User talk:Worm That Turned

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I'm impressed

Hi... I have been watching ArbCom for years, and go through periods of editing / commenting. I wanted to tell you that I have noticed some of your recent posts / actions and that I have been impressed. I was glad to see when you noticed the prior actions of Kevin in the BLP deletions and saw that maybe that ArbCom had encouraged an unhelpful degree of BOLD-action (though I also felt the "emergency" desysop was a bad decision). You have been offering clearer and more forthright comments than are typical from Arbitrators (excluding NYB) and I think that is a positive development. I've seen you requesting comments on ArbCom, which is also encouraging to see. ArbCom have certainly made a huge mess recently but I wanted to say that you have earned at least one editor's respect for trying to handle the situations well. Regards, EdChem (talk) 00:38, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you EdChem, I do appreciate the comments. There's a chasm growing out there, and I'm just one chap. Hopefully I'm one chap, in the right place, saying the right things and I can make a difference. If you've got any advice or thoughts for improvement, I'd love to hear them. Worm^TT(talk) 00:41, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Ok, here are a few thoughts on current messes (I'll sign each so you can respond to each point if you wish):

• On the Malleus mess, it is clear that Committee has been deeply divided. It is also clear that the CU technical evidence is substantial. What is not clear is what evidence justified the use of CU in the first place and what abusive editing MF and GP have done. AGK posted some links at WT:ACN, which I appreciated but found unpersuasive. Would you be willing / able to post evidence in the form of diffs and on-wiki activities that would support the original use of the CU tool? Some editors appear to be of the view that CU showed a connection so its use must have been justified, but my understanding is that policy doesn't work that way. I know one of your colleagues has mentioned GP posting whilst MF was blocked... is this correct, and is there any evidence that the accounts were misused to influence consensus, double !voted, etc? Giano is not the only editor worried about these issues, so I ask if you might be able to post to provide information to reduce tension and try to avoid further drama. Revealling to original complainant is something I recognise that you cannot do, but providing the non-privacy-precluded portions of the evidence that supported the investigation being initiated seems to me to be a reasonable request. Evidence that ArbCom began the checks on a reasonable and policy-supported basis would reduce tensions, I believe. EdChem (talk) 10:59, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

  I should say that the technical evidence against Malleus is beyond substantial, it was pretty close to unquestionable. It's for that reason that many members of the committee dismissed alternate possibilities and we got ourselves into this mess. There are strong behavioural reasons that I believed that they were not the same person, but they were not persuasive to everyone.

  But that's not what you're asking. You are asking whether a CU was justified at the time. The checkuser was based on the fact that the policy had been violated (both accounts had edited the project space) and allegations were credible - it was also stated that the intention was to exonerate Malleus, as few of us believed Malleus was the sort to use sockpuppets. This was sufficient to call the actions justifiable. I personally felt that the justification was not sufficient, as did a number of my collegues, but the checkuser had been made before I was even aware of the thread. One arbitrator cross posted his opinion that a checkuser was not justified at the same time the result was given. This is an example of the reactionary nature of the committee, wanting to right wrongs quickly. It is something that we've discussed at length since and I have already seen improvement in the committee when a similar case came up recently.

  Retroactively, it was clear that if they were the same person, they had violated many inappropriate uses of alternate accounts and I think that a checkuser would have been justified after a little more investigation. Topics and style of editing was similar. George carried on editing whilst Malleus was blocked 1, George edited project space (Village pump and RfA 2), the pair appeared to tag-team edit war (which is dubious, but both did edit the same article) 3 and even arguably "Good Hand, Bad Hand" editing. There are a number of instances where mention was made by George of Malleus or vice versa which appeared to a certain reading to be evading scrutiny. When looked at these would have justified an investigation, and since SPI would not have touched it due to the subject, Arbcom was the right place to do it.

  Of course, if these were different people, the vast majority of these technical violations fell down. The accounts did not particularly attempt to influence consensus, so under a "spirit" reading of policy rather than a "letter" reading, there was less of a problem. We start having to worry about shared accounts and meatpuppetry, but they're different problems. Worm^TT(talk) 14:11, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

  I appreciate your response. I have been pondering the situation, and thinking... I wonder if there was a discussion of whether or not to run a CU coming to a consensus, or if one of the committee acted unilaterally to run the CU before or during any debate. I am also wondering whether the controversy over the running of the CU suggests a problem with the standards that the CU group have adopted. To me, on reading WP:CHECK, I get the impression that evidence of misconduct is suppose to be integral to the evidence needed for a CU to be run - but the evidence on this point in the MF case is somewhere between weak and absent. Maybe the community view should be canvassed, to see whether the standards that are applied match those that are generally viewed as reasonable? EdChem (talk) 11:11, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

• Oversight-only blocks: ArbCom passed a motion unanimously, but it was hardly uncontroversial as it appears to impose policy by fiat. Leaving aside whether ArbCom had the power to do what it did (and the on-going discussion at WT:BLOCK shows continuing frustration), I want to suggest a way forward that might provide a win-win solution. I propose that a member of ArbCom begin an RfC at WT:BLOCK, stating that ArbCom has passed a motion but that implementation would be best by an RfC-supported consensus wording for the policy. The RfC could discuss whether adminstrators "should not" reverse or should only reverse in special circumstances or "must not" act on oversight blocks. There could be a sensible discussion (which was missing at ArbCom, in my opinion) of when the oversighted materials are known to the unblocking administrator, or when the oversighter has set forth a position on when an unblock is possible (where administrators might reasonably disagree as to whether the criteria had been met). Once these sorts of issues have been discussed, a wording can be proposed and !voted on. I think that some deliberate invitation of community views and looking for consensus might reduce some of the animosity about unilateral policy determination. I said win-win because the consensus view will be along the lines the Committee seeks, given that your view will be / is shared by former arbitrators, functionaries, many administrators and "ordinary" editors. The problem was not that ArbCom's position on oversight blocks was unreasonable, it was that its method for achieving policy change was provocative and generated resistance. ArbCom need not state that its action was wrong or unsupported by policy but taking some time to achieve wording consensus by community methods is worth it to smooth over community-committee relations. EdChem (talk) 10:59, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

  I do like this idea, and so I'm going to talk to the rest of the committee about doing it. I don't believe that the committee did create policy by fiat, but then I would say that! I suggested an RfC myself on the motions page, but didn't really consider actually creating one. So, on this point at least, I'll have to get back to you. Worm^TT(talk) 14:11, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

  I don't recall ever before having an arbitrator respond like that to one of my suggestions, so thank you. I will be interested to hear whether this idea is taken up. EdChem (talk) 11:11, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

  It would probably be better to have an RFC on all special blocks (ie Checkuser, Oversght, OTRS, Office, ArbCom) as there's a fair amount of shared ground (material which cannot in practical terms be publicly reviewed) and they're not all covered in policy. It would also mean that the particular bit of the blocking policy could become less duplicatory.  Roger Davies ^talk 12:41, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikipediocracy

Hi WTT.

Captain Occam is a site-banned editor who has been involved in repeated arbcom campaigns against me on wikipedia. When topic-banned he edited through his girlfriend Ferahgo the Assassin, who inherited his topic ban. He then brought in at least two other off-wiki friends to help him bypass his topic ban. Eventually he stopped adding content and just engaged in arbcom proceedings firstly against me and then against others (MastCell, Orangemarlin). When Orangemarlin was recovering from major surgery and not editing wikipedia, Captain Occam pressed for him to be site-banned (following the Abortion case). Subsequently Risker blocked both of them. Because of issues connected with proxy-editing, Captain Occam and his girlfriend were site-banned in May 2012. Subsequently the two editors who had edited on their behalf attempted to continue arbcom proceedings against me. One of them is now indefinitely banned and the other, outside arbcom pages, had effectively stopped editing wikipedia.

Captain Occam is now using wikipediocracy as a base for continuing his campaign against me. That is all he seems to do there. In every thread he enters, his posts seem geared to some form of attack on me. Captain Occam has not been truthful in his submissions on wikipedia, so when he repeats himself off-wikipedia, the statements are even more questionable. Please do not allow you yourself to be trolled by him. If you want information about him, ask Newyorkbrad, Roger Davies, Carcharoth or Risker. I am sorry this has happened, but that is one of the perils of wikipediocracy. Cheers, Mathsci (talk) 10:46, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi Mathsci. Thanks for the note. I don't consider his action's trolling at the moment - he's expressing his point of view and I specifically suggested in that thread that I was happy to hear people's points of view. I'm glad to see your response, which if true (I haven't investigated), seems reasonable. Either way, there's no point in drudging the past further on this matter, I'm trying to improve things going forward. Worm^TT(talk) 10:51, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Good luck with getting things back to normal :) Mathsci (talk) 11:08, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Cla68 talk page

Hi Worm. Your comment there seems to have resulted in the page being fully protected, which is not called for by any policy. There actually are many needs to post to the talk page. We have bots and editorial processes where Cla68 would receive routine notices about article or image business. Even if Cla68 is blocked, his friends watch that page and could be fixing things. Could you have a look, and try to rectify this? I had proposed a notice limiting discussion to content matters, and directing any discussion of the block to a suitable venue, with a warning that misplaced comments could be removed. Jehochman ^Talk 13:28, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Question

I think that's enough here, you may of course email me. WormTT(talk) 12:28, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Hi Worm That Turned, Do you believe that every Wikipedian (I do not mean vandals, pedophiles or criminals) should have the right to defend/explain his actions during the Arbitration Committee and/or the Wikipedia community discussions regarding himself, if that defense/explanations involves no outing, no secret information and no harm to the project ? If your answer to my question is "no", could you please provide some examples of the exceptions as you see them. Thanks. 71.198.215.196 (talk) 05:01, 23 March 2013 (UTC) I'm not keen on "rights" on wikipedia, it's a website, that's all. No one has a "right" to anything. Otherwise, things should depend on the situation but you've used a very interesting phrase at the end "no harm to the project". I think you'll find that the term can be used very broadly, as distractions from writing the encyclopedia could easily be seen as harm to the project, as could BLP violations, POV pushing, inciting hatred and many other situations. So, if there's a not a plausible harm to the project then people should be allowed a chance to have their say. It's often easier to email arbcom though for that and I think arbcom is open to most emails where people want to explain themselves. WormTT(talk) 16:13, 25 March 2013 (UTC) Thanks for responding my question. Wikipedia is a website, but it is a website that has potentials to ruin a person's reputation, a person's health, and even a person's life itself. For example this one has destroyed a person's reputation, and who cares that now Richard Symonds says it is no longer the case, when the defamation is spread all over the NET. I understand that there are some users that deserve to be blocked, the problem is not the blocking itself, the problem is the way it is done here. Have you seen any other website, where a few anonymous members of the community are allowed to participate in ban discussions character assassinations of named persons, who often are not even allowed to defend themselves? Have you seen any other site, which has such list, in which many editors with thousands of edits are listed as vandals? Have you seen any other website, in which an unwarranted block by an anonymous admin could lead to something like this? Have you seen any other website, where an anonymous admin deletes a bunch of good, encyclopedic articles only because they were written by a banned user? It makes one to wonder, if they care more about the encyclopedia or they care more about witch hunting. I could have provided many more examples, but I think I've proved my point. I'd like to email you please, if you do not mind. Thanks. 71.198.215.196 (talk) 18:32, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

WP:AN discussion

A discussion which relates to actions or comments made by you can be found at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Peter Damian socks. Fram (talk) 15:57, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I've made my thoughts clear on AGK's talk page, but thanks for the notification. Worm^TT(talk) 16:14, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Please see this

Please take a look at this. Thank you very much. --Lecen (talk) 21:06, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

According to your and other Arbitrators' suggestions, I tried again mediation, even though I really believe that the problem goes far beyond a mere content dispute. Obviously, as I expected, this and this occurred. Take a look at this too. For them, this is all a joke. They are aware that the community has no interest on settling this matter and are playing around while they harass me (see the link on my first message to you). --Lecen (talk) 14:00, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

The joke here are all of the accusations of fascism and nazism made by Lecen. Am I supposed to take them seriously?

Lecen's behavior has been noted as both childish ([1]) and exhibiting WP:OWN issues ([2]) by independent editors. The whole problem is efficiently summarized in WP:DIVA.

Furthermore, as I wrote in the Mediation talk page ([3]), the WP:BRD process has not even taken place for this user to take the matter to mediation (much less ArbComm).

I may not have the 12 FA stars that Lecen constantly brags about, but I am a user with an integrity certified by a handful of barnstars. However, if you agree with Lecen's perspective of things, then perhaps my two GA's (Pisco Sour and Peru national football team), should also be thoroughly hounded for their pro-Nazi bias.

Heil Pisco!--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 22:11, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your work

We have a problem with user https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ronz and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dougweller

They are stopping honest debate at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bosnian_pyramids

My recent addition on the TALK page was deleted. There was no discussion - just deleted. I have a copy for proof. Their violation of wikipedia rules jeopardises everything you and all Honest wikipedia editors DO.

What can we do to stop their bad behaviour? Perhaps this may be their last chance.

Thank you for your work. Your honesty is your saviour. Aaron Sanders (edits as Sovereign SoEvReigns and GBCIR and SoPhi'A) 82.127.43.154 (talk) 09:03, 28 March 2013 (UTC)Sovereign SoEvReigns