Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conduct of Mister Wiki editors/Workshop

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Case clerk: TBD Drafting arbitrator: TBD

Purpose of the workshop: The case Workshop exists so that parties to the case, other interested members of the community, and members of the Arbitration Committee can post possible components of the final decision for review and comment by others. Components proposed here may be general principles of site policy and procedure, findings of fact about the dispute, remedies to resolve the dispute, and arrangements for remedy enforcement. These are the four types of proposals that can be included in committee final decisions. There are also sections for analysis of /Evidence, and for general discussion of the case. Any user may edit this workshop page; please sign all posts and proposals. Arbitrators will place components they wish to propose be adopted into the final decision on the /Proposed decision page. Only Arbitrators and clerks may edit that page, for voting, clarification as well as implementation purposes.

Behaviour on this page: Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at fair, well-informed decisions. You are required to act with appropriate decorum during this case. While grievances must often be aired during a case, you are expected to air them without being rude or hostile, and to respond calmly to allegations against you. Accusations of misbehaviour posted in this case must be proven with clear evidence (and otherwise not made at all). Editors who conduct themselves inappropriately during a case may be sanctioned by an arbitrator or clerk, without further warning, by being banned from further participation in the case, or being blocked altogether. Behavior during a case may be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision.

Motions and requests by the parties

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Proposed temporary injunctions

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Questions to the parties

Arbitrators may ask questions of the parties in this section.

Proposed final decision

Proposals by User:Alanscottwalker

Proposed principles

Paid editors - authority

1) Paid editors "have no authority beyond that of any volunteer editor." Wikipedia:Conflict of interest#Miscellaneous

Comment by Arbitrators:

True, but is that what's being asserted here? Salvidrim! says he felt his experience/admin status gave him a better handle on avoiding COI than might be the case with other editors; in hindsight that might have been mistaken. I don't know that he or Soetermans have asserted that their status as paid editors gave them greater authority than other editors. But other views welcome, especially if I've misunderstood the point you're making here. -- Euryalus (talk) 00:29, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

@Alanscottwalker: Thanks. I'd argue the assignation of userrights to Salvidrim! (paid) was on the basis that as an administrator and highly experienced editor, Salvidrim! felt he could sufficiently handle the accompanying COI. Obviously, he's since acknowledged that this was an error on his part. If we were going to advance a principle along these lines, I'd suggest something like this: "Administrators have no authority beyond that of any volunteer editor when dealing with personal conflicts of interest" -- Euryalus (talk) 12:48, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

@Alanscottwalker: Yes, I think we agree on the principle even if we dispute the semantics. -- Euryalus (talk) 14:15, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Alanscottwalker I completely understand where you are coming from but I think this opens up a bigger can of worms than we need here. Euralyus' wording is somewhat more helpful but i don't think anyone (including Salvidrim!) has argued that as an admin Salvidrim was somehow exempt from COI management. My sense from what he has written is that he thought that he, as a Wikipedian in general, would not be affected by COI in his paid editing activity. That is what he wrote here on my TP for example. I framed the principles about COI generally in my set of principles below, and I think that is where we should aim it. Jytdog (talk) 22:38, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

• The context for this is the frequent assertions of subject of articles written with paid or unpaid coi, that they have the right to control what is said about them Anyone on OTRS has seen many examples. I do not see how it has any relevance to paid editing as such, A paid editor might (rather foolishly)assert that because he represents the subject he has a right to ownership, but it wouldn't be because he had been paid. DGG ( talk ) 22:46, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

• Proposed -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:20, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Might add in there "...beyond that of any unprivileged volunteer editor."--v/r - TP 19:02, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Euryalus What is being asserted here is the principle. How you apply that principle depends on the facts the committee finds, but as I understand it, we already have an assertion of authorization to assign rights to alternate accounts by a paid editor, whereas that is beyond the authority of just any volunteer editor. As I understand it, it is also beyond the authority of just any volunteer editor to approve conflicted articles in the article creation review process. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:09, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Euryalus: Your argument is not actually relevant. It's like having a principle 'don't go there', and responding saying, 'but, but, but he did not mean any harm going there'. The principle is exogenous to any reason or excuse you would ascribe or find. All that maters to the principle is that the paid editor (Salvidrim!) by deed asserted authority/authorization beyond that of just any editor. The assigning of rights is beyond the authority of just any editor. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:56, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I understand that point, but did Salvidrim! by deed assert authority/authorization as a paid editor? No, it was admin authority he misused, not any hypothetical paid editor authority. I do get what's being suggested here and I agree in substance, but I think the wording suggested by Euryalus captures it more accurately. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 21:15, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

It cannot be split up like that, he is one editor - and if the allegations are true, he is a paid editor, he misused the authority as a paid editor, whatever else he might be, he still misused the authority in service of his paying gig. The whole purpose and spirit of the guideline is paid blurs all lines irretrievably -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:09, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

• I don't think that's relevant here -- that's directed at communications with clients, not wikipedia. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:57, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

  Your comment is ridiculous and unethical, they can't represent something to clients and something different to Wikipedia -- the dishonesty is stunning. Nor can Wikipedia in the guideline publicly represent something to the world and then something different here. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:16, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

  The full quote you referenced is In any solicitation sent to a prospective client, paid editors should disclose the following information: Paid editors do not represent the Wikimedia Foundation nor the Wikipedia editing community, and they have no authority beyond that of any volunteer editor - in other words, just because you're getting paid doesn't give your edits more weight than anyone else's. If Salvidrim had violated this (and I haven't seen any evidence that he has), it would have been between him and the client, and would not fall under the remit of Arbcom.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:25, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

  That's a Wikipedia guideline, it expressly falls under the remit of Arbcom -- it's a representation of Wikipedia to the world about paid editors, that they cannot assert any authority whatsoever beyond that of just editors -- here, if the facts are true, he did assert authority to assign rights in service of his paying gig. Your argument is just plainly unethical and wrong about Arbcom's remit. Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:09, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

• Jytdog: In your diff you have this representation by Salvradrim!: "I wouldn't do or say anything against payment that I would not do as a volunteer." Here, we know that is untrue, as he would not by deed have asserted the authority to assign rights, here, but for being a paid editor - the very purpose of authorizing the rights of the alternate was to further the paying job.

He is an editor governed by WP:PAID policy, which explicitly requires that he is "regulated" by the WP:COI guideline, and the COI guideline explicitly regulates paid editors by, among other things, holding they have no such authority beyond that of just any editor. The fact that he is also an editor governed by WP:ADMINCOND means he is further "expected" to be even more scrupulous. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:55, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. I think that Salvidrim meant exactly what he wrote there. I wrote the following elsewhere and will copy it here:

It is sometimss is easy to spot paid edits, for sure. It is very easy in health and medicine for example, where we have high standards for N and a very clearly differentiated literature for sourcing, and we have a culture of high sourcing standards. But much of WP is not like that.

In my view KDS444 generally had low standards for N and for sourcing (and a lot of editors do) and i think he honestly was baffled that the work he disclosed was rejected, because it actually was just like his volunteer work (with the exception of the Levenson article). Was Conso International Corporation undisclosed paid work or did he really write it because the company makes frilly stuff that goes on hats, which KDS444 obviously cares about per the pic on his userpage and as he said here? We can never know. But we deleted that article and I wonder how many of his nonpaid articles we would delete if we looked at them?

I'll also note that Salvidrim and Soetermans both normally edit a lot about video games and pop culture, topics where N is very low and sources are mostly crappy blogs or entertainment magazines, and many editors are fans or haters and advocacy is rife... and there is almost no boundary between Wikipedia and the blogosphere. Salvidrim and Soetermans are likely in the same boat as KDS4444 there, where edits they normally make and edits they would make for pay look the same, but the disclosed edits are very likely to look trashy when independent editors review them.

I think he honestly saw the pagemoves as noncontroversial, that wouldn't have made him blink if he saw anybody doing that exact move, and that he would have implemented if somebody requested it out of the blue and he happened to be looking at the requested moves page as as admin.

He just completely blew off the COI guideline and edited and did page moves directly, as he would in his every day editing.

I agree that he should not have given his paid account any privileges -- he should have requested the privileges with his paid account, and the requests would very likely have been denied. In which case he would have had to do a move request, etc. Jytdog (talk) 00:34, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

That he placed his paid judgement in the situation you describe is itself the corruption of judgement - otherwise, all authorities granted by the community are for sale, the only safeguard we have is the policy-induced, guided trust they will not, must not be sold. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:57, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

• I don't think the issue here is claiming additional authority as a result of being a paid editor. It's using the additional authority of being an admin to facilitate paid edits. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:23, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Proposals by User:ToThAc

Proposed remedies

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

Salvidrim! desysopped

1) For breaching the community's trust as described in WP:ADMINACCT, Salvidrim! (talk · contribs) is to be desysopped. He may regain the tools at any time via a successful request for adminship.

Comment by Arbitrators:

On the evidence so far, "repeatedly" is a big stretch. No comment yet on the rest. -- Euryalus (talk) 00:09, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

@Euryalus: Fixed ToThAc (talk) 01:56, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

@Iridescent: Admonishments are a waste of time, as I've been saying since 2015. Can't speak for the other po-faces, but I personally don't intend to include one in the PD. On desysopping: as a statement of the obvious, this isn't a case where the facts are much in doubt, it's about whether we think they're unforgiveable errors; and/or whether there's a pattern of misjudgement behind them. Evidence remains open, but I'm not presently seeing enough to support the "pattern" argument despite extensive discussion of it on this page. If anyone has more to add to this argument, please do so via the /Evidence page or by email if it contains private info.

I do think a desysop motion is likely, and I support it being proposed for no better reason than this needs an on-the-record vote. Supporting its proposition is not an indication that I would personally vote for it or against it, and I don't necessarily agree that it will pass. The idea of a reconfirmation RfA is interesting but might be a distinction without a difference - let's see what others think. But either way, we're not helping anyone by toothless admonishments, or by ducking responsibility for voting on one of the key points raised in this workshop. -- Euryalus (talk) 06:47, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I think it goes without saying that I support a desysop, but if need be, I'll repeat it here. My one tweak is that I don't think repeatedly is needed. If the committee wants to examine other things, thats fine, but I think this whole episode standing on its own is enough. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:42, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

@TonyBallioni: Fixed ToThAc (talk) 01:56, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

To Iri's point, I think one of the tough things about this case is that there is general agreement from everyone involved (maybe even Salv himself, I can't really tell from his responses about taking time off to think), that the best possible solution to this whole matter would be for Salvidrim! to resign as a sysop voluntarily. I'm not sure if we have any precedent for something like this, where an administrator continuing on to serve as an admin after a fuckup was a horrible idea, but they admitted they were wrong, and wanted an indefinite period of time to decide whether or not they should resign. Its a tough situation because you want to give someone who has been a valuable member of the community the option of doing it voluntarily, but if they don't do it voluntarily, the only way to do it is through having ArbCom remove. My preference is still for Salvidrim! resigning on his own, because I think this would be best for both him and Wikipedia, but if he isn't willing to do that, I think the only other option is for ArbCom to desysop. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:01, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I mean, at this point even if I resign, everybody would see it as trying to evade ArbCom and "save my skin" from worse sanctions; whether I resign or am desysopped at this point is basically the same cloud-wise. I'm certainly not opposed to the idea and if ArbCom think it is justified I'll gladly accept it. Perhaps, as many have pointed out, I'm not in the best position to have clear-headed judgement and decide whether or not there is desysoppability, so I think it's in everyone's benefit to know ArbCom's neutral take on it. Plus I wouldn't want to make any announcement that risks short-circuiting proceedings. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 22:06, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

It sounds like you are trying to get a read from Arbcom on their eventual decision and I do not think you are going to get that nor is it appropriate to ask for it in my view - the purpose of this proceeding is for Arbcom to get input, which they will then weigh - that is another two weeks for all of us and then an additional week for Arbcom based on the posted schedule. If you want to continue this proceeding arguing to keep your bit then please do so. If you want to resign then please do so and state your reasons why. I can tell you that if you do, I will strike every proposal I have made below and will ask that this be closed. I wish that you had posted a different message at COIN and that this had never started. Jytdog (talk) 22:39, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

A starter remedy in case evidence is clear enough to warrant this. ToThAc (talk) 17:19, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Lord help me since I agree with pretty much everything TonyBallioni has said throughout this case, but I'm going to object to this as a remedy (although I think it's almost certainly going both to be proposed and to pass). While Salvidrim screwed up, it seems fairly clear that he thought he was being helpful, and as soon as concerns were raised he stopped. We don't expect admins to be perfect (hell, there's at least one member of the current Arbcom to whom I've issued a conduct warning); we expect admins to have the common sense to follow all consensuses they should reasonably have been aware of. In recent times, when Arbcom has reached for the block or desysop blunt instruments it's been because the editor in question has indicated that they'd likely continue to cause problems if direct action isn't taken to prevent it. While I do entirely sympathize with the common complaint that adminship is de facto a lifetime appointment, we should also be wary of going too far the other way. Setting a "one slip and you fall straight down the hole" precedent would have potentially severe unintended consequences; while Arbcom theoretically doesn't operate by precedent, if this went through people would in future rightly be aggrieved if other admins who fuck up (and we all fuck something up at some point) weren't also desysopped. (It isn't something that the current po-faced committee—with their unhealthy attachment to the pointless term "admonish"—will ever consider, but if I were drafting the PD for this case I'd be inclined to have Salvidrim is reminded that his every administrative action from now on will be picked over relentlessly both on- and off-wiki, and it is suggested in the strongest terms that he voluntarily resigns and spends a year or so in uncontroversial obscurity before even thinking of getting back on this particular horse. This is a case that needed be be accepted to have some kind of coherent and formal decision on exactly how we interpret implied-but-unwritten policy, but just because a case exists doesn't automatically mean that at least one of the parties needs to be thrown to the lions to keep the mob happy.) ‑ Iridescent 20:26, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

That is what I wish Salvidrim would have agreed to do (and I still wish he would do. We could perhaps stop this proceeding right now if he did) instead of writing this. It is that comment that has led me to support removing all advanced rights. He has been unwilling to put the community's interests first and has extravagantly consumed our time and attention. Jytdog (talk) 21:14, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm still hoping that will happen too. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 22:03, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

• @Jytdog: Gents, I know this is a tense time for both of you, but this page is for discussing remedies, principals, and findings of fact. If you wish to discuss whether Salv should resign voluntarily, please do so on the talk page.--v/r - TP 00:55, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Iridescent above, per what I said earlier. Kurtis ^(talk) 06:07, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

I don't agree that this desysop is needed. Perhaps a time-limited ban on advanced permissions. He may regain the tools at any time via a successful request for adminship is the unicorn of RfAs. It doesn't exist and should be struck as a facade. --DHeyward (talk) 13:36, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Proposals by TonyBallioni

Proposed principles

Paid editors must comply with both the WMF TOU and English Wikpedia policies and guidelines

1) Editors who receive payment for their edits or actions on the English Wikipedia must comply with both the Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use and the local policies and guidelines of the English Wikipedia.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Correct and important point, should be included in decision. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:30, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

This was added (by me) to WP:PAID discussion at either WT:COIN or WT:COI after the Salv case came to light. I think this is a basic principle here that applied before the case and before it was added explicitly: Salvidrim! thought that he was following the rules because he followed the WMF TOU, but he was also not following local en.wiki policies and guidelines. The case is not about paid editing, but this principle is at the very heart of the dispute: the English Wikipedia is allowed to set its own policies and guidelines, and simply following the minimum standard for hitting the save button (the TOU) is not enough if the actions don't go along with en.wiki policies and guidelines. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:42, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

DGG, I think your comment below was made for this section, so I will reply here. You and I are in complete agreement. My primary reason for proposing this principle was not to imply that the TOU alone were sufficient. Indeed, my intent in proposing this was for the arbitration committee to make clear that simple compliance with the TOU requirement on disclosure is not enough for a paid editor, and that the local policies and guidelines implemented by the English Wikipedia community must be followed as well. I think that there is some confusion with paid editors that disclosure is the only requirement, and having the committee reaffirm that this has never been the case is one of the most important aspects of this case in my opinion, regardless of the outcome regarding specific editors. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:08, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Adminship based upon community trust

2) Functioning as an administrator is based upon maintaining the trust of the English Wikipedia community.

Comment by Arbitrators:

TonyBillioni, it involves both a violation of the TOU and our rules on COI. Our rules predate the specification on paid editing in the TOU. / I have no objection to mentioning the TOU, but the basis of this is the extent of the violation of COI. The com``munity has the right and responsibility to enforce the TOU, but we have our rules for doing that at WP:COI, which enforces she relevant part of the TOU and goes further to regulate other forms of COI. DGG ( talk ) 22:53, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

ToThAc, since this case involves the global terms of use, I think it is important to note the local project here. The committee also only has jurisdiction over the English Wikipedia, and not other projects. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:11, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I'm not sure if we should mention just the English Wikipedia as it pretty much applies to all foreign-language Wikipedias as well. ToThAc (talk) 14:30, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

@TonyBallioni: Thanks, that makes more sense! ToThAc (talk) 16:12, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

• Given that we don't really know the level of trust that exists in the community right now, it may be better to construct this around accountability to the community. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:26, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Paid editors have conflict of interest dealing with all clients of their firm

3) A paid editor has a conflict of interest on any subject that has retained their firm to edit Wikipedia, even if they were not directly paid to take actions on behalf of the subject.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Generally correct. (I can imagine a situation in which an editor doesn't know that another person or company is a client of the editing firm and edits the latter's article coincidentally, but that would presumably be rare.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:31, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Generally correct, but I can imagine circumstance where they would not apply. Yes, if A & B cooperate or work jointly to violate our rules, they are of equally responsible. But if Firm X hires paid editors A and B, and assigns them separate jobs, A is not responsible for B's failure to observe the rule. both X and B however is responsible.(to the extent X is within our jurisdiction) If X issues instruction to C which are not compatible with our rules, if C followa them he is responsible, but so also is X (to the extent X is within our jurisdiction) DGG ( talk ) 22:57, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Pretty simple principle: if a client retains your firm, you have a conflict of interest in regards to them, even if they have never paid your. You are more likely to think that actions by other editors paid by your firm are okay, and aren't truly a neutral party. Money doesn't need to change hands for a conflict of interest to exist. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:56, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Strongly support. This is a notion in particular which I did not pay enough credence to and led to the fuckup. This is what I was getting at in the last paragraph at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conduct of Mister Wiki editors/Evidence#AfC reviews were not "paid", but... -- anything even remotely related to an employer, their other contractors or their other clients is under a conflict of interest, because anything that is done, even if not specifically done against a specific mandate or payment, is done to maintain a business relationship and "under the expectation of future paid work", even if yet undefined. It is specifically because this principle wasn't heeded that I somehow led myself to believe that Soetermans' reviewing AfC drafts I had been paid to clean-up was kind of okay "because he wasn't paid for it directly", which is rubbish. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 22:08, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

In fact I'd even replace "any subject that has retained their firm to edit Wikipedia" with something more like "any matter related to their current or past employers, their employers' other contractors, or their employers' past, present or prospective clients" -- PR firms can pay an editor for stuff in order to get a client to retain their service afterwards, which would not be covered under your wording. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 22:11, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

• Iridescent, what do you think of A paid editor has a conflict of interest on any subject they are aware has retained their firm to edit Wikipedia, even if they were not directly paid to take actions on behalf of the subject. I think it addresses your (very valid) concerns, but is a bit more firm. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:47, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I've been toying with the idea of restating this even more broadly, that if you accept money to edit Wikipedia then you have a project-wide conflict of interest, based on the overcompensation counterargument to the virtue-centric approach (as described in WP:COI), and this would have particular implications for administrators. But for the time being I endorse this. I think it's clear that Soetermans did not understand that reviewing articles on a client of the firm that paid him was in conflict of interest, even though he himself was not evidently paid for those reviews. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 20:35, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Change that to "A paid editor has a potential conflict of interest". COI is a slippery beast and if this net is case too wide it has the potential to cause serious problems later on. I can see multiple potential issues with a "COI always exists" position; the obvious one is that most of this particular writing-on-commission type of paid editing takes place on Elance and similar sites, and in most of those cases Editor A won't even be aware that Editor B is being paid by the same agency even if both editors are being absolutely scrupulous about disclosing that they're editing for pay. (While not directly relevant to this case, it's worth reiterating that this particular "I will pay you to write an article about me" model is relatively unusual; the overwhelming majority of COI editing is people writing in good faith about their school or employer, and even with 'true' paid editing freelancers writing from scratch is a tiny minority. Let's not lose sight of the fact that the real paid editing problem is with the PR departments of record labels, pharmaceutical companies and local government bodies, and that while the freelancing sockfarms are high-profile, their impact is negligible.) ‑ Iridescent 20:42, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Apart from the issue raised by Iridescent, this also assumes that "paid editing" is always of the form of PR firms being hired to write articles for third parties, which we know not to be the case. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 05:27, 8 December 2017 (UTC).

I disagree with Iridescent here. Being paid to edit is an absolute conflict of interest: a paid editor edits with a goal of getting paid, not with a goal to build an encyclopedia, and payment is an incredibly powerful motivator. Other COI situations not involving compensation for editing (such as writing an article about your family or friends or employer where you have no expectation of direct payment) are cases of potential conflict of interest. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:18, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

I don't want to get in the weeds here too much but no, actually editing about your family/friends is a conflict of interest structurally as much as getting paid to edit. If you have an external relationship that influences you (your dad, hate for the farmer next door (real case, here), pay from the digital marketing company you contracted with), you are in a situation of conflict of interest. It is "potential" when you are not editing that topic yet -- there is probably no editor in WP who doesn't have a potential COI with some topic in WP; the question is whether you actually write about that topic. We can speculate about what kinds of COI and what kinds of advocacy are more prevalent or harmful but that is not another discussion.

But actually editing for pay representing a client, is definitely is a COI situation. Jytdog (talk) 16:12, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

But the point isn't whether a potential COI exists per se—the wording being proposed is A paid editor has a conflict of interest on any subject that has retained their firm to edit Wikipedia, and I don't agree either that it's the case, or that it would be workable. In the case of Elance or similar agencies where the editors work behind a veil of anonymity, we're essentially punishing the paid editors for not disclosing a connection they couldn't possibly have known. (If I had my way Elance and others that follow its don't ask don't tell model would be shown the door, but we're not at that stage yet—even MisterWiki, who are being held up as something of a good model of disclosure, don't have any listing I can see of who they employ to edit what. Ironically, given subsequent events, the only paid editing firm I can think of that did have a decent model of transparency was MyWikiBiz.) ‑ Iridescent 20:26, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

The list is here: JacobMW; FWIW, since the ArbCom case started, and thanks to some mentoring on the intricacies of wikicode and formatting (he's a quick learner), Jacob has started drafting & posting edit requests himself instead of contracting editors. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 20:39, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

User:Iridescent, I was only addressing the comment directly above mine. I agree that the proposed principle is too broad.. the situation here is not generalizable to any paid editor, just as you say. Jytdog (talk) 21:23, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

I agree with other editors that this is not a matter of potential COI, but rather de facto COI. I also think the wording could maybe be simplified to something like: "A paid editor has a conflict of interest on any edit on Wikipedia related to their client, even if they were not directly paid to take actions on behalf of the client." --Tryptofish (talk) 21:33, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Editors must exercise independent judgement

4) Editors who do not exercise sufficient independence in judgement or actions may be treated as one party in situations regarding conflict of interest.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

I am basing this off of the principle held by the committee at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Regarding_Ted_Kennedy#Sockpuppets. This would hopefully address Euryalus and Newyorkbrad's points below that the MEAT policy is fuzzy, while also recognizing what Euryalus pointed out, which is that in principle, we enforce the MEAT policy as if it applies to COI and not discussion. I also don't think that this would be the committee making policy, but recognizing a principle that is already applied in practice as Ivanvector has demonstrated. Also, please see my proposed finding of fact #5 below that goes hand-in-hand with this point. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:24, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

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5) {text of Proposed principle}

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Proposed findings of fact

Salvidrim! violated the community's trust

1) Salvidrim! has acted in a manner that violates the trust the community places in administrators.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Pretty simple here: it doesn't make a claim as to whether or not Salv still has the trust of the community, but it points out the fact that his actions are inconsistent with the trust the community places in administrators when it selects them. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:09, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Salvidrim! and Soetermans violated the sock puppetry policy

2) While serving as a sock puppet investigations clerk, Salvidrim! requested that Soetermans review articles for creation drafts that Salvidrim! had been paid to remove the maintenance templates from.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Personal view: the issue here is COI, more than socking. And in passing I think the "letter of the law" in our meatpuppetry policy is narrower than the "spirit" in which it is often (appropriately) applied. Could do with a rewrite and/or RfC. -- Euryalus (talk) 00:03, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I agree that "sockpuppetry" is not what happened here. "Meatpuppetry" might be closer, but I've always found it to be vague concept and would prefer to avoid this label in favor of a more specific description of what took place. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:33, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I don't wanna belabor the point I've made in /Evidence, but I still think the AfC collusion has nothing to do with sockpuppetry (or meatpuppetry) policy. There was no deception as who was who, and there was no (1) support each other in discusions (WP:MEAT/WP:CANVASS) nor (2) a pattern of similar/identical behaviour (WP:SPAs), which are the metrics by which WP:MEAT is measured. I'd be careful about attempting to retrofit "editors asking each other for help" into a new interpretation of sockpuppetry policy, unless you intend to declare all IRC/Discord/FB/Mailing list collaborations as "meatpuppetry"; just today, we discussed and collaborated on Nintendo mobile games, Dust II and others. The problem here is that the collaboration resulted in a bypassing of proper AfC review, but not the fact that there was collaboration. If I had asked Soetermans to help me clean-up the references on my article The Mummy Demastered, for example, and he had done it, that wouldn't be a problem, it would be constructive collaboration. WP:MEAT/WP:CANVASS refer to behaviour in discussions for a reason. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 21:42, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

I echo the comments by GreenMeansGo, in his evidence section here. If we have come to the point of WikiLawyering over whether private conversations where contractors for the same paid advocacy firm discuss off-wiki moving pages by a client into mainspace without changes and without review is a sock puppetry violation, then we should go ahead and send the sockpuppetry policy to MfD, as it is useless. The fact that you compare this to simple collaboration on a page where there is no conflict of interest I think shows that you still don't understand the depth of the problem here. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:50, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm not defending the collusion we did, I'm just saying the problem is what we collaborated on (an AfC review were we both biased about), not with the fact we collaborated via FB and I'm worried that labelling such collaboration as meatpuppetry is not supported by policy. What we did would have been just inappropriate even if it had happened on Soetermans' talk page!!!!!!!! Just my 2¢... ArbCom are the ones tasked with evaluating our divergence in opinion. :) Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 22:00, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Euryalus, thanks for the feedback. I think one of the issues here is that as an SPI clerk Salv should have known how we, as you say, appropriately apply the spirit of the sock policy. As Ivanvector pointed out in his evidence statement, this would have resulted in a block for anyone else who had been reported at SPI (1 week not being out of the question for a first offense). I think that this should be reflected in the findings of fact in some way. Perhaps something like While serving as a sock puppet investigations clerk, Salvidrim! requested that Soetermans review articles for creation drafts that Salvidrim! had been paid to remove the maintenance templates from in a manner that is inconsistent with the sock puppetry policy. and change the header to be something about inconsistent. That way we get at the point that for any normal SPI, it would have been treated as a violation, while leaving the question as if it was a technical MEAT violation to an RfC or discussion on the page. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:53, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Tony, I don't know that it is productive to get into the weeds on this. Are you OK with the more result-driven way I framed it here? The real issue is the thwarting of AfC by two conflicted editors. Whether it is actual MEAT or just GANG, the corruption of AfC was the problem, as well as the subsequent citing of it as though it were valid. Nobody is contesting those things. Jytdog (talk) 17:58, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I think it is a fairly big deal that an SPI clerk is acting in a way that would get him blocked at SPI, and that getting the wording right on that for a finding of fact is important. The corruption of AfC is a problem, yes, but the fact that he is an admin SPI clerk that could not see his actions would have led other users to a block goes to the judgement question and I think is critical to this case. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:06, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I very much hear you on the whatever-it-was being essential (especially in light of Salvidrim being an SPI clerk), but I don't think it is worth our time to precisely define this as a SOCK violation per se. Euryalus has said clearly that this activity violated the spirt of SOCK and that is really all we need, in my view. As for me, I am unhappy with this whole thing being put into this legalistic framework that is intended to protect admins in their service of the community, and going down this rabbit hole is just...making that worse. The stench around the AfC is strong enough; everybody (including Salvidrim and Soetermans) has said it was very wrong. We don't need the legalism beyond that, in my view. I won't write further here - you will use your own judgement, of course! Jytdog (talk) 18:19, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, we're in agreement on most of the things (including the legalisms, etc.) I just think having some finding of fact stating clearly that his actions in this regard fell foul of the standards we hold other users to at SPI is important. I don't know the best way to frame that, but I think its worth trying. Thanks for your feedback. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:33, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Ivanvector, yep this kind of large-scale badness is something even people who are away over on the "privacy" side of the privacy/integrity divide find very problematic. And I agree that Salvidrim!'s "arguments" here are more self-serving wikilawyering that are digging his hole deeper. Similar to what he wrote on the evidence page about PAID not explicitly mentioning page moves.

The precedent you bring here makes me comfortable calling this a MEAT violation. I hope it persuades the Arbs. (and Tony I am now with you!) Jytdog (talk) 19:00, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I suppose I'm an "other", but since I was pinged, I don't plan on being active on this page. The sheer weight of the bureaucracy is beyond my patience. I trust the Arbs are of average or better intelligence, and I'm not sure they really need me to help spell out the alternatives available. The wikilawyering is embarrassing. The question of whether we can put together enough scotch tape and glue to form an editing restriction to save a sysop from themselves is... something that could be described with many words and none of them are "good". GMG^talk 22:15, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

• I've noted elsewhere already that I disagree with Salvidrim!'s interpretation of the sockpuppetry policy with respect to meatpuppetry. Allow me to introduce this workshop to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/PlikoraT, a case from about a year ago involving multiple individuals with undisclosed financial interests coordinating to promote articles to mainspace, and importantly, predating the new page patroller userright (at the time, anyone could patrol new pages). The typical behaviour was this: one editor would create an article in Draft space, followed by a second editor adding maintenance tags and marking the page patrolled, an action intended to remove the page from the new pages feed so it would not actually be reviewed. One of the two or even a third editor would then move the page to mainspace and remove the maintenance tags. Technical evidence showed that the creator and tagger were often technically distinct, the roles reversed frequently, and other known PR firms were occasionally involved. Their behaviour was clearly intended to prevent the new articles going through community review processes. I say "was" because as soon as new page patrol became a user privilege, it prevented this coordination and the behaviour ceased. As an aside I have no confidence they've stopped editing, more likely they just found a different loophole to exploit.

By Salvidrim!'s interpretation, although the PlikoraT editors clearly conspired offline to evade community review, they aren't meatpuppets because none of them ever participated in a discussion. Should I go unblock them now? No, of course not, because meatpuppetry is not limited to participating in discussions, and particularly not so when you conspire to avoid discussions. It is just as properly defined as meatpuppetry to ask (or accept an offer from) someone who you know is being paid by the same firm as you to review your paid article so that it comes off as a "neutral" review, as both PlikoraT and Salvidrim! did. In fact I've had this case in my mind since this came to light in the first place, and the only difference between the two that I've seen so far is that Salv and Soetermans made proper disclosures. Other than that PlikoraT created hundreds of accounts. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:37, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

• Salvidrim!'s apparent belief that colluding off-wiki to move articles to Draft and back in order to remove maintenance tags at the request of their employer (and so evade actual community independent review at AFC) is not a breach of sock/meat policy... well, it staggers me. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:52, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

• Rather than parsing WP:MEAT, it may be simpler to regard this issue in terms of WP:CANVASS. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:37, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Salvidrim! used his admin tools to evade community oversight

3) Salvidrim! granted Salvidrim! (paid) the extendedmover permission which he then used to move Studio 71 to Studio71, as he had been paid to do by a client, without community oversight.

Comment by Arbitrators:

What Tryptofish said (again). Also Mz7. The page move itself is no big deal as a content edit; it's that it was done via a permission granted by an admin to their own alt, in order to facilitate an edit for pay. This raises two issues - one: whether an independent admin would have granted that same right to a paid editing account (with or without a community process); and two: whether the move itself was a breach of the spirit of WP:PAY and should have been done via an RM. And then, I suppose, three: how serious an issue this actually is and what should be done about it. -- Euryalus (talk) 23:52, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

re Ivanvector well I used page-mover for a round-robin WP:PM/C#4 move but it was my first time without the admin tools and I forgot to suppress-redirect on one of the steps, so yes I had to tag something as G6 for an admin to finalize the move (and Mx7 happened to be the one to patrol eventually. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 15:09, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Ivanvector: the norm here would have been an RM to discuss whether or not it was a stylization change that should have occurred. Salv also did use extendedmover in the draftifications. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:16, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

And Studio71 is the name of the article today. We're not a bureaucracy. Using his paid account made it transparent. The move itself is correct and the use of the paid account is also correct. --DHeyward (talk) 13:43, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

You are, again, about the only person who thinks that. Jytdog (talk) 13:52, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Just to clarify again, the use of extendedmover came where Salvidrim! (paid) moved the article to draft space without leaving a redirect, and overwrote the redirect which had nontrivial history (WP:PM/C#4). Also it seems Mz7 actually completed the move? Otherwise any editor could have performed this move. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:55, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

@Tony: I agree, RM would have been proper, but I mean that technically any user would have been able to perform the move if not for the nontrivial redirect history. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:51, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, as I mentioned in my preliminary statement for this case, which is mentioned by Salvidrim in his evidence section, when Salvidrim performed this move, he forgot to suppress his redirect at one step of the process, so he could not complete his round-robin move – as a result, I completed it for him by deleting the redirect he had left behind at Studio 71 and moving his temporary page Draft:Move/Studio71 to Studio 71. Per WP:COIEDIT, as a matter of best practice, Salvidrim should have created RMs for every move he expected to be paid for, even for ones he thought were obvious as a kind of sanity check. I think everyone agrees here that Salvidrim did not fully uphold those best practices for this page move.

However, I think it would misunderstand Salvidrim to say that he intended to "evade community oversight" – the BOLD, revert, discuss cycle is a common way for editors to propose changes they aren't sure are controversial and receive community feedback if they aren't, and there is nothing that prohibits its application to moves. This move was never reverted, and there has been no follow-up discussion as to the appropriateness of the move itself (here we've only been discussing the appropriateness of the way in which the move was performed). Finally, as others have mentioned, Salvidrim was fully transparent about his status as paid editor.

I don't want to defend like a wiki-lawyer what clearly had a better alternative approach (i.e. RM), but I would keep all this in mind when deciding how far we want to sanction Salvidrim as a result of this specific page move. If Salvidrim had never been transparent that he was paid for this move (i.e. if we did not know this move was a paid contribution), would we still be discussing it today? Mz7 (talk) 20:37, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

• I think that it would be more precise to frame this around Salvidrim!'s failure to utilize the RM process when he should have known that he should have done so, instead of around deliberate evasion, not sure how to word it. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:42, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Soetermans requested articles for creation access to review Salvidrim!'s drafts

3) Soetermans requested access to the articles for creation helper script only after he had been asked by Salvidrim! to review drafts that Salvidrim! had been paid to work on by Mister Wiki.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Salvidrim! used the articles for creation process to evade community scrutiny

4) Salvidrim! was paid by Mister Wiki to remove maintenance tags questioning notability and raising conflict of interest concerns from Reza Izad and Dan Weinstein (business executive). He did this by moving them to draft space and asking Soetermans to review them, preventing oversight from neutral community members.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

I think this is important. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:45, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Salvidrim! and Soetermans did not act independently

5) Salvidrim! and Soetermans did not act independently or exercise independent judgement when they collaborated off-wiki on article for creations submissions for Mister Wiki clients.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Since the question of sock/meat has come up and is murky, I'll posit this as an alternative that states what happened in plain terms. This works in concert with my proposed principle 4 above, but I think could be acceptable wording even if that is not used. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:29, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

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Proposed remedies

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

Salvidrim! removed as SPI clerk

1) Salvidrim! is removed as an SPI clerk for behavior inconsistent with the expectations of that position.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

I've tweaked this a bit per my comments above. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:19, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Strongly support - we can't have the henhouse guarded by a fox. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:55, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Oppose as I stated in a different section. Additionally, SPI clerking has peer review built into the process: the clerk procedures advise clerks not to change the status flag of a case if they were the clerk who changed it most recently, and should not archive cases that they close, with the idea being that clerks always review each other's actions. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:45, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Ivanvector about the built-in peer review. I also think that what happened is so far removed from the abusive use of multiple accounts that it probably does not belong as part of the decision. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:48, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with this notion, as a former SPI clerk. We trust our SPI clerks to properly evaluate behavioral evidence and use good judgment. It is a significant handicap to the entire process if another clerk has to go through and re-evaluate the evidence simply because there are clouds lingering over another clerk. --Rschen7754 19:17, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Arbitration committee to alert other projects

2) The arbitration committee will make a good faith effort to alert other projects where Salvidrim! holds a position of trust of the outcome of this case.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Jytdog, I like this better than your "request removal of OTRS access" remedy. OTRS is a meta thing that is handled on its own, so really the best ArbCom can do is alert the OTRS admins to the outcome here. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:00, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I got that from this old thing: it would be possible for ArbCom to discuss with OTRS admins an access to the OTRS-en queue for a user. What is wrong with having Arbcom make the direct request to OTRS admins? Jytdog (talk) 19:10, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

That is a good point. I tend to try to avoid us making direct requests to other projects because I don't like the idea of other projects bringing their drama here. I was unaware of that previous request, so I think yours is a fine proposal too. It might be a good idea to let ArbCom vote on both. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:24, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

While I sympathise with the idea of simply informing other projects and leaving it to them to decide what, if anything, to do, Meta is very much open to requests from other projects and I don't see a problem with ArbCom making a request relating to OTRS. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:00, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

If it's just OTRS, then just say OTRS. The only other right Salvidrim has according to Special:CentralAuth/Salvidrim! is autopatrolled on Meta (which just means you're not a vandal). --Rschen7754 06:09, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

I agree fully with Rschen7754. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:49, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

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Proposals by Salvidrim

Proposed principles

Policy changes

1) Significant policy changes must be done via well-attended/advertised RfCs that result in clear WP:CONSENSUS

Comment by Arbitrators:

@Salvidrim: Is there a specific change to a policy or guideline whose validity you are questioning? Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:35, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Just throwing it out there since this case involves policies/guidelines actively under fluid discussions in locations like Wikipedia talk:Paid-contribution disclosure and Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest with no RfC tags and thus presumably attracting mostly editors already involved in the topic on some level; also there have been allegations of policy violations for stuff not-yet-written into policy and with varying degrees of consensus supporting their additions (some very strong, some more hotly debated), and I'm sure there will be a FoF on the topic, so reminding of this principle probably cannot hurt? Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 16:46, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

I don't think this has any relevance to this case. The normal method for consensus, even on policy and guidelines pages, is consensus through lack of opposition. Additionally, your conduct here would have been unacceptable 6 months ago just as much as it was last month, so I don't see what you are trying to get at here. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:18, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

re Newyorkbrad not with any implemented policy change, but with proposed policy changes still being discussed at Wikipedia talk:Paid-contribution disclosure and Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest amongst potentially biased anti-PE and pro-PE editors, with no RfC tags, WP:CENT advertisement and little "wider community" involvement, and which are highly relevant to this case since the proposed changes (referred to as "unwritten policy" or "common sense practice") have been cited in evidence and proposed principles as if they were a fact of life; for example "can admins use tools for pay" (that one pretty much has consensus for a strong no, although language remains to be agreed upon and implemented), "can admins edit for pay by using a separate 'firewalled' account", "are paid editors allowed to use the page mover user-right (and others)", "is 'prior review' for COI/paid edits and articles a strong recommendation or actually required", and a few other sparse odds and ends of COI/paid editing policy updates. Not just talking about myself, but it is at least somewhat awkward to try to hold editors accountable for following details of policy that aren't yet agreed upon and written into policy. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 21:54, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I think that's a good point, but I don't think that is within the scope of this case, and that adding it to the final decision will muddy the waters. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:02, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. This sounds very much like an attempt to use the lack of a formal policy to wave away the fact that the community's attitude to paid editing is ambivalent, at best, and becoming less permissive if anything. Guy (Help!) 00:11, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

I don't like the way that this makes it sound like the problem was that policy, as currently written, needs to be changed. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:51, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Proposed findings of fact

Divided community

1) Paid editing, and especially paid editing in relation to user-rights and adminship, is a topic that remains controversial and divisive amongst the community, with several discussions on several venues that involve various suggested policy changes.

Comment by Arbitrators:

A few links to the (past or present) discussions you consider most relevant might be useful. Newyorkbrad (talk) 06:22, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Perhaps this FoF could be improved to point out specific points on which the community is divided? Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 16:46, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

re Newyorkbrad -

1. 2015, no consensus Wikipedia talk:Administrators/Archive 15#Proposed change - No paid editing for admins
2. Incoming 2018 Arbitrators answers (colliged here Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conduct of Mister Wiki editors/Evidence#User-rights, adminship and paid editing)
3. Ongoing Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Should Wikipedians be allowed to use community granted tools in exchange for money?
4. Ongoing Wikipedia talk:Paid-contribution disclosure#Proposed RfC on adding prior review
5. Ongoing Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest#Interesting proposal by Opabinia regalis

None of the ongoing discussions have RfC tags, WP:CENT or other advertisement, and only the one on VPP is on "neutral ground" so to speak. The ongoing discussions haven't resulted (yet) in any consensus that can result in actionable changes to the wording of policies, and opinions vary wildly all the way from outright banning paid editing/editors[1] to always allowing editors to solicit payments[2], with most falling into some sort of middle ground. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 06:45, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

• I want to re-iterate what I said in my evidence section. The community has been divided in abstract discussions of paid editing - these conversations inevitably derail as people have very strong pre-conceived Positions on it.

But I am unaware of the community giving admin or other advanced privileges to anybody who disclosed ahead of time that they edited for pay commercially (not talking about GLAM/WIR, which the community has always distinguished from commercial paid editing). The problems that have arisen, have all happened when people got those privileges while they were doing undisclosed commercial paid editing, or started doing commercial paid editing afterwards.

If anybody is aware of the community giving admin or other advanced privileges to anybody who disclosed that they edited for pay commercially and this was discussed as part of the privilege granting-process, I would be keenly interested to see links to that.

The purpose of saying this, is that in practice we don't give privileges to people who edit for pay commercially. It is structurally an unwise thing to do. This is common sense, and not at all personal. We would have to trust somebody a lot (an extra lot) to do so -- the granting of privileges to somebody who disclosed they edited for pay commercially, would be personal - it would be an exception to normal practice because we exceptionally trusted that person's judgement.

I'll also add that this case, is actually a very poor "test case" from which to generalize, since Salvidrim did only one thing right (clearly disclosing through the paid account) but made so many very basic mistakes stemming from bad judgement, and then compounded them all by triggering this case by refusing to go to RfA, which was also bad judgement. Jytdog (talk) 01:06, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

I concur in Jytdog’s analysis. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:20, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Jytdog is right. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:53, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

I also agree. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:48, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

We have a lot of examples of reasons that people do not go up at RfA. The absence of a successful RfA for a candidate that does paid editing can be explained by a myriad of those reasons. Absence does not prove that the community is against it, though. Does Jytdog have examples of candidates that have failed primarily due to disclosed paid editing? I'm sure some exist, let's see them.--v/r - TP 16:15, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Endorse Jytdog's comments completely, excluding their final paragraph. I've expressed reservations elsewhere about the reasonableness of insisting that the "right thing to do" is/was to stand for a reconfirmation RfA while under significant pressure to resign, or whether such an exercise would be a show trial or trial by ordeal. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:16, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Proposed remedies

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

Salvidrim banned from paid editing

1) Salvidrim is indefinitely banned from engaging in any form of paid editing.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Paid editing by an admin isn't uniformly against policy (alas). Breaching COI regarding userrights and AfC reviews is against policy. I think that's reasonably accepted by all parties, though there's disagreement over how serious this specific set of instances is (hence the discussion about "patterns of poor judgement"). -- Euryalus (talk) 08:58, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I'm like 99% something like this is justified and will be passed anyways. However I'd rather see this than a "paid editing TBAN" since I do think I can still contribute to discussions on the topic (and perhaps with a unique perspective, even) Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 16:46, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

I don't think the committee has the jurisdiction to do this. Paid editing is not banned by policy. The actions we are discussing here were caused by poor judgement in this regard, but I think that if this were passed it would be used as a way of getting around the larger administrator conduct issues. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:32, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Sure they can. They can pretty much impose any restriction on editing privileges, from a single-page-ban or one-way IBAN all the way to a full siteban. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 20:53, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

• What would be way more meaningful would be a statement from you as to whether you intend to continue editing for pay, or whether you will stop, and if you want to keep your options open to restart in the future, what you will do before you start again (for example, get consensus that it is OK with people for you to have whatever bits/positions you have at that time and to edit for pay). As I noted elsewhere the problems all have arisen when people either didn't disclose that they were editing for pay commercially when they got whatever position of trust they had, or they started editing for pay after they got it. Jytdog (talk) 01:00, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I'm somewhat opposed to this as a remedy. For the most part you approached paid editing in all the right ways: you disclosed and were transparent about what you were doing. It's just that, like many paid editors, you failed to see that your financial conflict of interest clouded your judgement as to what would be uncontroversial, and then you skipped the queue on a couple of processes that are meant to catch that common pitfall. In my opinion banning you from paid editing outright is overreaching. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:52, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

I don't really like this as a remedy, or anything else that singles you out. Either paid editing from an admin is acceptable or it isn't, and the remedy should be "pick one and give up the other". If the remedy is narrowly about you rather than about policy, we'll just be back here again next time someone else gets caught with their fingers in the cookie jar. Yes, Arbcom can't make policy, but what it can do is determine whether you actually breached the spirit of any existing policy. ‑ Iridescent 20:43, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

re "pick one and give up the other", I suspect a similar thought might have crossed the committee's mind but I still think it's worthy of evaluation because I could totally see them doing any combination of desysop+PE-ban, no-desysop+PE-ban or no-desysop+no-PE-ban or anything other sanction. Of course any remedy must follow naturally from whatever policy violations are first established in FoFs, you're right that the "policy violation allegations" must be settled first; but they could totally conclude that "paid editing by an admin without usage of admin tools isn't conclusively against policy" and still opt to desysop or PE-ban or whatever, one isn't absolutely reliant on the other. (At least IMO). Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 20:53, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Disagree with this one. Should be a "pick one" remedy. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:05, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

• Not an okay direction to give someone, since neither disclosed paid editing nor earning a living by editing Wikipedia are against policy. Arbcom, despite its denials, operates using precedent all the time, and the community tends to take Arbcom decisions as essentially statements of policy. We have all kinds of people who do that, and many of them are recognized as making valuable contributions to the encyclopedia. There is a reason that editing for remuneration or other benefit is not banned, either locally or throughout Wikimedia projects. Risker (talk) 06:29, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

I just wanna make sure your comment isn't based on a misunderstanding -- this remedy concerns a specific restriction applied stricty to one user. If someone is abusing page moves, ArbCom (or the community) is perfectlyy able to apply restrictions forbidding them for moving pages. Same with stuff like "discussing WP:COSMETIC" or TBANs or IBANs -- none of the restricted actions are defined anywhere as against policy (if they were, there would be no point to apply a restriction)....... Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 06:49, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

No misunderstanding on my part. I was on Arbcom for 5 years, and have followed it before and since. Arbcom repeatedly says that that it doesn't follow precedent, but it follows precedent on the overwhelming majority of its decisions, and its decisions have become project policy on a routine basis. That this is a proposed sanction against one user is irrelevant here; it is the precedent that will cause damage. Two years from now, such a precedent would very likely be used against someone whose "paid editing" activities are, in December 2017 terms, considered benign, and everyone will point to Arbcom banning editors from getting paid. It's happened before when the sanction was pointed at one person and was subsequently applied as a general position. If you're feeling guilty about it all, you can just promise not to do it any more - every edit you make for the next year is going to be scrutinized anyway. Weirdly enough....this case is not just about you. Risker (talk) 01:40, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

• I wish that Salvidrim! would just say that he will never engage in paid editing again, full stop, and have that as a finding of fact. I suppose there could then be a remedy that he will be sanctioned if he does not keep that promise. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:56, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Salvidrim restricted from accepting paid editor requests

2) Salvidrim is banned restricted from accepting requests made by paid editors, such as AfC, PERM, COI-edit-requests, unblock requests, REFUND.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

This is liable to require a bit more consideration but I see two reasons for this: (1) a way forward to continue as an admin (assuming there isn't a desysop, in which case this'd probably be obsolete) while reassuring the community that since I've demonstrated that I let myself mishandle by own COI, I should not be using adminship to help others who must also manage their COI, and also (2) this is specifically worded to continue allowing me to work as an SPI Clerk, UTRS Toolambassador, patrolling ESPs/EPs, PERM, AfC, etc. but only disallows approving paid editors' requests. Blocking paid sockfarms, declining unblocks of paid editors, hardblocking corp-spammers from UAA, etc. might still be fine since it couldn't be perceived as "aiding and abetting" (don't like that wording though) paid editors which is one thing the community has expressed concerns about. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 16:46, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

This should probably spell out declared paid editors, or you could get in trouble later if you're found to have helped a non-obvious undeclared editor. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:01, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Salvidrim banned from accepting AfC drafts

3) Salvidrim is banned from accepting AfC drafts

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

This can be an alternative or complement to the above remedy or even alternative or complement to a desysop. I'm not sure if this would be justified since, other than the three articles involved here, there hasn't been any issues with any other of my AfC approvals (however few there are; latest would be Matthías Matthíasson), but still might be worth discussing. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 16:46, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I'd change "accepting" to "reviewing". --Tryptofish (talk) 21:58, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Proposed enforcement

Enforcement

1) The alternate account Salvidrim! (paid) is indefinitely blocked.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

The only reason I haven't done this myself already is because, out of an abundance of caution, I haven't used any admin tools anywhere near anything related to this case to avoid any appearance of impropriety or short-circuiting "the process". Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 16:46, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Clarification that this would only be to enforce the above proposed "PE-ban" remedy (unless the committee comes up with a single-account-restriction but I don't think that's even in consideration here without undisclosed socking). Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 21:16, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I agree with this, and it gets pretty close to a statement that he intends never to engage in paid editing again. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:59, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Proposals by User:DHeyward

Proposed principles

Transparency

1) Transparency, above all other considerations, is the fundamental backbone defining COI, sock/meat puppetry and administrative actions.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

This statement of principle doesn't make sense to me. These are three different things, in which "transparency" functions in different ways in each of them. Disclosure is essential for our process of managing COI for sure, along with prior review. We want people to voluntarily do both. Sock/meat puppetry is the action of being nontransparent - hiding a single person or hiding collusion. Yes administrative actions are automatically and involuntarily logged so they are auditable, and that is a form of transparency. Jytdog (talk) 16:37, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

That's incorrect. Declared socks are transparent. An administrator that grants his own declared sock advanced privileges is transparent both as a sock and as the administrator. If we are here because people disliked what transparency revealed, when all the requirements have been met, it goes against AGF to presume the acts were nefarious or counterproductive. Users face ridiculous admin actions every day but we assume their intentions, while ignorant, are in the best interest of the project. --DHeyward (talk) 19:31, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

There is no concern with the alt account being a "sock". That was a legit alt account. The SOCK issues in this case are MEAT, related to the corruption of the AFC process. It is unclear to me if you understand what is driving this particular case; it would be good if you would review the timeline at COIN if you haven't and if you really want to dig, please see the discussion at my talk page. It is clear that you are passionate about paid editing but paid editing per se is not the core issue of this case. Very locally it is unmanaged COI; more deeply it is about Salvidrim's poor judgement, of which the unmanaged COI over three weeks is the most recent. Salvidrim has fully acknowledged that he used bad judgement with respect to his COI. Jytdog (talk) 20:02, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I understand it and my points are that transparency is the cure and not part of the problem. Whatever behind the scenes collusion occurred, punishing an obvious declared sock is not an answer. It simply discourages future editos from creating declared socks. I'm also rather indifferent to paid editing, but I recognize that tangible benefits like future jobs, scholarships and college admissions are benefits. Anyone that is in a graded class to create articles is editing in their own interest. The better metric is whether the edits themselves improve the project.

No one is punishing Salvidrim for disclosing. Everyone is satisfied with that. Jytdog (talk) 00:54, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I think there's confusion about the use of "sock" here. In practice and in policy, an alternate account becomes a sockpuppet only when it is used for an illegitimate purpose, otherwise an alternate account is not a sockpuppet. Properly disclosed and legitimate alternate accounts are just that, alternates; we also refer to them in practice as doppelgangers even though by the policy a doppelganger also has a similar username. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:59, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Paid editing

1)"Paid editing" is nebulous. Many editors that edit Wikipedia use their employers or schools resources. Many have received attention for their editing that will make their way to job applications, resumes, and other benefits that have monetary value. In fact, we have Wikipedians that are so well-known they have their own article. It would likely to be difficult to find a WMF employee that didn't get hired in part through their commitment to Wikipedia. These are not imaginary benefits, they are tangible and have financial impact. From a self-interest COI, there is substantially no difference from accepting cash or other benefits simply for investing time in the project.

Comment by Arbitrators:

I've certainly observed before that "COI" or even "paid editing" can incorporate a number of gray areas. However, I think there is a consensus that a transaction in which an editor receives cash consideration from or on behalf of an entity with which he or she had no prior affiliation, to edit the article concerning that entity, is at the core of the concept of "paid editing." And this is true even though a (say) $10 payment is slight in the grand scheme of things. We can't administer a paid-editing policy at all if we can't identify even the clearest cases. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:42, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

To the extent that "paid editing" is relevant here, this is very clearly commercial paid editing. The COI guideline and the PAID policy both make very clear distinctions between GLAM/WIR paid editing and commercial paid editing. This is fighting some dead battle that was solved a long time ago in the practice of the community as well as in policies and guidelines. Jytdog (talk) 20:23, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Disagree it's nebulous. The defining line is, "does someone else direct what or how you edit, in exchange for cash or similar value"? If you get a work/school computer than you can use as you like, and decide to use it to edit Wikipedia, that's not paid editing; you get value but not direction. If you then write an article about the Company or University that gave you the computer, that's a conflict of interest, since presumably you feel grateful, but not paid editing, unless the Company or University specifically told you to do it (there are plenty of conflicts of interest that don't involve paid editing, writing about your personal friends or foes for example). If you get famous for writing, that's again, not paid editing, because no one told you whether to write about topic X or topic Y, you could presumably get famous whatever you wrote about. If you're writing because you're hoping to get hired by a company, that's again a conflict of interest, but not paid editing unless the company told you to do it so you'd get hired. In this case, as Newyorkbrad writes, it's clear, the company said "write about us", with at least the strong implication (if not explicit statement) "and make us sound good"; but even in the general case, it's not nearly as nebulous as this proposal makes it sound. --GRuban (talk) 22:53, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Proposed findings of fact

Conduct was transparent

1) At no time did Salvidrim act in a manner that was not transparent. This is fundamental in determining whether his actions are sanctionable.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Mm. Some might argue that much of the transparency was well after the fact - for example in relation to offwiki communication re the AfC review. It's also possible to be transparent and in breach of policies like COI and tool misuse, though the transparency on the latter is certainly a mitigating factor. -- Euryalus (talk) 23:43, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

It would be counterproductive to declare that COI can exist with transparency. We rely on transparency to enforce COI and using transparency against an editor breaches AGF. Likewise, punishing transparent use of tools is counterproductive when the violation only depends on the relationship the admin has with the target. We allow mistakes and it's a serious breach of AGF to punish transparency. --DHeyward (talk) 12:23, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

note, replied to this below, in the "comments by parties" section, and that was in turn replied to Jytdog (talk) 18:17, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Yea, maybe at best this could be worded more like "made a good faith attempt to act with transparency (...)" or something similar because I'm sure most would agree that the AfC collusion was specifically a failure of transparency and due process. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 23:47, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by Jytdog:

Not supportable. The citing of the AfCs first at JJMC89's talk page (diff) where he wrote After you initially tagged the two articles with maintenance templates I negotiated their return to draftspace by talking with their creator (who turned out to be a paid editor as I suspected and I got him to disclose that fact properly as well) so that they could go through the AfC process and be reviewed for neutrality and notability before being published in order to avoid vague, lingering tags. I noticed you have re-added both notability tags but still without explaining what issues you may believe the pages have. Please revert the vague unexplained tags or even better, post your detailed analysis and concerns on the respective talk pages so that they articles can be improved this week and cease being tainted by unexplained maintenance tags. and then at each of the AfDs (diff, diff) where he wrote the same thing at each one the original request was "what can you do to get these maintenance tags off the article?" and such maintenance clean up is desirable overall for the project -- my solution was (1) get the original UPE creator to disclose correctly and (2) send the articles back to AfC to be reviewed, and if found acceptable, approved to mainspace without tags.

And in those AfDs Salvidrim also cited his "integrity" (diff) and said I hold Wikipedia's policies in the highest possible regard and would never dream of bullshitting diff).

... all done when he knew that the AfC was not any kind of true "peer review" as is obvious and as we all now know hat Salvidrim and Soetermans knew, due to the disclosed messenger chat.

The exact strategy to get the paid task done, was executed with a corrupt tactic that Salvidrim tried to gloss over with bullshit about his integrity. I think Salvidrim believed his own bullshit, but that is another matter.

Likewise, Salvidrim's first response to me when I directly asked him about Soetermans' doing the AfC reviews was Nothing to add to what you've said. (diff). This too was not transparent and was bullshit. Likewise every response he gave me that day. (the "transparency" came the next day, after I had figured out what had gone on, more or less)

Outside of that, the fact that Salvidrim was editing for pay was disclosed which is a form of transparency. Doing the paid edits with the labelled-paid account was also a form of transparency. I have not actually gone to look, to see if Salvidrim did edits with his normal account that were part of the paid work. (the edits on DGG's talk page here were made from Salvidrim's normal account, and in my view should have been made with the paid account, but whatever).

But the proposed statement is not supportable. Something like "Salvidrim disclosed that he was editing for pay" is supportable. Jytdog (talk) 05:09, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

DHeyward gad zoiks. about your comment here. If Salvidrim had allowed his declared COI to be managed and had not colluded on the AfCs we would not be here. This has nothing - and I mean nothing - to do with "punishing transparency". If you have followed what I have done here, I was ready to let this go until Salvidrim dug in heels and refused to submit to RfA to confirm the community's trust, when it was very clear that people were ready to file an Arbcom case if he didn't. For all I know the community would have confirmed him and I would probably !voted to confirm as well. We will never know now. Jytdog (talk) 19:34, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

My comment was meant mostly as rubbutal to your assertion that socks are not transparent. If Salvadrim created a sock for paid editing and says so, that is transparent. The sock is not a COI breach in and of itself. Neither was his granting the sock advanced permissions a COI. This is similar to a bot account being created and granted permission to run willy-nilly over the encyclopedia. The concern isn't the permissions or the bot account as both are allowed. Whether the admin acted with due diligence or competence is different than a blanket finding that socks are inherently not transparent. really, what I would like to know is if this case required Barney Fife or Sherlock Holmes to solve. I'm not worried if it was Barney Fife that solved the plain and obvious but would be concerned if it took Sherlock Holmes. --DHeyward (talk) 20:08, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Nobody has called the alt account a "sock". That is just barking up the wrong tree. Socks are hidden, invalid alt accounts created to avoid scrutiny. Nobody is saying that the "paid" account was created to avoid scrutiny. Nobody. About granting permissions to the alt account, I think you are the only person who does not see that as unmanaged COI. Jytdog (talk) 20:19, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Agree with Jytdog: as worded, this is unsupportable. First, it should be worded in the affirmative (as in "Salvidrim! acted in a manner that was transparent"), and second, the "this is fundamental" bit is not a finding of fact, it's an opinion about process. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:25, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Jytdog said it best. The off-wiki draft/AFC collusion was the very opposite of transparent. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:08, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Remind me again, how is off-wiki collusion between paid editors "transparent"? Guy (Help!) 00:15, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Proposals by User:Jytdog

Proposed principles

Expectations of admins

1) Administrators are expected to use the tools with careful judgment and to lead by example, are accountable to the community, and are meant to be extremely careful with the security of their accounts. Administrators serve the community.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

I think this is important, and the right approach to take. I would suggest, however, framing it in terms of WP:ADMINACCT. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:02, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

2) Administrators who seriously, or repeatedly, act in a problematic manner or have lost the trust or confidence of the community may be sanctioned or have their administrator rights removed.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Protections for admins

3) The community has intentionally created a fairly high bar to remove administrative privileges in order to protect administrators who make difficult decisions in the course of serving the community.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

SPI clerks

4) SPI clerks are are editors with proven experience and judgment of English Wikipedia policy and practice, especially in the area of sock puppetry and are expected to show a high standard of mature and thoughtful behavior within Wikipedia.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Endorse. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:25, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I don't really like this one. What happened is very far removed from using multiple accounts, or anything that SPI would investigate. (Consider: checkuser would not have been useful.) Better to have a principle about WP:CANVASS. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:05, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

What Tryptofish said. Drmies (talk) 18:57, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Volunteer response team membership

5) OTRS is administered on meta. Access to OTRS is given to volunteers in all projects who are sufficiently trusted to give courteous and knowledgeable replies.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Conflict of interest

6) Managing conflict of interest is essential in knowledge-publishing institutions throughout the world, including Wikipedia, in order to retain the public's trust.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Yes, this is central to the case. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:06, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

7) Managing conflict of interest in Wikipedia is challenging, due to the open nature of the project, our deep respect for privacy, and the diversity of views in the editing community on how to maintain the integrity of Wikipedia content. We rely on editors voluntarily complying with WP's conflict management procedures, namely disclosure and prior review.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

What is COI? If an editor contributes in such a way that they receive a paid job from their editing, is that a COI? Should we forbid listing wikipedia editing from school entrance applications or job application's or resume/CV's? What about editors seeking employment with WMF or using their corporate computers, networks and cell phones? Who declares such things so they can be managed? --DHeyward (talk) 20:17, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Answering your second question only. Yes - COI means having an external interest that conflicts with one's obligations to pursue WP's mission and edit according to the policies and guidelines, including PROMO, NPOV, and the sourcing guidelines. Commercial clients hire paid editors in order to market/promote themselves or their products. Commercial paid editors want to get paid - so two layers of external interest. I talked with JacobMW who owns Mister Wiki and he was very clear (when we started talking, which was well after he had engaged Soetermans and Salvidrim and they had started working) that his goal was 100% to promote his clients - to him, Wikipedia was (and perhaps still is) a vital platform for promotion. That was not even a little ambiguous. I recommend you talk with clueful commercial paid editors like MaryGaulke or FacultiesIntact about the negotiations they have to have with their clients and how many they turn away because the client will not understand what they, as Wikipedia editors, can and cannot even try to do in WP. Those are both clueful paid editors who are a tiny minority. I have talked with lots of paid editors and listened to them.

I will say again that both Soetermans and Salvidrim have acknowledged that they acted in their clients' and their own interest and not in Wikipedia's.

The other stuff you are raising is all irrelevant to the core issues around commercial paid editing in Wikipedia. Jytdog (talk) 20:40, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

The second question was about editing in a way that attracts personal gain. There are many. They edit wikipedia in a way that benefits them, but everyone edits for their own personal reasons. How many WMF employees are there that have never edited Wikipedia? How many WMF editors have been banned from Wikipedia? I suspect their jobs included a review of their edits and standing in the community, if only because they attempte gain by referencing it in their resume. That's a COI in your broad definition but it's unsupportable in the real world. They don't have jobs without Wikipedia yet they continue to improve it despite your interpretation that such financially self-serving activity is a COI. --02:56, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

The "analysis" you are doing is silly. Conflicted editors tend to edit badly - promotionally, with bad or no sources, leaving negative content out (or the flip side if their COI is driving negative editing). It always starts with content. It ends with content. In the middle, is disclosing and prior review. It is way less complicated than you are making it. Jytdog (talk) 03:29, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Volunteer time

8) Volunteer time is the lifeblood of Wikipedia.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Like Tryptofish I don't see the need for this either. Drmies (talk) 18:58, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Not needed. Anything that reaches ArbCom has already taken up too much volunteer time, and this case much less so than most. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:08, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Proposed findings of fact

Made admin

1) Salvidrim! was granted access to administrative tools via his RfA in 2013.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Relevant. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:09, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Granted OTRS access

2) Salvidrim! was granted access to OTRS on meta in July 2015

Comment by Arbitrators:

I suppose this goes to "trust", but again, meh. Drmies (talk) 18:59, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Not relevant. Just focus on the actual use of admin tools. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:10, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Confirmed as SPI clerk

2) Salvidrim! was confirmed as an SPI clerk in July 2015

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Not relevant. WP:KISS. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:11, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Account compromise

4) Salvidrim! allowed his account to be compromised in November 2015, although he had been warned to improve his password.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Does not appear relevant. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:23, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

This is looking for nails at low tide. Drmies (talk) 19:00, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

I reiterate that the "he had been warned to improve his password before being compromised" bit is a specific claim of specific negligence that needs to be supported by diffs in evidence, which still isn't the case. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 07:01, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I've struck the end of this for now. User:Beeblebrox in your evidence you mentioned . This was after a previous wave of admin accounts being compromised, after which all admins were urged to strengthen their passwords, but this advice was clearly not heeded. Can you please link to that? Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 15:46, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

This looks like throwing mud at the wall and has nothing to do with this case.--v/r - TP 15:24, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

It is one step in a series of carelessness/bad judgements. Jytdog (talk) 15:29, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Mmm, I'll let Arbcom be the judge but these seems a lot like digging up every mistake that anyone could make, and no one else is blamed for, to "throw mud" to try to improve a weak argument. Your argument looks stronger without it. With it, it looks like you're trying too hard.--v/r - TP 16:05, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm kind of with TP on this one, but on the other hand it was brought up on the evidence page that the incident represents part of a pattern of misjudgement, and that pattern may make its way into a finding or remedy. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 20:07, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Agree with TP. Even the wording seems to be a passive/aggressive statement. As far as I can tell, the compromise occured after a hack external to wikipedia. I've yet to see an exploitation to be foisted upon the victim. "Actress X allowed her personal account selfies to be compromised" is not an attribution I've ever heard. No one "allows" any such thing. --DHeyward (talk) 00:33, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

You are taking an... interesting stance here. So - in the WP:ADMIN policy, admins are warned to use very strong passwords and not to use the password anywhere else. If you go back and read what happened, you will see that Salvidrim! was using the same password here as he used at another site, that was hacked. Because he uses his real name everywhere, a white hat hacker was able to see what WP account was his, and tried the stolen-then-published password, and was able to access his admin account. Salvidrim, by using the same password here as he uses elsewhere, and by using his real name everywhere, allowed his account here to be compromised. This is not ambiguous. This apparently happened not too long after a similar incident, according to Beelblebrox, when all admins were freshly warned to secure their admin accounts.

If arbcom does not want to look at a broader pattern of carelessness, that is their call. That is a different matter. Jytdog (talk) 00:46, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Listen, of course what you said makes sense, but I just want to insure accuracy -- WP:ADMIN does not mention "not using the password anywhere else" as you say it does. Nor does WP:STRONGPASS (which was created after my account was compromised). FWIW, I think it should and agree that it is a basic security concept, but I think it's important that statements such as "policy X says Y" must not be inaccurate. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 00:58, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

you are correct so struck. But as you said yes, this is common sense. Jytdog (talk) 14:48, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

This seems to me to be too trivial to include in the decision. I understand the argument about what we expect of admins, but it just isn't needed. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:13, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

RfB

5) At his RfB in July 2017, Salvidrim! expressed a lack of seriousness about the privileges he was seeking to gain, and disreputable off-WP behavior of Salvidrim! was discussed, each of which led to failure of the RfB.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Does not appear relevant. Certainly a perceived "lack of seriousness" is not. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:23, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

As before, and it begs the question of interpretation, point of view, etc. If there is a case against Salvidrim, it need not depend on ... well, mud thrown at the wall. Drmies (talk) 19:01, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

This looks like throwing mud at the wall and has nothing to do with this case.--v/r - TP 15:24, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Nope. You are not following the argument this whole series of things is making. There has been a series of careless, self-serving actions culminating in the three week trainwreck while he worked for Mister Wiki and then his fateful "statement". Putting himself in that situation of conflict of interest, put him to the test, and things became clear that were not so clear before. It is exactly in difficult situations where following the spirit of the policies and guidelines is even more important, and when one's ability to judge well, is really made clear. The RfB and password incidents look different now. Jytdog (talk) 18:28, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I actually have followed it. That you spent more time talking about other issues about the case rather than the RfB pretty much seals my opinion that this is just throwing mud and hoping to make the original case stronger. You might honestly think it's relevant but that's because you're deeply invested in the case.--v/r - TP 18:53, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I have tried to make it clear, in everything I have written here, at my Talk page, and at COIN, that this case is about Salvidrim!'s poor judgement (and as my thinking developed, about whose interests he has been serving, which is related to his poor judgement here in WP). I am being entirely consistent and honest in that. It is not about paid editing. Others think it is. Jytdog (talk) 19:12, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Eh, your argument isn't helped by the title of the case. If the case were opened about Salvidrim! specifically, it'd be easier to discuss broader judgement issues. In this case, the primary issue is collusive paid editing and an admin that used his permissions related to that. That's a serious issue by itself and injecting this just muddies it. Like I said above, I think the case is stronger without these two proposals.--v/r - TP 19:36, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes I realize what the case was entitled. As I said on the evidence page I am emphasizing Point #3 of the scope. Jytdog (talk) 20:15, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I really dislike this one. We have to be careful about setting an expectation that users should not make applications for permissions in case they made a mistake in applying. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:15, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Voluntarily entered into commercial conflict of interest after being made admin

6) In the fall ofOctober 2017, Salvidrim! voluntarily entered into a relationship with the commercial paid editing firm, Mister Wiki to edit Wikipedia on behalf of Mister Wiki and its clients, which put him in a conflict of interest, specifically between his obligation to pursue Wikipedia's mission and to follow and enforce community policies and guidelines on the one hand, and on the other, the commercial interests of Mister Wiki's clients and his own financial interest.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Mildly, it's not "fall" everywhere. -- Euryalus (talk) 10:06, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

"Fall of 2017" should be refined to "on October 22nd, 2017" (supported by private evidence, my e-mails with Jacob were submitted to ArbCom, including the very first contact), which is especially relevant when trying to evaluate the actions that have been taken againt policy that was and still is in the middle of fluid discussions and evolution. After having spent so much time on the timeline, I'm sure you can appreciate the importance of timing. The first contact was an e-mail dated October 22nd, 10:40 EDT. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 07:06, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Corrected to "October". If arbcom wants to go with the exact date they can do that of course. Jytdog (talk) 14:52, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

This is way to broad. If such a statement were true, there would never be out-of-court settlements as trial is much more lucrative for an attorney that bills by the hour. The presumption should be be that a Wikipedia editor/admin is always looking out for the project and would not accept a job that conflicts with that primary obligation even if it means they may not earn money. The presumption of conflict might be a "best practices" but it is not, in and of itself evidence of COI --DHeyward (talk) 00:48, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

I added a "clarification" but it is obvious that if you don't edit, you don't get paid. The hyperbole is getting thick. You are ignoring the fact that all three articles involved in the corrupt AfCs have been deleted for failing N and Salvidrim even retracted his keep !votes at the AfDs after he started to awaken to his own COI. Jytdog (talk) 04:37, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Did Mr Wiki only have those three articles? Was Salvadrim able to choose which articles to work on? AGF would presume he added articles beneficial to both. I've had articles deleted that I thought should be kept. My reasons for keeping aren't out of line with the interests of Wikipedia. Being overruled doesn't equate with being nefarious. --DHeyward (talk) 14:03, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

You are confusing "bad judgement due to being in a conflicted situation" with "nefarious". What was the more problematic bad judgement was purposefully ignoring the COI management process, thinking he was somehow unaffected by this very basic human thing. You know, Salvidrim used to have the same Position as you and talk almost exactly like you before this all happened, as he did here in 2016 and even here while he was in the midst of this. His position now is of course on his userpage (an update from the prior version). It is almost like he is talking to you in the current version with his picking up of "nefarious" -- you are the only person who has used that word on this page.Jytdog (talk) 14:24, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

I use "nefarious" all the time so you are reading WAY too much. We allow "bad judgement." We don't allow "nefarious." Punishment for simply having bad judgement has a much higher ar than nefarious. It seems to me that while couching "paid editing" as "bad judgement," you are really trying to say "paid editing" is "nefarious." It comes through in the remedies section quite different than what is in the findings of fact. --DHeyward (talk) 21:57, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Unmanaged COI generally causes problems with content and behavior. I do not believe that paid editing is "nefarious" or anything like that. If you do care what I think please read my userpage. Jytdog (talk) 23:24, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

"Voluntarily" goes without saying, but some version of this is important to include. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:17, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Granting privileges to alt account

7) Salvidrim! created an alternative "paid" account through which he intended to do his paid work, and used his administrative tools to grant privileges to the "paid" account.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Salvidrim, if in other proposals I criticized the proposer for including relatively minor or irrelevant things in order to build a case with mud, then the same applies here. Drmies (talk) 19:05, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Thoroughness can't be done halfway -- this should specify which user-rights were granted (confirmed, rollback, reviewer, page mover), only the latter of which was used for paid editing and the use of which has proven controversial in later discussions. Might also be worth mentioning here or later that I myself reverted the granting of these user-rights once questioned about them (except for confirmed, which was removed earlier by a patroller since the account became autoconfirmed). Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 07:01, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

This is important. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:18, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Unmanaged COI

8) Salvidrim! did not permit the community to manage his conflict of interest as described in the COI guideline, but instead edited in mainspace directly, and used the privileges of his paid account to move pages, all without submitting content or move proposals to the community for independent prior review.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

I think it's fair to replace "described" with a more accurate and exact representation of policy, such as "recommended". Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 07:01, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

COI is a guideline, which are ""best practices that are supported by consensus. Editors should attempt to follow guidelines, though they are best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply". The COI guideline says "you are strongly discouraged from editing affected articles directly.". We expect admins to have WP:CLUE. We expect admins to lead by example. Jytdog (talk) 07:11, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

FWIW, the COI version at the time before the more recent discusions said in its lede "COI editors are generally advised not to edit affected articles directly, and to propose changes on talk pages instead." and in its body "If you receive or expect to receive compensation (money, goods or services) for your contributions to Wikipedia, you must declare that, and should put edits through peer review instead of editing articles directly", and "you are very strongly discouraged from editing affected articles directly". The ongoing discussion (not RfC tagged) is at Wikipedia talk:Paid-contribution disclosure#Proposed RfC on adding prior review (wherein I've actually supported strengthening policy to require prior review instead of strongly recommending it, as is currently the case). I still think "described" above should be replaced with the more accurate "(strongly) recommended". When relaying the current policies, using the same words instead of trying to find creative synonyms can be a benefit to exactitude. :) Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 07:24, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

The part I quoted has been there a long time. You had not actually thought through what COI is, what it does, or how it is managed before you put yourself in a conflicted situation. You have already acknowledged that almost every decision you made while you were conflicted was incorrect. You even backed off your defense of the notability of the two articles at AfD. diff, diff. Jytdog (talk) 07:34, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Yup there's no disagreement on what you just said :) Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 07:47, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Which account/s were used to edit mainspace articles? --DHeyward (talk) 01:02, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

This is important. It should be reworded, however. It's not about the community managing anything, but about adhering to the guideline. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:20, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Thwarting AfC process

9) Salvidrim! coordinated off-WP with Soetermans to pass three articles through AfC on behalf of Mister Wiki, a task for which Soetermans intended to be paid for one, and Salvidrim! for two. All three articles were subsequently deleted via AfD discussions. These actions violated the spirit and letter of the COI guideline and the purpose of WP:AFC, and were somewhere between WP:GANG and WP:MEAT/WP:CANVASS behavior.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

amended. am now fine calling this MEAT. Jytdog (talk) 19:03, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

User:TParis, actually the people I am aware of who are the loudest about hating paid editing do almost no work at COIN (that includes those who have hounded you). The people who do the bulk of the work there don't have time for that sort of grandstanding as there is so much work to do cleaning things up. When I do work there, or work that I do more quietly without escalating to COIN, I make sure that any edits I make to articles comply with the content and policies and guidelines, and I believe that other people who do work on the ground there, also carefully follow them.

Along with getting conflicts of interest properly disclosed and educating people, a big part of the work at COIN is to do the "review" step of the COI management process when conflicted or paid editors directly edit and skip that step. So yes, it is true that conflicted edits get reviewed there with the COI (or APPARENTCOI) in mind. That is an essential community function. Some people take that work as some kind of attack or "criticism" but it is part of standard COI management. It happens every day around the world when scientific manuscripts are peer reviewed prior to publication, with disclosed conflicts of interest of authors in mind. And I do think that when Salvidrim wrote about avoiding COIN, he exactly did want to avoid review of the edits with the COI in mind. This happened anyway, since the paid nature of the original article and of Salvidrim's advocacy were both disclosed and discussed in the AfDs.

What review at COIN means concretely, is looking out for puffery, looking out for unsourced content, looking out for padding with low quality refs, looking out for omission of negative content (which means going and looking for independent refs and seeing what they say), and considering whether the article is really notable. There is an essay in development discussing hallmarks of PR: WP:Identifying PR. Sometimes we nominate articles for deletion if notability is marginal, which provides an additional process of community review. Things like that. Jytdog (talk) 17:47, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

• User:Tryptofish Thanks for bringing up the CANVASS issue. I agree and I have added that above. What Ivanvector wrote above about the PlikoraT situation reads directly on this too, however -- it is also MEAT. Wrong when looked at through several lens, yes. Jytdog (talk) 19:08, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Only want to clarify the timeline because I think the implications matter. The two Studio71 execs' articles were tagged in mainspace, at which time Salv's first interactions with both were moving them to draftspace and removing the maintenance tags, and it appears it was only after that point that Soetermans offered his "quid pro quo" review although that's an offline conversation. As such it may be that Soetermans was not aware that the articles had been tagged at all. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 20:15, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

User:Ivanvector, in the facebook chatlog in which Salvidrim and Soetermans agreed that Soetermans would do the AfC review on the articles about the two executives, Salvidrim! wrote The whole point of moving them back to draftspace was so they could be afc-okayed and mainspaced again without the NPOV tags without having to go through COIN. I never noticed the last bit there about avoiding COIN. Makes the evasion of scrutiny even more clear. Jytdog (talk) 21:04, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

It probably won't be worth much for you even if I say this, but I meant to avoid COIN not to "avoid the community's eyes" but to "avoid asking for a neutrality review from a notoriously anti-paid-editing venue" -- of course, that doesn't mean it was a good or acceptable idea anyways, but I just thought I'd clarify my intentions. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 21:16, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

The value judgement that WP:COIN is "a notoriously anti-paid-editing venue" would benefit from being backed up with evidence. If COIN is predisposed to rejecting paid edits, it is just as easily argued that this results from paid edits being notoriously non-neutral. It may be worthwhile for this case to examine the situation. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:28, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

What kind of evidence would you like? Do you want to see diffs of editors who hang out at COIN and WT:COI make comments that would display a predisposition against paid editing such as "Wikipedia is no place for any paid editor...ever"? Or do you want to see diffs of hyperbolic and non-AGF accusations about other editors beliefs and desires? Because both of that exists, some even on this page. And was refactored after some good discussion, thankfully.--v/r - TP 16:53, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

@Jytdog: Perhaps you're right, it could've been my involvement that drew them that times I've looked there.--v/r - TP 18:39, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

@TParis: well, yes. If there are a few editors that hang out there and try to work against accepting any editing that appears to be paid, they're working outside our current consensus on paid editing and they should be kicked out. If the issue is that COIN itself is set up as unduly biased against all paid editing, that's a different kind of problem and one that should be urgently fixed. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 21:18, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Those people are mostly at WT:COI, not WP:COIN. It is at WT:COI where TParis has encountered them and I believe that TParis will confirm that. Jytdog (talk) 21:25, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Jytdog would know better than me, I'll defer to his recollection on this. I might just strike my comments.--v/r - TP 23:09, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Which accounts were used here for article creation? --DHeyward (talk) 01:05, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Well, technically the Datari Turner draft was created by Jlauren22 (whose only edits this was), then expanded & resubmitted to AfC by Soetermans and we colluded for me to approve them (prior to my involvement in paid editing); Reza Izad and Dan Weinstein (business executive) were created by WolvesS straight in mainspace as undisclosed paid editing directly for Studio71. Later, Studio71 hired Jacob from MisterWiki to have the articles cleaned up, and Jacob in turn hired me for that mandate. First I got in touch with WolvesS and ensured he properly disclosed his paid editing, then I moved the articles to draftspace and submitted them without change for AfC, and colluded with Soetermans so that he would approve them to mainspace, again without changes. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 01:17, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

This is important, but more about WP:CANVASS (albeit mutual) than WP:MEAT. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:23, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

@Jytdog: Hi, thanks. About the balance between CANVASS and MEAT, I'm aware that some Arbs may feel that MEAT, as it exists, is too nebulous to use here, and I figure it's best to leave it up to them how they end up constructing this. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:27, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Citing his integrity and reputation even while citing thwarted AfCs

10) Salvidrim! specifically cited his integrity, reputation, and respect for Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, even as he cited the corrupt AfC process, in two AfD discussions, and he cited the AfC at the Talk page of an independent editor who had tagged the two articles when he asked for the tags to be removed or discussed.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

First I got neckdeep into the paid editing swamp... then went fully underwater with this fuckup. Holy shit how blind to my own failure was I. Nothing to add but a statement of my shame here.. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 07:01, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Not to pile on, but I agree this actually might be one of the bigger problems. A lot of the perceived "power" of being an admin comes from the trust the community places in admins, and trading off of that trust to influence discussions and sway them in a way a client would prefer is in many ways equally as concerning as any potential misuse of tools. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:38, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

• User:Tryptofish, about your second remark. (note, I will follow just one of the two AfDs here, he wrote the same in both). Salvidrim first cited his reputation, integrity, etc in response to the deletion rationale, which was There is a lack of independent in-depth coverage of Izad himself to establish notability. Izad is mentioned in routine coverage and has been interviewed as a company exec about the company he works for. The article was paid for by Studio71. That is not criticism in any way that I understand it. His reply is here, and addressed the notability concern and also included (Disclosure, I was asked by a Studio71 contractor to try to cleanup the article, but I would not compromise my integrity and defend any article which I do not believe honestly meets Wikipedia's inclusion policies.. The next comment at AfD was I have grave concerns about a properly declared paid editor defending an article at AfD. This is a very strong COI and I would strongly urge the closing admin to disregard the keep argument above (which is reasonable about the structure of the situation, and not at all personal) and in response to that, Salvidrim dug deeper in discussing his personal integrity and his admin status, here where he wrote Thanks for pointing this out -- two details I'd like to point: (1) since the situation is fully disclosed I think the closer and any future commenter is able to make up their own mind about the strength of my arguments regardless of who is presenting them, and (2) I hope I can reassure anyone involved in this AfD that I would not accept payment to say things or present arguments I do not truly believe in. Everything I've said here, I would have said just the same if I was commenting from my volunteer admin account. I hold Wikipedia's policies in the highest possible regard and would never dream of bullshitting the community for money.. And he wrote this while he was fully aware of the nature of the AfC. Jytdog (talk) 17:36, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I agree with this. In many ways, it is really central to what happened. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:24, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm having second thoughts about my earlier comment here. Not sure: maybe we should give users some slack in how they initially respond to criticism. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:16, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

@Jytdog: I agree with you that there is an abundance of solid evidence. It's a judgment call about how much of it to attribute to failure to be accountable, and how much is just the very human tendency to start by defending oneself. To some extent, there has been a progression during this case, in which Salvidrim! has increasingly demonstrated that he recognizes his mistakes and does not intend to repeat them. On the other hand, that has been a bumpy road, to put it mildly. I just want to leave it to others to figure out how much it has been of each of these, because it's something I'm a little unsure about myself. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:35, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Diligently pursuing his clients' interests and his own, while not pursuing the community's

11) Salvidrim! was diligent in pursuing his client's interests (and his own financial interest), following up with the independent editor after the initial inquiry about the tags, adding pictures of the two executives to the Studio71 article when the articles about them were being deleted, and was immediately talking to DGG when DGG stumbled in deleting the articles. Salvidrim! added the pictures and engaged with DGG about the deletion logistics even as the discussion about his unmanaged conflicted behavior was advancing at COIN. At no point did Salvidrim! himself act to protect the integrity of the AfC process, and his efforts to get the tags removed (not determine if the articles were indeed notable, but simply remove the tags which was the paid task) also ran counter to his responsibility as an admin to uphold/enforce the WP:PROMO policy and WP:N, which implements the WP:NOTINDISCRIMINATE policy.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Adding pictures, filling out details and responding to deficiencies are processes that happen during AfD. That serves the interest of the project and is not interfering with the process or a conflict of interest. Removing tags is a different story but this should be trimmed to eliminate actions not detrimental to the project. Adding pictures is not detrimental. --DHeyward (talk) 01:20, 8 December 2017 (UTC).

THe key point is here is that Salvirdrim pursued his clients interest vigorously, including following up with a volunteer at that volunteer's talk page twice. I find it especially icky that he pestered the volunteer so he could get his paid task done quicker and bullshit the fake AfC past the community. If this were your every day paid editor the diligence wouldn't bother me (so much.. it is not cool for paid editors to pester the community but a follow up a day later isn't horrible). That this is an admin citing his reputation and respect for the policies and guidelines, and explicitly claiming "no bullshit", while exactly bullshitting, is what is so distasteful. You are swinging and missing every time here. The thing about the pictures and the follow up with DGG, is even while the community was throwing red flags all over the place at COIN he kept at it, working for his client. That was quite surprising to me. Anybody thinking straight would have pulled up short well before that. Jytdog (talk) 02:38, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

True. Can be worded better: "Put his clients' interests and his own ahead of the community's". --Tryptofish (talk) 22:26, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Lack of accountability

12) When questions were raised about his trustworthiness at WP:COIN given all of the above, with clear communication that an arbcom case would be filed if he did not take action himself to confirm that he had the community's trust, Salvidrim! did not do so, but instead put his own judgement that he was still trustworthy first, leading to this proceeding.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

I... I'm not sure exactly how best to word this, and I can certainly say that this appears correct on the face of it, and perhaps it is due to my own lack of clarity in my communication, but I didn't "refuse a resignation or reRFA" -- I intended to take time off to reflect and come back after a thorough introspection and, yes, probably submit to a new RfA or resign altogether. However it definitely wasn't made clear that my "not today, not tommorrow, not this week" did not mean "I refuse, not ever" but instead implied "after my break, probably", which led to this ArbCom case being opened immediately. Also, the phrasing "put his own judgement first" doesn't seem to mean allege to anything specific... maybe I'm dissecting stuff to much again :( Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 07:01, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

What you actually wrote: I don't think there was a pattern of abuse of tools of behaviour unbecoming of an admin (which is what ArbCom usually looks for). I do think there was a mishandling and underestimating of how strongly and openly COI needs to be tackled and reviewed, and am happy to discuss what restrictions should be put in place to ensure it doesn't become a recurrent problem. This is probably the last I'll say for a while on-wiki unless there is agreement to resolve this with community sanctions (to be agreed upon), or if I end up having to defend at ArbCom. You put that totally on legalistic grounds and were not hearing about the core issue of trust. That was a very important posting and if it was only half-baked that just re-inforces my lack of trust in your judgement. Jytdog (talk) 07:27, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Salv, please consider how deciding to take a Wikibreak of indeterminate length for introspection rather than answer the immediate questions being posed to you regarding trust by the community looks to anyone other than yourself. To me, that looks like trying to dodge any accountability in hopes that the storm would blow over. It looked like we might have a case where an admin goes on wikibreak for a year to avoid a desysop case. The only reason we are likely getting answers now is because of the case. I’m trying my best to take you at your word here, but solely based on your actions and statements, I was under the impression that you were trying to avoid accountability as well. TonyBallioni (talk) 07:50, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

This is not the place to have that conversation. It should be taken to the talk page.--v/r - TP 16:02, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

• User:Tryptofish I would be interested to see how you would frame the ADMINACCT principle and I hope you suggest something on your own or propose an amendment. Thx Jytdog (talk) 21:29, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

This is important, and should be framed in terms of WP:ADMINACCT. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:27, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

@Jytdog: Thanks for the interest in how I might write it, but I do not intend to make any workshop proposals of my own. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:41, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Self-serving

13) The events directly preceding this case arose from Salvidrim!'s personal desire to make money using his editing privileges and the additional privileges he gave to his alt account. This proceeding itself has been driven by Salvidrim!'s desire to retain his administrator status by forcing the community to work through the procedures put in place to protect administrators who serve the community and who make difficult decisions while serving the community, instead of simply and directly asking if he still had the community's trust by resigning and submitting to RfA or doing a "confirmation RfA". This behavior does not demonstrate a committment to serving the community and putting the community's needs first. Uncovering his activities, discussing them, and this proceeding have all absorbed the time and attention of the volunteer community, which could otherwise have been spent building the encyclopedia. None of this demonstrates Salvidrim! serving the community, or putting the community's interests first, but rather demonstrates putting his own interests first. The money, the prestige of the bit and clerkship. The careless bid to add 'crat to his list of titles.

13) In the three weeks of unmanaged conflict of interest editing and in his rejection of the call at COIN for him to ask the community to confirm its trust in him as an administrator, Salvidrim! has not served the community but rather himself.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Arbitration decisions focus on editors' behavior, and perhaps to some extent to good or bad faith underlying the behavior, but we do not cast judgments on what editors' "desires" should be or engage in this degree of value-judgments. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:28, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

This contains a lot of supposition. Needs to be refined to actual and demonstrable facts. Salv's desires and drives are not demonstrable facts.--v/r - TP 15:26, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Serving the community, is why we have admins and why we grant them tools. Why do people edit for pay? What is this proceeding about other than Salvidrim! legalistically trying to keep his bit instead of simply asking if the community still trusts him, as you advised him to do? The motivations have not been stated but are clearly infer-able. I do agree that the writing above is too.. florid and I have redacted. Jytdog (talk) 16:07, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

This is a "finding of *fact*" section. This proposal basis way too much on your perceptions, values, and own motivations projected on Salvidrim! to be considered a fact. Facts are based on diffs. Unless you can find quotes describing these motivations from him, then this is not an acceptable finding of fact. If you'd like to talk more about this, we can do it on the talk page. But I feel no need to discuss this, personally, because I'm 100% certain that the Arbs will agree with me and I don't need to point out the obvious to them.--v/r - TP 16:11, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

We'll see what arbs say. This is inference. It is summer and I have been hard at work inside my house. Everything outside was dry this morning but the sky was heavy and overcast when I went to get the newspaper, and this afternoon when I went for a walk, everything was wet. I didn't hear or see it rain but I know that it did.

This is the fundamental issue I have with Salvidrim!'s pattern of behavior in all of this. This exact point. The findings of fact show a pattern of him putting his own interests above the community's and using bad judgement in doing so. We rely on admins to serve the community. Jytdog (talk) 16:44, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

• TParis your read was accurate at least with respect to Newyorkbrad, both here and in the preceeding two events (the RfB and the password). I have restated this to make it tighter and following the lead that Newyorkbrad left. Jytdog (talk) 21:40, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
  • I appreciate the refactor. I've still got some opinions on it, but at least it's a chew-able version now so I'll hold my peace.--v/r - TP 02:30, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
• Better to leave this out and focus on WP:COI. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:29, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Proposed remedies

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

Desysop

1) Salvidrim!'s administrator status is removed.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

• User:TParis yes RfA is hard and sometimes ugly. But I am not so sure about the projected future of that narrative. Imagine if, at COIN, after his break to think, instead of writing this, Salvidrim had written something like: "I've been thinking about all this. I used to have some strong ideas about COI and paid editing in WP and about myself, and what has unfolded over the past few days has been a real eye opener for me. I made some very serious bad judgements, and I understand how those mistakes might affect how people see me and whether they can still trust me. I am going to stop paid editing and ask that my paid account be indeffed. I am also going to resign the bit and put myself up for RfA. I want to serve the community as an admin, and I understand that the privilege of the tools is based on trust. I will see you all at RfA. I apologize for my mistakes, and having taken up everybody's time with this". And then written something similar at his RfA with something additional like "In the future if I ever decide to try to editing for pay again, I will get consensus first that the community is OK with me having the bit at the same time as I do that". Or even if had not resigned and had said - "I will open a discussion at AN to get an assessment of the commmunity's level of trust in me and will resign if it is seriously damaged". Something responsive, listening, and clueful about the level of drama that follows an admin in whom trust is damaged.

That RfA (or AN query) might have been successful; the community respects clear signals that people are listening and it respects self-insight. We will never know now if that RfA would have been successful. Something similar might be successful now (I believe less possible now because of what has actually happened since Salvidrim wrote what he wrote at COIN and has written what he has written here and taken up our time with this, but still maybe). I doubt an RfA would fly immediately after this, if this goes through to a desysop. But maybe after a while. Jytdog (talk) 15:57, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

I was addressing one thing, and one thing only namely this narrative that is popping up here and there about the community being a mindless pitchfork-bearing mob. This too is not relevant to Arbcom's decision but is very clearly intended to influence it.

What I described above is not how I would do things and this is not a fair characterization; it meant to describe the clueful, "I hear that" (as opposed to IDHT) response that the community always receives well as you and I have both seen happen many, many times.

This case will hinge around admin accountability and the level of trust admins need to have to get and keep the bit. Jytdog (talk) 17:46, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Yep we see this case differently. That diff triggered this case because no where in there was a willingness from Salvidrim to have trust in him assessed but rather he asserted his own evaluation. Everybody was saying that if he didn't have it assessed, there would be an Arbcom case, and it was brainless that Arbcom would accept it. Indeed, here we are. Jytdog (talk) 18:52, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

I support this. If you want to see the level of trust that remains in our community, run an RfA afterwards. Ifnord (talk) 14:19, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

I don't support this. RfA isn't a fair process. You want proof of that, see how much effort we've spent trying to reform it. Ask the legions of people who refuse to even attempt it. The community's distrust hasn't been demonstrated. A small niche of COI-focused editors have commented. A discussion at AN or the Village Pump would've been more appropriate to determining the community's level of trust. We don't chop off heads and then hold a trial.--v/r - TP 14:50, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

@Jytdog: You keep harping on that diff and it's not going to make a difference in this case. Whether or not Salvidrim! handled things the way you would have isn't a policy violation or something Arbcom judges. I'm sorry, but it's not. That diff's importance and negativity is in the eye of the beholder. Your involvement influences how you perceive it. That's not something Arbcom can quantify. He didn't violate policy in that diff and that is all Arbcom is going to weigh here.--v/r - TP 16:48, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

But, once again, you haven't demonstrated that trust is lost. WP:COIN is not the appropriate noticeboard for that. Please do not speak on behalf of the community when you do not have the community's voice bestowed upon you. Your perception of Salv's response has been used several times throughout this process to support your claims and I'm trying to give you a heads up that if you're hinging on that, and the persistence by which you've linked the diff suggests you are, then you may be disappointed with the outcome. Once again, this isn't a point of argument. The Arbs will decide and I don't see a point in arguing to convince each other that they'll eventually decide in our favor. We can just watch and see. But I suspect that diff won't be used heavily, or maybe even at all, in the final decision.--v/r - TP 17:53, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

De-clerking

1) Salvidrim!'s SPI clerk status is removed.

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Please specify why, for clarity? Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 07:01, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I've added a principle about expectations of SPI clerks. You have shown bad judgement repeatedly, and in doing the GANG/MEAT thing yourself with Soetermans you have shown that you do not have respect for the letter and spirit of SOCK, which is at the end of the day about ensuring the integrity of WP discussions and processes.Jytdog (talk) 07:47, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I've tweaked my above proposal of the same thing above. It specifies a reason without getting into the weeds on the MEAT/SOCK/GANG/CANVASS question. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:22, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

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I'm opposed to this, to be honest. Salv and I disagree on the meatpuppetry aspect but otherwise he's an excellent and trustworthy clerk, and I think it's more evident that his COI and presumption of integrity clouded his judgement with respect to his own behaviour than that he maliciously violated the policy. More importantly Salv is one of only six active admin clerks (I'm not counting myself) and nine non-trainee clerks overall, working in a process of clear importance to the project that has been backlogged as long as I've been involved with it. I don't see this as being in the interest of Wikipedia. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 20:23, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Yeah - being an SPI clerk and an admin means he must've thought that there's obviously no way he could violate that sort of policy, when he did. Galobtter (pingó mió) 09:48, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

I also agree with Ivanvector here. Better for the decision to focus on administrator status. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:31, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Request removal of OTRS access

1) The committee requests that Salvidrim!'s OTRS user rights be removed on Meta.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Per Tryptofish. Not up to us in my view, and not necessary to resolve this dispute on en-WP. -- Euryalus (talk) 19:35, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

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Not needed, and not really in ArbCom's remit. Any user can make a complaint to meta. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:32, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

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Proposals by User:Ivanvector

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Neutral point of view

1) Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view.

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Well yes. -- Euryalus (talk) 21:45, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

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Ivanvector good point. It might also be worth combining this with the other relevant principle from WP:5P and having it as Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view and is not a means of promotion. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:37, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

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The second fundamental principle. Should go without saying, but nobody's said it yet. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:33, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Actually it's written to reflect a NPOV. It is written by editors that include various points of view. --DHeyward (talk) 14:19, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, that's a good point. Suggest this be restated to read "written to reflect a neutral point of view." Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:23, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Conflicted editors cannot act objectively

2) Wikipedia editors with a conflict of interest cannot know the extent to which they have been influenced.

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I strongly support this as a principle. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:35, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

The "cannot know the extent" wording is taken directly from the 4 November 2017 revision of the conflict of interest guideline, although it has not changed in the current revision, and wording similar to this has been in the guideline since at least early 2013. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:33, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I strongly agree with the principle. The wording quoted from COI is kind of kludgy, though. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:34, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Edits by conflicted editors must be peer reviewed

3) To uphold the fundamental principle of neutrality, content contributed by editors with a conflict of interest must be reviewed by neutral Wikipedia editors.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Agree as a statement of principle. -- Euryalus (talk) 21:45, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Euryalus et al. - Passing this with the language "must be" might be frowned upon as ArbCom supervoting the eventual outcome of the RfC proposed here: Wikipedia talk:Paid-contribution disclosure#Proposed RfC on adding prior review, which I support but has not proven unanimous and should be left for the community to decide whether the existing "strongly recommended" language should be upgraded to "absolutely required". Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 22:00, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Comment by others:

The WP:COI guideline currently advises this in several variations ("generally advised not to edit articles directly", "you are strongly discouraged from editing articles directly" [emphasis in original], "you should put new articles through the articles for creation process" [emphasis added]), but always steps over itself to not make it a requirement. But in all common sense some level of neutral review is required: if editors with a conflict of interest can't understand the extent that they've been influenced, then it can't be taken for granted that their contributions aren't likewise influenced by their external interest. This principle isn't saying that we have to force all COI edits through a review process, but it is saying that review needs to happen for those edits to be considered NPOV. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:33, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

@Salv et al: I'm open to suggestions on this. My intent is to create a principle of understanding that content that's created by editors with a known COI (not merely biased as we all are, and not limited to paid COI) can't be presumed neutral unless the content is reviewed by editors who are not themselves externally conflicted. The principle is simply common sense, it remains up to the community to deal with the implications. It's not directly proposing a change of policy or procedure, it may very well be that peer review simply happens as a matter of course, assuming that neutral editors will eventually see the non-neutral content and correct it. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:35, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

The concept here is important. The "must" issue would be an overreach for ArbCom. Instead, just quote from WP:COI in terms of best practice or community norms. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:36, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

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