Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Zeq-Zero0000/Workshop

This is a page for working on arbitration decisions. The arbitrators, parties to the case, and other editors may draft proposals and post them to this page for review and comments. Proposals may include proposed general principles, findings of fact, remedies, and enforcement provisions—the same format as is used in Arbitration Committee decisions. The bottom of the page may be used for overall analysis of the /Evidence and for general discussion of the case.

Any user may edit this workshop page. Please sign all suggestions and comments. Arbitrators will place proposed items they believe should be part of the final decision on the /Proposed decision page, which only arbitrators may edit, for voting.

Motions and requests by the parties

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Proposed temporary injunctions

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Proposed final decision

Proposed principles

Admins who enforce probation remedies should be uninvolved

1) Admins who enforce a remedy such as Wikipedia:Probation, by blocking or imposing bans, should not be involved in a dispute with the user under probation. This ensures that the admin who is enforcing the remedy is doing so out of an interest to stop disruption, and not out of an interest to gain the upper hand in a content dispute.

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The language was "Zeq [] is placed on Wikipedia:Probation. He may be banned by any administrator for good cause from any article which he disrupts by tendentious editing." It plainly says "any administrator" but only for "good cause". If there is good cause an involved administrator is entitled to block. Probation was intended to operate in this summary fashion, but with provision for appeal to determine if there was good cause. Fred Bauder 17:46, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

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This is the principle I prefer, since it helps ensure that nobody will abuse a probation remedy in a way it was not intended. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:52, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Probation was intended to operate in this summary fashion, but with provision for appeal to determine if there was good cause. Fred Bauder 17:46, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Any admin may enforce probation remedies

1.1) In general, a Wikipedia:Probation remedy may be enforced by any admin, including an involved admin, unless this has been specifically prohibited. An involved admin often knows the situation in more detail, and finding and explaining the situation to an uninvolved admin may take time, while in the meantime, serious disruption may continue. Involved admins must take special care that the enforcement is being done in the interests of preventing disruption, and not in the interest of getting an advantage in a content dispute.

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Exactly Fred Bauder 17:48, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

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Zero has been suspended[1] already on exactly a similar offense[2] and later was told[[3]] by user:Fred_Bauder that a ban is not the first step in dispute resolution – even if the dispute is with a user under probation. Zero was already told that only after other options have tried should an involved admin ask other (uninvolved) admin to issue and enforce a ban. Jimbo Wales had the opinion that Zero first offesnse was such a clear violation of Wikipedia basic rules that he should have been de-sysoped back then.

User:Zero0000 knows the rules well – he just choose to wikilawyer ( [4], see 2nd edit here: [5] [6], response:[7]) his way around them to gain an advantage in his on-going disputes across wikipedia. user:Zero0000 involvement in multiple (staggering amount) of disputes and edit-wars with many users – not just Zeq - shows that the problem here is much bigger than a "clarification" by ArbCom. Zeq 09:30, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Zeq's assertions, here and on the evidence page, refer almost entirely to a different case that was judged long ago and for which I was given a penalty. I refuse to be judged on that case all over again. The current case is of course entirely different and concerns whether or not I was justified in interpretting an ArbCom ruling in a particularly literal way. --Zero^talk 11:41, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Only Zero's current behavior is standing on trial today. The pattern existed for years but the evidence on recent bahaviour is fresh. His on-going violations will are presented (recent edits: 2007, 2006). There is no other Wikipedian who behave with such arrogance toward those who disgree with him and with such sense of impunity – this will be clear from the evidence.(some just days old - zero continue this behavior even after this 3rd ArbCom case of his has started) Zeq 15:34, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

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I am putting this up as an alternative to the one above, since I think ArbCom should clarify this point. I don't like this one as much. In either case, I think we all agree that if a probatee is behaving well, it would be inappropriate to for an admin to ban the probatee merely due to a disagreement. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:52, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

There needs to be a middle ground. Imposing an article ban is something that should be left to an uninvolved admin. On the other hand, if there is an unquestionable circumstance (eg, arbcom bans user from article X and user inserts info into article X), then blocking is fine. --BigDT (416) 00:02, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

That sounds fair. Sjakkalle (Check!) 05:56, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

NPOV requires both views to be represented

2) NPOV requires views to be represented without bias. All editors and all sources have biases. Pushing aside a source by arguing that "it is POV Source" while keeping in an article sources from the opposing POV creates a biased article. NPOV require that All Wikipedia articles must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), representing fairly and without bias all significant views (that have been published by reliable sources).

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Beyond a certain point biased sources are not reliable sources. Where that point lies is a matter of editorial judgment. Fred Bauder 17:52, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

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Zero's most succesfull technique is to push out sources by claiming that the source is POV. He does that only to sources that are against his preffered POV. This is a subtle way to create an POV-biased article while creating the apreance that others use POV sources. This way also help Zero to present himself as the defender of NPOV and RS. Due to the heavy use of this technique many of Zero's edits are deletion of sources (only those that don't fit his prefered POV). Zeq 20:51, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

And your modus operandi is to find what you want in obviously biased sources. We would not accept The Protocols of Zion as a source, why should we accept obviously biased Zionist sources? Fred Bauder 17:52, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

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Administrators

3) Wikipedia administrators are trusted members of the community and are expected to follow Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Occasional lapses of judgment are tolerated, but consistently poor judgment may result in de-sysopping.

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Proposed. Ryan Postlethwaite 13:25, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Adminship is not diplomatic immunity

Every administrator must keep in mind that admins are servants of Wikipedia as a whole. This means that all policies apply to admins just as they do to any user. Admins can be blocked, put under WP:Probation or banned from some articles and subjects matter in which they employ Tendentious editing . Admins must follow all Wikipedia policies, such as the three-revert rule, WP:RS, WP:AGF, WP:NPA, WP:SOCK and uphold consensus and a neutral point of view. Zeq 14:25, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

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Too wordy, but I love the tagline - that should be turned into an essay. --BigDT (416) 14:41, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

See WP:What adminship is not Zeq 08:40, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Interpretation of Arbitration Committee decisions

5) An administrator or other editor who takes an action in reliance on a good-faith, reasonable interpretation of an Arbitration Committee decision should generally not be subject to sanction for that action, even if his or her interpretation turns out to have been incorrect or not the intended meaning of the decision. Only good-faith, reasonable interpretations of a legitimately ambiguous ruling are covered by this principle; it does not shield strained, unreasonable actions or interpretations, nor actions taken after the prior decision has been clarified by arbitrators or the community.

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Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Zeq-Zero0000/Evidence#user:Zero0000_behavior_as_an_admin_follows_a_natural_progression_from_his_Modus_Operandi_as_an_editor dispel any notion that this Interpretation is at all relevant to Zero's behaviour in this case. Zeq 05:40, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

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Proposed. Zero0000 claims in this case that he believed the words "any administrator" used in a prior ArbCom remedy literally meant any administrator rather than "any uninvolved administrator." He further claims that he relied on the specific wording "any administrator," rather than "any uninvolved administrator" as used in other earlier decisions, in taking action. If it is found that he took an action based on a good-faith, reasonable interpretation of a prior decision, he should not be sanctioned for such action, and the appropriate step is for ArbCom or the community to clarify the ambiguity. If it were found that he was not relying in good faith on a resonable interpretation of the decision, the outcome might well be different. Newyorkbrad 19:33, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

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Proposed findings of fact

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Terms of previous remedy

Zeq banned from articles he has disrupted and placed on Probation

1) Zeq is banned indefinitely from 1948 Arab-Israeli War and Palestinian exodus, and is placed on Wikipedia:Probation. He may be banned by any administrator for good cause from any article which he disrupts by tendentious editing. All bans and the reasons for them to be logged at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Zeq#Log of blocks and bans.

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Language of previous remedy Fred Bauder 17:42, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

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Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Dmcdevit desysopped

1) For severe administrative misconduct as described in Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Zeq-Zero0000/Evidence#Evidence_presented_by_John254, Dmcdevit is desysopped, and is relieved of his checkuser and oversight privileges.

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I fail to see the relevancy to this case. Suggest this request will be dropped stricken-out to prevent loosing focus.

John254 should find other evenues to his grivence. Zeq 10:00, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

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Proposed. Dmcdevit has asked the Arbitration Committee to desysop Zero0000 because of a total of two blocks issued by Zero0000, one recently and one in 2004. It appears that the recent block was justified; however, Zero0000 should not have issued this block himself due to his involvement in a content dispute with Zeq. Surely Dmcdevit should be held to no lower standards of administrative conduct than those he seeks to impose on other administrators. Considering my evidence in light of the criterion for desysopping that Dmcdevit has advocated, he should be desysopped himself for blocking my account while engaged in a content dispute with me, and for issuing a block that was clearly without justification. John254 21:27, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Despite the proposer's contention to the contrary on the evidence page, this is outside the scope of the case. By bringing an arbitration request, an editor becomes subject to review of his or her behavior relating to the subject-matter of the request—not to open season on every word the user has ever written or every admin action the user ever taken. There is also no showing of attempts at prior dispute resolution between John254 and Dmcdevit, which would generally be a precondition to ArbCom's considering the matter. Newyorkbrad 21:39, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, previous Arbitration Committee cases have considered conduct by the initiator completely unrelated "to the subject-matter of the request", effectively becoming "open season on every word the user has ever written or every admin action the user ever taken". Consider, for example, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Billy Ego-Sandstein, which was initiated by Billy Ego to resolve a dispute over what content was permissible on his userpage, and resulted in Billy Ego being banned for a year for disruption, much of it unrelated to his userpage content, and a number of accounts found to be sockpuppets of Billy Ego being blocked indefinitely. The Arbitration Committee may properly consider serious misconduct by a user bringing a request for arbitration; moreover, by initiating a request for arbitration, Dmcdevit has waived any claims to the benefit of prior dispute resolution regarding his administrative conduct just as surely as Billy Ego waived the benefit of prior dispute resolution regarding allegations that he was engaging in disruptive editing and abusive sockpuppetry. Finally, after accusing Zero0000 of "lawyering" regarding the language of Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Zeq and claiming that "Zero0000's actions here are indefensible" [8], I doubt that Dmcdevit will proceed to defend his own far worse administrative misconduct here by claiming that the Arbitration Committee is not quite in the correct procedural posture to consider it. John254 22:52, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

You claim that we were in a content dispute on the basis of a single comment of mine where an arbitrator's opinion on the section regarding arbitration was specifically requested, my last edit to the talk page since then (not to mention no edits to the page since months earlier), is less than tenuous. Especially considering that now, four months later, is, as far as I know, the first you've ever made that claim, and the first time you've ever made an attempt to communicate with me since your block expired (though this hardly counts), and the first time you've ever attempted dispute resolution on the matter (again, though this hardly counts). And this arbitration case has nothing to do with my conduct, except perhaps as it relates to my comments regarding this matter. This feels like opportunism and grudge-holding from out of leftfield. The block was justified for, among other things, the uncivil accusation of vandalism that you have repeated in your evidence. Dmcdevit·t 09:50, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

This matter is unrelated to this arbitration request and, in any event, there have been no attempts made to resolve any issue that may exist. If you feel that Dmcdevit is making inappropriate blocks, discuss it with him or open a request for comment. I suggest that an arbiter remove this section as it is irrelevant. --BigDT (416) 14:50, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

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Analysis of evidence

Place here items of evidence (with diffs) and detailed analysis

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General discussion

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