct attitude about the conflict that privileges one side. This is why we invariably see such conflicts resolved by sanctioning one side of the dispute and not the other.
It makes wp:ANI and other administrative pages hostile and inaccessible
Personally, I will no longer bring any behavioral problem to ANI, because experience has shown me that it will only lead to me getting blocked and the issue being dismissed. It does not matter how over-the-top the problem I'm facing is or how reasonable my own behavior - some admin with a chip on his shoulder is going to block me before there's any time to discuss the nature of the problem, and I will simply get screwed. ANI has become - essentially - one giant, useless booby-trap.
It encourages system gaming
Every contentious page I work on has a number of editors who break wp:CIV and wp:NPA on virtually every post, and then (literally) tell me that if I don't like it I should take it to ANI, counting - obviously - on springing that booby-trap to work in their favor. If you only knew how many times I've heard people try to invoke wp:Boomerang as an active principle...

I think the ideal behind these kinds of sanctions in fine - it works well in principle, where we can trust admins to be fair-minded, unbiased, thoughtful, and not to operate on gut-level reactions. I suggest that may even be true of the large majority of admins. Unfortunately, long experience shows that there are always a few admins who are not fair-minded or unbiased, and who react emotionally rather than act with consideration, and the system that we currently have gives them all the advantages. The principle simple does not apply. Admins who show favoritism or make poor decisions - if they make those decisions early enough - can count on the fact that more fair-minded admins will be unable to overturn them, and such 'bad egg' admins do not face any appreciable sanctions for their acts, no matter how egregious such may be. It creates a system of summary justice which contradicts the core principles of collaboration and neutrality that the project is built on. It needs to be dismantled and a new, fair system built from scratch. --Ludwigs2 15:29, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SandyGeorgia

Should the arbs decide to accept this case (which I don't think is a particularly good one for deciding the "second mover" issue), I hope they will additionally consider admin Eagle247's December 6 block of User:The Fat Man Who Never Came Back. That provides an example of how precipitous admin actions can negatively affect the Project when other admins are afraid to unblock after a bad block. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:27, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Followup: the pending case might proceed more, ummm, "civilly" if we didn't see frequent misstatements along the lines of:

I dislike the growing movement among established editors to brush off WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA as though it doesn't apply to them. Trusilver 18:34, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

(objecting to asymmetrical blocks and noting the unequal application of policy is not the same as brushing off pillars) or casting of aspersions with statements like:

Clique supporters of Malleus such as SandyGeorgia and John are unable to render an impartial assessment regarding Malleus and provide little more than biased opinions. MONGO 16:15, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I hope the clerks will be enforcing some decorum here, since these memes and casting of aspersions don't advance understanding of what happens in these cases to anyone pointing out that blocks are frequently applied unequally, and don't bode well for an orderly proceeding here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:46, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Risker's query about Kaldari's involvement: I don't know where the diffs may be, don't know about the involvement issue, but I gleaned from other conversations elsewhere that the discord between Malleus and Kaldari stemmed from Kaldari's involvement at Wife selling and Wife selling (English custom), having something to do with the alleged "gender gap" issue put forward by the Foundation, Kaldari's history of editing strongly on gender topics, and concerns expressed (frequently by another now-indeffed editor who plagued Malleus) that the Wife selling article was sexist. Perhaps someone else knows where to find diffs-- I only got wind that there were problems between them in that realm, but have not seen diffs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:40, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK, from a post to my talk, part of it seems to be reflected at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wife selling (2nd nomination), where Kaldari refers to the "obstinacy",[18] presumably of Malleus et al, after the fallout from Wife selling being on the mainpage on April 1. It seems that the frequent pestering that Malleus got over that article from a now-indeffed user, combined with the alleged "gender gap" push from the Foundation, may have contributed to some acrimony there, but I still don't know where to find diffs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:14, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Motions

This is painful to watch, but even more painful to read: in the interest of the rest of us who are trying to digest this writing, would some copyediting of the motions be possible, or has that not been done because the arbs apparently are at odds over whether any of the wording will stick? These motions are simply awful to read and hard to understand:

  • On which Wikipedia is built?
B) Users who are grossly or chronically uncivil can face sanctions, up to and including a block of indefinite length for repeated violations.
  • How is this different from "users who are uncivil can face sanctions, up to ... "? The worst uncivil behavior I've seen was towards me, from an admin who was desysopped, but it wasn't "gross or chronic". I don't see what this motion adds that is not already known or how it is different from just saying "users who are uncivil can be sanctioned indefinitely", which we already know. There's nothing here.
A) Administrators are appointed based on the community's trust in their good judgement. Administrators should respect the judgements of other administrators and should not lightly take controversial actions (Including the reversal of other administrators' actions).
  • "In their good judgment" is redundant. "including" should not be upper case. What is this trying to say that WP:WHEEL doesn't already say? It's not saying it. Ditto for the rest, except that "likely controversial" is being introduced without being defined-- what is clearly controversial to one is certainly not to another or we wouldn't be here-- one admin thought it just fine to RevDel an edit of mine against policy, label my edit as vandalism, and didn't think such action was the slightest bit controversial, even after eight other admins set him straight.
B) It is always best to discuss and get a clear consensus before undertaking administrative actions that are likely controversial.
  • What is this adding that we don't already know or isn't already written many places? With the exception of BRD on editing, it's always best to gain consensus for anything. Admins seem to be exempt-- how is this being addressed by adding a vague, unclear term "controversial".
C) Undoing another administrator's actions or decisions (whether that to be to place a sanction or to defer from placing sanctions) is inherently controversial, and should not be done without discussion or attempts to contact the previous administrator (except in cases of CLEAR and unambiguous error)
  • Ah ha, finally a definition of "controversial"? So, if that's all it means, then how is this different from WHEEL? If you want to add something to the "sum of all human knowledge" about how Wikipedia works, this isn't doing it; it's not at all clear what this is adding, how it will stop improper blocks, or how it will stop improper unblocks. Admins place controversial blocks all the time-- how will this vague wording stop it from happening?
A) The Arbitration Committee urges that the community of editors and administrators work on coming up with methods to deal with recognizing and dealing with grossly or habitually uncivil users.
  • Please copyedit-- I hope I don't have to explain why. By the way, we already have several methods: 1) admins (who are known to abuse the tools), and 2) Arb Com, for when admins abuse the tools and community trust. ArbCom owns that one-- throwing it back to the community because you encountered a non-case makes little sense.
... lately, and more and more, we ignore low level ongoing cases of incivility from users who have a large level of support.
  • We ignore incivility from users who have no support too-- what is this adding to anything?
This is what some editors has referred to this as the "vested contributors" problem, which I think is generally a canard.
  • Copyedit needed.

Folks, get organized before you post rants ... decorum seems to have left the premises. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:40, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by mostly uninvolved Karanacs

I have several issues with Kaldari's block:

  • blocker advantage - so all one has to do is search for a single admin willing to block and even if several others have declined to take action the block stands?
  • one-sided. Malleus was blocked for civility issues. Tbhotch wasn't even warned for this, and his behavior was just as bad.
  • Civility is being held as a higher standard than actually creating an encyclopedia. Tbhotch admits in his signature that he does not have a great command of English. He then got into a disagreement over English grammar. In Malleus's shoes, I would have been highly upset too. To me, tbhotch's editing was blatantly tenditious, even if made in good faith. We expect editors to be competent in the areas in which they choose to edit, and if they choose to argue about grammar they should not be telling the WP world they don't have a strong grasp of the topic. Kaldari did not appear to even look at this issue - he saw Malleus use a word he didn't like and blocked immediately.

I cannot comment on whether Kaldari was involved because I didn't follow that dispute.

I have frequently collaborated with Malleus, and I did comment on the ANI, so I'm not completely uninvolved.

Karanacs (talk) 15:33, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by MONGO

Adminstrators should only unblock if there is a clear majority supporting it. Malleus is incapable of working collaboratively with those he may disagree with. Clique supporters of Malleus such as SandyGeorgia and John are unable to render an impartial assessment regarding Malleus and provide little more than biased opinions. Malleus has a long history of egregious incivility across a wide spectrum of articles and namespaces....including extensive hostility to admin Arthur Rubin a month ago. A 24 block is no big deal...Malleus is still under risk of a topic ban for his "contributions" at 9/11 articles. At some point a cost benefit analysis in dealing with characters like Malleus should be considered.MONGO 16:15, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

SandyGeorgia...standing by my comment...it doesn't do Malleus, the blocking admin or the system any benefit if you support anyone that has repeatedly demonstrated egregious incivility...just because this incivility isn't directed at you doesn't mean numerous other editors are suffering from some sort of mass delusion. The supposed ability to copyedit, promote Good Articles and contribute to Featured Articles doesn't exempt anyone from following policies...and no one is above the policies here no matter what their supposed contributions are.MONGO 19:35, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Black Kite...yes, clique is correct. Whenever Malleus is mentioned at AN/I or some other noticeboard, his FA and GA buddies show up to defend him...they say things like: well, gee, golly..."Arse" isn't such a bad thing to call someone...and I've heard things like he's not as bad as he used to be...on and on. Sadly, its oftentimes other admins that have yet to be on the receiving in of the wrath of Malleus that find it expedient to ignore his ongoing incivility issues and thus do act as enablers for the then inevitable unblock. Furthermore, the blocking admin in this case didn't need a majority opinion to penalize an editor who has a long track record of incivility. That this would be missed by you, an admin, is disheartening.MONGO 03:57, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Malleus...you don't appear to be a named party in this case. However, this case exists due to a block that was placed against you by an admin that is probably able to surmise from your interactions that you problematic. In my opinion, the issue that has arisen from this episode isn't some revelation that you have managed to irritate/attack/threaten/be incivil with those you disagree with as even your supporters acknowledge this (and sadly some seem to think its funny)....the issue is how to correct the ongoing manner in which we keep one admin from quickly reverting another admin's block when the initial block surely had merit. My personal experiences in dealing with you are some of the most unpleasant and acrimonious ones I have had on this website, and your taunts and threats to this blocking admin here and to another admin a month ago (Arthur Rubin here and here) are indicative of someone who has some interpersonal issues but has managed to escape the ban hammer only because your content contributions are supposedly far superior to others. Therein lies the problem...an inevitable one I might add since you seem to pick fights as often as you please and will continue to do so so long as you have a clique of editors who will be ready to back you up, perform an unblock and otherwise wikilawyer about why you should be permitted to ignore policy.--MONGO 03:10, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Arbitrators....your MOTIONS section is spot on....under the section highlighted "Administrative Actions are not to be taken lightly, or reversed lightly", that is exactly right. Why do so many administrators NOT get this? I didn't check the diffs, but whoever wrote that section...thank you.--MONGO 02:26, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Casliber....Motion 5 is a hard sell...the blocking admin may have had a disagreement with Malleus, but so have numerous other admins.--MONGO 04:09, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Colonel Warden

On the matter of usage, arse in British English means much the same as asshole in American English. For example, the OED has "A stupid, unpleasant, or contemptible person" and "someone or something foolish or contemptible" respectively. See also: The No Asshole Rule. Warden (talk) 22:04, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Alexandria

It's becoming increasingly harder and harder to block for civility because as soon as someone gets blocked for it, especially users who have been established among the community, there's a mass rush to defend them. For example, Malleus has a very long block log, however of those only four of those blocks have stuck, one was 10 seconds, one was one hour, one was 24 hours for a pretty blatant offense, and the other was three days, which was undone then reapplied and allowed to expire. Of the many unblocks, two of them were lifted by the blocking admin (Sarek and GwenGale). This mass rush to defend accused incivility to me is the root problem of all this and why the dispute (from what I can see) got escalated from ANI to here. I also believe Malleus should also be a party to this case as it was the block on him that cause this RFAR to surface. Alexandria (talk) 18:00, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Trusilver

Should we look at all the people that have made some kind of mistake in this situation? Malleus was wrong to get involved in childish personal attacks. Tbhotch was wrong to get involved in childish personal attacks. Kaldari was wrong to block without clear consensus. Mkativerata was wrong to unblock without discussion. I dislike the growing movement among established editors to brush off WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA as though it doesn't apply to them. Civility is the fourth pillar. It is not optional. But at the same time, these are rules that need to be evenly applied. Someone who is making a block based on an ANI witch-burning should have comprehensive knowledge of the entire dispute before clicking the ol' block button. Are there "fan clubs" that spring up around individual editors? Absolutely, but I feel these are symptomatic of a larger problem rather than a problem unto themselves. As Black Kite noted above; Malleus is an excellent copyeditor who was being harassed about grammar by someone who, by their own admission, is not. Obviously errors were made on every side of the dispute, but nothing that requires an Arbcom case turning into The Night of Long Knives to everyone involved. Trusilver 18:34, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Follow up. Elaborating in response to the comments of the last day. My own personal feelings about civility aside, I think that making this about civility would be a horrible idea. Civility means different things to different people and requires a subtle hand, rather than a sledgehammer. With the utmost respect intended, I don't think too many people would disagree that Arbcom decisions generally have the subtlety of a brick through your dining room window at dinnertime. I hope that if this is accepted, it will focus on the concept of second mover advantage. Also keeping in mind that both admins were not engaging in pointy behavior, neither of them were operating outside the boundaries of their status as admins, and both of them were doing what they saw as the right thing. There have been much more controversial blocks than the one Kaldari made, and more more controversial unblocks than Mkativerata's. Trusilver 15:28, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Mathsci

It appears that this case will probably be accepted. I do not see any parallels with the previous case involving Ludwigs2, Sandstein and Dreadstar. Manchester United FC is not a controversial article, despite recent events in the real world that have presumably "gutted" various football personalities/fans and made them "face their demons". Malleus is a prolific and skilled content editor, from the Manchester region (or so I understand). When irritated he can be uncivil. In this case no arbitration enforcement was involved, nor was there overt wheel-warring. As a fellow Brit, I find Malleus' language is possibly near to the limit (grating?), but as always he seems just to be venting rather than trying to belittle other editors. In this case, I do not believe any editors or administrators should be sanctioned or probably even warned, but some clarification of blocking/unblocking policy would be helpful to avoid future misunderstandings. Mathsci (talk) 19:24, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@SarekOfVulcan: "venting" applies here because it involved a non-English speaker, whose written English is not perfect, pronouncing on the use of English. I can see how that could be irritating. Mathsci (talk) 20:28, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by HJ

Firstly, I couldn't agree more with with Floq and Black Kite. Secondly, blocking somebody after another admin has declined to do so is at least as discourteous as unblocking without talking to the blocking admin. Thirdly, blocking somebody for the use of the word "arse" strikes me as extremely petty (that's not to say we should encourage editors to speak to each other in such a way, but I doubt anyone other than Malleus would have been blocked for using that word). Fourthly and finally, I hope this case is declined, because the committee is effectively being asked to make policy and, contrary to what they seem to believe, that is outside their jurisdiction. Accepting this case will only serve to prolong the drama, which has already got out of hand. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:30, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Black Kite: Hear, hear! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:48, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Eraserhead1

I think Collect's motion sounds sensible. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:41, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some words from ErrantX

This is amusing, and pretty much par for the course after that disaster. If Arbcom take this case I think they need to look carefully at the decision to block - which was incredibly stupid, out of process, and in no way constructive to the project (i.e. look at this disaster).

Malleus can be a dick. He can be grumpy and rude to people he perceives as fools or acting foolishly. Welcome to the real world - we all act like dicks now and again (and no matter how often Malleus has come into the firing line he doesn't like a dick much more than the rest of us..).

In that context, and given the current views at AN/I at the time, the block feels *highly* suspicious.

Kaldari made a somewhat against the grain decision to block over a civility issue. Lets consider that. Civility blocks are controversial and generally not well supported (rightly, in our current policies). The civility issue in question was not entirely one sided. AN/I comments seemed to tend towards not blocking. We don't do punitive blocks. The block Kaldari made was a punitive civility block against the vague consensus at AN/I.

If Malleus has a civility attitude that we judge on-balance a net negative to the project, fine, get the community consensus and do the blocks. But at this stage blocking after a civility incident is simply not supported in policy.

Out of process blocks can be overturned, especially with a dose of IAR, especially if it is a second move.

Unblocking was the only sensible thing anyone (Malleus included) did in relation to that incident.

After all that, I suggest this case not be taken. Perhaps the issue does need resolving but a) this can be resolved by the community via normal processes and b) it will just turn into another Malleus-gate, an entirely useless endeavour... --Errant (chat!) 20:11, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Tryptofish

I'm taking special note of Risker's point B. I think a big part of this issue is Kaldari's position that Malleus was susceptible to a block in a way that Tbhotch was not. Is that a valid position to have taken, or not? Where does the English Wikipedia currently stand on the question of what are sometimes called "vested contributors"? Does someone who is a superb content editor (as Malleus is) get a pass for low-level incivility that would likely be faulted in a new editor? Does someone who keeps doing the same thing over and over and makes it very clear that they will keep doing it (as Malleus does) have to be sanctioned over such an insignificant comment as the "arse" one that occurred here, while Tbhotch gets a pass? Any time the community tries to answer those questions, the usual suspects show up to give an inconclusive outcome. (I suspect I could set my watch by the monthly ANI threads.) Maybe this is something where the Committee can draw a line. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:57, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Resolute

Somewhat along the same lines as Tryptofish's comment, I am often amused at how the same people keep returning to ANI for low-level incivility issues, sometimes resulting in blocks, usually resulting in overturns when said contributors' friends show up. While this specific example might not be great, GWH's argument about "enabling unblocks" being a concern is valid. That said, I am not sure that it is anything arbcom can remediate. If anything, the issue of enabling unblocks and the second mover advantage is something that should go to RfC with an aim towards changing or clarifying the blocking and wheel warring policies. Resolute 20:22, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Commentary from uninvolved, but was fully reading the whole damn fall out whilst it happened Pedro

Strongly urge ARBCOM to reject this (although you will accept it of course). It's well known that GeorgeWilliamHerbert (GWH) is gunning for MF - if you really want diffs fine but I think we all know it's true and it hardly needs citation (the sky is blue). For GWH to state "Such unblocks are ... abusive to other administrators"' defies any form of reason, and the ludicrous hyperbole of such a statement simply calls into question the validity of any other comments GWH makes. Other than that I would agree with Floquenbeam / Black Kite. Pedro :  Chat  20:27, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be interested to know if "Teh Arbcom" (sic) are agreeing to this request so readily because of the editor who set it in motion, rather than the substance of the request itself which seems to me confused and overly focused on a single issue (despite the assurance that it is not). An editor, I'd remind you, whose casual lies dubious motives ("This is an unfortunate situation and one I would much rather not be filing") (underline mine, and yeah...right....) are so obvious that it questions the intelligence of those who belive him. Perhaps we might see someone from the commitee who has some spine, and actually recognises this for what it is - an underhand method for GWH to drive Malleus off. Probably not though. Pedro :  Chat  22:35, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Balloonman

First, it's a fact that MF gets away with more than most. He does have a clique that comes to his defense every time he offends somebody. Second, it's a fact that MF gets the brunt of more criticism than he deserves. He has a clique that is ready to jump on every slight as quickly as they can.

In many ways both sides are right. MF DOES have a priviledged position here on WP where he crosses the line and people will defend him because generally the individual scenarios are blown out of proportion. I say this as a person who likes MF and has come to his defense... but he can be a real ass (or should that be arse?) I say that knowing that he can handle it. ;-)

But what really bothers me is the argument being put forth by MKat centered around that of the first mover.

This raises serious concerns about behavior at ANI. If we accept the first mover motion, then some may be inclined to move in and make a half assed/half informed action to claim primacy. "I acted first thus I get primacy over the issue!" I think that will create problems down the road and be ill conducive to the process. It would then become a comedy of errors of people rushing to defend their friends and block their enemies... often without researching the particulars of a case (because if you research the particulars of a complaint you might lose the prime mover position.) Personally, I think we should have some guidlines such as:

Unless the action is detrimental to the project, when two admins differ on the status of a block, then the person should remain unblocked until/unless conensus can be determined at ANI. Detrimental would be currently engaged in edit warring/vandalism/etc that is not being abated by other actions."

I feel that way because by blocking a person you silence their ability to contribute to ANI. I also feel this way because unless the current actions are actively harmful to wikipedia, then waiting an hour or two is generally not going to harm the project. Civility blocks can be too subjective to default any other way.

If ArbCOM accepts this case, I think they should do so with the clear distinction that they are NOT looking at MF's behavior nor are they looking at the specific circumstances/rightness wrongness of the MF block, but rather around the notion of WHEEL/first mover.---Balloonman Poppa Balloon 20:34, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Wikidemon---If you have a thick skin about this, he's actually quite funny. Agreed. But his sense of humor gets him into trouble and I still don't think this specific case warrants ArbCOM although the meta issue may be one worth addressing.---Balloonman Poppa Balloon 16:01, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
@Hans---Agreed. Over eager blockers create big block logs that becomes "proof" of problematic behavior, even when the block is unwarranted.---Balloonman Poppa Balloon 16:01, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
@起... no it is not uncommon for people to simply accept a case. Generally when rejecting they will provide reasons, but there is no obligation to give one. Some people may accept a case and not say anything else to see what happens.---Balloonman Poppa Balloon 21:32, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
@起---actually, no. A judges duty is to weigh the evidence fairly and impartially. They should not become part of the process. If the ARBS say too much, then they become part of the discussion not the judges. They should ask questions to clarify statements and to seek more info, but they should first and foremost take an observers role and let people lay the evidence out.
As for your edits... I find it interesting that with less than 15 edits and no edits since April, that you've found this page. I can't help but wonder who you really are.---Balloonman Poppa Balloon 21:46, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
@MF... Point taken, but in American English, you can be ass without actually being an ass... it can be both reflective of the person OR the behavior.---Balloonman Poppa Balloon 21:36, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Elen, I don't mind a template, but my fear is that if we establish a precedent wherein the first to respond gets priority (or the first to offer a counter positiong gets priority) then we are setting up a system which will readily lead to abuse. MF gets taken to ANI once or twice a month. If I want to get him blocked, if we set up a process where prime mover gets priority, then it would behove me to complain about him as often as possible with the hopes that an admin that doesn't like him is the first/second to act. It also sets up a system where people might start to act more on the opening statement before investigating the case. People should look into the case before responding. Again, if it is a civility block that is in question, and more than one admin disagree on the course of action, then preference should be given to unblocking the offending party.---Balloonman Poppa Balloon 04:05, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Epbr123

I agree with Collect's proposed change of wording to the blocking policy, but this is a decision we should try make at RfC first. I don't think sanctions are needed for either of the admins involved here, as both believed they were acting within policy, and a clarification of the policy will hopefully prevent this situation in future. I agree with others above that an Arbcom decision on civility blocks is long overdue, but it would be better if that decision was made in its own separate case. Epbr123 (talk) 21:09, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Sandstein

I'm not involved in or familiar with this specific incident, but I urge the Committee to accept a case to address the problem of an unblocker's "second mover advantage" that results from the wheelwarring prohibition, and the problem of unblocks without even prior attempts at discussion. In my experience, these systemic problems make attempts to prevent repeated disruption, especially by established editors, unnecessarily difficult and time-consuming. The community and the Committee have so far not been able to agree on a clear, predictable, discussion- and consensus-based process for unblocking. Consequently, any block (including, in practice, AE blocks) may at any time be undone for no reason or in bad faith, and there is no practical way to reinstate it or to hold the unblocker to account for the problems that result from shortsighted unblocks. This creates a serious disincentive for administrators to get at all involved in the time-consuming, stressful and antagonizing work of protecting the project from uncooperative participants; and it has weighed heavily in my decision to withdraw from dispute resolution activity altogether.  Sandstein  21:24, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Fetchcomms

Wikipedia's a website. Why people are still spending their time bickering over this petty block is perplexing. Malleus gets blocked a lot. His feelings haven't been hurt (at least not badly). Georgewilliamherbert jumps into AN/I drama a lot. Perhaps someone wants to ban him from that, but it's irrelevant. Mkativerata tries to be reasonable sometimes, and IAR says that's fine. Kaldari works for the WMF so it's not like taking action against him would be very productive or anything.

Look, I know there are all these "issues" to discuss in an case like this one, but seriously, don't y'all have better things to do in your spare time? People get blocked and unblocked all the time.

/ƒETCHCOMMS/ 21:39, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement from Nathan

Been awhile since I commented in an RfAr. The second-mover advantage, enabling unblocks and the sense that "the good of the encyclopedia" privileges certain editors over others are all linked to a long series of discussions in many fora over the long-term decline in editing activity and the gender gap among active editors.

A simple, true statement: While editors who are routinely rude may create valuable content, they unquestionably contribute to a generally hostile atmosphere - which has the effect of driving away many other editors, who would unquestionably contribute far more valuable content. This case and point in time are ripe for finally addressing this problem in some meaningful way, and with an outcome less clumsy than a "WikiLove" extension. Of course, if an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation is sanctioned for demanding a little civility from an editor who has been blocked many times for thatreason, this may prompt more meaningful action from above. Win/win, maybe? Nathan T 22:25, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement from uninvolved Beyond My Ken

If, as seems likely, this case is accepted, I would urge the Committee to deal with the underlying cause that Risker mentions: our civility policies and specifically, and more importantly, the disinclination of some admins to enforce them, and indeed to actively work against them by not taking other admins' civility blocks seriously. These actions by part of our admin corps are undermining what is supposed to be one of the project's Five Pillars, a trend which I believe is harmful to the community and to the building of an encyclopedia. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:13, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, please note that the willingness of some admins to rather automatically undo the civility blocks of certain high-profile editors creates a de facto class of "untouchable" editors who cannot be reigned in when necessary, an untenable situation for a self-policing community. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:20, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Heim

If we really must address the so-called "second mover's advantage", I hope we'll all keep in mind that first mover's advantage is just bad and probably a good deal worse. With second mover's advantage, you end up at worst exactly where you started; with first mover's advantage, incredibly stupid blocks (of which I continue to see an alarming number) are difficult to overturn. So any solution to the second mover's advantage must avoid just shunting the advantage over to the other person. As for the underlying civility issue, I continue to assert that we would deal with incivility a lot better by ignoring it much of the time. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 06:22, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Having thought more about this, I'm really questioning why this is being accepted. What is ArbCom going to do here? The gist I get seems to be that it's dealing with the problem of blocks/unblocks and possibly civility in general, but what exactly can the committee do without writing policy, something outside the committee's remit? Heimstern Läufer (talk) 00:25, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So we're going to have motions that just restate existing policy. OK, that's within the committee's remit, sure, but certainly its time could be better spent on other things, such as dealing with the Abortion case that's been open for nigh on three months now. And urging the community to figure out what to do is a meaningless request when the community contains fundamental differences in how to deal with it. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 03:00, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Polequant

If, as seems likely, this is accepted, can there be some clarification of scope. Is it purely going to examine admin actions, or dive off into civility and so-called enabling? Polequant (talk) 08:46, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Told you so" from Hans Adler

Quoting myself from almost 3 years ago [19] (ignore the stuff about Arbcom, which is the one item in my earlier list that appears to have been fixed since), some important contributing factors:

  1. Misleading "personnel records":
    • Every single unblock, whether for adjustment of a block or because the block was controversial, makes a user's block log longer and increases the chance of further inconsiderate blocks.
    • Positive information is routinely ignored. An editor who works hard on content 40 hours/week and gets reported to ANI once a month is notorious. An editor who does an hour of wiki gnoming every Sunday morning and gets reported to ANI twice a year is a valuable member of the community (especially if they also spend a few more hours every week voicing popular opinions in project talk space).
    • The notoriety of an editor is measured by the amount of drama, not by the effects of their behaviour. Therefore behaviour about which the community is divided is more likely to be held against an editor than behaviour that is clearly beyond the pale. Moreover, inappropriate behaviour can be wiped out by apologies and clear signals that the editor understood that they were wrong. The negative impression from something that was considered OK by more than half of the community cannot be discarded in this way.
  2. Every admin has a de facto veto right against not blocking a user. This works well with the vast majority of users, since normally only a small number of admins look at a case. It does not scale well to prolific editors who get themselves into trouble occasionally.

The last point, which you are calling the "second mover advantage", although IMO that's an inappropriate euphemism and should really be called "veto right against keeping unblocked", is the most immediately important here, but the problem of misleading personnel records also applies. The unfortunate result is that some of our most valuable editors become almost perfect mobbing targets due to relatively harmless behaviour.

As an exceptionally clean case, this is your chance to fix the problem. But I guess most of you know that already. Hans Adler 08:50, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Wikidemon

(who always seems to end up here)

My direct involvement is that I made some intentionally lighthearted comments at AN/I to try to diffuse tension, then some scolding that turned into friendly riposte on MF's talk page. If you have a thick skin about this, he's actually quite funny.

Anyway, there are a bunch of issues here, and I urge Arbcom to be clear which ones it will consider so this doesn't become an aimless free-for-all. I hope we keep eyes on this one incident and not use it as a springboard for broader pronouncements about wikidrama. Hard cases make bad law, so they say. Easy ones do too. Assuming for the sake of argument that Arbcom feels that this block was totally unwarranted, disrespected other admins who had already ruled against a block, and should have been overturned on sight. That does not mean that civility blocks are wrong, that a first admin's failure to see the problem requiring a block should preclude action by other more careful administrators, or that administrators ought to regularly overrule each other. Rather, it means that's what happened in this specific case. In many other cases the first admins on the scene at AN/I report are skeptical and unhelpful, and unblocks tend to vindicate and embolden problem editors. - Wikidemon (talk) 10:05, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved 99of9

First/second mover advantage I suggest a principle something like "don't act until others have had a chance to weigh in". That way, if an admin agrees with the existing commenters, they will be acting on consensus, and if they disagree, they should simply comment themselves to help establish consensus. Sure, this might slow some cases down slightly, but if it's obviously urgent, people will weigh in quickly. This restores the priority of discussion over pressing buttons.

Decision not to block To me, it is not clear that [20] was a decision. The words "my call is X" are sometimes used simply to express an opinion rather than a decision. Perhaps use of a clear template such as {{not done}} would make it clearer when a decision is made not to block. I can't speak for how Kaldari interpreted it, but to me it is not clear that the case was closed.

Civility is really important. Grumpiness is not an excuse. I believe that incivility and aggressiveness are clear repellents to including new editors. I'm sure you like me have seen numerous examples of this. We need to improve, and if short blocks after warnings are what it takes to get through to experienced editors, then maybe that's where we need to go. After all, perhaps 24 hours of sleep is a cure for some forms of grumpiness.

Symmetry is wonderful, indeed I love it so much that I study it professionally. However it is not always possible to impose symmetry. If one editor has already been warned, and the other hasn't, the symmetry is already broken. Obviously the warning to tbhotch was important (and perhaps slow), but an un-warned contributor doesn't necessarily deserve the same sanction as a warned one.

--99of9 (talk) 18:58, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Will Beback

On the "first mover" issue, the first admin to comment on a thread may not have all of the information. Also, there is a history of cliques and feuds on Wikipedia, and however the "first/second mover" issue is resolved, it should take that unfortunate fact into account.

On the issue of blocks for personal attacks and incivility, there is a long history of problems with enforcement. Some of it is due to differing standards or interpretations, and some of it concerns external factors like the perceived value of the editors to the project.   Will Beback  talk  01:28, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by 一起

I'd like to know why some arbs are not explaining their favour of accepting this case. Is it because the argument for accepting the case is so weak that they abort any attempt to elucidate it? 一起 (talk) 20:56, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Balloonman—If arbs "accept a case and not say anything else to see what happens", I find that very irresponsible and not reflective of what I want to see in arbs. An Arbitration case is a big deal; they shouldn't be nonchalantly accepting it without careful consideration just to see what happens. 一起 (talk) 21:40, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by observer PaoloNapolitano

The big difference between the two users is that one had been issued a progressive warning and the other not. Then it is NOT an asymmetrical block. If BOTH users were under a progressive warning it would be a different story.. PaoloNapolitano 15:41, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Tony Sidaway

While there could conceivably be background to this that would change things, this is a straightforward case on the face of it. A block was undone without clear consensus to unblock, without participating in discussion, and without contacting the blocking admin. I see no problem with the original block which followed repeated abusive behaviour in the face of warnings. I see no problem with Kaldari's post-block actions, which were responsive. --TS 18:35, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Deryck

This is a simple case of the bold-revert-discuss cycle, but applied to blocks. The dispute itself is pretty settled, and the long discussions here are only about the implications of it. I don't see any necessity for ArbCom to do anything here, because as David Fuchs said below, ArbCom intervention in this will simply result in a lot of fuss.

I'd also comment that throughout this dispute, many have been overly harsh on their criticism on Kaldari's decision to block. WP:NPA is a grossly under-enforced policy on Wikipedia, and tighter enforcement than what we've been doing in the past few years is needed to promote healthy community growth. Having previously issued a warning to Malleus, Kaldari's block upon seeing the AN/I thread was entirely appropriate with respect to policy. Kaldari participated in the subsequent discussion after his block raised some controversy, and acted (as far as I read) appropriately to the standard of an administrator.

In short, I think both Kaldari and Mkativerata acted appropriately in a BRD cycle involving administrator powers, and created some fuss which is now settled. There is no need for an ArbCom case for this incident, and no point for an ArbCom case to decide on general principles about "enabling unblocks". Deryck C. 17:38, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by PBS

SandyGeorgia you wrote:

Nah, "arse" is such a cute little word, not at all ugly like "ass"-- now, if you call someone "narrow-minded", you're attacking their character, and that's not cute. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:22, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

In the part of England where I have spent the most time as an adult, if you were to call a stranger (of the same sex) with whom you were having a verbal disagreement "an arse" in a pub you would get a glass in the face end of discussion. And SandyGeorgia calling most of the clientèle narrow minded would most likely be taken as a complement.

It is not that they do not use four letter words, most of them could not string a sentence together without swearing, but they would not tolerate such an insult from someone they were having a disagreement with. I would have thought that the level of civility we should expect here ought set at a higher level that that which would trigger a bar room brawl in parts of England.

Now occasionally some people in hot blood write things that afterwards they regret and if on consideration they show remorse (as lucky no one actually gets physically battered over a Wikiepdia disagreement) then obviously that needs to be taken into consideration.

However some people use incivility as a tool to intimidate those they disagree with. In recent months I have had to tolerate such behaviour from some editors and although it does not affect me, because I see it for what it is, it can be very intimating for many people. Recently Charles Matthews also made this point on my talk to a third party:

The "gender gap" is something widely discussed: here's a quote from Sue Gardner's blog, "“I think [the gender gap] has to do with many Wikipedia editors being bullies." It is perfectly easy to be an expert these days on "women on Wikipedia": this point is widely discussed all over the media. I was dealing with this point (with a different verbal bully in mind) five years ago, because it is actually common sense (is there anyone who really doesn't understand women's aversion to your type of hostile interaction?)

The next point is that blocks are not something that have to be given out to both parties to a dispute.

Kaldari wrote:

I blocked Malleus because I recently warned him against exactly this sort of behavior. If the other party also warrants blocking, let me know. I am not familiar with that editor's history, however. Kaldari (talk) 03:08, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Just one question was asked about the block and it was answered:

Could you please explain why you blocked one party in an escalating dispute where the other party acknowledges that he was uncivil? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:02, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
I blocked Malleus because I recently warned him against exactly this sort of behavior. If the other party also warrants blocking, let me know. I am not familiar with that editor's history, however. Kaldari (talk) 03:08, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

(I have cut out several other comments around that time and there was a lot of bluster but no review of the reason Kaldari made the block.)

As no further questions were asked, presumably everyone was satisfied with that answer. If they were then why was the block lifted? If not then why weren't further questions asked of Kaldari, like asking for diffs of that conversation to see what sort of warning had been given and then discussions about the content of that warning (was it appropriate etc) and if current alleged breach of WP:CIVIL warranted Kaldari block?

Without such a discussion I do not see how an uninvolved administrator could unblock and could do so without explaining in detail their analysis in the appropriate section on the ANI and hopefully gaining the agreement of Kaldari to self revert if the reasons were strong enough.

I think that this is a classic case of systemic failure of the ANI process. For many high profile editors it is a lottery of how may of their friends and enemies happen to be online at the time and happen to be watching the ANI or are informed of it thought the bush telegraph. Add that some people are taking part in ANIs expressing opinions that are clearly not based on polices and guidelines and contributing nothing but clutter, making it harder to see what the real arguments are, and what the informed consensus is.

There are a number of other Wikipedia processes that deal with editorial behaviour (such as RFCs) that I think also lack natural justice as there is no clear divide between prosecutor, defence, jury, judge and executioner.

I have little faith in the ANI process because I no longer think it fit for purpose for anything but to carry out requests for the most simple tasks. I think it is time the whole process to be replaced.

Having said that, as that would be a very big step, in the short term I support Georgewilliamherbert's request. -- PBS (talk) 13:40, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Scott MacDonald

I've no knowledge of this case, and haven't read the details. However, the motion is il-advised.

"whether that to be to place a sanction or to defer from placing sanctions". I get the desire to equate a decision to block with a decision not to, but this is unworkable in fact. A decision to block is 1) recorded in a central log 2) to can be presumed to be done thoughtfully (granted a rebuttable presumption). A decision not to block is not recorded in any central place - it may be indicated on ANI, or on a talk page or elsewhere. It is easy enough for an admin to stumble on an offence, but not see the discussion (or to deny seeing it). Do we give an advantage to the blocking admin who doesn't participate in the ANI thead, because he can deny being aware of any decisions there?

Further what does a "defering from placing sanction" actually mean? If I write on ANI "I'd not block him for that" - am I "logging" that I have considered and declined the block request, or merely that I personally seldom block - so I'm passing on this one? Blocking (or unblocking) someone is serious, and the ownus is on the blocker/unblocker to give careful consideration. Declining to block someone is not so serious, and the person declinig may or may not have given it serious consideraion. Someone may be desysopped for a very bad block (or unblock) they are not going to be sanctioned for declining to block, even if the user has just put porn on 10 featured articles. In short, wihout a whole new level of process and red-tape, one can't equate comments in a discussion with loggable admin actions - even if at times the comments will have been as much a decision by an admin. This simply won't work if codified.--Scott Mac 00:45, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Notice of request for clarification: "Undoing another administrator's actions or decisions (whether that to be to place a sanction or to defer from placing sanctions)" If the current motion passes unammended, I give notice that I will immediately file a requst for clarification, and ask Arbcom "what the fuck that means?". What is a decision "to defer for placing a sanction"? Defer means delay or put off - did you mean decline? That is simply inarticulate. How am I to know when someone has made such a decision? Where will it be logged? What does it mean to "undo a decision to defer (or even decline if that is what you mean)"? (see further above). Passing quasi-legislation that is this unclear and then leaving the community to arguing about what the hell you mean is unhelpful in the extreme. Policy in this area is hazy at best, so either leave it alone or, if you wish, clarify it with workable and considered tweeks. Don't muddy the waters with incoherent and unworkable drivel because you feel the need to do something. This is arbcom at its worst.--Scott Mac 20:18, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by NuclearWarfare

If you're really going to separate this into eight motions like Casliber is proposing in lieu of creating a full case because you don't want to go that far, delegate a three member panel to decide this. Eight separate motions for something like this is a bit absurd. NW (Talk) 03:32, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by The ed17

I don't believe these eight separate motions are actually motions; most look like findings of fact from a proper case. If you want to do that, open a full case. If you think the community should deal with it, then decline. This situation is really too difficult and divisive to settle in this manner. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:33, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Thryduulf

Echoing The ed17 and others, the proposed motions are not the way to deal with this case. It seems that the committee is doing only the first part of its job and saying to the community, "Here are the findings of fact now deal with rest of the problem yourselves." That's not what we elected you to do - we elected you to deal with the problems that we have failed to deal with ourselves. Thryduulf (talk) 17:53, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Kaldari

I wanted to avoid getting involved in this RfAr, but Casliber's new motions require me to at least explain the basic circumstances of the block as they appear to be confused. A month prior to the block I tried to remove a personal attack by Malleus against Nick Levinson. My removal was reverted by Parrot of Doom,[21] which forced me to issue a warning on Malleus's talk page instead.[22] In late October, Malleus began personally attacking Nick again[23](see edit summary)[24] despite the warning. During this time, I saw no incivility or personal attacks from Nick, so Malleus's behavior was especially aggressive in my opinion. As I had previously participated (minimally) in discussions involving Nick and Malleus, once on the side of Nick[25](expand the hat) and once on the side of Malleus,[26] I didn't know if it would be appropriate for me to take administrative action regarding the dispute. When I saw Tbhotch's AN/I complaint against Malleus a few days later, however, this was the straw that broke the camel's back. Given that Malleus had been previously blocked for personal attacks at least a dozen times,[27] had ignored warnings from myself and others[28][29] since his previous block, and was attacking other editors on a regular basis (to the point where it was becoming a running joke on AN/I),[30] I felt it was long overdue for someone to take enforcement action. Perhaps my action was naive, but I don't think it was uncalled for.

Regarding Mkativerata unblock, I would have been happy to explain all of this to him if he would have discussed the block with me. The argument that deciding not to take action restricts other admins from taking action is ridiculous as it would turn AN/I into a game of who can respond first. Kaldari (talk) 18:31, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What I would like answered by the ArbCom is:

  1. If an administrator declines to take administrative action, does that preclude other admins from taking action?
  2. Are blocks for persistent personal attacks warranted?

Kaldari (talk) 19:04, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Wehwalt

It strikes me that by not taking this case, ArbCom would be ignoring a number of issues important to me as a community member and an admin. I do not care to opine on the facts as my insurance company does not permit me to dance in minefields. The "second move advantage" issue is clearly important. The issues regarding civility are also important, and clarification is needed as to what extent admins should consider factors such as content contributions in deciding on a block. The question of consultation also needs to be clarified, and ArbCom needs to tell us how seriously we view the rules on consultation, and how we apply them. These have been running sores as long as I've been an admin, and efforts to clean them up have been obviously insufficient. Kick the can down the road if you like, but I happened to notice that a couple of you, at least, are requesting the community's trust, such as it is, for another three years. It strikes me you still have business to clean up, and the sheer number of people commenting says that this should be decided.--Wehwalt (talk) 04:19, 17 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Collect: Agree generally with your language, but RfC best for that.--Wehwalt (talk) 04:41, 17 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • One more thing. Having looked back at the threads in question, it strikes me that admins would be grateful for guidance about the issue of how we deal with the situation where someone has not been been given a warning during the current dispute, but has received similar warnings in the past, do we assume awareness of the policy in question, or ignorance? It would be helpful to know.--Wehwalt (talk) 04:57, 17 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I lied. One more, and I can't promise that will be it. Sigh. ArbCom should take this case because the battle lines presented in this discussion will prevent action in any body or forum that requires consensus to act.--Wehwalt (talk) 05:07, 17 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Roger. The nature of consensus dictates that some decisions are hard to reach, just ask the Friends. RFC/U, mediation, all are useless when battle lines are drawn and adhered to. Mebbe the I/P people should sit down and have some falafel together, or start a RFC/U?--Wehwalt (talk) 10:21, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Jehochman. I agree that arbs need to be coming up with a solution to give admins guidance on this. I would not agree that the blocking admin should be sanctioned, he was not under fair warning that a decision not to block (which, after all, does not use the tools) would be considered an admin decision. At least not for that reason. And then we get into the whole question of wording. I haven't yet had time to look at the election seriously as a voter due to editing work pressure, but I'm really seeing this case as the acid test by which to judge the tenure of the arbs seeking re-election. JMO.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:46, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Cla68

Your motions to address this particular issue are band-aids at best. This issue is a symptom of a bigger problem, which is that Wikipedia's administrative system is broken and barely functional. Whenever someone suggests formalizing Wikipedia's administrative processes, people scream, "We don't need more bureaucracy!". True, Wikipedia doesn't need more bureaucracy when it comes to editing, but it definitely needs more when it comes to administration. There's no other way to fix this mess. Cla68 (talk) 08:15, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Epeefleche

While I don't have a view as to in what form it would best for ArbCom to tender guidance here (whether by acceptance of a case, or by motion), it appears that it would be helpful for guidance to be shared by ArbCom as to: the ambit of ArbCom's role in reviewing admin conduct, the "second mover" advantage, criteria for a block-undo, admin behavior, admin communications, etc. I am swayed in this regard by the divergence of views expressed by various admins in this string. That suggests that if ArbCom does not provide such guidance, each admin will proceed thinking that he is correct. That could reasonably be expected to lead to future issues, which could be avoided if ArbCom were to tender guidance here.--Epeefleche (talk) 19:03, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Gerardw

Per ball in community court, I have proposed Wikipedia:Block protocol. Gerardw (talk) 22:30, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jehochman

Arbitrators, the list of motions below makes it look as if you've all lost your minds. Either have a case so there is a venue for a full discussion, or else reject the case. Papering over the dispute with a bunch of motions won't resolve anything.

I think that when an administrator reviews a matter and makes a decision, to block or not to block, that decision needs to be honored by other administrators under pain of losing admin access. If Admin2 blocks after Admin1 renders a decision that no block is needed, there has to be a justification in the form of communication between Admin1 and Admin2, or else a community discussion with a consensus, a serious change in circumstances, or an obvious error. If none of those situations was present here, the blocking admin is in trouble. After Admin2 blocks, Admin1 definitely must not come back on the scene and unblock. That is repeating a disputed action. If this matter goes to a case, I would think that both admins will be admonished or worse, depending on how well they respond to these concerns. Jehochman Talk 15:16, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The second paragraph of my statement is theory. To apply that theory, there needs to be a case to settle the facts in dispute. If it was not clear that "no block" administrative decisions need to be honored, then anybody who violated that rule needs to be given a second chance. Jehochman Talk 16:30, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
@Tznkai, this case isn't messy enough for the annual hazing ritual. I'm sure that with a bit of time and effort that deficiency could be corrected. Jehochman Talk 19:33, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Tznkai

For what its worth, my temptation as a former Arbclerk faced with so many contentious motions and a couple dozen statements would be to subpage this request, because its moving closer and closer to a thing requiring dedicated resources to avoid crowding out other /request business. Which suggests to me that if you are going to make a definitive statement (and "administrators reminded" is fairly useless) you're going to want to open up a case of some sort to allow sufficient input. I'd suggest instead that those who feel that they must make a point about admin behavior without a case write the equivalent of a dissent from the denial of certiorari. Also, there is a yearly tradition of handing the new arbs a ridiculous and intractable mess-cum-hazing ritual. Can this not be it?

Or, as NYB has done, a concurrence in denial of cert. And Jehochman, how do you feel about starting a betting pool on what it will eventually be?--Tznkai (talk) 02:54, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In all seriousness, ArbCom may be able to exert some control over admin behavior, but you can't make us treat eachother with decency in respect. That is on us. Unless you all figure something out, in which case, please, do it. We could use it.--Tznkai (talk) 02:54, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Count Iblis

NYB raises the point that unblocking didn't use to be a big deal. What is also a factor here is that blocking used to be done primarily for preventing damage to Wikipedia, bit we have slowly drifted in recent years toward blocking as punitive feedback for less than ideal behavior. We didn't really need to have policy for unblocking, because if an Admin thought that someone can be unblocked by simply going ahead and unlocking, that alone is good enough indication that the editor would not do a lot of damage after being unblocked (e.g. the editor had promised to stop edit warring).

But today, many blocks are given for the editor to serve time for a crime. The current system has never been formalized, but it needs to be because it isn't inherently stable as the previous system was. The only way one can implement a stable punitive blocking system is to require that an editor be found guilty of an offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Otherwise some blocks won't be seen as justified, and then you'll get disputes about blocks that then escalate to disputes between Admins.

The best way forward is actually to go backward and stop issuing blocks for punitive reasons. But if we want to keep the current practice, then new policies will have to be written about blocking and unblocking and the community cannot do that because it is divided on this issue, so only ArbCom can do that. Without any intervention, what you have is the old stable system with the Admins who believe in that, and then a group of Admins who believe in letting editors serve time. The former group of Admins will always feel free to undo punitive blocks, even if there is a moderate consensus for such blocks because in their opinion such blocks are always wrong, the arguments for them are thus not valid. Count Iblis (talk) 02:39, 26 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
  • Note to clerks: The Committee knows this request has been at net four long enough to be opened, but several arbs are traveling right now (at least one of whom has advised of an intention to opine), and we are also giving consideration to whether or not this can be addressed in a manner short of a case. Please hold on opening this one for 48 hours or until otherwise advised. Thanks. Risker (talk) 00:39, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (6/7/0/0)

  • Waiting for more comments, but this is a problem I've been warning folks about for a while. The second mover advantage.. Perhaps its time we took a second look at it, and decide if there's a way to ameliorate it without undue bureaucracy. SirFozzie (talk) 08:33, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Enough people have opined that I feel ok about voting to accept now. SirFozzie (talk) 19:27, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • accept decline - WRT our role to review admin conduct, which this sits very squarely within the realms of. Unless we want to deal with this by motions, but that might be tricky. A cursory look tells me no mops need be lost here, and I'll post a motion shortly. Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:26, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
@Mkativerata - we are one of the only venues for review of admin tool use, which is the reason I accepted. I've had a look and think a general motion is sufficient. Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:14, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept. John Vandenberg (chat) 12:14, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    @MF: what dishonesty? John Vandenberg (chat) 01:30, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept Jclemens (talk) 16:04, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • To expand a bit, I do not think the issues here are either so straightforward they can be handled by motion (contra Cas), nor so hopeless that a case can't guide future expectations (contra David). I think that any time a dispute has multiple administrators on each side, committee involvement should help center the dispute and prevent future escalations. Jclemens (talk) 19:29, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept; There are actually several interlinked issues at play here. (a) The so-called "second mover" advantage, which in practice only applies asymmetrically (as pointed out above, interestingly, a decision to not block isn't seen as a putative "first move" a block would "undo"); (b) what critera are used before undoing another administrative act (i.e. "bad decision" is too often equated with "decision I disagree with"); and (c) whether specific admin misbehaviour occurred in this incident which pretty much demands examining (a) and (b) to settle. The focus is the specific incident, but it's necessary to reevaluate the entire context if we want to make sense. — Coren (talk) 17:15, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Leaning toward acceptance, but awaiting further comments. While I think this event may be the jumping-off point, it strikes me that the focus should be on (a) the asymmetry in the perceived "second mover" advantage that devalues decisions that do not directly involve admin tools, and the related "undoing" of such actions and (b) effectiveness in managing interpersonal communication issues (yes, I mean "civility" and personal attacks), particularly concerns about asymmetry in dealing with multiple parties. Risker (talk) 17:45, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still not fully persuaded that there is a genuine case here. I will, however, actively discourage editors from pointing fingers at each other; there are some comments on this page that border on personal attack. I'll also point out that every single person who has posted on this page is a vested contributor; without vested contributors (i.e., people who have invested their work in this project), there would be no Wikipedia. Just because some guy on MeatballWiki used the term pejoratively years ago doesn't mean that we should remove a valuable term from the English language. In every other sphere, vested contributors are considered amongst the most critical and necessary factors in the success of an enterprise. Risker (talk) 04:50, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Still not supporting acceptance yet; there may be other lesser actions that can be taken if needed. More importantly, would someone please provide some evidence or links to show why they think Kaldari was an "involved" administrator? Risker (talk) 14:51, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Decline - Concur with Elen of the Roads. Compared to other administrator behaviour that has occurred in the past week, this isn't even in the same ballpark. There was a limited degree of incivility involved in this event. It strikes me that many of the complaints related to the incivility of some experienced editors is because the perceived incivility was directed to other experienced editors; what I am seeing here is no worse than what I see on a regular basis directed to new or inexperienced editors without an eyebrow being raised. Risker (talk) 00:16, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept. - Mailer Diablo 19:04, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • My position has not changed. 9 motions? All the more we shouldn't be rushing out principles and FOFs as motions. - Mailer Diablo 12:22, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reject. After re-reading everything here, I'm not sure what ArbCom can really do. I'm feeling shades of "Manipulations of BLPs" here; we had a good idea but no practical way to implement it or encourage evidence, and it was a lot of fuss for the end result. This would prove to be even worse. I think most people can agree the issues of civility, esp. whether it's given a pass as secondary to article work, is a festering sore that needs to be dealt with, but I'm not sure that it's in our remit—aside from acting as a US Supreme Court interpreting the "true meaning" of WP:WHEEL, I'm at a loss as to the goals of acceptance. I'd be happy to let another arb sway me. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 12:35, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline. Based on the discussion here and on the mailing list, I'm unconvinced a full case is necessary. A motion to remind admins that in situations such as this it's preferable to wait until there's a consensus before making a block or unblock is probably all that is required. PhilKnight (talk) 14:31, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • (Interim note - I've been travelling. I'm reviewing this now and will comment later today.) Most of what I was planning to say when I had more time, has since been said (more briefly than I would have) by others. Will finish reviewing and vote this evening. Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:58, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Decline at this time. Extended comments below. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:11, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline The game is not worth the candle (as the saying goes). This isn't the case to attempt a restatement of civility, and there's no offence here worthy of a demopping - especially considering some of the other stuff that's gone on this past week, that didn't make it here. Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:40, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Add - 99of9 has a good idea here though. Things often just drift off the noticeboards because no admin is inclined to take any action so the request gets no response. To have some kind of template that could be used by an admin that they had assessed the situation and formally concluded it did not warrant admin action might be helpful all round. Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:45, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept, if only because the landscape is not sufficiently clear to deal with this by motion(s). By attempting to fast-track the case in this fashion, we are ruling on the situation without giving the parties the usual opportunity to review and respond to the findings in an organized manner. –xenotalk 14:09, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline. By our usual criteria, there is insufficient here to justify a full case. Conversely, there is too much in contention for a fact-based summary motion. The substantive issues - the "second mover advantage" and incivility - must ultimately be resolved by the community via well-focused and framed RFCs but in the meanwhile a restatement of applicable principles is probably helpful.  Roger Davies talk 12:07, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: I have attempted to re-write the composite motion below to focus specifically on established policy. Given the complex and highly specific nature of the present request, and the surprisingly large number of grey areas it encompasses, a concise motion about general principles is impossible. Additionally, there is little consensus among my colleagues about how to proceed. Best therefore is to not to poke about at the edges, and potentially make things worse, but to leave this for revisiting when clearer-cut circumstances arise. Roger Davies talk 16:55, 18 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Motion

The Committee would like to reinforce these statements, in lieu of issuing of opening a full case.

Civility
A) Civility is one of the Five Pillars that Wikipedia is built on.
B) Users who are grossly or chronically uncivil can face sanctions, up to and including a block of indefinite length for repeated violations.
Administrative Actions are not to be taken lightly, or reversed lightly
A) Administrators are appointed based on the community's trust in their good judgement. Administrators should respect the judgements of other administrators and should not lightly take controversial actions (Including the reversal of other administrators' actions).
B) It is always best to discuss and get a clear consensus before undertaking administrative actions that are likely controversial.
C) Undoing another administrator's actions or decisions (whether that to be to place a sanction or to defer from placing sanctions) is inherently controversial, and should not be done without discussion or attempts to contact the previous administrator (except in cases of CLEAR and unambiguous error)
Community Urged
A) The Arbitration Committee urges that the community of editors and administrators work on coming up with methods to deal with recognizing and dealing with grossly or habitually uncivil users.
Arbitrator Votes

For this motion, there are 15 active arbitrators, so 8 support votes are a majority.

Support
  1. See my comment below, rather then cluttering up the support field with a multiple paragraph statement. Feel free to suggest copy edits, my fellow arbs SirFozzie (talk) 23:59, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  2. I agree wholeheartedly with the spirit of this, but the wording needs tightening. The Cavalry (Message me) 00:19, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  3. PhilKnight (talk) 00:28, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  4. While I echo Coren's disappointment that it does not appear a case will be opened, I also have to empathize with Sir Fozzie's effort to salvage something out of this candidate case here, and passing a motion is a less bad outcome than simply letting the matter die. Make no mistake, I'd rather have the case... but this is better than nothing. Jclemens (talk) 04:12, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    @Elen, ANI is not a remotely accurate barometer of community consensus, and a single discussion there is not sufficient justification to override a pillar. Those who participate in ANI have self-selected to engage in an atmosphere that is focused primarily on misdeeds great and small; they are not the occasional editors who get blindsided by our "established contributors" who have their own particular definitions of incivility. Jclemens (talk) 06:02, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, while my comments below still hold, the segments themselves are salient enough to reiterate (for all parties). Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:14, 8 November 2011 (UTC) May as well state some motions which have relevance to this case. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:06, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 18:05, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

:#:  Roger Davies talk 12:07, 12 November 2011 (UTC) Switch to oppose (see the comments appended to my decline vote above,  Roger Davies talk 16:55, 18 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose
  1. I'm not one to shy away from restating the fundamentals when it is applicable (that's what we use the principles section of decisions for, after all), but this motion is not the right way to go about it now. None of what is stated in here is objectionable, but this motion sends entirely the wrong message. The incident precipitating this request is, in my opinion, symptomatic of a much deeper problem that needs an examination in detail – not restating the obvious while ducking out the side door. — Coren (talk) 01:47, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Can't see the point of restating pi-jaw. I would also point out that in a current ANI thread, the consensus seems to be that mere incivility is not a blocking offence, so we do not have wholehearted community support on this one. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:34, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  3. This omnibus motion is only partially correct; the issues related to admins is not settled, and I cannot support. Risker (talk) 20:34, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  4. The minimum detail is what I set out below, this is too brief and has wrong emphasis. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:34, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  5. In a nutshell, this incident is too messy and too convoluted to make useful specific observations by motion. Setting aside the whys and wherefores of the reporting, blocking and unblocking aspects, even the civility policy is in disarray. It says: "Stated simply, editors should always treat each other with consideration and respect. In order to keep the focus on improving the encyclopedia and to help maintain a pleasant editing environment, editors should behave politely, calmly and reasonably, even during heated debates. It seems to me pointless to have such an emphatic policy, if it counts for little. So perhaps the community should consider either enforcing the policy as written or re-drafting it?  Roger Davies talk 16:55, 18 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Per Roger. –xenotalk 17:00, 18 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain
  1. I'd prefer to have a case about this situation and make a decision based on the evidence presented. The result may not be any different from this motion, but I think ArbCom needs to start accepting civility cases in order to explore this territory properly. John Vandenberg (chat) 00:52, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    This has the wrong emphasis - this to me was only very marginally incivil (in an exchange which then got silly), there are many more clearcut examples of difficult editing which should surely reach us before this one. Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:12, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Arbitrator Comments
Please forgive my excessive verbiage. I am sorely disappointed that fellow members of the Committee are declining to hear this as a case, or indeed as a motion (until I posted this on my own initiative.). I wanted to make several things clear with this statement. Civility is one of the five poles that Wikipedia is built on, but lately, and more and more, we ignore low level ongoing cases of incivility from users who have a large level of support. This is what some editors has referred to this as the "vested contributors" problem, which I think is generally a canard.
Instead, I think we need the Community of editors and administrators to define what it is to be uncivil, and indeed how to act against it, because we are dealing with so many different opinions of what the policy means that any attempt we could make to define it at our level would quickly be turned around with "ArbCom is trying to make policy".
To that, I have to say: "No, we're not trying to make policy. The policy is right there in black and white. It's up to the community of editors and administrators to decide what it means, how we deal with it, and where we are going forward."
I sense no appetite amongst my fellow Arbitrators to get involved in this fight, but it has become clear to me that in a lot of cases, actions that everyone KNOWS will be controversial are done willy-nilly. That includes administrative actions taken, and later other administrators undoing those actions. If you'll forgive a tortured set of references, the era of Wild West administrative actions needs to stop. Blocking or unblocking a user should not turn into the Gunfight at the OK Corral. It is my personal opinion that a lot of actions taken in this case fell afoul of this mentality. There was ongoing discussion, but no consensus to do an action, or indeed later to undo the action. No action can seem to stick, because anyone who does place a unilateral controversial sanction soon faces a large amount of people springing to their colleague's aid, and battle lines are quickly drawn. The issue that precipitated this case is such an issue.
When I ran for re-election to the Committee at the end of 2010, I stated my personal preference that I wanted more admins to act like Harry Stone, and less admins acting like Dirty Harry. I stand behind that even more now when I review this case. To use one more platitude (if I have not already used up my quota for this month), as Benjamin Franklin once said, "An ounce of Prevention, is worth A pound of cure". SirFozzie (talk) 23:59, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I want to make it clear that this should apply to ongoing issues, there are exceptions (one suggested to me was someone unblocking a series of IP addresses after it's clear that the vandal has moved on.. this is not controversial and does not apply to the statement above, but if we started listing exceptions to this rule, think of how many more bits of monitors we'd kill for not much result. Won't someone think of the poor monitors?) SirFozzie (talk) 00:27, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would prefer that these two disparate proposals be separate motions. Can we please split these up before anyone else votes? Risker (talk) 01:02, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I see no reason to split these. Both issues are encapsulated in this one case. Best to kill two birds with one stone. SirFozzie (talk) 01:05, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm sorry, but we often will have multiple motions, particularly when the different motions cover diverse topics. I'm not big on this whole bird-stone thing, when we've got no shortage of stones. As it is, I could probably support the first section as is, but the second section requires considerable wordsmithing and I am not able to support it as it stands. That means, basically, that I have to oppose the whole shooting match. Please split them. Risker (talk) 01:48, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • I still oppose splitting the motions, but if the rest of the Committee wants it, go ahead. But I think it's better off this way. SirFozzie (talk) 02:01, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I understand the desire to handle this by motion, but am afraid that the current wording does not adequately cover the various nuances involved in typical administrative workflows (see comments by Scott Mac). –xenotalk 14:30, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pontification about 'vested contributors' is a complete red herring. Everybody go and look at [31] (permalinked as it's going to be archived shortly). It is as I have said before (including at my RFA) - there is a level that everyone agrees on, such as the comment a couple of days ago at Reference Desk that another admin beat both myself and NYB to the block on, and everything below that is a grey area. Elen of the Roads (talk) 16:41, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@NW (and others), I have come up with some motions below based on my view of what has transpired. Much of it is observation of how these issues proceed to date, and then where we might go from here. Apologies for the seven segments, but I feel there are several facets that need mentioning, and want to get as accurate as consensus as possible. I think accuracy of consensus more than makes up for onerousness of voting on seven motion-segments Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:50, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@MONGO, you're right re Q5 - Kaldari wasn't involved, yet I felt I just had to give it the once-over and doublecheck myself. The point I am making is that there is some nebulousness in the boundary of Involved WRT admin actions, and given this we must be scrupulous in double-checking for this for the community at large to keep faith that admins are using tools appropriately. Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:12, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I do not think the landscape is sufficiently clear to deal with this by motion. –xenotalk 14:09, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

motion 2: Malleus' comments

Malleus Fatuorum (talk · contribs) made comments in an exchange with Tbhotch (talk · contribs) which a proportion of the editing community find to be incivil.

Support
  1. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:29, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
  1. If it needs seven motions, it needs a case. John Vandenberg (chat) 12:17, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  2. I agree with John. I'm ok with the idea of using one or two motions instead of having a full case, but I think seven is too many. PhilKnight (talk) 12:47, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  3. You can't try four persons for constituting a rioting mob either. this is one potential finding out of a case, not a motion. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:07, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  4. While I can empathize with the desire to avoid a full case, I think that by the time the necessity of making of finding of fact by motion pops up there should be alarm bells going off that this can no longer be productively be handled by simple motion work. — Coren (talk) 14:50, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  5. I understand the intent, but I don't think many motions is the way to address it. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 18:08, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain
  1. I do not think the landscape is sufficiently clear to deal with this by motion; fast-tracking the case like this does not give the parties enough of an opportunity to review and respond to the proposed findings in an organized fashion. –xenotalk 14:09, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion
  • To my fellow arbs, I worded these motions to encapsulate the uncertainty regarding their status (note the wording!) - I was hoping that folks would pick this up...or am I really barking up the wrong tree. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:13, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I appreciate what you've tried to do with these motions, I just think that fast-tracking it in this manner does not give the parties enough of an opportunity to respond. Their responses may be lost because of the fast-moving and somewhat disorganized nature of the case requests page. –xenotalk 14:34, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

motion 3: Risks of borderline incivility

Given the lack of consensus on what constitutes sanctionable incivility, Malleus Fatuorum (talk · contribs) ran the risk of being blocked. Given this lack of consensus is ongoing, it is a fact that editors who engage in an exchange of an equivalent candour will run a similar risk of being blocked, dependent on who reviews the incident and the local consensus.

Support
  1. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:29, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
  1. per above John Vandenberg (chat) 12:17, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  2. WTF? --Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:08, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  3. per my comments above. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 18:08, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain
  1. I do not think the landscape is sufficiently clear to deal with this by motion. –xenotalk 14:09, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion
  • what do you mean WTF Elen? This just describes how this stuff happens currently - there is a big grey area of incivility where it depends upon the reviewer and reviewed as to what happens (and will continue to happen), just stating the obvious. Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:45, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
WP:OR. In what way should the Arbitration Committee be passing motions that amount to someone's conversational opinion? GWH requested this case to look at Mkativerata's behaviour - and by extension the behaviour of other admins - in relation to the overturning of a block while a community discussion was ongoing. That some colleagues were determined to somehow turn it into a referendum on civility does not empower the committee to make motions out of statements better suited to a discussion in a pub. Elen of the Roads (talk) 19:54, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Err, because that is what started the situation in the first place, so..er, nevermind. Let's just archive this when appropriate. Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:57, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

motion 4: Kaldari's block

Kaldari (talk · contribs) blocked Malleus Fatuorum (talk · contribs) for an exchange with Nick Levinson (talk · contribs), and a proportion of the community objected to the block.

Support
  1. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:29, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
  1. per above John Vandenberg (chat) 12:17, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  2. As John V --Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:10, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  3. per my comments above. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 18:08, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain
  1. I do not think the landscape is sufficiently clear to deal with this by motion. –xenotalk 14:09, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion
  • ...what does this mean? Deryck C. 10:31, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • My guess is the words 'for this exchange post a warning' were accidentally included. I'll delete them. PhilKnight (talk) 12:44, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

motion 5: Speculation

Furthermore, Kaldari (talk · contribs) had had a negative encounter with Malleus Fatuorum (talk · contribs) the day before. Although not a classical case of being Involved as such, it did raise speculation that he was Involved and should not have used admin tools with this user.

Support
  1. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:29, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
  1. per above John Vandenberg (chat) 12:17, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  2. per my comments above. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 18:08, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain
  1. I do not think the landscape is sufficiently clear to deal with this by motion. –xenotalk 14:09, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion


motion 6: Mkativerata's unblock

Mkativerata (talk · contribs) unblocked without notifying Kaldari (talk · contribs). As he points out, there is no firm rule to do so and there was opposition to the block in the first place.

Support
  1. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:29, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
  1. per above John Vandenberg (chat) 12:17, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  2. per my comments above. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 18:08, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain
  1. I do not think the landscape is sufficiently clear to deal with this by motion. –xenotalk 14:09, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion

motion 7: behaviour in areas where there is a lack of consensus

In summary, no actions rise to the level warranting sanctions, but all are reminded that in areas where there is a lack of community consensus, certain actions run the risk stirring acrimony, and so all are advised that borderline incivility risks blocking depending on the consensus of those reviewing.

Support
  1. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:29, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
  1. per above John Vandenberg (chat) 12:17, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  2. per my comments above. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 18:08, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain
  1. I do not think the landscape is sufficiently clear to deal with this by motion. –xenotalk 14:09, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion


motion 8: admin actions in areas where there is a lack of consensus

In summary, no actions rise to the level warranting sanctions, but all are reminded that in areas where there is a lack of community consensus, certain actions run the risk stirring acrimony, and so all are advised to be extra careful in seeking consensus for any admin action

Support
  1. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:29, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
  1. per above John Vandenberg (chat) 12:17, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  2. per my comments above. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 18:08, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain
  1. I do not think the landscape is sufficiently clear to deal with this by motion. –xenotalk 14:09, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion

motion 9: Ball is in community's court

The ball is hence in the community's court - this can either be by community led RfC or by requesting a case in a more clear-cut case of either incivility or problematic admin action.


Support
  1. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:29, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose
  1. Much for the same reason as above (that is, not appropriate for motion work). In addition, in this particular case, I don't feel that this is even true in substance. Pretty much by definition, the ball is in ArbCom's court where there has been a dispute that has already failed to be solved in the community – especially when it has done so repeatedly over many years(!) The clearcut cases are the ones where the community does manage to solve the issue without ArbCom intervention.

    In essence, this motion means "Come see us the next time you don't actually need our intervention." I'm sure that can't be the intent, but it's singularly unhelpful regardless. — Coren (talk) 02:37, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  2. Coren makes a good point. I don't think there's much actionable as a case here, but it still is in our purview at this time. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 18:08, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Abstain
  1. This is similar to SirFozzie motion, so I'm abstaining on this one. An RFC would be good, but that doesnt need a motion. I disagree that we need a more clear cut case. There is a segment of the community that is want us to look at situations like this, where it isnt clear cut. The civility, first-mover and second-mover problems are amplified in situations like this one. The clear cut cases are dealt with routinely by the community. John Vandenberg (chat) 12:17, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  2. I do not think the landscape is sufficiently clear to deal with this by motion. –xenotalk 14:09, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion
  • @Coren, we didn't even get a quorum of arbs needing intervention was necessary here. So by definition, the conduct or dispute will need to be more divergent from ideal for us to get a quorum to intervene. Casliber (talk · contribs)
    • Well, this just means that the matter is divisive amongst us as well as within the community (which is, when you think about it, not that surprising). I understand that our net four rule for acceptance (which I have frankly never understood) means we avoid those cases by default – it doesn't mean I have to agree that it's the right thing to do now or in general. — Coren (talk) 12:58, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes, but it's divisive in whether arbs even think there are enough grounds to review or open a case. There will be others where there is more significant issues which warrant more detailed investigation, and we'll be more unified in taking the case. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:39, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Newyorkbrad

I've broken "comments by Newyorkbrad" out here as a separate section, not because my comments are more important or entitled to more prominence than any other arbitrator's, but simply because they are coming late in the day and I am afraid that if I put them into the middle of the section where they would otherwise go, no one would notice them. My apologies for trampling on the usual format, and I hope this won't set a dreadful precedent.

I'm sure many of you have observed that I haven't commented on this case or voted on any of the motions. My not having commented is not based on my not having anything to say about this case. Rather, it's partly about my having been swamped with real-world work for the past couple of weeks, but it's mostly about having too much to say about this case and the issues it raises. I've been criticized before for writing monologs on the arbitration pages, and I've been trying to do less of that, so I have tried to boil down everything I have to say about this request into a few sentences, and not to say anything until I'd accomplish that. After three weeks, I confess I have failed at boiling down; this is going to be a monolog. Anyone who detests monologs in general, or NYB monologs in particular, is excused from reading further.

On the off chance that anyone is still reading after having seen the preceding sentence, I'll keep typing.

First off, with regard to whether the case should be accepted. Every arbitration case we accept and decide represents a major time commitment—for the arbitrators, for the parties, and for the community members who participate in the process. A few months ago, I took a look back at some of the cases we've decided since I've been arbitrating, and asked myself, in which of them did the Committee add value and help solve a problem, and in which did we just take a lot of time away from the encyclopedia-building that we all claim we'd rather be doing? (We should do more post-morteming of our decisions after a few months of implementation to see what works and what doesn't—a point Carcharoth used to make.) The main conclusion I came to is that (1) when we accept a case to address a chronic problem that the community hasn't been able to solve, we often are able to improve the situation, but that (2) when we accept a case to address an isolated or particular incident, the net effect is to spend several weeks rubbing everyone's nose in and reminding everyone of some wikitempest in a wikiteapot that might otherwise have been forgotten in a day or a week.

Thus, the question for me is whether the block-and-unblock that led GWH to file the case was an isolated event or a frequent one. That doesn't have an unambiguous answer, though: clearly this block wasn't going to be repeated under the same circumstances, but there are likely to be similar blocks in the future.

None of the administrator conduct or user conduct in this case was so egregious that it called for sanctions in and of itself. If we accepted this case, it would be to hand down principles and maybe impose a remedy that would guide administrators the next time this kind of thing came up. We weren't going to desysop or ban anyone; we would issue the kind of decision that in my more optimistic moments I think of as providing useful guidance for the community, but that our detractors say are basically useless. One of our critics on another site who has a greater gift for pithy expression than I do (I suppose that most everyone other than Abd and FT2 has a greater gift for pithy expression than I do, which I say to anticipate the hecklers) put it this way:

Arbcom would rather be slowly digested in the Sarlacc Pit for over a thousand years than deal with this case and will do everything to stop the thing being thrown in their laps. [But if it's accepted], after a long, painful, time-consuming trial, the ArbCom will admonish/caution/remind/WP:TROUT/whatever everyone involved, encourage everyone to engage in peace and love, and wash their hands of the matter (at least until the next major flare-up). If sanctions are enacted (via the ArbCom case, another case, amendment, clarification or motion), zealots on every side will argue over minutiae, bureaucratic details, the definition of WP:INVOLVED as well as WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL, among other things. Zealots will enforce the ruling to punish the opposing side and ignore/water down sanctions against their side. ArbCom will have to make several clarifications/amendments/motions to deal with the zealotry and misery involved. Eventually, this will go long enough that the community, ArbCom, and all sides decide to give it all up as no one can win or get "justice," so everything goes back to the status quo ante bellum (at least until the next major flare-up). The deeper problems are never solved, resulting a Cold War-esque atmosphere that exists just beneath the surface before erupting like a super-volcano and restarting the whole dog-gone process all over again.

That's a much exaggerated view of how the case might have played out. Then again, Archie Goodwin once asked Nero Wolfe whether a blatantly exaggerated comment of Wolfe's was true, to which Wolfe responded, "it contains truth." What I've quoted is exaggerated for its audience (which wasn't this page) but it contains a touch of truth. So I'm not going to vote to accept this case or any case unless we can look forward to a much more productive outcome than that.

The more productive outcome would be clarification of policy on some fairly basic questions concerning blocking and unblocking, which I won't discuss in detail here because others have already commented on them. I do remember that when I became an administrator (January 2007), an admin who reviewed a block and disagreed with the need for or length of the block would sometimes just reverse it and unblock. Consulting with the blocking admin was considered a courtesy and good practice, but an optional one. Over time, the norm against "wheel-warring" was emphasized more, and now a blocking admin will often be ticked off if one of his or her blocks is overturned without advance discussion and perhaps (if the two admins disagree about the block) a longish discussion on a noticeboard.

These discussions may produce better consensus about the merits of disputed blocks. They also take a lot of time (it's not unheard of for the block to expire by time while it's still being discussed). And they have helped turn AN and ANI into what are sometimes disparagingly referred to as "drama boards" that worsen and perpetuate too many grievances rather than solve them. Matters came full-circle for me a few weeks ago when I came across a block I thought unjustified, I told the blocking admin that if he didn't agree to an unblock I would raise the matter on ANI, and I received the unexpected response (paraphrased) "you could have gone ahead and unblocked if you want, but don't ever threaten me with the drama board."

Related to all of this is the fact that, eleven years into the history of the site, there are still basic questions of blocking/unblocking policy that remain completely unresolved. Here's one I raise every time these issues come up:

Hypothetical situation: Admin:A blocks User:X. Admin:B thinks it's a bad block and takes the issue to AN. After a good discussion, half of those commenting believe A was justified and that X should stay blocked. The other half of those commenting believe A was unjustified and X should be unblocked. Both sides are making sound, reasonable arguments.
Is the proper outcome of the discussion that X should stay blocked (because there is no consensus to overturn A's block), or that X should be unblocked (because the default state of any user is unblocked and there is no consensus in favor of the block)?

I've posed this scenario several times over the past couple of years, and the opinions of both newish users and of relatively senior admins have been more-or-less equally divided. In other words, we aren't just divided on the merits of occasional individual blocks, but on a meta-level of how we decide. Put differently: No consensus on AfD defaults to Keep, except in some BLP situations; no consensus on DRV defaults to Endorse; no consensus on RfA defaults to unsuccess; what does no consensus on an unblock request default to?

Until we can figure out a basic question like this one, we're not going to make progress with more complicated scenarios involving strategic behavior such as second-mover advantages (i.e., in the above hypothetical, should B unblock unilaterally or take the case to AN/ANI)?

So, what may really be needed—and I see that what's now being proposed by a couple of commenters—is that we need to clarify some aspects of the policy. I'd be tempted to accept the case for the express purpose of doing that—but "ArbCom isn't to make policy". In reality, it's probably inevitable that we're going to wind up making policy in some circumstances, both de facto by establishing what sorts of behavior gets someone sanctioned, and by addressing inconsistencies and ambiguities in the policies as they exist. But I'm reluctant to vote to take a case just to adjust the wording of policies; and given that the user conduct probably doesn't support sanctioning anyone, that is what this case would probably turn into.

Hence, my vote is to decline the case at this time and to cross my fingers that a community discussion or RfC will make some progress. That being said, if a situation like this comes to us again, especially involving the same people, I'll be glad to take a fresh look at it. If the community can't figure out the policy issues, then faute de mieux, we may have to. (Do us all a favor, though, and please wait awhile before filing such a case, to see how the discussions turn out. And we probably ought to have the elections over with too.)

I have one other thing to say, which concerns Malleus Fatuorum, the user whose being blocked and unblocked precipitated all of this in the first place. Malleus has of course become a well-known and controversial character on this wiki. He is a strong content contributor and reviewer; he also ... how shall I put this? ... doesn't hesitate to say what he thinks, in whatever words he chooses to say it. Sometimes that is a virtue, but perhaps not all the time. As best I can tell from his writings, Malleus is unashamedly of the view that he knows more about a lot of things than many other editors (he is often correct), that he knows more than most administrators (he is sometimes correct), and that the administration of Wikipedia is replete with actual corruption (about this he is almost always mistaken, unless he has a very different meaning of "corrupt" in mind from the ones I think of). Lots of people have asked Malleus if he can continue his content and reviewer contributions while toning down his sharp edges and strident rhetoric. The answer, he has said more than once, is no: we get the entire Malleus package or nothing. It would be sad to wind up with nothing, but I'd urge him to reconsider that answer—not because I or anyone else can't handle being called a rude name, but because this is a collaborative project, and various sorts of name-calling do nothing to improve the editing environment. (Wikilove is optional, but expressions of Wikihatred are discouraged.) And also for Malleus to think about, all the arguments and bickering that these episodes trigger tend to become a massive time-sink and to take everyone's attention away from the encyclopedia-building that (I come back to this point) brought us all to Wikipedia to begin with, including me and especially including you. So all of this can be food for thought for MF— although I already anticipate his response that no one gave me permission to be familiar and call him MF and that the only MF in this conversation is probably me.

I realize that this is quite a long posting by way of a "decline" vote, which is the main reason I've refrained from posting it for three weeks and I'm embarrassed to have posted it now. If I'm foolish enough to run for reelection next year, I know at least three voter guides will say "Oppose—his comments on the blocks-unblocks case were way too long and induced coma." But perhaps they will help guide some future discussions after all.

Tl;dr version: Decline for now, but will consider taking a case in the future if the issues can't be resolved some other way. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:10, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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