Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard

One thing the Arbitration Committee STILL needs to address

Picking up from Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 25#3 things the new arbitration committee needs to address, as no one bothered notifying me of it, despite my being mentioned and it obviously being of high importance to me and my possible return as an active editor:

Sandstein continues to misconstrue to nature of the log entries with regard to myself, Noetica, Ohconfucius and Neotarf. They were not simply "warnings", they were direct (and unsupportable) accusations of wrongdoing. No one has ever asked to be "unwarned", that's an absurd red herring. Sandstein erred in making false accusations, whether he intended to or not, and refuses to even acknowledge that such a view could exist. Sandstein does not have to admit fault to be undonr on this. It does matter. At least two of these productive editors have quit the project over this (me, other than tying up some loose ends, and Noetica quit completely). We don't give a darn about being "warned" that we're aware of restrictions in some case, blah blah blah, what we care about is the false accusation of wrongdoing. I made this clear something like a year ago. Arbs agreed that the wording of the accusation/warning was unjust and promised a resolution to this matter. Nothing has happened. I used to put in tens of thousands of edits a year. Sandstein's obstinacy and the ArbCom's own inaction in dealing with this has cost the project my labor. If you're happy about that, just do nothing. If you want to make this right, clear those bogus accusations from the log for starters. I could have filed a big ArbCom psychodrama case about all this (and about Sandstein later ignoring other admins observations that he was clearly personally involved and that had no cause to block - he actually un-recused himself after agreeing to recuse because he couldn't resist imposing a short block against me, without any consensus that there should be one). Numerous parties urged me to make an ArbCom case about it, and wanted to join in. But I just walked away. I didn't come here for politics and personal psychodrama., but to help build an encyclopedia. I don't need an apology from Sandstein or even an admission of wrongdoing. I simply want his verging-on-slanderous accusation against me of "continued" wrong-doing to be voided from the log. A baseless personal attack like his, with administrative imprimatur, is not tolerable, and is a blatant policy violation per WP:NPA anyway. All four of us have asked for this to be fixed and have met with nothing but silence from ArbCom, AE, and ANI, and nothing but derision and dismissiveness from Sandstein, who deliberately tries to make this seem to be about some crazy notion of "unwarning" someone. It's never been about that, it's been about the abuse of administrative power for blatant character assassination, with apparent impunity. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 11:34, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

If you wish to appeal this, you may do by filing a "request for amendment" of the case under which the warning was issued. You do that here. The committee does not act of its own volition in these things. That said, the way that discretionary sanctions work is currently being changed. One current proposal is that all existing warnings be downgraded to simple alerts/notifications; and that alerts/notifications will cease to have effect once a year has elapsed. So, should this new proposal be adopted, the whole thing becomes moot.  Roger Davies ^talk 13:05, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't have any faith that Arbcom would take any action on it if it was submitted. Personally I wouldn't waste the time but that's up to you. I also don't see how 1 year is going to matter. It will still be in the record and will be held against the editor forever. It should also be noted that the "new" DS system will make it easier to be abused. That's kind of an important point that I tried and failed to make before. Especially now that the Arbcom doesn't "act of its own volition" to review cases where DS's were levied unfairly or used abusively. Since they are the only ones that have the power to do so, that to me is a serious problem since many of the DS's deal with people who have been blocked and couldn't submit a clarification or amendment if they wanted too. 108.45.104.158 (talk) 14:14, 14 February 2014 (UTC) This is Kumioko evading his indef block as BannedEditor' BMK (talk) 00:32, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Administrators have very broad discretion to deal with disruption; that is a fact of life. Different admins have different approaches; that is also a fact of life. There is also a broad spectrum of possibilities when examining all administrative actions; these possibilities range from correct in all respects, to good faith but mistaken, to abusive. The difference between one possibility and another is often slight. Before determining what happened in any particular situation, and determining the correct response, the committee will wish to hear from all concerned in an appropriate forum.

Your suggestion that the committee does nothing about administrative misconduct is misleading and inaccurate: in the first four weeks of the 2014's committee tenture, two admins were desysopped and another was admonished.

I asked you (assuming you're Kumioko) for evidence of abuse and you simply repeated the allegation. If editors have an issue concerning an individual admin, they need to follow procedures (optionally an RFC/U but certainly a case request, with proper evidence, to ArbCom). Banned editors may appeal by email. Simply conducting grumpy guerrilla warfare is not the answer. Incidentally, your remarks about the DS review are inaccurate and misinformed. Significant changes are being discussed (though these won't please everyone as they fall short of scrapping DS altogether and desysopping the entire admin corps [humour]).  Roger Davies ^talk 19:54, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Although I would favor scrapping DS's I also realize that is unrealistic. I know why they were created and I remember what life was life before them. Frankly, more problems have been created by having them that were solved with their creation. I also agree that there is a spectrum of possibilities and some of the better admins use the spectrum. Unfortunately a few of the admins who deal a lot with DS's favor the extreme end of the spectrum and their discretion is often questionable. Since they are admins dealing with DS's however the community generally assumes without hesitation that the editor being banned is a menace to the project. This is often not the case and we lose a valuable editor. Just to clarify I am also not calling for the admin corps to be eliminated, what I do think needs to happen is abusive admins with a history of abuse be dealt with. Unfortunately the way the system works its easier for one admin to ban an editor indefinitely than it is for the admin to lose thier tools. I don't know if you have noticed but the project has seen a flood of editors leaving, both admins and regular editors. A lot of this can be attributed to the dozen or so abusive admins who are allowed to do whatever they want with impunity. Also I have mentioned several names of those who are abusive and I have been blocked for doing so (the excuse was personal attacks). Well for that and so I couldn't participate in the discussions about me. So please forgive me if I am not in a hurry to name names or provide links so that I can be called out for attacking or so I can again become the target of those admins since no one will do a damn thing about it when they do. 108.45.104.158 (talk) 00:36, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Roger Davies, could you tell me where the review draft provides that "alerts/notifications will cease to have effect once a year has elapsed"? I can't find it in the review draft. – On the merits of this case, I have repeatedly informed SMcCandlish that they are free to appeal admin AE actions that they disagree with, but so far they have chosen not to do so. I can't therefore quite tell what the point of these repeated complaints is, as I have already discussed the issue at great length with SMcCandlish at the time when the warning was made. They have since received an AE topic ban, which they have also not appealed, so contesting the prior warning now seems doubly pointless.  Sandstein  15:40, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

The reason is because he has a right to appeal and long discussions with you, irrespective of how informative, aren't really a substitute. Now I really hate the way the whole DS thing is getting complex and legalistic; and ArbCom is spending far more time on it than it ought. However, if there's a credible allegation that the basis for all this was dodgy (and I have not seen any credible evidence yet, just a great deal of rhetoric), then it needs looking at and, if necessary, fixing.  Roger Davies ^talk 16:08, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Evidently they have a right to appeal. My point is that I think that they should choose to either do that or stop engaging in, as you say, angry rhetoric.  Sandstein  16:52, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

I think I said "a great deal of rhetoric" but the substantive point you're making is fair enough.  Roger Davies ^talk 17:12, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

The one-year sunset clause is contained in version 3, which is currently being drafted and should be up for consultation soon. AGK [•] 15:55, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

[ec] The sunset clause has been discussed on the talk page, and is a very good idea. It is unreasonable to expect people to remember that they've received an alert for what have been a trivial edit a long time after the event. I expect the community at large will strongly support this. If you'd like to revisit the discussion, or open it up afresh, on the DS page, feel free to do so (though if I get time this afternoon, I'll put some text there myself).  Roger Davies ^talk 16:08, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks!  Sandstein  16:52, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

New trainees

Original announcement

SO there isn't announcements of declined cases?

This would be a good idea for logs I think. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:02, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it would be good to have a log (though not everyone would agree with announcements).  Roger Davies ^talk 10:14, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

The log of declined requests is kept at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Declined requests if that's what you're looking for. I don't really see a need for announcing declined requests, it's important to announce motions (whether in lieu of a case, on a request for clarification or amendment, or a stand-alone arb motion) and cases being closed as they change or introduce arbitration policy or restrictions on editors or pages. However declined cases and requests for clarification and amendment don't. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 10:23, 22 February 2014 (UTC)