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The article repeats unreliable claims of people involved, and cites sources who are involved directly in the controversy and whose actions have resulted in advertisers pulling out from websites due to their writings being percieved as "bullying". One of the people involved - Zoe Quinn - previously claimed to be harassed in late 2013, and a bunch of news sources repeated her allegations without verification. As a result, the people who she claimed had harassed her were themselves harassed, and it appears that they never were involved in any sort of harassment. No police report was ever filed on the incident, no one was held criminally responsible, and The Escapist, who repeated her initial claims, was later forced to write an apology and change their rules about verifying claims of harassment and other issues, as well as add a disclaimer to the article.
The article repeats unreliable claims of people involved, and cites sources who are involved directly in the controversy and whose actions have resulted in advertisers pulling out from websites due to their writings being percieved as "bullying". One of the people involved - Zoe Quinn - previously claimed to be harassed in late 2013, and a bunch of news sources repeated her allegations without verification. As a result, the people who she claimed had harassed her were themselves harassed, and it appears that they never were involved in any sort of harassment. No police report was ever filed on the incident, no one was held criminally responsible, and The Escapist, who repeated her initial claims, was later forced to write an apology and change their rules about verifying claims of harassment and other issues, as well as add a disclaimer to the article.


This is an endemic problem; to the best of my knowledge, no one has been charged criminally in any of this. We don't know who is making these threats or hacking websites; all we have is supposition. As far as I know, neither Milo (a reporter for Breitbart) nor Zoe Quinn have filed any sort of criminal complaint in relation to alleged death threats, while speaking about them to reporters and on Twitter; the only source we have on the threats being made against them is themselves, as far as I have been able to determine. In sharp contrast, the threats against Sarkeesian are well attested to - we have the full text of the threats, and we have evidence that the threats were made because she went to the FBI and police, who have investigated the death threats. According to [http://www.usu.edu/ust/index.cfm?article=54179 the police, FBI, and Utah State University], the death threat she received at USU was not a "real" threat, in that there was no danger to her or the public, and it was noted as being similar to other threats she had received in the past - basically, someone is sending them to terrorize people, but do not appear to have any intent to actually kill anyone.
This is an endemic problem; to the best of my knowledge, no one has been charged criminally in any of this. We don't know who is making these threats or hacking websites; all we have is supposition. As far as I know, neither Milo (a reporter for Breitbart) nor Zoe Quinn have filed any sort of criminal complaint in relation to alleged death threats, while speaking about them to reporters and on Twitter; the only source we have on the threats being made against them is themselves, as far as I have been able to determine. In sharp contrast, the threats against Sarkeesian are well attested to - we have the full text of the threats, and we have evidence that the threats were made because she went to the FBI and police, who have investigated the death threats. According to [http://www.usu.edu/ust/index.cfm?article=54179 the police, FBI, and Utah State University], the death threat she received at USU was not a credible threat, in that there was no danger to her or the public, and it was noted as being similar to other threats she had received in the past - basically, someone is sending them to terrorize people, but do not appear to have any intent to actually kill anyone (at least according to the FBI).


Per [[WP:HOAX]], it is important for us to report on hoaxes ''as hoaxes'', not be sucked into them and repeat them. When someone calls in a fake school shooting threat or a fake bomb scare, we can report ''on'' the hoax (i.e. that someone did that), but we should not ''perpetuate'' the hoax (i.e. state that the threat is real, that someone really was going to go to USU and shoot a bunch of people).
Per [[WP:HOAX]], it is important for us to report on hoaxes ''as hoaxes'', not be sucked into them and repeat them. When someone calls in a fake school shooting threat or a fake bomb scare, we can report ''on'' the hoax (i.e. that someone did that), but we should not ''perpetuate'' the hoax (i.e. state that the threat is real, that someone really was going to go to USU and shoot a bunch of people).

Revision as of 08:49, 10 November 2014

Requests for arbitration

Arbitration Committee proceedings
Request name Motions Initiated Votes
GamerGate   10 November 2014 {{{votes}}}
Ahmed Hassan Imran   2 November 2014 {{{votes}}}
[[Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#{{anchor|Dangerous Panda}} DangerousPanda|{{anchor|Dangerous Panda}} DangerousPanda]]   1 November 2014 {{{votes}}}
[edit]
Open cases
Case name Links Evidence due Prop. Dec. due
Venezuelan politics (t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t) 20 Apr 2024 04 May 2024
[edit]
Recently closed cases (Past cases)
Case name Closed
Conflict of interest management 13 Apr 2024
Mzajac 7 May 2024
Request name Motions  Case Posted
Amendment request: Conduct in deletion-related editing none (orig. case) 30 April 2024
Clarification request: Palestine-Israel articles 4 none (orig. case) 13 May 2024
Amendment request: Article titles and capitalisation none (orig. case) 13 May 2024

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

GamerGate

Initiated by --The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 00:41, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

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

Statement by The Devil's Advocate

This dispute has eluded resolution through other means ranging from raising concerns at conduct noticeboards and attempts at mediation regarding content. While editors with fewer contributions, as far as I know only those who are or are seen as favorable to the GamerGate side, have been routinely sanctioned or blocked, the established editors who are unfavorable to the GamerGate side and are the source of a lot of the conflict continue unimpeded. This is at least partly due to the fact that they have a sufficient number of sympathizers to prevent any consensus from being reached regarding their conduct. Another problem in this situation is that there are admins who are either WP:INVOLVED on the subject taking action against their opponents while giving them a pass or admins whose actions are otherwise dubious. Some of these admins have a history of questionable use of their admin tools on other topics. I can elaborate further on those details, though some of it is evidenced in the discussions linked above. Even though general sanctions have been imposed in the topic area and there are BLP discretionary sanctions covering some of these details, it has done nothing to stop this behavior from continuing and escalating as it has over the past week. A thorough review of all administrative conduct on this topic area, ranging from rev-deletions and suppressions to blocks and topic-bans, is requested in addition to reviewing the general conduct of editors.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 00:41, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

North, a simple review of the linked discussions above should illustrate what conduct issues are in question here with regards to you and other parties to this request. Laying out all of them personally would be taxing, though I am sure there are editors who will be fine raising specific concerns about your conduct and that of other editors in their own statements.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 01:02, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I feel North's objection to the Ryulong and Baranof filing at ANI clearly encapsulates the issue. Three different uninvolved editors called for banning North and Ryulong from the article, but Dreadstar closed the discussion after blocking the filer. Similar issues exist with FPaS's actions regarding Titanium Dragon and Ryulong. To be clear, I believe a number of the administrative actions that have been taken have been unwarranted, excessive, or inappropriately one-sided, sometimes even when the admin is otherwise uninvolved. Where there may be legitimate cases, it is difficult to trust that when the admins in question are involved or have taken other dubious actions. Quite simply, Tarc, Ryulong, Baranof, and TheRedPenofDoom, have been persistently uncivil and persistently POV-pushing, but essentially no action has been taken against them aside from a few warnings and advisements, while action is routinely taken against anyone who opposes their editing.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 01:57, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by NorthBySouthBaranof

I'm not quite sure what this request is asking. It presents no diffs of identifiable issues, it does not present a case that any policies have been violated, nor does it meaningfully demonstrate that the community sanctions have been unsuccessful. A quick look at WP:BLPLOG finds no blocks and only a handful of topic bans implemented under the sanctions, and absolutely none have been imposed for the last two weeks. This suggests that the sanctions have had the intended effect of directing the discussions in a constructive, if sometimes combative, direction.

Rather, this request appears to be a general statement that TDA isn't happy with the way discussions have gone on pages related to GamerGate and wishes ArbCom to intervene to enforce his preferred POV about the movement and people who have been targeted by it — which is, by the indisputable and nearly-unanimous weight of reliable sources, a demonstrably-fringe POV. Therefore, I defer comment until there are meaningful arguments to respond to. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:50, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah TDA, sure, if it's too taxing for you, I'll do it. Let's review the above-linked discussions in which I was significantly involved:
I can see why you don't want to spell out your actual arguments re: the above discussions — it's because you don't actually have any. You're just hoping that a big pile of ANI links will create the appearance that something's wrong with my behavior. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 01:17, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
More half-truths. On the article talk page, I pointed out a single-purpose account's repeated and manifest BLP violations in making false and disproven accusations about a living person involved in GamerGate, after which they tendentiously dragged me into a lengthy ANI thread accusing me of "badgering" them. Three users flippantly said "Ban them all" in an apparent expression of disgust with the whole GamerGate debacle, but provided nothing further of substance. An uninvolved administrator subsequently observed the repeated BLP violations which I had pointed out, and blocked the BLP-violating editor. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 02:37, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that GamerGate supporters have stated an intent to "investigate" and doxx anyone involved in this case speaks for itself as to the legitimacy of the movement's "ethics" concerns, and speaks for itself in terms of who here is interested in building an encyclopedia and who is here to further a fringe POV by any means necessary. Sample post: "SCOUR TWITTER, TUMBLR, WORDPRESS, ANYTHING FOR RYULONG, TARAINDC, THEREDPENOFDOOM, OR NORTHBYHEADUPASS." Pleasant. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 05:15, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Titanium Dragon's statement is literally a restatement of the same nonsense that previously resulted in a topic-ban from this issue. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 05:46, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ryulong

Sanctions are working as intended. There's no new big problems here other than a third attempt at bringing this to ArbCom in what appears to be a (vain) attempt to remove editors that TDA disagrees with.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 01:54, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And this is still a content dispute masquerading as a user behavior inquest. Several threads closed that did not result in sanctions of any type against the people TDA has brought up should not mean anything in the long run other than a content dispute that will not end at any point in the future due to the nature of the real world dispute it concerns. Not to mention that in Loganmac's own statement here he is making polemic statements and comparisons that have effectively been banned from the article's talk page.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 03:12, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Also, re: EvergreenFir's statement, it's not even been a week since the last case request was closed. That is no where near enough time for the community sanctions to have failed.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 03:16, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@EvergreenFir: Excuse me?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 06:28, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Also, just a clarification request, is Titanium Dragon allowed to say anything here considering his topic ban? Or was that lifted, again, without any of us noticing?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 06:29, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Titanium Dragon: You still won't let go of the fact I used the term "/v/irgin" will you?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 07:10, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by TheRedPenOfDoom

The previous request was dismissed as "too soon" to to see if the existing community processes could handle the situation. I am not aware that there has been any attempt to utilize the existing community processes since that time that have shown them to be ineffective. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 03:32, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Tutelary

I acknowledge that this is somewhat premature and probably will be rejected, but I'll post my statement in any case.

One of the main examples that I think should be looked into regarding conduct with administrators is the closing of Ryulong's edit warring report (that of 15RR) as stale simply 15 hours after the fact by administrator Dreadstar. It can be seen in this report; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/3RRArchive261#User:Ryulong_reported_by_User:Tutelary_.28Result:_Stale.29

As evidenced by that report, it is plainly obvious that Ryulong was at 15 reverts particularly within that article, and had no qualifying 3RR exception. Within 24 hours (15 hours), it was rejected as 'stale'. I don't particularly know of Dreadstar's standard for qualifying a report as 'stale', but when I inquired to User_talk:Dreadstar/Archive_11#Closure_of_3RRN_noticeboard_report their talk page about this, they said verbatim basically '3RR or Edit Warring blocks are preventative, not punitive per Wikipedia:Blocking_policy#Purpose_and_goals. There were no reverts in over 12 hours, so it was stale. I was also assured in a discussion on the article talk page that there would be no continuation of the edit warring. If you wish to pursue the edit warring instance further, then I'd suggest and WP:RFC/U and not the AN3 noticeboard.'. This was plainly a case where Ryulong was 'backed' by administrator Dreadstar that he plainly got out of a block that probably would have indeffed another user because after 12 hours it was 'stale'. I doubt that entirely.

The next bit is the premature closing of both the sanction discussion regarding it which only achieved 23.5 hours of discussion (that which was still ongoing) before being closed and the sanctions being enacted. That's simply out of practice and needs to be looked into. Because there was definitely some opposing points which were not addressed before it was so soundly closed and enacted. 23.5 hours is NOT enough discussion which will ultimately give administrators even more power and discretion when already, there was enough since BLP discretionary sanctions applied. There was obviously something going on in the background because I have never, ever in my entire life on Wikipedia seen sanctions' discussions closed so rapidly and quickly and still be considered valid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Archive265#Proposed_Gamergate_solution_by_Hasteur

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Archive265#Nip_Gamergate_in_the_bud In this discussion, Ryulong proposed that all of these 'SPAs' be topic banned, but 70% of them were not SPAs and he even implicated an admin as being one of them. There was a counterproposal to topic ban him, but it was closed by Future citing 'no possibility of consensus'--which is a !supervote, closing a discussion so no sanction or rejection of sanction will come out of it. That is unacceptable administrator conduct and I believe that a desysopping or serious sanction should occur for this happening.

This is just a glimpse of what has occurred in simply sketchy circumstances regarding administrators not fulfilling their role as an administrator, and as simply out of practice in terms of all decency of conduct or policy or guideline. Thanks. Tutelary (talk) 02:22, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the 8chan thread and false accusations that Maseam or Devil's Advocate is behind the 'Wikipedia editor' posting. You guys do realize that people love to stir up shit on those threads? It could actually be any of us; Tarc, Red Pen, Maseam, Dreadstar, Jimbo, Ryulong, Loganmac, etc or the more likely option, someone trying to rally people up under a certain authority 'Oh I'm a Wikipedia editor' to try to push this ArbCom in the other direction. I don't want that. I want neutrality. But people too willing to assume malice and accusations of other editors on a freakin' anonymous image board behind the scenes kind of disheartens me...a lot. It also reminds me a lot of Salem...hysteria mixed with poignant accusations, anyone? Tutelary (talk) 05:48, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Loganmac

The problems with the article is the extreme uncivility, problems with WP:OWN (25% of edits are made by the same two people). There's constant reverts of good faith edits, before these editors even read them as has happened to me. There's been witch hunts accusing people of being SPAs, this witch hunt included admins and people that have been here for years in a clear attempt to white wash the article. The article right now seems like a parody to outsiders, not supoporters of the movement, I've asked two people that said the neutrality dispute is well placed. Controversial movements should, even if they're supposed to be the most evil movement in history, supposed to be given a historical and uninvolved tone. Articles on Hitler, Scientology, ISIS, the KKK, Al Qaeda show this, and of course we shouldn't give examples to other articles, but when the article on a racist genocidal dictator has a more neutral tone than an Internet controversy you got a problem. All movements no matter how they've been criticized by media, should first state what RS consider this movement advocates for, and then give all the criticism, with due weight, and taking into account that this movement is targeting media, so it's imperative to take every source with a grein of salt. There's been ethical code changes on several sites including Kotaku, Polygon, The Escapist, etc. So it's illogical to say it's a front for harassment when these very same sites have changed their policy and have been disclosing their conflicts of interest, and retroactively correcting other articles in admissions of problems to correct. Aside from this, there's been outside wiki behaviour like people contacting me on my personal twitter and reddit accounts, this very same people show an EXTREME bias to the subject. And their edits show it. The article as well is currently filled with extensive quotes, sources from involved parties (Zoe Quinn currently has quotes on almost every section). People have been in contact with Zoe Quinn to change her picture in the article, because she was drinking and this supposedly was bad even if she's an adult, disregarding that she was at a game event, the picture is of a really high definition and showed her naturally smiling, instead was replaced by a self-taken picture of her making faces (making it hard to really identify her) is of extreme low quality (probably taken by a cellphone) and doesn't show her at a gaming event like the previous one used, the industry by which she's known for. This is just a small example of an attempt to control the narrative that's been going for months. There's been involved admins like Dreadstar who seem to be protecting editors like Ryulong for even a hint of "commenting about them", when this very same editor has been doing the same, on the sight of admins on ANI, on their personal talk pages and the article talk page, and nothing has happened. You should take the example of neutral editors like The Devil's Advocate and Masem, who don't want to take all mentions of misogyny (which currently has almost 40 mentions, inserted at every possible chance, in a repetitive and laughably amateur writing), they want, as it should be, give a neutral explanation, since several editors have given concerns the article fails to explain what the controversy/movement is, being really unfriendly to people that haven't heard about it, and instead focus only on the criticism.

Statement by Masem

Per a comment I asked on the ArbCom talk page, this request might be too soon (ArbCom suggested giving a month or two for the sanctions to be tested), however, I agree in principle that while there are sanctions in place, they are not able to address the fact that there is experienced editors that have, even unintentionally, working in a manner that creates ownership of the article, dismissing any SPA attempts to contribute (and in fact, claims that they have to work actively against them), and refused to participate in any attempt to reach consensus - specifically but not limited to Ryulong, NorthBySouthBaranof, TheRedPenOfDoom, and TaraInDC.

Part of this is the story - it is one that is extremely decisive in terms of opinion, as it has involved harassment and threats against women. The mainstream press has clearly picked a side, voicing an extremely strong negative opinion that the Gamergate movement is misogynistic. This is unavoidable and necessary to include per NPOV/WEIGHT. However, I believe that the above editors are editing partially blinded by strong feelings they share with the press, wanting to treat the proGG without the necessary fairness/impartial nature that NPOV also demands. We're not going to have a lot of favorable things to say about the proGG due to lack of good RS coverage, but we do have enough to present their case, and then present the press's criticism of them. However, efforts to include this impartialness are reverted by those in this group and then they swamp the discussion, going on clearly showing which side of the debate they want pushed hard. (A specific example from this week [1] which was later changed to be less impartial by North [2] and then later flat out reverted claiming that there are no legitimate GG concerns (which there are, it's just "actions speak louder than words" that they haven't gotten detailed coverage [3]).

Mind you, the SPA aspect is important to consider here, but unlike the days of article creation where they were specifically a problem, most of the SPAs now are simply trying to get impartialness in place, not trying to belie what the press says, but as often happens, the above group argues these groups away, and while I don't believe the sanctions have been used improperly to block SPAs, they will favor the blocking of SPAs instead of considering the basic debate. Further, the above group dismissed participation in a past Mediation case, and their comments in the last ArbCom case showed little interest in trying to discuss consensus or compromise. The current sanctions do not consider this type of "slow" edit-warring behavior and additional intervention is needed.

There is a content issue here (in how WP should cover topics that are near-universially treated with negative opinions by mainstream reliable sources), but it is tied in closely with behavior that refuse to want to work on consensus in that manner, in considering how other WP articles about similar groups/movements are written. I'll also defer to comments I left in the previous case [4]. --MASEM (t) 01:14, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@DungeonSiegeAddict510 : Um, WTF? I've never posted to 8chan, and I'm decidedly antiGG - I'm just seeking a neutral treatment of a controversial topic. That's a false accusation. Apology accepted. To be 100% open: outside of personal friends prior to the whole proGG thing in August, I have only had one private communication with a proGGer and that was to explain the limitations of WP policies in reliable sourcing/quoting, so they could see if they could find sources that could be used. I otherwise read through the various threads and know they've identified editors by WP name to know who - in their eyes - are the problem ones and who they might be able to work with, as well as any possible sources they might have found that we could use. I do not post at all at these. (And in terms of personal friends, we don't discuss the issue at all since we don't see eye to eye on it, and just let that be) --MASEM (t) 05:40, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Addition: Per edits like this and Ryulong's infamous "list of people I want banned" from ANI, the people above as well as others are trying to effectively engage in censorship of the article or more importantly in the talk page, in that they do not want to talk about any type of consensus-building about the neutrality of the article - they want it their way and no other, despite the faults with it. The suggestion of outright removing SPAs from the picture - while sometimes necessary to minimize disruption - is not acceptable behavior for anyone on WP. --MASEM (t) 05:56, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Tarc

Hmm, I'm really not seeing why this filing is being, er, filed. Discussion at Talk:Gamergate controversy is always going to be slightly sharp, as discussions tend to be in hot-button topic areas, but there has really been nothing untoward of late and the filer has provided no diffs of what he believes has changed since the last time. If one looks through the list of ANI links, one will see several WP:BOOMERANG whacks of SPAs, e.g. the one filed against yours truly that resulted in ArmyLine's removal from the topic area. Also, with WP:GS/GG is in place, admins have done a good job of late in steering editors away from commenting on each other and towards commenting on the subject matter.

I will put forth the notion that why we're really here is not that The Devil's Advocate sees an intractable dispute that must be Arbitrated, but rather that he refuses to accept that the tide is turning against him, that the "pro-Gamergate" point-of-view is slipping into a minority/fringe position akin to Obama's birth certificate birthers. Please take note of this post to admin Dreadstar's talk page, which contains the line "Clearly, you do not even understand the fucking policies you cite. You seriously need to be desysopped. Obviously, all that power has gone to your head.", along with "You probably know this on some level, but simply do not give a shit because my comments go against your own opinion on the issue of GamerGate." from here. What TDA is doing here is casting aspersions against one of the admins who has attempted to keep the peace in the GG article, but is getting increasingly shrill because action is (rightly, IMO) taken primarily against the disruptive single-purpose accounts. This reminds me of the Stevertigo 2 case, where an editor was so aggressive and so believing in his own rightness...or righteousness...that any failure to achieve consensus for his preferred edits must mean either collusion or malfeasance on the part of admins and other editors.

The edit-warring of the past month has largely subsided in the wake of reliable sources cementing the foundation of GG being primarily about the misogynist harassment of women in the gaming industry. This is like a football (real football, not that footy stuff) being tied up at halftime, but by the end of the 3rd quarter, one team has pulled far ahead due to a strong foundation. All in all, what this is is a case of TDA not accepting the way GG is trending. Tarc (talk) 01:42, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Bilby

I'm a bit confused about what has changed to warrant revisiting this issue so soon. The last ArbCom request closed less than a week ago, and all of the discussions linked to above are from September and October, before the request closed. As far as I am aware there have been no significant events on the GamerGate article - the only protection was by me to return semi after it was removed when the previous full protection expired. The talk page remains open, and there has been no revdel since the last request closed. There has been some minor edit warring and heated discussion continues unabated, but mostly we're looking at content issues. I wouldn't be surprised to see this end up here eventually, but I am surprised to see it here now. - Bilby (talk) 01:15, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Cla68

I've wanted to participate with editing this article, but have mostly held back because of the vitriol and condescending attitudes presented by some of the established editors who are heavily involved in that article. There are some indications, namely when Future Perfect of Sunrise prematurely shut down that AN discussion and other examples, of improper admin conduct related to this dispute. These examples include some particularly egrious examples of WP:BITE. Judging by the discussion on the article talk page, I think we have some of the most clear examples of non-NPOV editing I've ever seen in WP. If the Committee accepts this case, I will help prevent evidence, because it appears to be extremely voluminous. Cla68 (talk) 01:19, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by marginally involved EvergreenFir

Just commenting to urge arbcom to take this case now. On the previous request a couple weeks ago I urged the committee to wait. And wait they did. Not much has come of the WP:GS/GG. I think it's time for arbcom to step in. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 02:05, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by still uninvolved Hasteur

ArbCom said no last week, and the only thing that has changed is we've gained a few more warned editors and one more editor is topic banned. This request is still not ripe for ArbCom manipulation. If ProGG brigade can make a bulletproof case that the rules of Wikipedia are being broken and not being dealt with by the sanctions on the AntiGG brigade, but at current I see only the same tempest in a teapot that we saw last time. Reccomend a speedy decline of this request with a censure of The Devil's Advocate as a participant in the previous request. Hasteur (talk) 03:32, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Gamaliel

The Devil's Advocate has a long history of bringing frivolous or outright fabricated charges to Wikipedia noticeboards, of fomenting drama on and off Wikipedia, and of excusing, downplaying, or ignoring noxious, disruptive, and policy-violating behavior of those he perceives to be on his side. In relation to GamerGate, his charges have been soundly rejected on the noticeboards, he was so disruptive there that he was blocked by an uninvolved administrator, and he ignored or downplayed the abusive behavior of users like TabascoMan77 and Titanium Dragon while loudly complaining about the "abuse" they received. The Committee should ban this user from all Wikipedia noticeboards for at least one year. Gamaliel (talk) 03:53, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Titanium Dragon

I became involved in this because I was worried that the article was going to be defaced by angry gamers; instead, it was being defaced by angry culture warriors. I sought to make the article more neutral, and include sourced information. Subsequently, I was doxxed by Wikipediocracy in September, along with another user, Tutelary, in an attempt to intimidate us. user:Tarc, a former associate of Wikipediocracy, made approving noises, while user:Gamaliel noted that he wanted to ban users such as ourselves, and subsequently did so, in a ban which was later reversed by another admin.

  • Ryulong has a long history of abusive behavior on Wikipedia, and has not significantly improved his behavior in the time since he lost sysop status many years ago. He continues to attack others and seek to get people who are in content disagreements with him banned by asking sympathetic admins to do so, while the users in question are involved in administrative action against them. He insults others and behaves uncivilly and tries to close down conversations. He simultaneously claims that there is consensus for his point of view and that there is a horde of people set against him. Users like this discourage others from using Wikipedia and compromise the integrity, real and perceived, of the encyclopedia.
  • NorthBySouthBaranof has a history of poor behavior as relates to other users; he assumes bad faith in everyone else on a constant basis and tries to get editors who point out that he is violating rules (such as WP:BLP) banned. He was warned about casting aspersions on other users and deliberately distorts what they say on a constant basis. He was warned about this behavior in an ANI and continues to engage in it. He engaged in other warned-in behavior as well, such as inserting a quote from Cracked (a humor website) into the Zoe Quinn article after having been warned that it was unacceptable to use in a BLP. He has engaged in behavior that he has demanded revdels for from other users, and has attacked other users for doing exactly what he has done - and done what he has attacked other users for doing after attacking them for doing it. He either lacks understanding of or doesn't care about WP:IMPARTIAL and WP:NPOV, and has noted that Adolf Hitler should say that he is evil in the lead. He does not recognize himself as having a point of view, nor that he is pushing it. After being informed that I was working on assembling an ANI against him and other abusive users on the article, and later while in the midst of 3RR dispute over Ryulong's behavior, he sought to get me banned from editing the article, thereby preventing me from lodging a complaint without having to appeal the ban first.
  • Tarc has a history of extremely uncivil behavior, referring to people he disagrees with as "misogynists" and otherwise insulting them; when warned about his behavior, including on the ANI about the Wikipediocracy doxxing incident, he spat on the notion that WP:CIVIL is important. He has a long history of negative, aggressive interactions with other Wikipedia users and he does not appear to be likely to change. This sort of hostility drives other users off, and results in a very negative and hostile editing environment.

All three of the users noted above believe themselves to be wholly justified in their actions. All three have refused mediation, and two of them refused to engage in any sort of outside work at all in reaching a compromise. Ryulong has insulted the mediation process and people who were trying to engage in it, and turned up his nose at the idea of engaging in any sort of dispute resolution on the issue, or indeed that there was a dispute at all over the content of the article, while assembling a list of people he wanted banned because they disagreed with him.

The article repeats unreliable claims of people involved, and cites sources who are involved directly in the controversy and whose actions have resulted in advertisers pulling out from websites due to their writings being percieved as "bullying". One of the people involved - Zoe Quinn - previously claimed to be harassed in late 2013, and a bunch of news sources repeated her allegations without verification. As a result, the people who she claimed had harassed her were themselves harassed, and it appears that they never were involved in any sort of harassment. No police report was ever filed on the incident, no one was held criminally responsible, and The Escapist, who repeated her initial claims, was later forced to write an apology and change their rules about verifying claims of harassment and other issues, as well as add a disclaimer to the article.

This is an endemic problem; to the best of my knowledge, no one has been charged criminally in any of this. We don't know who is making these threats or hacking websites; all we have is supposition. As far as I know, neither Milo (a reporter for Breitbart) nor Zoe Quinn have filed any sort of criminal complaint in relation to alleged death threats, while speaking about them to reporters and on Twitter; the only source we have on the threats being made against them is themselves, as far as I have been able to determine. In sharp contrast, the threats against Sarkeesian are well attested to - we have the full text of the threats, and we have evidence that the threats were made because she went to the FBI and police, who have investigated the death threats. According to the police, FBI, and Utah State University, the death threat she received at USU was not a credible threat, in that there was no danger to her or the public, and it was noted as being similar to other threats she had received in the past - basically, someone is sending them to terrorize people, but do not appear to have any intent to actually kill anyone (at least according to the FBI).

Per WP:HOAX, it is important for us to report on hoaxes as hoaxes, not be sucked into them and repeat them. When someone calls in a fake school shooting threat or a fake bomb scare, we can report on the hoax (i.e. that someone did that), but we should not perpetuate the hoax (i.e. state that the threat is real, that someone really was going to go to USU and shoot a bunch of people).

On the other hand, when something isn't even being investigated by the police as far as we know, that's a bit of a problem as far as WP:CRIME goes. We are supposed to be very cautious when we are talking about alleged criminal activities, especially as relates to living persons, and ultimately the only source we have on this stuff is the people themselves - we lack independent sources on this stuff. And that's bad! Per WP:RS, we need independent sources.

I am presently topic banned from the article as a result of user:NorthBySouthBaranof asking user:Future_Perfect_at_Sunrise to ban me while North and Ryulong were on the 3RR boards due to their involvement in an editing dispute on the article's talk page; both of the users who raised the issue against them were subsequently topic banned in a very short period of time, both by Future Perfect at Sunrise, and without giving an opportunity to respond or point out that North had a history of misrepresenting the viewpoints of others in such matters. He has refused to reconsider the ban, so it was perhaps inevitable that it would end up in ArbCom. I stepped away after this as I was tired of the harassment being leveled at me constantly by these users and other off-Wikipedia folks and did not want to have to deal with it again, but was asked to get involved here.

I've never been involved in something like this before, so I'm not sure when/how you are supposed to properly present evidence, but as noted previously I had been collecting information about a possible ANI against these users, so I have a fair bit of material. Titanium Dragon (talk) 05:18, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Re: off-wiki harassment: it should be noted that several people involved in the "anti-GamerGate" movement have been cited as being "bullies" by major companies which have pulled their advertisement from their websites. I personally have been doxxed by the "anti-GamerGate" folks for editing Wikipedia, and have been called a misogynist by them repeatedly here on Wikipedia. Leigh Alexander has been noted as implying she would "sink the career" of anyone who reports on GamerGate according to TechCrunch (who provided evidence of such by linking to one of her posts on Twitter), and indeed there has been a great deal of harassment of the "GamerGate" supporters and even random third parties such as Wikipedia editors John Bain, who have been called misogynists for reporting on censorship of the issue early on despite his criticism of harassment. The idea that the harassment is one sided here is silly - both sides (or really, all sides, I'm not even sure that there are just two) are attacking anyone and everyone who they see as being on "the other side", regardless of reality. The Fine Young Capitalists were hacked, apparently in conjunction to their revelations about their dispute with Zoe Quinn, and they're a radical feminist group whose goal was to run a game jam creating a game designed by a woman. Some people have been attacked by both sides for not agreeing with them enough. This is a big, very ugly fight on the internet, and both sides have engaged in very ugly language, and in some cases, possible criminal activity (death threats, website hacks, ect.). The idea that this is all done by "one side" is simply false.
The fact of the matter is that people are not only engaging in this sort of misbehavior on message-boards and social media sites, but actual, ostensibly professional journalists are writing articles like "Gamers Are Over" and "FEMINIST BULLIES TEARING THE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY APART". Journalists have gotten in arguments on private mailing lists over this issue, with some of them stating that people should not even be given the opportunity to discuss it in the first place. People are, as noted previously, losing ad revenue as a result of it. Digitimes, a newspaper in Taiwan of all places, noted that it was concerned that a failure to end the controversy might negatively impact sales of consoles, thereby causing damage to the Taiwanese economy; a subsequent article noted that the gamers were still enraged and that it was having economic impacts on parts of the video game industry, noting Google and the YouTube-based journalists have been benefiting while the webpage-based journalists have lost money due to withdrawl of ads.
This started out as a stupid fight on the internet, but has escalated into having real-world impacts on some companies, with attacks being thrown around on various websites and even in print. A lot of random people and groups have gotten involved; it goes well beyond any specific message-board thread. I had a journalist ask to interview me about the Wikipedia article dispute a while back, and a friend of mine who is a journalist keeps poking me about this stuff periodically despite my trying to step away from it. Titanium Dragon (talk) 06:29, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Ryulong:: Given that people are disputing/discussing action taken against me here, specifically in the form of the topic ban, it is my understanding that it is permissible for me to be involved (would have been nice if you had pinged me, though; merely entering someone's name without a link doesn't notify them) per the rules re: appealing bans - you are allowed to talk about them specifically in the process of disputing said ban. I feel that the issues surrounding the issue are pertinent, here, given the history of systematically aggressive and abusive behavior directed against me by a group of users who frequently use the same degrading terms (misogynist, virgin, ect.) that the folks over at Wikipediocracy who doxxed me used. Wikipedia has no control over off-Wiki harassment, unfortunately, but they can deal with it when it spills over onto Wikipedia. You have claimed to have been the victim of a directed, organized campaign of harassment, but show no signs of sympathy towards me when folks actually do to me what you're worried about them doing to you. Titanium Dragon (talk) 07:09, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (uninvolved) Desine

Hi guys! You might want a heads-up that someone's trying to kick up a mob on 8chan to smear anyone and everyone involved in this Arbcom. They're actively trying to doxx people, so I'm not going to link it, but I'd be happy to offer links/archives to trusted parties if necessary. - Desine (talk) 04:43, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Or, you know, people could just openly link it on my talk page. - Desine (talk) 05:38, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Mr. Random

Regarding the 8chan mob: the only doxxing I see in the thread is the mentioning of one editor's name (it's unclear to me whose) in the context of evidence of an editing COI. Their primary objectives seem to be to collect evidence of editor misconduct related to the article (which quickly devolved into general smearing among some of them), and to find pro-GG sources for the article itself. Still, given the mob's instability, we should be ready for anything they might do, so to speak. Random the Scrambled (?) 05:30, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I can't find any evidence that any specific editors here were involved with the 8chan thread (though a few of them claim to be editors); I have requested that DSA510 back up his accusation on his talk page. Random the Scrambled (?) 05:45, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

DSA510 has stated that he is unsure whether particular editors were actively colluding with the 8chan mob, and is currently investigating the matter further. Random the Scrambled (?) 05:55, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by DungeonSiegeAddict510

This statement is only regarding that 8chan thread. It seems that Masem and others are colluding with 8chan to push certain sources. True to my word on the talkpage for GamerGate, I don't really go to 8chan, save for one board, so this is news to me. I thought that Masem was pushing WP:NPOV, but that thread is indicative of otherwise. --DSA510 Pls No Hate 05:34, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ignore that, I was thinking out loud. --DSA510 Pls No Hate 05:52, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Masem, I apologize, I'm always paranoid and that thread didn't help. Looking at it again, they're simply praising you for being NPOV. I extend my deepest apologies to you. --DSA510 Pls No Hate 06:01, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by lurker Retartist

I haven't been heavily involved in this but i have been watching all the time. I dont post much because mostly I don't have much time and i don't like to write long posts. I started the failed dispute resolution and mediation requests. I think several users have been VERY uncivil and have gotten away with it per other users comments. I think it is 100% wrong that people are labelling this movement as Factually misogynistic and that popular opinion constitutes fact. Personally i used to be 100% pro-gg but recently have become more cynical as some people in the movement have shut their minds 100% or can't decide whether to be angels or just wreck shit (hi 8 chan). I know that the page can't paint GG as saints but what the page at this time is a smear campaign that assumes the press is 100% right. Also by request Here is the 8chan thread Retartist (talk) 07:01, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Willhesucceed

This topic has entirely exhausted me. TRPoD, Ryulong, Tarc, and to a lesser extent Tara and Baranof's harassment, belligerence, and unwillingness to cooperate with others on the Gamergate topic make the possibility of a good article materialising exceedingly small. I'm not going to bother tracking down all the swearing, arbitrary shutting down of discussions, mocking, double standards with regards to sources, edit warring, and other such behaviour that's marred the editing there, because the last time I did it didn't make any difference, even after Ryulong went on a witch hunt.

When I was still new here, multiple persons engaged in an edit war with me, and nobody did anything about it. As soon as people with whom The Five (above) disagreed did it, they submitted them for admin action. There are plenty of other such incidences evident to anyone who's been following the topic. Again, I have no faith that the admins are interested in executing their duties here, so I'm not going to bother tracking it all down. If the admins are actually finally interested in performing their responsibilities, they can be the ones to waste their own time.

While The Five, or at least TRPoD, Ryulong, and Tarc are still allowed anywhere near the topic, leave me out of this. I want as little as possible to do with them or with wilfully blind and biased administrators. Wikipedia has turned into a joke. Willhesucceed (talk) 08:10, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {Non-party}

Clerk notes

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

GamerGate: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/0/1/0>

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

Ahmed Hassan Imran

Initiated by BengaliHindu (talk) at 17:19, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties


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

Statement by BengaliHindu

I was expanding Ahmed Hassan Imran with proper inline citations from reliable sources when MehulWB started blanking out sections of the article (see [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], ) citing that I'm making allegations against Ahmed Hassan Imran whereas I had only been adding whatever allegations had been made against him as published in reliable sources. MehulWB identified (see here [13]) themselves as readers of Kalom newspaper, edited by Ahmed Hassan Imran, and indirectly threatened to move against me for expanding the article which they think constitute a cyber crime under Indian law. I tried to explain my position to MehulWB in Talk:Ahmed Hassan Imran, but the situation reached an impasse, so I reported in BLP noticeboard (see here [14]). I stopped editing because of MehulWB's continuous blanking out of the article. Nirmalya1234, Abhijit4law, Malapati made edits in the article after that and I was accused of sockpuppetry. In the SPI case Berean Hunter (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) adjudicated me of sockpuppetry based on behaviourial pattern, that too after almost one month and for 72 hours. I have never had any blocks in my entire edit history. I know I didn't do it. I request you to review this case and remove my block log. BengaliHindu (talk) 17:32, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Dougweller I added you as a party because you are an administrator and you made one comment in the SPI page, even though it was not directly related to the subject matter. I'm sorry. Probably, I shouldn't have added you. BengaliHindu (talk) 05:20, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by MehulWB

I have already added my comments on different Wikipedia sections like BLPN, Noticeboards etc. so I am not sure what exactly I need to add here but I didn't blank out the page. I put proper explanations for my edits thru discussions but I was wrongly reported to the administrators. I hope everything is okay at the end.--MehulWB (talk) 18:36, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Berean Hunter

I'm happy to have my actions audited and invite others to review the SPI case and related threads. If the consensus of either the community or arbitrators finds that I have erred in my investigation then I will accept whatever has been decided as remedy.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 18:36, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Dennis Brown

Link of my involvement: [15]

At the ANI discussion linked above, someone asked for review of Berean Hunter's actions. At SPI, BH blocked one account as master, and another as puppet after an investigation. Being experienced at SPI procedure and sockpuppet investigation, I reviewed by looking at the histories of all relevant parties, and provided that information at ANI. In my opinion, the conclusions and actions of Berean Hunter were reasonable, based on facts, appeared to have been in good faith, and was executed within community norms. As I stated there, there is no 100% guarantee of accuracy when investigating sockpupppets, but many (if not most) admin would have come to the exact same conclusion, that sockpuppetry had taken place. That is the sum total of my participation in these events. Dennis - 2¢ 18:19, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Serialjoepsycho: There is no requirement to notify a user that an SPI case has been opened in their name. In fact, notification is typically discouraged. Unlike ANI, SPI is a formal administrative board, and actions are not based upon voting or consensus, although like all admin actions, they are subject to review. Dennis - 2¢ 19:47, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Dougweller

Not sure why I've been named as a party. It would have been nice to have been given a reason. Dougweller (talk) 19:06, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Pharaoh of the Wizards

Note on my involvement raised a unblock request based on WP:AGF in WP:ANI here

Berean Hunter used his discretion and it was clearly in good faith and within policy .Anyone blocking in WP:SPI does that particularly when it involves behavioral evidence has to be willing to make Tough block using the best of there judgement as was the case here. But looking at the other side BengaliHindu is a tenured Editor the entire dispute involved only one article Ahmed Hassan Imran for 10 days and it was discussed in Article Talk,User Talk and was taken to WP:BLPN here by BengaliHindu and note it stopped after the article was semi protected here on the 23rd September earlier BengaliHindu had said he will not edit the article on 15th September . The User was blocked after 1 month there was no this there is nothing prior or after this.Hence made a request for unblock based on WP:AGF in in ANI after confirming that it was block based only on behavioral evidence .Just to clarify this Ahmed Hassan Imran is a controversial member of parliament who is under investigation on various issues which was been big news in the media in both Bangladesh and India particularly West Bengal ,he also owns a newspaper called Kalom. Request that the tagging on Nirmalya1234 and Abhijit4law be removed per WP:AGF .Note the ANI thread was archived and not closed and he has no other option hence has come here after the block is over through I know cases like this are not usually accepted but WP:AGF is double edged and sadly BengaliHindu will have to carry the tag of socking for the rest of his Wiki life. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 18:54, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Serialjoepsycho

I can only speak from the ANI that was opened that unblock BengaliHindu. BengaliHindu was not notified of the SPI on his talkpage. I have no way of knowing if they was aware of that SPI and it doesn't seem they were. In the ANI opened Berean Hunter focuses in on BH vandalism report saying that it wasn't vandalism but obvious BLP issue the user was trying to forward. This doesn't actually seem all to obvious from any of the discussion taking place between BH and MehulWB before the time of the report. At some point later BH had taken it to BLPN. It strange to think that BH would be taking measures in good faith and bad faith at the same time. BH lacks any prior history of it. This also involved an article of a BLP who made major headlines. Those headlines could have brought the other users over. Nirmalya1234 makes protected edit request[16] that suggests they are a new user. Abhijit4law made different changes to the article. Banning an individual for sock puppetry on such weak evidence a month after the incident in question and without reviewing other relevant details is not good precedent. The is also the matter of the two others that remain blocked. As far as it goes with BengaliHindu his ban is already over but there is that single blemish on his block log. I don't expect in the future an Admin to look thru the details of that block but I do expect that if they look at the block log it will poison the well.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 18:53, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Dennis Brown: It doesn't seem they are required but it does seem they are encouraged. On the SPI page there is a Post box in the collapsed box titled "How to open an investigation:". When you put a name there and click submit it takes you to a page to file your report with all kinds of instruction and advice. There is a section titled General comments. In that section its says You may wish to notify the accused with subst:uw-socksuspect|casename (in brackets).-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 20:12, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Hell in a Bucket

my involvement pertains to explaining SPI processes and agreeing in principle that the block was primarily behavioral based and not screamingly obvious. I suggested that the short term block was an extension of good faith on the behalf of the blocking administrator, other then that I have no opinion. I think it's fairly obvious this case should be declined with alacrity. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 00:30, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Bladesmulti

Statement by AmritasyaPutra

I agree with Abecedare that a note should be added to BangaliHindu's block log along the lines "the suspicion of sock-puppetry may have been mistaken". --AmritasyaPutraT 01:33, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by (completely uninvolved) Abecedare

I believe:

  • User:Berean Hunter's block of User:BengaliHindu was in good-faith and justifiable by policy,
  • Nonetheless, reading the SPI and ANI discussion, it appears possible (probable even) that BengaliHindu did not in fact use sock-accounts
  • Arbitration cannot resolve this issue and the case should (and, surely will) be rejected.

So how should we handle a case where correct procedure was followed but may have resulted in an undeserved block (and permanent marking of the long term editor's block record)? There are no universal answer, but my suggestion for this particular case would be that, if Berean and BangaliHindu concur, a note be added the latter's block log along the lines "the suspicion of sock-puppetry may have been mistaken" (Technically I believe this would involve blocking BengaliHindu again for say 1 second).

I wouldn't recommend this as a standard operating procedure, since that would result in endless re-litigation of past blocks. But we should be willing to make exceptions in individual instances, out of common courtesy. Abecedare (talk) 20:01, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {Non-party}

Clerk notes

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

Ahmed Hassan Imran: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/6/1/0>

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

  • Recuse. Salvio Let's talk about it! 19:51, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline, I do not see a matter that requires arbitration here. Abuse of administrative tools is certainly within the ArbCom's purview, but I don't see credible cause to believe the actions undertaken were abusive or inappropriate. Seraphimblade Talk to me 01:14, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline per above. WormTT(talk) 08:46, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline per my colleagues. Berean Hunter has no case to answer in this matter. AGK [•] 22:43, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Decline. GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:18, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

DangerousPanda

Initiated by NE Ent at 15:16, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

[17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Founder of Wikipedia told him his behavior was inappropriate and "ground for immediate desysopping." [24]

Previous rfar, declined [25]

See also ACE2013 election comments (collated in deleted Rfcu).

Recent complaint regarding AE action on WT:AC [26]

RFCU Wikipedia:Requests for comment/DangerousPanda-EatsShootsAndLeaves, deleted on procedural grounds (see discussion below)

Jehochman et. al. discussion following Rfcu deletion

MrX attempts one on one discussion

Msnicki discussion following Rfcu deletion

Statement by NE Ent

  1. Administrators are expected to lead by example and to behave in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others
  2. WP:ADMINACCT "Administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrator actions and to justify them when needed." (emphasis mine)

I assert DangerousPanda has chronically failed to maintain his conduct in accordance with the expected Wikipedia standards. Being human, it's understandable that admins will occasionally misstep and, per not perfect, beyond a brief user talk page note suggesting their behavior was suboptimal, ANI threads and arbcom cases are not appropriate. However, when the behavior is repeated over and over, and prior interventions have failed to be efficacious, action needs to be taken. The committee has repeatedly made it clear that arbcom cases about long term behavior should not be filed without community processes, especially Rfcu's, being followed. As documented above, I initiated such an Rfcu, and found an editor, Msnicki, who was willing to be the second certifier; unfortunately it was deleted in good faith by Jehochman based on wording that suggests Rfcu's may only be certified based on a single incident, not a long term pattern of behavior. After discussion with Jehochman [27], I requested review on AN; Nyttend closed the discussion on the grounds Jehochman's reading is correct [28]. Per not perfect such an Rfcu is unlikely to gain a consensus since it's about a single incident.

This leads to an absurd, Catch 22 like situation that:

  • The committee is unlikely take a case about long term behavior without an Rfcu.
  • An rfcu about long term behavior will be deleted because it's about long term behavior.


This is formulated as a "case request" because that's the way a user gets the whole committee's attention. What it really is a request for help: Tell me, tell us, what to do. Take a case on DP, or motion the Rfcu undeleted, or decline, but if you decline please tell us what to do about long term substandard behavior that never quite rises to the slam-bang desysop case, but is clearly unacceptable per the words set forth at Wikipedia:Administrators.

@Salvio, does one of the certifiers cited a very old case is a better justification refer to myself or Msnicki? NE Ent 10:41, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Msnicki

My experience was as a reporter at ANI in a case that (I learned later) began when DP blocked Barney the barney barney without proper warning as required by WP:BEFOREBLOCK over some minor incivility between Barney and Bearcat at WP:Articles for deletion/John Mutton where Bearcat was the nom and losing (and would lose) the debate. Bearcat (who's an admin) complained at ANI and 29 minutes later, DP blocked Barney without warning and without discussion for the duration of the AFD (96 hours). After Barney called DP Bearcat's "pet admin", DP allowed and even defended Bearcat as Bearcat baited Barney on Barney's own talk page even while Barney was blocked, effectively colluding to edge Barney closer to and eventually out the door in violation of WP:IUC.

After DP indefinitely blocked Barney even from his own talk page, leaving him with only WP:STANDARDOFFER, which starts by asking that the user wait 6 months, I asked DP to reconsider. I thought there could be an appearance that DP was becoming emotionally involved and that he should seek another opinion from another admin. I was more appalled by Bearcat's behavior. DP responded uncivilly but without ever discussing the substance of my remarks in a pattern that continues to this day. He has never been willing to discuss the substance of my complaint, which is that he showed poor judgment, made poor choices and got a poor outcome. I think he could get better outcomes simply by being willing to discuss past choices to see how they could have been made better, e.g., by being more receptive to others' concerns and suggestions but I've never been able to get past the tedious pattern of disrespect. Meanwhile, he's still never been willing to hand Barney off to another admin to see if there's a way to get this once productive editor back here and producing.

In the last round on DP's talk page, per Jehochman's suggestion that talk page discussion was a better vehicle, I tried again to explain my concerns 1, 2. DP interspersed his replies into the middle of my comment, mostly just denying everything. When I asked he not intersperse like that, 3, he removed my request, then closed the whole discussion, 4, claiming I'm obviously insincere.

I don't think he should be an admin because he shows no willingness to conform to our standards of civility yet expects to block others for the same behavior, shows poor judgment, makes poor choices and gets poor outcomes, then refuses to WP:EXPLAINBLOCK or consider others' input, the very input that might help him make better choices and get better outcomes. We lost a formerly productive contributor over something that started because an admin was losing an AfD and had a thin skin. Most admins should have been able to resolve this and get a better outcome. If DP were to give the Barney case up to another admin today, there's still some chance of a better outcome. Msnicki (talk) 17:48, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jehochman (Dangerous Panda)

I've simplified my original remarks. There is no need to repeat what I've already said elsewhere, such as on my talk page or in the referenced deletion review sustaining deletion. Jehochman Talk 16:09, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"About NE Ent choice of material, I agree that the opinion contained in the various arbguides linked to was unnecessary, but, again, removal would have sufficed." - There is no process for an administrator to edit a live RFCU. That would be extremely contentious, and after a dozen or more people had commented, editing the presentation would create chaos and a lot of work to notify everybody and ask them to reconsider their opinions in light of the revised presentation. The inclusion of prejudicial material poisoned the well. Once that happened, the most efficient way to correct things was to restart with a proper statement and proper certification.
I was the unlucky one who decided to look at this RFCU with the intention of moving it from the "candidate" list to the "certified" list. There were two signers. Superficially it looked good, but upon closer inspection I was taken aback by the inclusion of irrelevant and dubious material (ArbCom guide statements, hearsay taken out of context), and that the certifiers were referring to incidents in 2014 (good enough) and 2012 (stale, and not the same). I read the instructions at WP:RFCU and decided that the only ethical option was to delete the page. When we are talking about people, the rules need to be applied as written. I communicated [29][30][31] with the filers, offering to (1) userify their content, and (2) explain what was wrong and how to fix it on a second try.
The goal of dispute resolution is to convince the party in the wrong to correct themselves. This can take patience. Dispute resolution is not merely a checklist of prerequisites to fulfill while playing a game of ban-the-other-editors or desysop-the-evil-administrator. For that reason ArbCom should not require a futile RFCU when a user has already received lots of feedback and doesn't seem to be listening, per MrX. Jehochman Talk 13:02, 2 November 2014 (UTC) and 16:09, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@NE Ent: - Here's how to get an RFCU about a long term pattern of administrator incivility. (1) Pick a recent incident of incivility. (2) Have at least two users discuss that same incident with the admin. (3) If the response isn't good, file an RFCU about that incident. (4) In the RFCU, include a section with evidence showing that the crystalizing incident isn't unique; it's part of a long term pattern. List all the prior incidents with diffs. Jehochman Talk 13:10, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Carcharoth:, one way to make RFCU more user friendly would be to require an admin to review and approve the certification before anybody starts making comments. That way any deficiencies could be corrected before it goes live. It's just silly to let it run for 48 hours and for editors to spend their time commenting, many of the comments saying things like "this RFCU is poorly formed". That's just a waste of time caused by a backwards process. Jehochman Talk 01:01, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Cla68: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Always a problem; never an easy answer. Jehochman Talk 12:18, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Nyttend

NE Ent is completely off base in his statement about the catch-22. As he was repeatedly told, both by others (perhaps by Jehochman?) and by me, the RFCU was deleted because it had not been properly certified: we always delete RFCUs when we do not have certifiers for the same dispute. I won't publish a guess of his reasons, but NE Ent is obsessing (along with others, if I remember rightly from the discussion I closed) about that one RFCU. As my closing statement said, this deletion was procedural, and it does not affect the possibility of creating a new RFCU on the same user about the same issue or about a different issue: just be sure to obtain proper certification next time. Nyttend (talk) 15:39, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, I believe that arbitration requests about a single user generally take the name of the user; otherwise we could have lots of cases all called "unsuitability for admin role". I am thoroughly unfamiliar with all other aspects of this case, so I can have no reasonable comments on them. [PS, this includes accepting — unlike Jehochman, I have no opinion either way on whether this should be accepted or rejected.] [PPS, Jehochman has removed the content to which I was referring in the PS.] Nyttend (talk) 15:40, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I thoroughly agree with Dennis Brown: we definitely need to follow procedure in dispute-resolution situations, unless it's an emergency, or unless the parties agree to ignore procedure for whatever reason. Editors ought not be exposed to problematic situations just because some people decided to ignore the rules without very good reason; the dispute-resolution rules just almost never prevent you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia. And I also agree with Jehochman when he says that we mustn't accept as a single dispute something concocted out of incidents that occurred several years apart: RFCU policy clearly states that RFCUs must focus on a single incident. Nyttend (talk) 00:18, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Lecen

Statement by Jimbo Wales

I wrote an opinion/admonishment about a particular incident of hostility towards another user more than two years ago. While I fully stand by the remarks I made then, I think that the passage of time means that more recent behavior is significantly more relevant. Speaking about general principles rather than the specifics of this case, I think that a generous and kind spirit should encourage us to both firmly reject such behavior, but also to warmly welcome change over time. I have no idea what the application of this would be in this case, because I have not reviewed the recent complaints and so have no comment about them.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:11, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by MrX

I will post a more thorough statement soon, but I want to go on record as recommending that Arbcom accept this case. There is no strict requirement in policy or practice for completing an RFC/U, especially where a admin conduct, judgement and use of tools is concerned. Numerous attempts have been made over the past four years, at ANI, talk pages, an aborted RFC/U, and a previous RFAR, to address chronic concerns about DangerousPanda's conduct in his roles as an admin. Outside of Arbcom, the community is ill-equipped to settle admin conduct issues, and is powerless to remove admin privileges. Further distrust, discord, and wasted effort will result if Arbcom declines to accept this case.- MrX 15:27, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This ANI discussion in response to this comment is a good example of how the community is unable to deal with admin conduct issues. In more than four years as an admin, DangerousPanda (AKA EatsShootsAndLeaves, ES&L, DP, The Panda, B*******) has made many similarly aggressive outbursts, often directed at blocked editors. Such behavior violates the spirit, if not the letter, of WP:ADMIN#Administrator conduct. This long-term pattern of condescension, brutishness, hostility, sarcasm, arrogance and general incivility runs contrary to fostering a collaborative editing environment, and is wholly unacceptable for an English Wikipedia administrator.

There have also been several cases of questionable judgement and hastiness in his use of admin tools, specifically the block and unblock tools, contrary to communal norms.

DangerousPanda is not receptive to criticism. When editors and admins have raised concerns on his talk page, and at other venues, his response has typically been defensiveness and avoidance. It seems very unlikely that further attempts to discuss his conduct with him will result in different outcomes. Editors concerned about these long-term admin conduct issues have nowhere else to turn.- MrX 02:38, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Newyorkbrad: In the past, DangerousPanda has temporarily stopped participating on Wikipedia when he has been called to account for his conduct.
Is seven days enough time for someone to respond to a RFAR about his admin conduct? I think so, and it shouldn't be a concern since he has apparently notified Dennis Brown, via the internet, that it will be a "few days" until he has reasonable internet access. Note that when Toddst1 disappeared under a cloud, Arbcom instructed that he shouldn't use admin tools. This would seem to be advisable here, given recent questionable conduct by DangerousPanda.- MrX 16:47, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Dennis Brown: You say that we shouldn't force him to "pay the fine before the evidence has been presented". Some evidence has already been presented and let's remember that admin tools are not a toys for the amusement of those entrusted with them; they exist for the service of the project and are of no use to someone who has defective internet access. - MrX 16:47, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by peripherally involved Dennis Brown

The RFC/U was deleted because it wasn't properly certified. This has been verified by a number of people. Even so, the opening diff showing that Ent had tried to work out his problems with DP was two year old. The evidence also had tons of statements from "Arb reviews" from when DP ran for Arb, which were prejudicial and irrelevant as those individuals were speaking as to DP's fitness for Arb, not admin, thus they were completely out of place. Goals had to be changed, etc. In short, it was an abortion of an RFC/U. This is why so many of us tried to convince NE Ent to take it to DP's talk page first, something that MrX actually did (and did so in a proper, respectful and appropriate way). Once there, I think DP did come up short in answering questions, being more defensive than engaging, but that is just one step in the dispute resolution process. That would form the basis for a fresh and valid RFC/U, assuming you can get two people to certify it. Are there legitimate gripes or concerns? From what I see, yes, but there is a reason we have processes in place to deal with them, they just haven't been used properly. Getting Arb involved this early in the process is unnecessary. Dennis - 2¢ 16:17, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • To me, it's a matter of procedure. It isn't about being bureaucratic, it is about maintaining reasonable order and fairness to all parties. I'm not judging the merits of any complaint, but we do have processes designed to deal with these grievances and these processes should be followed unless there is good cause, ie: an emergency. He had 48 hours to get certified, and infinite time to prepare. It was delete 60 hours later from lack of certification. It was already handled by the community. The same for all the improper material he was injecting, making it look as if a dozen people opined about DP's fitness as admin when they in fact were not saying any such thing. It was being handled by the community, including by myself and Bbb23, who commented on this (and gathered majority support of the participants). So far, the community has handled it, and Ent or anyone else can refile a proper RFC/U at any time. Failure to get certification at RFC/U or find enough editors to agree with you that there is abuse is not the same thing as the community being unable to handle the situation. On the contrary, the tone of the discussion on the various pages and the willingness of many admin to assist in userfying the old RFC/U, while unbiasedly encouraging dialog clearly shows the community can handle the situation, and continues to. We are not yet at an impasse, even if some are obviously impatient and single minded. Dennis - 2¢ 23:33, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Arbs et. al. - DangerousPanda hasn't been around for a few days. We knew this was possible based on his previous comments on his talk page when he said he would be gone for a bit, due to events not related to Wikipedia. His lack of reply here was out of character for him, so I emailed him to confirm if that was the issue. He says it will be a few days until he has reasonable internet access (more than a phone, I assume). He also told me that he didn't know about this case until I told him. I know we all want quick answers, but a little patience is warranted. Dennis - 2¢ 21:20, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Newyorkbrad et. al., I agree that 14 days is a generous but reasonable threshold. I would also note that without clarifying why he is a clear threat to the community, threatening to temporarily desysopping is an improper tactic, as it implies that the Arbs have already decided to desysop DP and that this case is just for public consumption. This is distinctly different from holding the case in absentia and desysopping afterwards. This is forcing him to pay the fine before the evidence has been presented. On the other hand, if it being used solely as a threat to force DP here, it seems to be assuming bad faith, and is improper. Without Arbs specifically stating the exact risks involved by failing to desysop, desysopping shouldn't be suggested as a remedy at this stage, and unfairly prejudices the case. Dennis - 2¢ 15:34, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Worm That Turned, you are missing the point that DP said he might be gone, on his talk page, before this Arb filing, so having you question his honesty based on hearsay is problematic. And NE Ent just announced that he won't have internet access for a week either [32], so it doesn't matter. Everyone agrees there are some problems. But there is no emergency. We need some perspective here, and less poisoning of the well. If you had just asked him to not use the tools while the case is pending, he would have. We've seen him do it with Jimbo. Not sure that is needed, but it would have been a less prejudicial act. I don't have a dog in this hunt as I genuinely like NE Ent and DP both equally well, but I know that neither is hell bent on destroying the Wiki. Dennis - 2¢ 14:30, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Bbb23

I agree with Dennis Brown and others that the RfC/U was not properly certified. I said as much at the time. However, it's not because one can't raise long-term conduct in an RfC/U or because the two certifiers have to agree about everything. Rather, it's because there was no attempt to resolve the dispute before initiating the RfC/U and because too much of it was old. It was a scattershot, poorly framed, poorly done RfC/U, and I was surprised that NE Ent would initiate it. Thus, this request should be declined because it's not ripe for the Committee. Another reason - and perhaps a threshold reason - why it should be declined is NE Ent concedes it's not a real request. He just wants advice. The RfC/U and subsequent events were a time sink. This is yet another time sink. Obviously, the arbitrators are free to provide advice if they wish, but this is not a constructive use of the arbitration process.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:01, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Bdell555: I have no intention of responding to your comments about me, but it would be good form to notify me of them using the notification system.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:27, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Protonk

I have no comment on the underlying issues, but the committee or the community need to come up with a process for dealing with behavioral issues that isn't a complete joke. I don't think RFC/U forbids raising long term conduct issues, but RFC/U has not served as a useful check on behavior in a long time. Rather, it provides us with a convenient mechanism to deflect criticism of vested contributors and admins by saying "hey, the RFC/U for so and so is a red link" when refusing to act on thorny conduct issues on noticeboards--the implication being that to actually get some action an editor has build a case against an editor, have that certified then take it before the community where the same sclerotic practices that prevent us from dealing with admins/vested contributors with conduct problems work themselves out via dueling "summaries of conflicts". To top it all off, that process is merely advisory. It's a tremendous, staggering waste of time and I'm embarrassed for us whenever we point users to that process in lieu of actually dealing with an issue on a noticeboard.

Ripe or not, one of the reasons NE Ent is here is that community process has failed, systemically. Protonk (talk) 18:38, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Bearcat

I'm not involved in this particular dispute, and cannot address the substance of the allegations that are actually being made. However, because Msnicki brought my name into it in her statement, I want to correct the record about what she said about me and the matter in which DangerousPanda and I actually interacted.

I did not "lose" the AFD debate in question because I was in any way wrong about what Wikipedia's basic inclusion rules are — it ultimately landed as a keep because editors who had access to source repositories that I don't have, and were therefore able to locate more appropriate reliable sourcing than I could have done, put in the effort to improve the article to a keepable WP:GNG-passing standard while the debate was underway. I did not in any way misrepresent the fact that the subject's basic claim of notability did not satisfy Wikipedia's inclusion rules in its original form — the article was substantively improved after I initiated the discussion. And I never had any objection to that kind of improvement, either — I said more than once in the discussion that while the claim of notability didn't pass WP:NPOL by itself, the article could be kept if it were improved enough to get the topic over WP:GNG instead. So the fact that the article was kept does not represent a "failure" or any "malfeasance" on my part — it represents the process working exactly the way it's supposed to: people who believed that the topic should be considered notable, and had access to the necessary resources to properly substantiate that notability, actually put in the work to salvage the article. And that's always a possible, and very welcome, outcome to an AFD discussion. It's not a matter of "winners" or "losers" — the article became more keepable than it was in its initial iteration, and I consider that a "win" for everybody.

And furthermore, I did not approach ANI asking for any specific action to be taken — I was being personally attacked, and asked for a neutral administrator to review the situation and make their own decisions about who was in the wrong and how to handle it, and would have accepted it if the other administrator had determined that I was at fault. And while continuing to respond to continued personal attacks may indeed suggest that I'm a bit more thin-skinned than I should be sometimes, it's not inappropriate "malfeasance", or against any Wikipedia policy, to do so — the worst that can be said about it is that it maybe isn't the most productive use of my own editing time, and I should have just let it roll off my back. But that's something for me to deal with on my own time in my own process of dealing with my own normal human imperfections, not a matter for Wikipedia to address punitively. And at any rate, if another editor is more outraged by a victim of uncivil personal attacks responding to them than they are by the personal attacks themselves, then that says far more about them than it does about me.

All of that said, I'm not the subject of this discussion — Panda's handling of the matter that I was involved in isn't even the substance of the complaint — so it's not appropriate to badmouth me in the process of addressing the matter that's actually under discussion. And that's all I'm going to say here. Bearcat (talk) 18:41, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Floq

I'd suggest one of 2 things:

  • Place this request on hold, and by motion temporarily desysop DP until he substantially engages with Mr.X (and any others with serious concerns) on his talk page. Once that happens, you can decide whether or not the result of the discussion is satisfactory, and either resysop or let the desysop stand.
  • Accept as an ArbCom case now; RFCU in its current state is perfectly suited for wikilawyering a dispute until it goes away.

If you accept a case, a remedy at the end suggesting the community have an RFC on how to fix RFCU to make it marginally useful would be appropriate, though realistically unlikely to achieve anything. Finally, this is not really the place, but while I'm here: I apologize to everyone I've ever suggested start an RFCU on someone, whether when I was an Arb or a civilian. I should have know better, and been more helpful. RFCU is broken. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:11, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Alanscottwalker

My view is not that RfCU is "broken", but it is a very delicate procedure, requiring massive restraint and good faith from all - and therefore can only be (and is) useful rarely. Thus, treating it as a 'check-off' in process has been unsuitable. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:14, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Unscintillating

I recall no previous or subsequent contact with this editor other than the contact I will report here; although in the talk page diff below the editor seems to know of me.

In this block log, DP confirms a consensus of incivility but overturns another admin's block.  This diff confirms the viewpoint that incivility has no standing without a violation of WP:NPA.

After the unblock, I asked on DP's talk page three questions focusing on incivility enabling, and later asked if he/she was willing to revert the unblock.  I also pointed him/her to this arb case.  In one of the responses, note the use of caps and the use of vulgarity in the same sentence as the word "incivility".

Is this the kind of behavior that another RFC/U can address?  I can't say.  My problem is the community's problem which is an admin who claims to be a supporter of our civility policy but has used the tools as an incivility enabler.  Unscintillating (talk) 23:35, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Rschen7754

It is true that DangerousPanda has, at times, acted inappropriately for an administrator. It is also true that concerns were raised about halfway through 2013. Finally, it is true that at times DangerousPanda has professed a willingness to change his behavior.

Probably what should be considered in whether to accept or decline this request is whether others have made enough good-faith attempts have been made to address the issues, and whether DangerousPanda has made enough good-faith attempts to address these issues. --Rschen7754 00:09, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by John Cline

I do not agree with Floquenbeam's assertion that RFC/U is broken. I agree with Salvio that an RFC/U must allow for certification of requests to examine long term issues of a user's conduct. I disagree with NE Ent's interpretation of comments made regarding the deleted RFC/U. His conclusion that "Rfcu's may only be certified based on a single incident, not a long term pattern of behavior" was never suggested, and the good faith error which heard it that way belongs to him alone.

What was actually said, on more than one occasion, was that he and Msnicki were clearly pursuing separate agendas, and that nothing resembling a semblance of "same purpose" was ever hinted to exist. I am confident that had NE Ent and Msnicki, both, focused on long term behavioral patterns, with each one expressing concerns that encompassed the same long term expanse, they could have satisfied the "sameness" requirement, and certified the RFC/U.

I therefore endorsed Jehochman's deletion of the RFC/U, and his subsequent efforts to facilitate the dispute resolution. I believe Dangerous Panda would embrace constructive suggestions and not be averse to endeavors aimed at improving his conduct and the way others perceive it. I have observed incremental improvements in Dangerous Panda's conduct already. And he and I have resolved disagreements betwixt our selves; amicably, and without drama or pain. Therefore, I urge the committee to reject this case request. The community's means of dispute resolution are sufficient enough, in my opinion, to accomplish the goals of improvement being sought.—John Cline (talk) 05:13, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Cla68

Some of the suggestions here that user conduct RfCs be reviewed by admins is not a good idea. User conduct RfCs, especially on an admin, need to be kept hands-off by WP administrators to avoid the appearance of them closing ranks to protect one of their own, as appears to be the case here. WP admins are often friends with each other because of chatting on IRC or hanging-out with each other at Wiki-meetups. They need to be kept out of the process when one of their buddies is getting an RfC, perhaps well-deserved, perhaps not, dropped on them. Also, the wiki-lawyering over the RfC process, as happened here, needs to stop. It's hard enough as it is already to ever do anything about abusive users. Cla68 (talk) 22:50, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Hobit

I'm leery of making this a "pile-on" of unrelated things, but this user is one of the main reasons I'm not around any more. I've found him to be neither friendly nor helpful and he takes nearly any criticism or questioning as a pure attack and won't actually address issues. The one example that erks me the most is [33]. He stepped forward as a closer, I questioned if he was an unbiased closer (before things were closed) as his actions (IMO) indicated he had a pretty strong personal opinion. Perhaps I badgered too much, but if you are going to step forward as a closer and can't deal with people doubting that you are a good choice, you probably shouldn't be a closer of anything, let alone be an admin.

I'm also pretty annoyed by all the name changes. Perhaps everyone else can manage it, but I've gone through at least 3 times when I figured out this person was very difficult to deal with--each time not realizing they were in fact the same person. I'd have avoided them in many cases had I realized. At the very very least, please keep this person to one account. Or at least one account as an admin. The lutz of changing names isn't enough to justify the confusion caused by anyone doing this, let alone an admin. Hobit (talk) 23:02, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by User:Robert McClenon

Maybe the discussion of Requests for Comments on User Conduct should be taken to Village pump (policy). I am not ready to offer an opinion of whether the ArbCom should review the conduct of the administrator in question. I do have an opinion about RFC/U. I think that RFC/U has been broken for a very long time, probably since there was an ArbCom. RFC/U may have been useful before there was an ArbCom, as an input to whether a disruptive editor should be banned by Jimbo Wales. In 2005 and 2006, when the ArbCom handled a hundred cases a year, most of which were to ban users, RFC/U may have been a useful but not necessary intermediate step. RFC/U is no longer, in my opinion, a useful procedure. Either it should be retired from service, or it should be reformed or restructured. The recommended result of an RFC/U has to be stated as an improvement in behavior by the subject editor, but the RFC/U process is inherently adversarial, and isn't likely to result in the subject editor becoming more collaborative. RFC/U may have been a useful way of documenting the need for Jimbo Wales to ban an editor. Now that Jimbo Wales has an ArbCom, RFC/U is no longer useful. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:45, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by MONGO

Per the esteemed Dennis Brown... let's give DangerousPanda time to respond. He's not using the tools at present anyway so no reason to do even a safety measure desysop at present.--MONGO 18:55, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Hammersoft

While I appreciate the committee's willingness to wait on statements before agreeing to accept a case (something they failed at miserably in the not too distant past), the pendulum can swing too much the other way as well. DangerousPanda, in the days leading up to this case was actively editing, having edited 29 out of 31 days in the month before, making an average of 10+ edits a day. He has temporarily disappeared before (see monthly contributions graph), so I most certainly do not mean to imply this is willful refusal to participate in this case. Regardless, this case does inform that ArbCom should also not allow the pendulum to swing to the point where no action is taken because one of the parties to a case does not respond. I vaguely recall a case that was indefinitely suspended because one of the parties to the case was not active. Perhaps something should be added to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide_to_arbitration#Deciding_of_requests to this effect. --Hammersoft (talk) 19:35, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved Black Kite

@Hammersoft:; the case you are referencing is Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/A Nobody. User indeffed after failing to respond (although later decided to sock instead). Hopefully that's not too relevant to this case. Black Kite (talk) 20:35, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Psychonaut

I fully endorse User:Hobit's statement. As anyone who's glanced at my user page can tell, I'm hardly one to get riled up by insulting and inflammatory remarks and other rude behaviour. But even I actively avoid any and all administrative discussions where DangerousPanda is present. Not only is this user particularly unpleasant to deal with, but the fact that they wield the tools puts me in constant fear that they'll be misused in response to some perceived slight. (Mind you, this policy of avoidance hasn't been easy for me, given the plethora of name changes and alternative accounts.) I'm fully in support of the community examining this editor's behaviour, whether it's here or at RfCU, with a view to determining whether the overall pattern is something we should reasonably tolerate from an administrator (or even a regular editor). —Psychonaut (talk) 09:21, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It occurs to me that perhaps I should disclose my history with DangerousPanda. As far as I recall, my first and only involvement with them was to investigate a WP:ANI complaint about them (already linked to upthread by User:MrX). I did this as someone with no prior involvement in the dispute and no recollection of any past interaction with either of the parties. DangerousPanda's contributions to that thread show them to be utterly incapable of taking criticism, no matter how well-researched and civilly worded, without throwing it back as "mistaken", "uninformed", "hypocritical", "offensive", or worse. —Psychonaut (talk) 11:34, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ihardlythinkso

Panda reminds me of a barker at a county fair. ("Knock the milk bottles over, win big prize. Three throws for $2." As you walk away in frustration and embarrassment for even trying, he shouts after you with a smirk: "I'll give you six throws for $3. Try again I'm sure you'll win." He's there to take your money and will do so mercilessly with laced insult to boot.) Does it matter whether this mocking (e.g., "So what if you're narcissistic?") is crafty-intentional or behavioral incompetence? Either way there's a steam-roller IDHT egoism at play which will persist until something is done to stop it. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 10:09, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by conceivably involved Dank

You only get to hear why I'm conceivably involved if you take the case. Not commenting on Panda in particular at this time, but I do have something to say: what I'm seeing here tips me off of my fence. We should stop pretending that the community does a good job of dealing with perceived problems with admins. It doesn't ... sometimes people avoid dealing with admin problems when avoiding it doesn't help, and sometimes people are loud in a way that pushes people away from Wikipedia ... but regardless of what happens, what we're doing now, waiting as long as we do before we bring the discussion up at Arbcom, never ever works. Arbcom should be involved whenever there's a serious discussion, with diffs, that indicate that an admin's behavior is problematic, regardless of what we imagine the result of the discussion will be. - Dank (push to talk) 18:08, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by uninvolved SarekOfVulcan

Just wanted to say that I agree with Dank that "serious discussion with diffs" is when Arbcom should step in. Admin accountability is important, and failing a community de-adminship process, Arbcom needs to be willing to jump in earlier before all heck breaks loose. If you get in early enough, this doesn't need to be a huge timesink. No comment on DP either way here, this is a general statement. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:43, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SB_Johnny

The wise thing here would be to take the case and suspend it, and temporarily remove button access until Mr. Panda returns to wikitown and participates. There are actually a lot of issues worth looking into here both specifically and generally, and as others have noted Arbcom is (like it or not) the only body with the ability to oversee or discipline admins en.wp. --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 00:54, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Brian Dell (bdell555)

1) User:B******* (earlier this year renamed DangerousPanda) started multiaccounting in July 2012 as EatsShootsAndLeaves in reaction to Jimbo's request to give up the bit and and endeavoured to obscure to the absolute maximum that the two accounts were connected. Editors objected, including me, and ES&L decided to delete one of my objecting comments calling it "vandalism", which would have been one thing, but the real offence in my books was the edit warring over another comment signed by me with respect to whether that comment, MY comment, said what HE wanted it to say or whether my comment said what *I* wanted it to say. In an effort to justify this interference with another's person's comment, he then falsely claimed my comment had been replied to. This sort of thing is a bigger problem than the notorious incivility in my view.

2) For an example of this admin's sense of judgement, User:Sceptic1954 gets reported for edit warring. ES&L suddenly decides to ignore whether @Sceptic1954 violated 3RR and instead weighs in on the content, calling the complainant's content "crap." The background here is that Sceptic1954 was the new incarnation of Hardicanute who had been indefinitely blocked, something that should have been considered before berating an editor for submitting a documented complaint that Sceptic1954 was edit warring. Sceptic1954 later goes on to make 9 reverts in 6 hours, provoking another complaint, and when called on that Sceptic1954 asks readers "to look at the outcome" of the previous complaint, pointing out that "I wasn't warned let alone blocked, in fact I felt vindicated." "Vindicated" and therefore feeling emboldened to take disruption to new heights, because instead of cautioning Sceptic1954, E&SL had pointed the finger exclusively at Sceptic1954's complainant. Even Bbb23 had to admit that, finally, the "edit-warring [by Sceptic1954] was egregious and against so many editors I lost count", a substantial reversal from the previous time when Bbb23 declared that "ES&L is absolutely right" to leave aside the question of whether Sceptic1954 violated 3RR and instead make an issue about the content introduced by the party complaining about Sceptic1954. The point being that a good admin is not caught out calling a dispute in one side's favour (only criticizing one party to the dispute) with that favoured side later committing egregious violations that can no longer be ignored because a good admin has done the homework necessary to figure out who is the real problem editor. An editor was kicked off the project, comes back under a new name, gets reported to an admin noticeboard, and there gets "vindicated" by E&SL/DP so that s/he can continue cause grief for other editors until, finally, the offender is back on the noticeboard guilty of violations that can no longer be waved away. If anyone was truly "vindicated" at the end of this, it was the admin who banned Sceptic1954 indefinitely back when known as Hardicanute, NOT the admin who gave the returning offender a new lease on life by declining to weigh in on the edit warring or behaviour infractions (as opposed to content infractions) that's supposed to be an admin noticeboard patroller's primary job. DP often makes some observation, typically contemptuous, that is of questionable relevance such that the discussion or decision process is steered into an unproductive direction.--Brian Dell (talk) 01:22, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by DangerousPanda

I have literally just walked in the door after holidaying with my in-laws who themselves traveled 18hrs just to visit (luggage is still in the front hallway). I had been made aware of this surprising turn by e-mail, and although I have not yet have time to read the details, I wanted to at least confirm that I will obviously participate once rested and fully apprised of the details. the panda ₯’ 06:26, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {other user}

Clerk notes

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

DangerousPanda: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <1/0/1/7>

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

  • The record is clear enough that NE Ent created a defective RFC/U which had to be deleted because it did not satisfy the minimum requirements, I see where you're coming from, but I disagree. As NE Ent points out, when a request for comment deals with a pattern of behaviour occurring over a long lapse of time, then, in my opinion, it stands to reason to interpret the concept of "same dispute" as referring to the conduct in question in general and, so, to consider the RFC validly certified even if the two certifiers have tried to engage the subject of the request about different incidents, provided both evince the same problem (for instance, incivility). That said, before deciding whether to accept or decline the case, I'd rather see more statements. Salvio Let's talk about it! 16:50, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Under your reading an editor can say, "They problem is you have bad judgment as an administrator" and then find another editor who ever held that view, no matter how many years ago, and then start an RFCU. "I think you have bad judgement as an administrator" is too vague and would not qualify; "you do not understand how speedy deletion works", on the other hand, in my opinion would. And, in that context, two editors who had discussed with an administrator two different articles he speedied would be acceptable certifiers for a RFC on his knowledge of the speedy deletion criteria.

      Now the fact that, in this case, one of the certifiers cited a very old case is a better justification; still, in my opinion, it would have been better to discuss before acting, letting him know that you would delete the RFC unless he could provide a more recent discussion. After all, there was absolutely no need to delete the page in a hurry, as the only element that DP considers dangerous for his safety had already been removed.

      About NE Ent choice of material, I agree that the opinion contained in the various arbguides linked to was unnecessary, but, again, removal would have sufficed. Salvio Let's talk about it! 00:15, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Accept. AGK [•] 12:04, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Awaiting a statement from Dangerous Panda. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:40, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Recuse. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:34, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also awaiting a statement from Dangerous Panda. And Alanscottwalker is correct, RfC/U is not broken, just rarely used correctly. Carcharoth (talk) 22:53, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'll also await a statement from DangerousPanda before deciding how to proceed, but my decision will not be significantly influenced by issues regarding the RFCU. Seraphimblade Talk to me 01:16, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree with WTT and Salvio regarding how to proceed in the event DangerousPanda does not return to editing by this weekend. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:16, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd like to hear from DangerousPanda also. I generally have a lower threshold for accepting "administrator abuse" cases, because the only place which is adequately set up to deal with them is arbitration. If there is a pattern of problematic actions, an RfC/U is good, but if it cannot be accomplished I do not see the lack of one as being a blocker for an Arbitration case. WormTT(talk) 08:37, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I see Panda has not editted for 4 days. I suggest that if he has not returned by the weekend, we open the case and temporarily desysop, in the same manner that we did with SchuminWeb. Indeed, if Panda does not respond by the weekend, consider this an acceptance and a support of a desysop motion. WormTT(talk) 09:07, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Ultimately that might be the correct step to take if we do not receive a statement, but I think that "this weekend" (a week after the request was initially submitted) would be too soon. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:29, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Looking back at the SchuminWeb case, we opened and suspended by motion, advising SchuminWeb to not use his tools without engaging in a case. If he did not appear after 3 months, or if he requested tool removal, the case would be closed and tools removed. I see no reason not to do the same at the weekend. WormTT(talk) 08:37, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    And we might wind up deciding we have to do something similar here, if we don't get a response. I just don't think we need to do so hurriedly, given that DP is not currently editing or administering anyway. I think we should allow 10 or 14 days for the response, rather than 7 days, which seems like a long time to those of us who check this page daily or more often, but is not such a long time in the bigger picture. Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:46, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    If we accept and suspend, as we did with SchuminWeb, we're allowing him 3 months to respond, which I think is more than sufficient. The fact is that Panda has disappeared when the heat was on in the past, per MrX's statement. Admin Accountability means that admins should account for their actions - I've left a note and emailed DP, not had any response from either. Desysopping is not a forgone conclusion by any means, but disappearing 5 hours before an Arbcom case is filed and not returning despite being a very active admin for a case to be opened and suspended. 7 days is more than reasonable period for a break. WormTT(talk) 08:27, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Dennis Brown, the only place where administrators can be actually held to account is at Arbcom. Everything preceding that is simply down to trust. If an administrator is brought before Arbcom, it's important that it's taken seriously. As I've said elsewhere, I have generally lower thresholds for accepting a case regarding administrators for exactly that reason. I'm not questioning his honesty, I'm not proposing emergency desysopping - I'm saying that him not checking in by the weekend, despite being aware of the case and despite being aware that there was a community engagement on his behaviour, is sufficient to open the case and suspend it. I thought that Arbcom removed the tools from SchuminWeb during the period of suspension, upon looking further it seems he was instructed to not use them - that was my mistake, and I'd prefer the latter solution - but I stand by the deadline of this weekend. That said, I'm not available during the weekend (as per usual), so if no Arb proposes a motion, I'll do so myself on Monday. WormTT(talk) 14:47, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Follow up, I've just had an email from DangerousPanda. He certainly implies he'll be back at the weekend, I'm now willing to wait a few more days to hear his side of the story. WormTT(talk) 16:03, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Waiting for Panda, but should we not hear from him in a timely manner I only see myself accepting. NativeForeigner Talk 07:20, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Awaiting a statement from DangerousPanda. GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:17, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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