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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk | contribs) at 20:14, 7 July 2013 (→Summary: Reforming IRC: ce). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Requests for arbitration

Arbitration Committee proceedings
Request name Motions Initiated Votes
Offsite comments and personal attacks   5 July 2013 {{{votes}}}
Alger Hiss   4 July 2013 {{{votes}}}
[edit]
Open cases
Case name Links Evidence due Prop. Dec. due
Backlash to diversity and inclusion (t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t) 10 Oct 2024 24 Oct 2024
[edit]
Recently closed cases (Past cases)

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

Request name Motions  Case Posted
Amendment request: Palestine-Israel articles (AE referral) Motion (orig. case) 17 August 2024

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

Offsite comments and personal attacks

Initiated by Mark Arsten (talk) at 23:22, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

If anyone I've missed wishes to add themselves to this list as a party please go ahead. Mark Arsten (talk) 23:22, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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

This most recent block has been discussed on several user talk pages.

Kiefer's previous block in relation to comments about Ironholds was discussed on ANI:

Kiefer was previously the subject of a user conduct Rfc in which civility was one concern:

Statement by Mark Arsten

I believe that arbitration is needed in this situation because a dispute between two editors has become unmanageable by the community and is complicated by off-site and revision deleted evidence. Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk · contribs) and Ironholds (talk · contribs) have made several comments about each other on off-wiki forums, and this dispute has spilled over onto Wikipedia, although some of it has been revision deleted. Some of these comments could be seen as personal attacks make reference to violence.

To my knowledge, the dispute between Ironholds and Kiefer has its origin in this thread, after Ironholds endorsed sanctions against Keifer in an unrelated matter. Following this interchange, Kiefer posted critical remarks about Ironholds on an off-wiki discussion forum. In response, Geni (talk · contribs) blocked Kiefer for personal attacks. This block was overturned with community consensus because the comments took place off-wiki. Two weeks later, a concern was raised on a third party's user talk page about comments that Ironholds apparently made about Kiefer on a Wikipedia IRC channel (I haven't verified their authenticity, but I don't think it has been questioned). Ironholds' comments, while apparently a joke, could be seen as expressing a desire for violence. Kiefer made a comment on the talk page that also could be seen as a threat against Ironholds. This comment was quickly revision deleted. Kiefer was then blocked by Kww (talk · contribs) for three months. About 13 hours later Fram (talk · contribs) unblocked him, explaining the action by noting that Kiefer was provoked by an off-wiki comment. Fram also announced his intent to begin blocking for IRC personal attacks in the future.

As the admin actions cited above show, the community has difficulty agreeing on how to respond here. Attempts have been made, but the unusual nature of the situation has complicated them. This is a difficult situation for the community to handle because off-wiki evidence plays a large role. Although off-wiki actions are generally not sanctionable by themselves, in this case they have spilled over on-wiki and are thus may be relevant. I believe that Arbcom should take this case because more noticeboard discussions an additional RFC/U have little chance of solving the problem, which will likely continue to boil over. Given the somewhat disturbing nature of the recent comments, I think this is a dispute that needs to be solved soon.

@Ironholds: I didn't emphasize it in my statement, but it could be argued that there was wheel warring with Geni's block of Kiefer on June 20th. Mark Arsten (talk) 00:36, 6 July 2013 (UTC) @Newyorkbrad: I read your comments on your talk page and found them very wise. My concern is that the conflicts fueled by off-wiki comments are boiling over on-wiki, and it's hard to know where to draw the line. After Kiefer was blocked for his now-revdeleted comment on your talk page, he was unblocked due to off-wiki evidence. (The evidence suggested that he was provoked.) I agree that we should generally ignore other websites, but I think this is a bit of a grey area. In some cases exculpatory evidence is present off-wiki (as Fram took into account), but if we make administrative decisions based on that evidence, how can we ignore incriminating evidence from the same forums when it relates to on-wiki conduct, as well? Mark Arsten (talk) 00:46, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Risker: In retrospect, my request may be poorly titled--I'm not seeking a case to deal with off-wiki conduct. I think that there have been enough problematic interactions here to justify a case confined to the on-wiki behavior of the parties. I would expect that Arbcom will limit their investigation to comments and actions that occurred on Wikipedia, and I don't think it's reasonable to ask you to investigate everyone's post history in a variety of chat rooms and internet forums. It would also be helpful, though, to get the committee's input about whether the community should consider the role of off-site "baiting" when evaluating sanctions. Mark Arsten (talk) 02:19, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by uninvolved PumpkinSky

I urge the committee to accept this. We have what seems to be a dispute that has become personalized between two admins, wheel warring, inappropriate comments that get revdel'd, threats or perceived threats by admins, and the relation of IRC to onwiki activity. It's a virtual potpourri of bad admin conduct. PumpkinSky talk 23:41, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ironholds

I haven't, to my knowledge, been a party to one of these before (I think there was one situation in which I was asked to provide a statement for....totally bemusing reasons. Anyway.) so apologies if I'm doing this wrong somehow.

What we have here is, frankly, a case of two users who simply don't get on. Nothing more, nothing less. What alters the situation is the presence of off-wiki venues of discussion. From my perspective, in response to a disagreement on Wikipedia, Kiefer went to Wikipediocracy and made some (frankly, loathsome) personal comments about me - I'm not going to link them, since anyone wanting to look can find them easily enough. Somewhat vexed by these - as is, I think, understandable, if you've seen them - I made a rather morbid and snarky joke in a private channel on IRC. Anyone who has dealt with me regularly will know that my sense of humour is somewhat dark and dry; my mistake was not realising at the time that, of course, there are many individuals who don't deal with me regularly. A second mistake was arguably being dumb enough to assume that a prohibition on public logging was something people with the trust of the community would follow. Ultimately the joke was inappropriate, on its face, and I will do my best to avoid letting my frustrations spill over, even in off-wiki venues.

In response to my response to Kiefer's commentary, Kiefer struck out, this time on-wiki, for which he was blocked. Shortly after he was unblocked, with a rationale that basically stated that (1) my off-wiki statements fell under the gaze of the administrators, and (2) since his statements were reactionary they were (while inadvisable) ultimately provoked; he should behave better in future, but not be blocked. This is rather frustrating given that precisely the same situation was true in reverse; Kiefer made unpleasant off-wiki comments about me, and I reacted. The difference was that my statements were taken into account and his weren't.

I have no idea if this is something the Arbitration Committee has any business sticking their noses in - I haven't reviewed arbcom policy for quite some time - or, given the nest of snakes that one of the off-wiki venues constitutes, whether it's even something they want to stick their noses in. Ultimately, however, this is a problem of ambiguity in the answers to two questions:

  1. Is conduct in off-wiki venues seen as something that can be sanctioned on-wiki, uniformly, regardless of what that off-wiki location is?
  2. If so, is it inappropriate in and of itself, or stacked on to other actions, as the existing personal attacks policy would suggest?

Thanks. Ironholds (talk) 23:50, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • @PumpkinSky, some corrections: (1) there was no wheel warring involved, to my knowledge, and (2) Kiefer is not an admin. Ironholds (talk) 23:50, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Salvio: the argument of "you're a WMF employee, you should know better" is something I find troubling. Staffers should certainly be held to standards of decorum, in their role as staff and by staff. The joke was made in my personal capacity (I do not maintain membership of that channel in my role as a staffer). Were it made in my professional capacity, that would be a matter for HR, not for the arbitration committee, and it seems an inappropriate thing for an arbitrator to be factoring in. Ironholds (talk) 00:39, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • @AGK no, -en-admins. I'm not dumb enough to vent frustrations in -en ;p. Ironholds (talk) 01:06, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Wewhalt, I was not attempting to further any "war", with or without admin privileges. The -en-admins channel is commonly a place where people vent their frustrations; this is not because it is sysop-centric, but because it is private. The same joke could have been made in any other channel. Ironholds (talk) 15:45, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by The Devil's Advocate

This is basically the same thing being talked about further down. I think comments on IRC and comments on WO should only be considered an issue when it is a matter that will invariably have a negative impact on the on-wiki environment for a given individual. People blithely joke about committing violent acts all the time in the real world. Off-wiki areas should be a safe place where people can be more comfortable in speaking their minds. Being able to compartmentalize is important in all matters concerning Wikipedia and is where our concerns should lie, not on whether someone is saying mean things about you in some other part of the series of tubes.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 00:09, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sandstein, in most cases outside Wikipedia misconduct directed at an individual is viewed as mitigating any misconduct in response. Indeed, even a mistaken perception of misconduct directed at an individual is sufficient to mitigate misconduct in response. This may only lead to a reduced sanction or to no sanction, depending on severity. Here we essentially have a guy saying he would kick so-and-so's ass because so-and-so joked about flambéing him, presumably because so-and-so was still sore about the guy saying in an unintentionally suggestive fashion that so-and-so shouldn't tell lewd jokes when teenagers are in a chat room. Personally, I see none of the foregoing actions as problems in need of sanction, let alone arbitration.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 17:43, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by TCO

Arbitrators: Decline. (1)It's not feasible or just to regulate off site discussions and it makes this place more and more of a social game instead of a collaborative building project. (2) The threats of violence are not credible (or really even "threats"), more posturing.

IH: Apologize. It was a funny remark, but realize that there is an imbalance when you have a banhammer and the other guy doesn't...that changes some of the dynamic on the taunting. Also, Salvio gave you some good advice and it's not for Wiki/Arbcom sake but for your career/salary's sake. Just say yes sir and move on.

TCO (talk) 02:44, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Resolute

With respect to Salvio's opinion, if Fram intends to begin blocking for comments made on IRC, he had better be prepared to begin blocking for comments made on Wikipediocracy. Both Kiefer and Ironholds have their forums to vent and complain about other editors. Treat them equally, or ignore them equally and base decisions on on-wiki behaviour. Resolute 03:03, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Rschen7754

@Ironholds, while as much as you would like to keep the roles separate, in practice you can't, not with something like that... it affects your ability to be a liaison to the community if you joke about stuff like that in relation to certain members of the community on your off time, in a channel under the #wikipedia / #wikimedia group. (Not that Ironholds' professional role falls under the purview of the community ArbCom but still, it needs saying).

I also feel that better operator management may have resolved matters on the IRC end, by both dealing with the joking as well as the public logging issues. I'm concerned that blocking for off-wiki conduct (with the obvious exception of outing/real-life harassment) skirts very close to the bounds of the scope of the Arbitration Committee, and is grossly inconsistent with enforcement on other Wikimedia sites (will two Spanish Wikipedia users get indefinitely blocked from the English Wikipedia for attacking each other on the Spanish-language equivalent of WO/WR, just because they have an English Wikipedia account?) --Rschen7754 04:36, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Kiefer.Wolfowitz

There has not been an RfC on this issue, so Mark Arsten's request for arbitration should be declined.

WMF and Arbcom have the authority to clean up Wikipedia's IRC channels.

Arbcom's authority to govern WP's IRC channels

User:Jimbo Wales has asserted that WP's IRC channels are governed by WP, and in particular by ArbCom and himself. Regardless of Wales's assertion, the WMF owns "Wikipedia" and can force the channels to change their names and disassociate themselves from Wikipedia whenever it wants. Of course, Wikipedia can remove mention of IRC channels, if needed.

IRC's corruption: A liability

Stealth canvassing

Administrator Nick reported that "on IRC ... administrators (are) being harassed over the refusal to revision delete KW's initial comment ... and there has been various attempts to influence various people to vote for an indefinite block. Nobody has named the administrators who were organizing this campaign. Worse, no administrator declared that they had read about my blocking discussion at IRC. Nobody has asserted that this stealth canvassing was isolated.

  • To provide transparency and accountability, chat rooms should be prohibited.
  • Administrators found canvassing should be desysopped; administrators participating in chats with canvassing and other unethical behavior should be admonished (and desysopped after a repeated failure to report unethical behavior).
Child safety

For Wikipedia editors, the median age has been estimated at 17 years old (or less); regardless of age, many editors have neurological or social disabilities (such as Aspberger's syndrome, autism, bipolar disorder, ad(h)d, oppositional-defiant disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, ..., and most severely adolescence).

Despite the preponderance of vulnerable editors, WMF and English Wikipedia lack serious standards for child-protection; in particular, neither complies with the minimum requirements of the United States Child Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA) and the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), which ban participation at social-networking sites by children under 13 and require parental approval for other children. Neither organization meets the benchmark set by the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts.

  • WMF and Wikipedia's should require training and adherence to internet-safety rules by its staff and volunteer leadership (participants in educational programs, Tea House, "Adoption Schools", IRC access, etc.). In particular, leadership roles should be limited to adults (or possibly include children 13 and over who have received permission from their parents) who have completed and agreed to adhere to safety guidelines. In particular, on IRC, private chats are grossly inappropriate when many participants are minors; such contacts violate the 2-adults present rule of Boy/Girl Scouts.

ArbCom has already communicated to Sue Gardner its concern about being overwhelmed with c. 20 cases of child protection each year. And these are cases more severe than cases that have been ignored, because of the toothless child-protection policy of Wikipedia:

  1. An editor tells a boy when he will visit his town.
  2. An editor tells a boy how to get around his parents' efforts to stop him emailing, and continues emailing and IMing the boy, despite the boy's objections.

Such editors' on-Wiki actions violate the child-protection codes of the Scouts and other responsible organizations, but not WMF and Wikipedia. What happens on WMF/Wikipedia's IRC, particularly in WMF/WP IRC chat-rooms?

Do ArbCom members agree to pay for civil and criminal legal-costs related to IRC from their own pockets, and so agree to refuse WMF funds or legal council?

Decadence

Too many IRC chat-logs feature the lifestyles of the nasty, brutish, and short-attention-spanned. Adults need immediately to lead by example rather than corrupt by example. In general, references to sex, scatology, and eschatology are inappropriate on the channels of English Wikipedia (although perhaps on the channels of Italians or Germans or Swedes...). ;)

Summary: Reforming IRC

A. IRC should be restricted to adults who have identified themselves to the WMF and who have completed/renewed an internet safety training and agree to abide by WMF guidelines for civility and child protection.

B. There should be a ban on chat rooms; the ban should immediately be implemented by the channel operators.

C. Administrator guilty of canvassing should have their bits removed. Administrators who fail to report canvassing should have their bits removed after a second event (after being admonished).

Kiefer.Wolfowitz 20:08, 6 July 2013 (UTC) (Updated. See history for evolution)[reply]

Comments by Ks0stm

On the whole I'm not 100% convinced this situation is best suited for arbitration, let alone a full case. I'm half of the opinion that this particular situation could be handled by telling Ironholds and KW (and everyone else) to stick a sock in it and move on, but that may be a bit too optimistic.

On another note, I do believe that a case could be made for an arbitration case focusing on KW. He was the subject of a user conduct request for comment in 2011, and his block log has me far from convinced that his behavior has improved since the RFCU. Ks0stm (T•C•G•E) 11:04, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Kiefer: Restricting IRC to adults identified to the foundation is completely unnecessary. There are a substantial amount of "youth" and non-identified adults who don't cause problems on IRC. What's more, making such a rule is more than likely beyond the power of the foundation (I would imagine it would be a Freenode decision), and is definitely beyond the powers of the Arbitration Committee. With regards to your child protection arguments, I'm not quite sure how they're relevant to the issue at hand, and I definitely think this isn't the place to be presenting them. Ks0stm (T•C•G•E) 12:07, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Wehwalt

I have also been the victim of insulting comments by Ironholds on IRC (who also spent, as I recall, much time discussing his liking for scotch, though I draw no connection). I have addressed it by avoiding both Ironholds and IRC, and declining to review his articles. If he and KW are allowing their private little war to spill over onto here, that's an issue, especially if he is using administrative privileges to further it, and if proper evidence is provided, I submit this is the sort of thing that ArbCom is in business to adjudicate.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:24, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Alanscottwalker

Well, one of those interesting cases where the principals don't seem to need or want arbitration. On one issue, it appears that Fram, in his/her IRC warning glosses over that the comment was said "in private" and not meant to be heard in pubic nor by the target. While that may be a matter of embarrassment (once it gets out) and personal apology, it will be extremely difficult to make a finding of actual "threat," or even "personal" "attack." That makes it different from all public communication. Whether there are other issues here, is up to you. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:02, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Dennis Brown

Personally, I think it is absurd to suggest that off-wiki activity can't be considered in admin status, even while understanding the level of scrutiny is lower for off-wiki acts. If I ran a hate speech website, obviously I should be desysopped even if my actions on-wiki are within policy. That is an extreme example that isn't comparable to this situation but it proves the point that off-wiki activity matters and the only real question is "where does this current situation fit into the grey area?" Does it warrant strong admonishment or some sanction? Should it be quietly declined and ignored? Or am I wrong, and admins are given carte blanche to do or say anything they want off-wiki with no consequences here whatsoever? I don't know enough to draw a conclusion, maybe he was provoked, maybe that matters and maybe it doesn't, but it isn't my place to judge anyway.

I really don't know if Arb should take the case or a motion or whatever (I don't know all the rules here, I avoid it when I can), but if they fail to at least make a strong, unified statement here that provides some perspective and direction, they will have missed an opportunity to provide the leadership that the community desperately needs. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 15:10, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Add I probably should add that off-wiki comments by everyone should be considered in a dispute, even if weighted differently than on-wiki comments. Even while I hold admin to a much higher standard of conduct, that doesn't mean that non-admin should get a blank check for off-wiki comments either. In this case, it looks like it was off-wiki activity in general that is the core of the problems. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 16:23, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Ched

I have no idea about the specifics here, so perhaps not related; BUT if the Arbs are looking for precedent, then there was a case (I think in the 2009 era) where a conversation on IRC led to someone "outing" an editor. User:Law admitted to being the former editor "User:the_undertow". Not only did Law/the_ut get banned, blocked and defrocked, but admins. who even KNEW that he was the_undertow got smacked. I think I know who did the outing too - but without being certain, I won't post the name. Sorry, I don't recall name of the "case" .. but some of the arbs that were arbs back then may remember. — Ched :  ?  15:51, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Count Iblis

Only the behavior here on Wikipedia should matter. Off-Wiki comments should only be examined in order to understand problems that exist here on Wikipedia. If bad off-Wiki behavior spills over to Wikipedia then that is a problem for Wikipedia because of the spillover effects and that can be addressed. But in principle, it doesn't matter how bad you behave off-Wiki, as long as you don't cause problems here. This hard rule is necessary to prevent Wikipedia from being hijacked. The moment we would allow off-Wiki behavior to be relevant in its own right, then that would open the door for all sorts of off-wiki disputes to be raised here by editors to gain an advantage in editing disputes. It would also motivate people to investigate the off-Wiki behavior of people who they have disagreements with here, leading to outing issues. Count Iblis (talk) 16:45, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Anthonyhcole

On NYB's talk page Giano linked to this 2007 statement by Jimbo:

You may consider this a statement of policy. I consider it well within the overall remit of the Arbitration Committee and my own traditional role in the English Wikipedia community to have authority over IRC as necessary.

17:24, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Comment by Kudpung

I think this is probably the first time I have commented on an Arbcom case - I'm not too fond of the place, and I'm sometimes not satisfied with the outcomes. I would like to point out that the case in question is the climax of patterns of long-term behaviour by some of the mentioned parties, whether it involves their interactions with each other or with other members of the community and/or staff. I am also of the firm conviction that by necessity, admins and especially WMF staff should be held to high standards of behaviour in order to maintain the credibility of Wikipedia and the confidence that the community should have in its admins, bureaucrats, and Foundation employees. Taking Dennis Brown's statement as a cue, I feel that in this case, Arbcom should assume its responsibilities, demonstrate some leadership, and act accordingly. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:48, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Carrite

A formal statement of the status of IRC relative to WP would be useful. Is the IRC for En-WP or En-WP Administrators part of English Wikipedia itself? Or is it more akin to Wikipediocracy, being an off-site forum for the unfettered exchange of opinions, sometimes phrased in mean terms that would draw sanctions if made on-Wiki? That's a reasonable subject for ArbCom consideration. I personally would like to see WMF's IRC channels shut down completely to force communication onto the Wiki and to bust up cliques, but that's probably outside of the power of ArbCom... Carrite (talk) 20:07, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Kww

I don't view the behaviour of either party as being acceptable. In Kiefer.Wolfowitz's case, it was his seventh block for personal attacks. I believe my three-month block of Kiefer was well justified, and view the unilateral undoing of that block, sans discussion, by Fram to be a problem. As for Ironholds's comments, I have stated several times, and will state again for the record, that I have no objection to anyone that is capable of verifying the IRC log blocking Ironholds for his part. I'm not going to block because of things that I can not directly verify, and I'm not about to set up an IRC account specifically to personally verify the log. I don't believe that the IRC channel should be used by any admin, and I'm not going to start using it.—Kww(talk) 22:25, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Begoon

I don't often comment on things like this - so forgive me if I do it wrong.

Dennis Brown's comments have the most resonance with me. We elect an arbcom to solve intractable behaviour problems that we, as a community, cannot solve. Editors not wishing to perform that role, even when it is difficult, should not stand for election. Even if for some reason you decide a full case is inappropriate or unworkable, at the very least a motion or a strong statement of principle is surely necessary, and exactly what this committee exists for. You have been asked for guidance - please do not disappoint us.

(@AGK: Recusal "because I am a channel op" doesn't seem necessary to me, any more than "recusal because I am an admin" would. I'd expect that status to enhance your relevant knowledge, enabling you to make a vital contribution to the discussion.)

Begoon talk 02:50, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note by Beetstra

Note, two of the parties have not had a chance to comment (maybe because it is weekend? Or they are on holiday, or have other obligations or ...), yet two of the arbitrators have already accepted the case within 24 hours of the opening of the case request. Can we please give all involved parties a reasonable time so they have a decent chance to comment? --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:59, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Sandstein

Disclaimer of possible bias: I am commenting here because I recognized Ironholds's user name from a recent disagreement he and I had about a harrassment block by me which he sought to have overturned. I looked at this request to check whether there might be any connection to that disagreement. In general, I agree with Kww above:

Concerning Ironholds: In the IRC log of 26 June 2013 excerpted at [1] (there confirmed as authentic by administrator AzaToth), Ironholds used the wikipedia-en-admins channel to express his desire to rub down a named other editor with oil, and to set them aflame.
I am appalled at this. It should go without saying that it is under no circumstances acceptable to express a wish for another editor's death by burning, even as a joke. That the comments were made in a "private" channel is no excuse, because I understand that the channel is potentially accessible to all 1600+ admins, and therefore it is for most intents and purposes public.
Irrespective of whether these IRC comments are within the jurisdiction of the Committee in the same way on-wiki edits would be, the Committee should open a case to examine whether these comments are compatible with our expectations in the character and good judgment of a holder of advanced permissions. I believe they are not.
Also, the Committee should inform the HR department of the Wikimedia Foundation about this case. I would be very surprised if they believe that discussing how to burn other Wikimedians alive is part of the duties of a Foundation employee.

Concerning Kiefer.Wolfowitz: In the now revdeleted comment at [2], Kiefer.Wolfowitz threatens Ironholds with bodily harm. I do not understand why this comment did not result in an immediate and indefinite block by the first administrator who read it. There are no valid excuses for such statements, and particularly not provocations by others. I recommend reinstating the three-month block as a minimum.

Concerning Fram: I recommend considering to warn Fram that by unblocking Kiefer.Wolfowitz without community consensus, or at least without the discussion required by the policy WP:RAAA, Fram's unblock had the effect of enabling harrassing conduct. Fram's explanation at [3] shows that they acted in good faith, but, I think, mistakenly: misconduct by one person does not excuse or mitigate misconduct by another. Fram should not have lifted Kiefer.Wolfowitz's block, but should have requested sanctions against Ironholds for his offwiki conduct.  Sandstein  09:41, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Delicious carbuncle

I am surprised at the lack of good faith being shown here. As I understand it, this whole debacle has been sparked by Ironholds reply to the comment "Well, you grab the oil, I'll meet you there" with "only if I'm allowed to bring a lighter". Some editors have inflamed the situation by taking this to mean that he wants to burn another editor alive! I suggest that other interpretations are possible (if not more likely).

  • "Only if I'm allowed to bring a lighter... because I borrowed a copy of Frampton Comes Alive from my uncle and we can wave them around while listening to it."
  • "Only if I'm allowed to bring a lighter... because I think it would be a nicer experience if we smoked a joint while you gave Kiefer a sensuous, oily massage."
  • "Only if I'm allowed to bring a lighter... because it might be dark there and we don't want anyone to trip and hurt themselves."
  • "Only if I'm allowed to bring a lighter... because Kiefer might want some moxibustion."

Has anyone asked Ironholds to confirm that he meant to suggest burning another editor alive? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 18:21, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk notes

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

Offsite comments and personal attacks: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <2/0/2/1>

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

  • I need to see more statements, before making up my mind; however, at first glance, there are two aspects that IMHO should be emphasised. First, while IRC is technically off-wiki, in my opinion, it's different from sites such as Wikipediocracy, because IRC has strong ties to the community that other sites lack. And, second, Ironholds, you are an admin (and a Foundation employee), so you really should know better. Salvio Let's talk about it! 00:11, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well, Ironholds, in my line of work, what I do in my spare time may reflect on my employer and I may be sanctioned for something I do when I'm acting "in my personal capacity", if it's crass enough. So my advice would be to be a tad more careful. Then again, this is just a suggestion, as it's not my business how the foundation handle their personnel.

      What is my business as an arb, however, is your conduct as an editor and, in analysing it, the fact that you're an admin and an employee does factor in. These are positions of trust and, for that, you should lead by example. That's why I said you should know better (and indeed you should). Salvio Let's talk about it! 10:58, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

      • Accept per Jimbo's 2007 statement. By the way, it's difficult to consider IRC and Wikipedia as entirely separate entities, when membership to en-admins is restricted to people who hold certain positions on Wikipedia (i.e. people have access to the channel by virtue of their on-wiki status) and when quasi-official matters may sometimes be discussed there. Salvio Let's talk about it! 18:10, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'll await a few more statements (and need to see what direction the discussion takes to evaluate whether I have a recusal issue). However, one question that Mark Arsten asks above does have a clear answer: sanctions may be imposed for misconduct off-wiki, but only when it is very serious (as an example, an actual threat against another editor, as opposed to an ill-chosen, obnoxious comment about him). Beyond that, a lot of what I have to say about IRC can be found in a long comment I posted today on my talkpage, and a lot of what I have to say about Wikipediocracy can be found in my comment on the "Linking to Wikipediocracy" case request below. Both of which are recommended reading if I do say so myself, and if taken to heart by the parties here, might solve this mess. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:35, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm in transit tonight and will vote tomorrow. In the meantime, as a non-substantive observation, either Kiefer Wolfowitz wins a Most Amusing Typo award or he has an odd sense of child-unfriendly topics or he needs to look up eschatology. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:42, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Recuse because I am an op for the channel (#wikipedia-en) I presume is in question. AGK [•] 01:01, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Recuse Courcelles 03:37, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Awaiting further statements as I try to get a better bearing of this situation. Someone let me know if they feel I ought to recuse for some reason. NW (Talk) 18:22, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Accept. Kirill [talk] 19:47, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Not sure what case people want us to take, as there are at least three proposed here: something about an IRC channel (see case from 2007 that went just about nowhere, and that was when Jimbo's statement was relatively current); something about child protection, although it's pretty muddled what Kiefer is getting at there, given that the channels are owned by Freenode and not by Arbcom, Wikipedia, or even the WMF; something about two users with a long history of incivility/snark/verbal nastiness/sarcasm/whatever you want to call it, who are now aiming at each other, one of whom is an admin; or whether or not admins can be uncivil/snarky/verbally nasty/sarcastic/whatever about users in semi-public off-wiki settings. I'll decline to take anything related to statements from six years ago, to IRC, or to someone's odd notions of child protection based. If there is more focus on user interaction and/or admin actions, I will consider a case. Risker (talk) 01:03, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Alger Hiss

Initiated by CJK (talk) at 13:00, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties


Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

[4] [5][6] [7] [8] [9]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by CJK

The users Joegoodfriend, The Four Deuces, AndyTheGrump, DEddy, and the IP have obstructed efforts to insert factual material in the Alger Hiss article in violation of WP:EP, WP:OWN, and WP:FRINGE.

The background is that in April 2013 I began posting on the talk page my astonishment that the article lead ignored/downplayed important evidence against Hiss. After unsuccessful discussion with Joe, I inserted the scholarly, factual material myself (regarding notes from the Soviet archives that confirmed Hiss's guilt) and Joe promptly reverted, starting a revert war. The page was eventually protected and two RFCs occurred both of which did not solve the problem.

In general, the users Joegoodfriend, The Four Deuces, AndyTheGrump, DEddy, and the IP have refused to let the factual information be inserted into the article on the grounds that they and other Hiss partisans do not believe it is factual or conclusive. In the last two months they cannot cite a single scholar from the relevant fields to justify their WP:FRINGE belief in this regard. Although they have given or implied a number of names, it always turns out that either A) they are not scholars from fields relevant to this article or B) they are not actually disputing the notes in question. At one point they attempted to pass off Hiss's own lawyer as a disinterested scholar relevant to this article.

There is no justification in Wikipedia policy for editors to substitute their own judgment for the judgment of relevant scholars.

If I have any own faults I admit that I might be a bit too combative at times, frustrated as I am due to what I see as the blatant obstruction of improving this article. At one point, an editor accused me of being part of a military conspiracy to get Hiss. I regret any hard feelings that may have resulted. It has been argued that my use of the term "conspiracy theorist" is a deliberate insult. It is not. It is a factual statement because Hiss partisans routinely justify their belief of Hiss's innocence on the idea that the FBI and military conspired to make a fake typewriter to frame Hiss, and that it has been covered up to this day. This is clearly detailed in the Alger Hiss article and is not something that I made up.

Another issue is whether or not their is an overall scholarly "consensus" against Hiss. Overwhelming evidence has been presented that there is so, although I regard that as a secondary problem. I invite users Collect and Yopienso to state their views on that.

CJK (talk) 13:27, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have to say that I don't understand the idea that this is a mere "content dispute". When I am able to provide a scholarly source to justify my edit, and the others cannot provide one adequate source to prove it wrong, it seems clear that it is a conduct problem related to pushing fringe views. I don't see how anyone could look at the talk page and the seemingly endless discussions on that page and conclude that another RFC (beyond the two already conducted) or mediation would do the trick.
CJK (talk) 19:39, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Probably too late, but I just wasn't to point out this unbelievable refusal of AndytheGrump to remove outright lies from the article. [10]

CJK (talk) 15:00, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by AndyTheGrump

I have no idea why this matter has been raised here - as far as I am concerned, it is a simple content dispute, brought about by CJK's repeated insistence that the Alger Hiss article contain statements which appear not to be directly supported by reliable sources. Personally, I only became involved in this discussion as a result of an RfC where I was asked to comment on CJK's proposals. My input has largely been confined to asking that proper sourcing for any proposed material be provided, and that contributors stop engaging in original research in order to 'determine' Hiss's guilt or otherwise. As I have repeatedly made clear, I do not consider it Wikikpedia's job to make such determinations - instead, we should confine ourselves to reflecting, with due regard to weight, the opinions on the matter of the relevant sources cited. Incidentally, I find CJK's description of me as a 'Hiss partisan' somewhat troublesome in that as far as I'm aware, I haven't made any indication as to whether I consider Hiss guilty or not - and don't consider myself knowledgeable enough on the case to do so. Not that my personal opinion should have any bearing on article content anyway. AndyTheGrump (talk)

Since CJK is insisting that this is more than a content dispute, I'd like to make it clear that accordingly I shall be raising his repeated stonewalling, and refusal to cite sources for material he has repeatedly proposed, as evidence of tendentious editing, should this case proceed further. In particular, I will draw attention to the discussion at Talk:Alger Hiss#A simple and direct question for CJK, where I have asked for a source to be provided for a statement that CJK has been arguing for over the entire period I have been involved in the discussion - which source he has yet to provide. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:33, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If anyone is interested, I'd recommend reading Talk:Alger Hiss#A simple and direct question for CJK in full. After repeated requests for CJK to provide proper sourcing for the material he proposed to be added in the RfC I originally responded to, none has been forthcoming which actually support the proposals. Instead, CJK is once again arguing that Wikipedia should be making statements concerning Hiss that aren't based on verifiable sources, but instead on his own subjective opinion on the state of academic discourse. I have of course made it clear that if any such unsourced material is added to the article, I will delete it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:30, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Since CJK has now gone into full-blown hysteria mode, [11] (see Talk:Alger Hiss#Edit request of 6 July 2013 for context) I'll state for the record that I have now come to the conclusion that, regardless of other issues, I think that he is far too emotionally involved with the Hiss article to ever be a useful contributor, and that a topic ban might be in the best interests of all concerned. Frankly, If I'd realised that I'd be dealing with a contributor so utterly obsessed with the subject that minor quibbles over whether someone should be described as a 'historian' or a 'journalist' that it becomes in their mind some sort of monstrous 'fraud' perpetrated on our readers, I would never have responded to the RfC in the first place. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:17, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement from Collect

I suggest this is primarily a content dispute for which ArbCom is ill-fitted. The editors who basically say that a source saying only "die hards" still defend Hiss is not a strong source for saying there is a consensus currently that Hiss was guilty of being a Soviet agent may well be tendentious, but proving such is likely a long task here, and mediation is likely, I hope, to get added voices into the issue as to whether the recent sources, which are fairly unanimous from outside modern scholars, should still be continuously rejected out of hand. I suggest that those who have not read the talk page discussions do so amd note the nature of the problem. Collect (talk) 13:39, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

[12] unfortunately shows a behavioural problem on the part of User:The Four Deuces which seems likely to result in long-term problems. Especoially as it misstates the issues, and makes an implicit personal attack on me. I woulda thunk (and hoped) he would be on his best behaviour until this request was officially turned down. Collect (talk) 16:27, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@NYB your understanding of the case is precisely the same as my own understanding, which is why I am at a loss as to why the two parties do not agree on the simple statement Consensus among historians today is that Hiss was guilty of being a Soviet agent as covering the middle ground between "assertion of guilt as fact in Wikipedia's voice" and "assertion that no consensus exists" in Wikipedia's voice. Collect (talk) 23:39, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

WRT now being "involved" - My position has been always to use reliable sources, and where an opinion is involved (that is - do sources say that a "consensus" exists, in this case) to attribute opinions as opinions rather than as fact in Wikipedia's voice. Other than that, I am not "involved" in any dispute here. Collect (talk) 11:35, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Mike Cline

At the request of another editor, not involved in this content dispute, I was asked to monitor an ongoing edit war between CJK and Joegoodfriend on the Alger Hiss article. On May 29 I fully protected the article and warned both parties to resolve the content dispute and cease the edit warring. [13], [14]. On May 30, I suggested to Joegoodfriend that another RFC on the questions should be crafted and more community input sought. [15]. On June 3, after no outreach from CJK or Joegoodfriend to the community, I notified 5 Wikiprojects of the content dispute and encouraged broader participation. [16], [17], [18], [19], [20]. The notifications resulted in much greater dialog on the Alger Hiss talk page. Between 9 and 18 June I responded to a couple of edit requests on the talk page. Other than monitoring the discussions on the talk page, I have not participated in the substance of the content dispute. --Mike Cline (talk) 14:01, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by joegoodfriend

This is a content dispute. The above statements from AndyTheGrump and Collect are accurate summaries of the situation. The dispute is typified by the addition of the NPOV tag to the article by CJK because he feels that the article is written from a too neutral POV. We are here because CJK refuses to collaborate with other editors and has repeatedly violated wikipedia's policy known as Ownership of Articles, setting himself up as sole arbiter of the article's content. Following CJK's original edit to the lede, I let him know my objections. He refused to discuss compromise. I tired letting every word of his edits stand while adding edits of my own to provide balance. He refused to let any of my edits remain in the article. Thus we attempted to settle the dispute through RFC. The edits that CJK proposed in the RFC received a great deal of comment, nearly all of which stated that the edits should not be made. Unhappy with this result, CJK then declared that the points made by the editors disagreeing with him were moot and of no value. These other editors cited many expert sources disagreeing with CJK's conclusions. However, per his statement above, he declared all these other sources to be Fringe, even though they are used in citations in many other wikipedia articles and thus qualify as Reliable Sources for the article. Joegoodfriend (talk) 17:03, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Wehwalt

I did a fair amount of reading on this at the time I did my Nixon project, and the quantity of evidence against Hiss, in the wake of Venona, is fairly overwhelming. Against it is little more than Hiss's word, and sixty-five years of attempts to explain away the evidence by his apologists. That being said, this is a content dispute, and if you are going to take cases that are really content disputes, there should be more attempts first to resolve the issue, through RfC or otherwise.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:37, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by DEddy

My understanding of this discussion issue is that CJK demands that the Hiss issue be presented as 100% decided ("Case Closed" to use the title of first chapter in "Spies"), a consensus of academics (presumably in the topic, but that's not at all clear) agree on indisputable evidence of Hiss's guilt. As far as I can tell CJK has not made his case. The existing footnote on the Hiss article page refers to a a total of 4 references, some of which are not accessible & as far as I can see do NOT reference an academic consensus.

Having just re-read the first chapter ("Case Closed") of "Spies" other than repeated statements of "Hiss is guilty" I cannot see a well laid out argument. The jumping around in times & dates raises a major red flag. Since the book does this elsewhere I can only assume just sloppy work.

In Vassiliev's own words, the GRU archives were not indexed & therefore difficult to find desired information. This was on top of the fact that Vassiliev was researching in KGB archives, not GRU.

As far as reliance on VENONA cables as the definitive source of information. To my knowledge the only quasi original/source cable we have is the 6 point Ales-travels-to-Moscow one, released (after long denial of existence I understand) at the October 2005 National Cryptologic Symposium. Other than that single "original" in the Russian, all the other VENONA cables are sourceless English end-results.

My vote: this topic is still very much in dispute.


I am still waiting for response as to what CJK's base of knowledge is in this very complex topic is. DEddy (talk) 18:51, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by The Four Deuces

This is a content dispute and should be declined. In reply to CJK it is a content dispute because the dispute is about what content to add to the article, in particular how to interpret Neutral point of view, which is a content policy. It is not helpful that your first discussion thread was called, "The preposterous defense of Alger Hiss", that you refer to a statement in an "article used to criticize Haynes and Klehr's book" as a "brazen lie", that you accuse other editors of believing Hiss to be innocent, and despite talkpage guidelines continue to argue about the evidence of the case, rather than merely presenting what sources say. All of those actions are against behavioral policies. I believe that an administrator should provide you with notice under the powers invested in them underWikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Eastern Europe. TFD (talk) 20:51, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by 173.52.254.147

I have looked over the "request for arbitration" guidelines and I noticed that it says, "If you have taken 'all other reasonable steps to resolve the dispute, and the dispute is not over the content of an article, you can request arbitration."

1) Editor CJK has been asked to provide a reference for his claims, a reasonable step, but has not yet made a move in that direction. 2) This dispute IS over the content of the article and therefore does not meet the requirements for arbitration.

Posted by The Four Deuces on behalf of 173.52.246.85/173.52.254.147[21]

Clerk notes

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

Alger Hiss: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/6/0/1>

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

  • Still awaiting further statements but it does seem like a content issue that hasn't been worked through other steps as of yet. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 17:59, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline No further statements necessary. The other avenues have clearly not all been tried yet. NW (Talk) 18:42, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline. This is a good-faith content dispute and ArbCom generally tries not to interfere in those; CJK, you should try using Wikipedia's methods of dispute resolution. Salvio Let's talk about it! 23:33, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline as content dispute. Courcelles 00:33, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline: content dispute (and more effort needs to go into trying to resolve it through the normal channels).  Roger Davies talk 04:57, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline. As it happens I am familiar with much of the literature on the Hiss case. The scholarly consensus, with which I personally am in agreement based on my own review of the evidence when I was part of a historical program on this case a couple of years ago, is that Hiss was clearly guilty—and that it does not require access to Soviet archives to establish the fact. As such, I think that parts of Alger Hiss are unbalanced in their tone. In terms of whether this is a content or a conduct dispute, it is primarily the former at this time. Both sides of the talkpage debate have unhelpfully dug in their heels, but what is really needed is for everyone to step back and reevaluate the sources and "meta-sources" that do exist. It might be for the parties here to take a few weeks off to clear their heads before doing so, and it would definitely be good if other knowledgeable editors were invited to join the discussion. I don't see anything that the Arbitration Committee could contribute here as being helpful. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:05, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline, mostly per Newyorkbrad, although I don't have the breadth of scholarly experience that he has in this area. Risker (talk) 02:59, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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