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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 173.228.123.39 (talk) at 04:46, 2 March 2020 (→‎Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Kudpung closed). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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DeltaQuad CheckUser and Oversight permissions restored

Original announcement

Cthomas3 appointed full clerk

Original announcement

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Kudpung closed

Original announcement
  • I'm just getting an increasing feeling that all three of our recent de-sysops could have been handled by less severe steps, the best phrasing of which was probably 1.1 in this case. I'd be interested to see if a majority of arbs are opposed to a version of that proposal in any circumstances (that is, they feel that anyone with such significant potential restrictions has functionally reached a point of desysopping anyway) or if they just don't feel the recent cases were suitable for it. Nosebagbear (talk)
While it's not a case of non-cases reaching ARBCOM, these are 3 non clearcut cases, and while ARBCOM absolutely could have been right in each judgement, it pushes me to see whether every alternative was sufficiently thought out and why they might have been declined. Nosebagbear (talk) 23:43, 29 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • There's been a real human cost in each of these desysops. That's important and as someone who hopes to be a compassionate individual it bothers me. However, maybe we're seeing more desysop because that's what our community supports/wants? Perhaps the community voted in arbitrators who would be more willing to desysop, especially in light of a recent RfC that sees support for a method for deysops beyond ArbCom. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:59, 29 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I think part of the problem is why xeno and others have been thinking about RFC/U. People get jaded or worn out over time, and I think in this (and other) cases what we're seeing is long time editors who simply need a clue adjustment. The outcomes of this and the BHG case aren't surprising; it should be obvious that the path these editors were treading was fraught. The problem is that these admonitions rarely come from allies---or come too late, or in insufficient volume, or with insufficient force---and so aren't heeded. It leads to a situation that everyone feels could have been avoided, but wasn't. Ideally, RFC/U was supposed to provide that warning with sufficient gravity in a timely manner from a wide swath of the community. I applaud the attempts to think outside the box in this case, but I feel that maybe the reason it was unsuccessful was, in part, that this is a problem that cannot be resolved by ArbCom. (edit conflict) — Wug·a·po·des​ 02:22, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not commenting on BHG's desysop, which surprised me a lot but which I didn't look into much. The outcome of Kudpung's case was discussed at length on the proposed decision talkpage, with multiple people saying desysopping BHG while letting Kudpung off with a lesser remedy would be showing preferential treatment to Kudpung. An arb also rejected the idea as "kicking the can down the road", iirc. I was sympathetic to the idea of an admonishment remedy (see SoWhy's oppose !vote to the desysop remedy in the PD) on the idea that if it worked and Kudpung became a better admin going forward, that was great; otherwise there could be another case later, as is fairly common. That is, "kicking the can down the road" is not so bad.

    But, based on Kudpung's long-term habits and his refusal to make any such commitments in the case, I wasn't optimistic about a second chance working, even if it was still worth a try. I think similar reasoning led to the desysop, and a few arbs may have said as much. I think the case might have come out differently if Kudpung had taken ownership of the issues that were raised. 2602:24A:DE47:B270:A096:24F4:F986:C62A (talk) 01:31, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations ArbCom, not only have you desysopped two of our longest-term and most productive administrators (BrownHairedGirl and Kudpung) within two months of your installment as the new Committee, but you've also driven them off of Wikipedia.

No such administrator should be desysopped by ArbCom initially unless they have committed serious infractions -- sockpuppetry, WP:UPE, WP:OUTTING. Any longterm, highly valued, extremely productive, and very well-respected administrator to whom Wikipedia owes an incalculable debt should not be desysopped on the first ArbCom case in the absense of such serious infractions; they should be admonished or warned that further problems or the next ArbCom case may or will probably result in a desysop.

Seven people should not have the power to desysop the most valuable administrators we have in the absence proof of serious infractions. "Conduct becoming of an administrator" is a matter of perception and situation. Conduct can and usually will change with an official warning or admonishment. Based on the individual, and in some cases fairly casual, perceptions of seven (or nine against six in the case of BHG) arbitrators, you have given these two immensely qualified administrators no chance or opportunity to change.

I believe that the community deserves the right to overturn these two desysops (and effective banishments since this ungrateful slap in the face to both of them was bound to lead to their exit, which it has) based on the fact that no serious infractions (sockpuppetry, WP:UPE, WP:OUTTING) were committed and no official ArbCom admonishment or warning was given beforehand allowing them to change. Softlavender (talk) 01:07, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think part of this is that this ArbCom is probably responding to calls for an easier desysop process that people have been going on about and to some degree responding to the FRAM situation, where they also gave one of our most productive administrators many chances by declining to take cases, and that led to WMF intervention. I personally think they've swung too far in the other direction, but I get that many probably see themselves as responding to a desire on the part of the community.
    On the flip side, to your comment about overturning, the community can always overturn it at WP:RFA, which is something I called for after the BHG case. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:30, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Arbitration is a measure of last resort. It is not supposed to be used in lieu of a tiered warning system. There are plenty of examples where case requests were declined as the involvement of ArbCom was deemed a premature and extreme next step. In fact, I believe BHG is one of those cases. Additionally, the committee has accepted cases about administrative misconduct where the admins were not defacto desysopped. The Giantsnowman Case is a recent example. In my opinion, under no circumstances should an editor be given a warning or probation if the committee has found them clearly at fault and they: fail to participate in the process, fail to acknowledge any fault on their part, and/or not agree to correct their behaviour and actions in the future.

    Finally, the community has the authority to grant them the tools again via RFA which serves as a check and balance to a committee out of control. Many editors have been sanctioned at ArbCom and immediately retire, to then come back after a break, even short ones. While it remains to be seen with BGH and Kudpung, they will always have the option to return. Not everyone will agree with ArbCom's decisions. We did not have a unanimous consensus on the material proposed decisions. The community feedback was also split, albeit not evenly. For example, a considerable number of editors expressed dismay that a suspended desysop remedy was put forward and at one point was seemingly going to pass. Mkdw talk 01:40, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Softlavender: I would also like to remind you of your comments here in August when you accused ArbCom of driving away Ritchie333 following the implementation of an interaction ban against Ritchie333, an action significantly less impactful than a topic ban, desysop, or block.
While Ritchie did announce his retirement, many people were pleased that it ended up being a 40 day break instead. Every ArbCom action or case is different and retirement is not exclusively a response to desysop. Ritchie's IBAN was yet another example where ArbCom acted in a measured and appropriate way. Ritchie was blocked for subsequently violating that IBAN but ArbCom felt the situation had been adequately resolved at AN and did not proceed to desysop him there either. The IBAN was a quick solution implemented that was seemingly more in alignment with your statement above, but you still sharply criticized the committee for doing it at the time.
In BHG and Kudpung's case, the situation was quite different. As in all cases, ArbCom must consider the other parties involved including those who filed the case request as well as the editors who felt severely impacted by a situation or an editor. We rarely think about the consequences of editors who also make significant contributions to the project who ultimately quit because a situation has escalated and where unfortunately, in many cases, the community and ArbCom have failed to address the problems. In Kudpung's case, the misconduct was serious; Arbitrators who voted against desysop still supported findings about deeply concerning conduct. You may disagree. Mkdw talk 07:52, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Tony, in Kudpung's case, lesser remedies were discussed but for various reasons not pursued. I found Mkdw's reasoning above (regarding Kudpung's not participating in the arb case) to be persuasive in retrospect. There have been some cases (e.g. Alex Shih) where the person completely stopped editing, resulting in a case being accepted but suspended for a year. That always seemed ok to me, to let stuff cool down etc. Kudpung, though, kept editing, and commented on the ongoing arb case in various places around the wiki while not deigning to post on the actual case pages. So I don't think arbcom should have bent over backwards for him. 2602:24A:DE47:B270:A096:24F4:F986:C62A (talk) 02:25, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • No comment on the Kudpung case as I can't be bothered checking. But BHG received multiple admonishments from the community. Any admin who requires admonishment from arbcom to stop behaving as utterly atrociously as BHG was, has absolutely no business being an admin. (Yes BHG has retired and I would prefer not to talk about her any more. But if people are going to keep bring her up as a martyr, it's entirely reasonable for others to respond in kind.) Nil Einne (talk) 03:45, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • At the time of the decision, BHG had said she intended to retire. Softlavender said she had been driven off. I assumed without checking she had left as originally planned. However she still seems active so the statement doesn't seem accurate and I've withdrawn that part of my statement. I have not, and will not, pay much attention to the ongoing issues so I'm not sure of BHG's ongoing plans. If she does retire, she has my sympathies. I do not believe it had to come to that, but I also do not believe arbcom is at fault as her de-sysop was well deserved. I stand by my view that for all the good she has done, she clearly has no business being an administrator for her utterly unacceptable behaviour. And if she require admonishment from arbcom to stop that behaviour, instead of taken the multiple admonishments from the community on board and ended it, doubly so. Nil Einne (talk) 03:58, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • One final comment before I leave this discussion probably for good. (In part because I find it silly as a lot of these discussions are. I have no idea why anyone expects that the process of last resort on wikipedia should be for repeating admonishments the community has already given.) As I understand it, the issue that concerns Softlavender most of all is the de-sysop. Yet in both these cases, there was no minimum period before they may RfA. Therefore while we cannot overturn arbcom's decision (at least not without a lot of rigmarole of changing arbcom policy etc), we can easily re-sysop the two again if they are willing to go through the process. This is completely up to them. If you are sure that the community will re-sysop them both, you can encourage them to run. I would urge caution though, there's one obvious example where that didn't work well. Nil Einne (talk) 04:09, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Softlavender, a lot of what you said is inaccurate. For instance, both editors were given ample opportunity to change long before these cases ever arrived at ArbCom. Your assertion that conduct can and usually will change with an official warning or admonishment suggests to me that you haven't sufficiently acquainted yourself with the reasons for why both individuals ended up at ArbCom. Moreover, neither individual was driven off. If they leave, it is by their own free choice and not because anyone forced them to do so. Portraying their departure as the fault of ArbCom perpetuates the notion that these individuals are somehow not responsible for their own actions. And if you wish to talk about slaps to the face, it was a slap in the community's face that Kudpung essentially ignored his case while it was active. It's too late to complain about it now. The community does have the right to overturn these desysops at RfA, but I don't anticipate that this right will be exercised. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 04:28, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • The point about "seven people" is interesting to me because the arbitration process is usually thought of as a considerably high hurdle for desysopping, to the extent that the community tries perennially to introduce a secondary process to make it easier to desysop administrators, the most recent such discussion being WP:DESYSOP2019. Mkdw is right that by their "last resort" nature, ArbCom cases inherently involve disputes where a user has been given ample opportunity to discuss and reflect upon their behavior with other editors and the community—if this isn't the case, then perhaps ArbCom shouldn't have been hearing the case in the first place. Mz7 (talk) 05:31, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I opposed desysopping BrownHairedGirl, but please note that she has not retired, and in fact made several thousand edits today. Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:02, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Newyorkbrad, my talk page has been flooded with massive support for me and disgust at ArbCom's appalling handling of my case ad its counter-factual findings of "fact". That has persuaded to review my decision to retire.
I haven't made a final decision. I am still working on some unfinished tasks which I had planned to wrap up before retiring, and I will see what I think about the situation as I wrap those up. I still hold by the views I expressed during the case at User talk:BrownHairedGirl#Statement_by_BHG_on_the_ArbCom_decision: that ArbCom is leading Wikipedia down a very bad path in which its core purpose of building an encyclopedia is being treated as a poor second to social media principles. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:19, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • As noted above, BrownHairedGirl has not "come back". Her final statement on the matter, which she has never retracted, is:

    So, after over 1.6 million edits in the course of over 14 years as an editor, and nearly 14 years as an admin, I will therefore wind up some incomplete tasks on my to-do list, and then leave Wikipedia. In the meantime I will also provide whatever assistance I can to other editors who would like guidance or tools for the tasks I used to perform. If you would like any pointers, please just ask. I expect that this will take a few weeks. Then I will permanently disable both my main account and my bot account, by removing the email link and scrambling my password. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Softlavender (talk • contribs) 08:23, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Those were difficult cases and though it was possible that other action could have been taken, I consider that the results were appropriate based on the evidence and the community expectations for admin behaviour, and the well advertised issue that arbcom is the last resort. Expecting further last chances from arbcom is unrealistic. Failure to act would have been more divisive. Note that each of the users who lost their bit are free to request it back through exactly the same process that they got it through in the first place, whenever they like, so if the actions taken are considered unnecessarily harsh by the community, the community is free to give them the bit back if requested. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 11:32, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • In theory.
But in the practice, the RFA process has now become an all-consuming hazing process, in which the crowd is entitled to ask endless questions, and every previous disagreement is weaponised against the candidate. When the candidate has been highly active for over a decade, the result is a pile-on. And where the candidate has previously been an admin, every grudge-bearer gets a free pass to throw rotten tomatoes. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:41, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
In the more recent practice, hazing tends to be a fairly hazardous procedure to the hazer. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 11:51, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not really anything I can do about it, but I sure feel pretty horrible about this decision. I didn't follow the ArbCom case, it's too depressing for me to see editors (note the plural, I've had good times with everyone involved at different times) I really enjoy collaborating with have to go through all that, but I had hoped for a different outcome. If Kudpung ever runs for adminship again, I'll certainly be out in full force, and until then I hope to have more good encounters with everyone here. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 19:05, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
In truth, there has never been a case that resulted in desysop that felt good, but I know what you mean. I think those who voted for desysop felt the whole situation was regrettable especially since it felt entirely avoidable. Even in other instances such as Edgar181's case, where there was deliberate egregious long-term abuse that went on undetected for years, it still felt like a sour pill because Edgar181 otherwise had been an exemplary admin and editor. Their bad hand conduct was that much more of a betrayal and I was left wondering, what the hell happened? Mkdw talk 20:11, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Since, as I said, I didn't follow the case, I'm not criticizing ArbCom on this. I don't intend to read through everything, so I can't say whether or not you made the right call. And no matter how this ultimately ended someone would be unhappy, I don't want to join the backlash on any given case; my personal feeling certainly shouldn't guide a decision. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 21:07, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Even as I support every effort to hold admins accountable to the same standards that regular editors are held to, and cannot fault ArbCom for doing what they were elected to do, I still wince at the thought of the pain inflicted upon the very real human beings behind these removed sysop flags, after their many years of dedication to Wikipedia. I feel for them, even as I support ArbCom in the difficult decisions they had to make, and I advocated for these decisions in two of the three cases.
But I similarly feel for the many more wrongly treated regular editors. I believe that a combination of long-standing factors have brought Wikipedia to a point where we elected (and will probably continue to elect) an ArbCom willing to make these very difficult decisions, because they are all we have. As much as the personal toll on these three sysops has to weigh, the toll also weighs on regular editors who are lesser heard and differently treated at ANI, lesser heard at RFA when they Oppose based on not knowing the candidate well enough through not having seen them active enough in the trenches, and ignored on 'crat chats where those very kinds of opposes are likely discounted and discretionary range is taken to mean automatic promotion.
Would we see less of a need for these weighty and painful desysops if we a) re-instated RFC/U to have those warning shots sent earlier, b) demanded that admins hold other admins equally accountable at ANI as they do regular editors, c) weighted the "we haven't seen you in the trenches and don't know you well enough" opposes at RFA equally with others, and d) elected crats who would also respect those Opposes and not automatically promote in the discretionary range? It is all too easy for admins, safely behind the shield of their tools and knowing that ANI will rarely take fellow admins to task, to forget how it is for those without that same protection. Long-time admins may forget what is painfully obvious to those without the tools, watching as admins routinely get away with violating both content and behavioral policies, watching as sometimes bringing this to ANI can result in topic bans or threats to the regular editor, watching as we conduct unnecessary RFCs about issues that might be resolved via examining conduct. Too many times in my regular daily editing, it is an admin who is misbehaving or breaching content policies. Too many times in my daily editing I watch admins turn a blind eye to egregious behaviors if those behaviors line up with their "side" (for example, fringe medical topics). Too many times I see regular editors intimidated for speaking obvious truths in civil tones, while one can find in the same discussion, admins watching other admins behave in a way that could get the regular editor blocked and saying not a word.
A most curious thing happened to me yesterday. As I observed the Kudpung sysop enacted, and saw Kudpung cleaning up their user and talk pages, which included a link to how long ago he was given the tools, my curiosity was piqued, and I went back to see if I had weighed in on that RFA. (After 15 years it is easy to forget who one knows or has encountered in here ;) I should have listened to myself then, and stood my ground, as my initial impression is now all too familiar.
I know this wasn't easy on anyone, but I respect the arbs we elected for doing what they were elected to do. And I hope we will see changes at ANI, at RFA, at RFB and with some sort of new RFC/U that will help us not have to go this way often. IMO, if admins would better "police" their fellow admins, we would all be in better shape here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:11, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This is an exceptional and insightful comment, SandyGeorgia. Thank you, –xenotalk 00:49, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • No comment on the specific cases, but I think Wugapodes is absolutely spot on above. We have had a long-running problem with productive contributors who are abrasive and unpleasant in their interactions with other editors, and refuse to take feedback on board. There is of course a lot of variation in how much community feedback they receive, and in how egregious their behavior was to begin with; but this single theme is present in virtually every ARBCOM desysop in the last few years, and in a good many other sanctions against established contributors. I strongly support attempts to resuscitate RFC/U, but I can't help but feel that the problem runs somewhat deeper than what mechanisms we have to deal with it; we don't really know how to deal with people who are unreceptive to personal feedback from their peers. Vanamonde (Talk) 21:27, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    As I mentioned on this talk page a month ago, that was the whole problem with RfC/U: at that stage, editors were not receptive. Any revival needs to provide incentives for editors to engage. I didn't research back to the start of RfC/U, but maybe someone can recall: was it ever effective at providing feedback that resulted in positive, permanent reform? Is there something we can learn from any success stories?
    If you're interested, I made a very small suggestions in the diff I linked to. It would not help for the vast majority of cases, but it's also virtually no overhead, so the benefit to effort ratio might be worthwhile. isaacl (talk) 22:19, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Before serious thought is given to exhuming RFC/U from its moldy grave, we would do well to consider the reasons it was put out of its misery in the first place. All of the ill feelings of an ArbCom case but no mechanism for actually removing someone's tools if it's warranted? No thanks. 28bytes (talk) 21:34, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
RfC/U was better in theory than it was in practice - unworkable, wasteful, and so unpleasant. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:25, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fully agree with User:SandyGeorgia's comment above. As a fellow human being I hate to see any admonishment, desysopping, block, etc. meted out against those who have given their all to the project for numerous years, and in most cases have done so in good faith, despite whatever issues have arisen to lead to the ArbCom case. I cam truly empathise and I know I would find that a tough pill to swallow too. But equally, I empathise with the rank and file editors, including regulars, content-creation specialists, those who have kept their heads under the radar and maybe aren't dominant personalities around the Wiki, as well as newbies who are trying in good faith to learn the ropes, who find themselves on the receiving end of poor civility by an administrator. The tools are not supposed to be a big deal, but the reality is that admins are trusted editors whom the community expects to abide by the policies at WP:ADMINACCT. If individual admins are not able to do that, and continue to struggle with civility after they have been given sufficient opportunity to improve, which all three recent desysoppings appear to have been given, then really ArbCom has no choice but to remove the bit. But even now it's not too late. Rather than retiring, demonstrate to the community in six months to a year that the issues have been resolved, and I'll gladly support a resysop.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:49, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • And to respond to all who point out that RFC/U is no panacea, I listed four possible things to work on. If RFC/U isn't the solution, something has to be, because dealing with this problem (which comes down to entitlement, whether among admins or in top contributors) has an enormously detrimental effect. If a regular editor cannot expect that admins will deal with other admins at ANI, and there is no RFC/U-type process-- there's nothing but ArbCom. It seems that, in those with a tendency towards entitlement, the stress of dealing with Wikipedia can cloud our view of our importance (we are all very expendable here), and lead to behavior we would not engage in real life. That's why what I want to see at RFA or RFB is enough history of how an editor engages in the trenches to be assured they can stay humble and maintain perspective as the stress builds. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:57, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • Or to put it in engineering terms, if they haven't been stress-tested, don't put them in a place of structural importance. Although, to push the metaphor, that still leaves the question of what to do about metal fatigue. Gog the Mild (talk) 23:08, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • As I alluded to in the case request, interpersonal dispute management is difficult, all the more when using a consensus-like decision-making process in a large group for anything other than clear-cut cases. I've been trying to think of ways to get a trusted editor involved, as has been suggested by some editors, but it's a hard thing to formalize without falling into the problems of clique behaviour. Maybe a list of volunteers can be created, who would try to identify someone that the editor in question trusts? Regarding providing greater incentives for editors to engage with the RfC/U process, again taking cues from the real world: perhaps a mediator could manage the process, soliciting answers for specific questions from specific editors and the subject of the RfC/U. This would help filter out nuisance complaints, and hopefully reduce the feeling of everybody against one. Should we unredirect Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/User conduct and start a conversation there on more ideas to provide incentives to engage? isaacl (talk) 23:19, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        • Ah, that was you ... I was trying to remember who brought that up and where. I think it was you who said editors should identify someone they would trust and listen to. And I will again comment that, in the most abusive cases I am familiar with (and I don't just mean abusive admins, I also mean abusive non-admin but entitled contributors, who are quite certain the world will stop turning if they stop editing), there seems to be a tendency among the entitled to be surrounded by like-minded people who never call them out, and always reinforce the behaviors. And if one (as a non-admin) speaks up, one is threatened. A lot of what is true in real life is true on Wikipedia: you are known by the company you keep. Those who are comfortable with bullies hang out with other bullies. And then they lose all perspective; they don't even realize what they sound like or how they are acting. If their closest friends are unlikely to call them out, then admins at ANI should be more aware of what role they might play. I am not good at coming up with ideas for how we might address these issues, but I see the problems quite clearly in my everyday non-admin editing. How often I come along on a page where three admins have posted right under an outright personal attack, to be the only one to say, "we don't do that here". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:30, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
          • The general idea of getting a trusted editor involved has been brought up by several editors... Just as you aren't claiming RfC/U to be a panacea, I don't think anyone is claiming that intervention by a trusted editor is a magic fix, either. I understand that it's really hard to receive negative feedback, and so I'm sure that some editors are just not going to have anyone who can reach them. But in that case, there's nothing we can do other than trying to keep them involved with others they get along with (just like happens in the real world). For any process to work, we need to try to figure out what approaches can be attempted to get by the natural defensive reactions and be effective. If there is a trusted editor that can help out, making use of them may be a good approach. Perhaps a good-faith mediator, even if not a trusted editor, can help generate constructive feedback that can be better received.
          • These are very difficult questions, so I don't think anyone is good at coming up with answers. My suggestion is to start with a structured discussion somewhere. It could be at the ideas village pump, the RfC/U talk page, or somewhere else. Let's look at what success stories are out there, if any can be found, and try to learn from them. isaacl (talk) 23:48, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
            • But ... but ... but ... it's so much more fun to come here and whine than to actually do something :) (I'm not starting any ideas moving while I'm preparing to face coprolalia coming from the main page all week :) But my first idea is that this stupid pingie-thingie has been a huge detriment to civility. We used to actually go to people's talk pages and talk to each other. The damn pingie-thingie adds another layer of impersonalization. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:56, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
              • Ummm.... I was thinking of ideas related to your discussion on RfC/U, because it's too easy to lose focus by trying to discuss multiple things at once. If you'd rather start with the echo notification mechanism though, then sure, that can be done. isaacl (talk) 00:12, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Some of ya, have brought up the idea of resurrecting RFC/U. There's a reason why RFC/U was discontinued. It was nothing but a space for editors to 'sh-t' on an accused editor. This is one bloke, who'll oppose any attempts to resurrect that bullying pen. GoodDay (talk) 23:55, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Heard (several times); what next? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:58, 1 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The main problem with RfC/U was its awful structure that was antithetical to any discussion - people just broadcast comments, which were endorsed by a random number of people. You couldn't "not endorse" but had to make some other broadcast statement. It was like a whole bunch of people with loudspeakers and no-one listening. (archives at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct/Archive) It could have some use if restructured completely differently to promote discussion and negotiation Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:13, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Such a restructuring would make it functionally equivalent to either ANI, AE, or ArbCom, with the disadvantage of being focused on one person and having all of their opponents come out of the woodwork. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:16, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Softlavender: Kudpung had many chances to ameliorate his behavior; he took none of them. The end result of this case is quite literally his own making (especially via his refusal to actually engage with the process), and instead of introspection he has immediately gone to repeating the exact behavior mentioned in the case findings. He has validated the case in brilliant fashion. Your argument is that some editors should be more equal than others, a premise I fundamentally reject. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 00:41, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there was MEDCOM (also defunct now). Beyond that is the truism that "the light bulb has to actually want to change". There are problematic editors who are usually good but occasionally go on tilt and act against common sense. Maybe they understand the issue and could benefit from maintaining more self-awareness or whatever. Then there are also the editors who are problematic because they are chronically annoying, yet usually not flagrantly abusive. It is probably harder for them to do anything differently. Finally, even the most obnoxious and useless editors often have enablers and supporters, and those are the voices they will listen to. I think these cases all have to be considered separately. 173.228.123.39 (talk) 04:46, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Tseung kang 99 unblocked

Original announcement
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