Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Tony Sidaway/Proposed decision

Transparency

Where was the discussion that led to these items being placed here? - brenneman^{T}{L} 10:45, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I've just been (quietly I suppose) reading the evidence and watching the workshop, and decided to move over the obvious/relevant ones. If you have any objections, you can still say so (though principle shouldn't usally be very controversial). There wasn't any private mailing list/IRC/cabal smoke signal discussion that led to it. Dmcdevit·t 16:35, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Aww, how am I meant to rage against the machine when you give sensible and prompt answers? Are you trying to spoil my fun? ;P

• I'd say that the "jimbo makes the rules" and "Assume good faith" are both in the category of "unarguable but no consensus that they are relevent". Both are ambiguious, and to my mind distract from the issues under examination. I don't think that either if these are in question enough that we need them in as proposed decisions. Back to workshop?
• The "disruption" one seems to have popped fully formed from the head of minerva. Could this be removed and taken to the workshop page? Quite a bit of the meat of this is about what contitutes disruption, and how to handle it. For example, could another admin have blocked Tony for disruption the third time he deleted ACoW? And NDk the third time he restored it?

Thanks for being responsive. I'm really pleased to see that there is involvement in this discussion by the arbitrators. If I don't have to have the decoder ring to know, what's the "voting starts now" threshold and will we get some warning to get our rows into the duck?
brenneman^{T}{L} 23:29, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

• I find the Jimbo as a policymaker principle relevant with regards to T1, and the disregard some have shown to it (disagreement is fine, but until it is overturned, violation is not). While I'm sure some part/most of the disagreement may be over interpretation, this is still valid. As to assume good faith: I think it's relevant to all sectors of this conflict, both in the way some have been treating others, and in the wheel warring (which I think in large part develops from lack of AGF, ie: one admin decides to reverse another admin's decision without discussion or outside consensus-seeking, often because they assume the other is wrong without giving them the benefit of discretion and trust in good judgment the community has awarded them.).
• Disruption: There was a WP:POINT proposal, but the "to make a point" part was rightly challenged. This kind of wording on general disruption is a common one, and the first clause is based on WP:BP#Disruption, and just common practice. It could apply to any of the parties here who were disruptive, and there was certainly some disruption (but I haven't made a finding of fact saying any particular one was disruptive yet!). Sure "what is disruption" is an issue, but it is in any case; those blocks are controversial and usually require discussion, so I cant really say right now if either should have been blocked then now, and if it's an arbcom action due to disruption we are talking about, it will be based upon a finding of fact as well. You are welcome to list this on the workshop as well to solicit comment.

Voting starts as soon as all the arbitrators' proposals are made and they begin to vote (er...), though proposals are frequently made afterwards, too. Basically, when it looks done. You can watch Template:ArbComOpenTasks to see when it's moved to voting. Dmcdevit·t 00:11, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

This was a masterful example of saying "no" to everything while appearing to address my concerns! Seriously though, thanks again for the prompt reply. I've added the template to my watchlist, and I'll move "disruption" to the workshop page for er, workshopping. - brenneman^{T}{L} 00:30, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Aaron on this point. Perhaps he would like to backport that one to the workshop and we can discuss it there. I don't see where it fits into this case because obviously nobody has been blocked and that whole administrator discretion thing is just wrong when applied to blocking anything other than vandals. If I block someone you'll most likely read about it on WP:AN where I will typically spend anything from 5-20 minutes explaining why this person who could be making good edits on Wikipedia is currently unable to do so, and I don't think that's unreasonable. --Tony Sidaway 00:21, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Odd proposals

What happens when someone puts something, umm, odd on the proposed page? Suppose I proposed a remedy "Brenneman banned from running for ArbCom next year". Would it just be ignored, or would it get lots of "oppose" votes that later would allow me to say "I've got support in my running for ArbCom from the standing members"? - brenneman^{T}{L} 22:57, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Only arbitrators and (unrecused) clerks may edit that page. --Tony Sidaway 00:09, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

*sigh* Suppose I insist on the workshop page for an odd or unlikely decision. Suppose a clerk then decided, since I was insisting, to add it to the page... now insert question above. - brenneman^{T}{L} 00:31, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, only arbitrators edit this page for non-janitorial reasons. A clerk never makes any proposals that the arbitrators vote on. So, yes, an arbitrator can propose something, but if it is odd like that, expect it to fail (unless you think that's the kind of people we are, in which case, expect it not to, I guess :) Dmcdevit·t 00:43, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. - brenneman^{T}{L} 01:36, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, basically if a clerk added silly stuff to a proposals page he wouldn't be much of a clerk. The arbitrators decide what they want to vote on, and (unless he's a former arbitrator) a clerk know no more about their private discussions than any other editor. --Tony Sidaway 02:06, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

3.2.6 Tony Sidaway has acted in good faith, but upset others

This seems a bit of a stretch. Clearly there are some reasons to doubt Tony's good faith, or otherwise rational people wouldn't be doing so. I'd think that the quasi-RfC alone would have been enough: "Hey, in order to forestall an RfC I'll say this." "Hey, I never said that." Could we get this changed to something less hand-wavy? - brenneman^{T}{L} 05:50, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I guess it's impossible to say there's no reason at all, considering where we are, but I don't think there's a good one. I changed the wording to say "no substantial reason", though ths probably isn't what you had in mind. Also note that not everything that was a part of the RFC(s) has become a part of this arbitration, notably civility; and this wording is only supposed to refer to those actions which were presented in evidence. Dmcdevit·t 19:10, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and the evidence page isn't really complete. Thanks largely to the unholy amount of verbage on the workshop page, I haven't put much into that page. We're not in any rush, so why can't we hold off voting for a few days at least? - brenneman^{T}{L} 22:25, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Remember, it's only a finding of fact - i.e., what the arbcom decides (through voting) is or is not a fact important to this case. It's not a principle, which is more like a fact whether anyone agrees or not. Mind you, maybe I'm just not sure I see what's "hand-wavy" about it. InkSplotch^(talk) 19:20, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Proposed Remedies

Just wondering...Croatlus' Userbox remedy has no duration (his general probation is indefinite), and Tony's remedy has no duration, or enforcement measures (blocks, bans, so forth). While a duration qualifier may not be necessary (I would assume "indefinite" is implied), shouldn't Tony's remedy at least have enforcement measures in place before too much voting goes on? InkSplotch^(talk) 19:20, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Tony Sidaway on administrative 1RR

Tony Sidaway is prohibited from reversing any administrative action more than once. Each reversal shall be accompanied by an explanation in the appropriate venue, including especially a listing at Wikipedia:Deletion review in the case of a disputed deletion.

Ok, does this mean both if someone else deletes something and Tony restores it and if someone else restores something and Tony deletes it? - brenneman^{T}{L} 03:08, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

It seems unambiguous to me: "any administrative action." Nandesuka 03:20, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

This one's kind of confusing, and to add on to Aaron's question, is DRV the place to go in both disputes (where an item has been restores, as is currently there, and where an item is deleted and currently not there)? (And Aaron, I'd say the answer to yours is "yes"...as worded, it would apply to any administrative action, including blocks, possibly reverts...it's open ended) InkSplotch^(talk) 03:21, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

P.S., I point this out not to be difficult, but to hopefully avoid trouble down the road. From what I've seen in this case, there have been disagreements in the past as to what the appropriate venue is for disputed deletions/restorations (AFD or DRV). InkSplotch^(talk) 03:25, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

This is my interpretation:

For deletions, it means that I should follow the same practice I set up in the case of userbox deletions, where I would delete some userboxes and take them to DRV, giving a fully itemized description of the reason for deletion as I did in that case. Effectively it's endorsing this procedure (which I didn't always follow as fully) as good practise, and requiring me in particular to follow it where the deletion involves reversing an undeletion made by another administrator.

For undeletions of bad speedies, it would mean notifying the original administrator as here. For undeletions of articles listed on Wikipedia:Deletion review, it would mean writing up the undeletion on that forum as I did here. For undeletions of articles wrongly speedied while at AfD (it does happen), it would mean writing up the undeletion on the AfD discussion or its talk page.

For reversals of blocks or unblocks, it would mean writing it up on WP:AN or whereever else the discussion was being held, already my current practise as here and here.

Protections and unprotections are intended to by manually expired so if this proposed remedy is adopted I'll ask the Committee to clarify, but I don't expect my normal practice of expiring vandal protections without comment after three days or more to be a problem. Nor my regular unprotections and restorations of semiprotection on George W. Bush.

For general admin practise, it's saying what we all know: in the light of the pedophile userbox case, none of us gets away with multiple admin reversals, and I (as the person who has made the most use of admin reversals) would be required to do it just once. --Tony Sidaway 05:03, 3 March 2006 (UTC)