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A request for arbitration is the last step of dispute resolution for conduct disputes on Misplaced Pages. The Arbitration Committee considers requests to open new cases and review previous decisions. The entire process is governed by the arbitration policy. For information about requesting arbitration, and how cases are accepted and dealt with, please see guide to arbitration.

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This page transcludes from /Case, /Clarification and Amendment, /Motions, and /Enforcement.

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Currently, there are no requests for arbitration.

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Current requests

Durova and Jehochman

Initiated by Dmcdevit·t at 11:46, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Durova (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Jehochman (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Durova
• Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Indefinite block of an established editor
• Various other discussions on many occasions

Statement by Dmcdevit

I'm not happy about this, but I feel it may be the only way to proceed from the current situation, and I think the arbitrators agree with me. The scope of this case is primarily the recent actions and the pattern of poor judgment shown by Durova and Jehochman as a result of their methods ("sleuthing"). Recently, Durova blocked !! based on a suspicion of being a banned user reincarnated. It soon became clear that the block had no merit, and had been based on a secret report of unconvincing evidence she had written and circulated privately; initially she refused to justify the block on-wiki and immediately referred any objections to ArbCom instead . This incident, of which there has been much discussion at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Durova and Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Indefinite block of an established editor serves to bring attention to what seems to be a pattern of confidential "investigations" of editors, blocking of editors without providing evidence publicly or being responsive to criticism, and what seems to be a poor quality of actual evidence--based on assumptions of bad faith and leaps of logic. Durova and Jehochman are self-proclaimed "sleuths."

!!'s block turns out to have been the second block by Durova that week of an established user as a sock puppet giving no rationale whatsoever and then retracting it and apologizing "for the inconvenience." Other similar issues are noted at the RFC. Jehochman often works with Durova, and is described by many methods as her. There have been issues like his recent block of DreamGuy on what turned out to be no recent edits at all, and the refusal to give evidence for the block. There are further secret reports and accusations by both of these editors that the Arbitration Committee is in possession of that serve to further confirm the pattern and disturb me greatly. The Arbitration Committee is possibly the only body well-placed to solve this dispute both because of their being the most well-informed on the extent of the problems here and the community's lack of useful signal-to-noise ratio for sensational cases like this. I ask that the Committee open a case to examine it. Dmcdevit·t 11:46, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Privatemusings

I am an indefinitely blocked user, and only currently permitted to edit in the arbitration matters pertaining to my appeal to the Arb Com to review the block. I've been angry, upset, belittled and invited to leave. I'm running out of gas.

Without prejudice as to the value of this case, I would like to note that the matter of a private mailing list discussing indefinite blocks is being explicitly discussed here and here in my ongoing arbitration case. See this thread for Durova's fairly substantial involvement in discussion of my block. Thank you, Privatemusings (talk) 12:33, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved party Stephan Schulz (talk)

I would suggest to withdraw this request for now, or alternatively for the ArbCom to reject it without prejudice. There is a very active and productive RfC pertinent to this topic, and an action by ArbCom would be premature at this time. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:24, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved party Alecmconroy

I concur-- insofar as this Arbcom applies to Durova, it's entirely unnecessary. She's an "Administrators open to recall" whose set her limit at 5 users. The count that have requested recall/desysop now stands at I believe 20+, so a new RFA is a certainty.

To file an Arbcom case now, demanding a forcible desysop, is to Assume Bad Faith, in essence "expecting her to reneg on her recall promise". There is no reason whatsoever to suspect this-- she'll agree to a new RFA, and in all likelyhood she'll pass it too. I'd suggest withdrawing the RFAr, or at least withdrawing her from it.

Having now read what purports to be a legitimate copy of "Durova's Sekret Evidence"-- it seems this behavior allegedly goes well beyond just Durova. There may be no cabal, but supposedly there is a secrete mailing list, with a secret membership list, used to clandestinely coordinate actions. I have no idea if the allegations are true, but somebody around here better get to the bottom of this. --Alecmconroy (talk) 13:47, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by WAS 4.250

Issues

1. Mistakes that cause disruption - People make mistakes that cause disruption. How much disruption is allowed before we say that regardless of your motives, you are bad for the project? Does the answer differ for admin vs. non-admin. I suggest that the answer boils down to "Are they a net asset or liability?" The problem with this answer is that it depends on the POV of the person answering; example: do they support your edits?
2. Investigation of editors - There is currently a fierce fight to allow admins to investigate non-admins, but to condemn investigation of admins or investigation by non-admins. Accountability is important, as is privacy; but the two values conflict.
3. Assume good faith - The super secret technique consisted of nothing other than assuming bad faith and demanding good faith belief in unseen evidence that turned out to be totally different than it was described as being. This is where the current war against WR has led.
4. Cover-up - Information material to the evaluation of what actually happened was deleted and suppressed. Investigation into the so-called "complex investigation" has been decried as unneeded and mere drama; while the faulty investigation into innocent people has been held up as useful and necessary.
5. Meat puppets attacking editors - Off site co-ordination between people of investigation into real life identities for the purpose of attacking them (defamation and blocking) and resulting in their outing is something shared by WR and the admins involved in this affair. Must we become the enemy to defeat them? WAS 4.250 (talk) 13:50, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by east718

I feel that this an unually divisive dispute within the community, and encourage the arbitrators to accept this case. The issues of admin-user parity and confidential evidence are also worth examining, despite the existence of a workable policy that is in development to address the latter. east.718 at 14:18, November 24, 2007

Statement by uninvolved party Hu12

I suggest either a voluntary withdrawal, or that ArbCom consider closing this case without prejudice in light of remedies already in progress. This really should serve as a last step in resolution, and having this case concurrent with the active RFC may be unproductive and possibly unnecessary.--Hu12 (talk) 14:30, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Jehochman

1. Dmcdevit expressed his concerns to me privately just two days ago. I agreed with him, and then took action under the good faith presumption that Dmcdevit was correct. He is not aware of this yet, but I have stopped taking advice from Durova, my former admin coach. In fact, I have accepted User:Physchim62's offer to provide new admin training. You will notice in my recent logs that I have been spending time at CAT:CSD. That is the first step prescribed to me.
2. The block of DreamGuy was supported by evidence. In fact, the unblock request was denied by User:Adam Cuerden who stated, "Plenty of evidence that trouble has been caused by this user." I don't think DreamGuy needs to be litigated because I have recused myself from further dealings with him. Durova was not the least bit involved in this incident, nor was this an "investigation". I originally became involved because DreamGuy asked me for protection from people who were harassing him. In that role, I could not turn a blind eye when Arcayne presented evidence of bad behavior by DreamGuy.
3. I was neither involved in "investigating" nor blocking !!. After seeing comments on ANI, I contacted Majorly to learn what had happened, and then immediately told Durova to unblock !!.
4. As for the IP 24 matter that was being handled privately, a settlement was mediated by User:WJBscribe. He told me that he was reporting to Arbcom.
5. I am the one who requested oversighting of the private email. "These four deleted revisions contain a copy of a user email that was posted to the site without permission. The author asked me to request oversight." Posting a lengthy letter without permission of the author is an obvious copyright violation. Copyright violation is one of the stated reasons for oversight.

Thank you for your consideration. - Jehochman 14:34, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by JzG

The list of parties is rather too small. Durova made an error, for which she apologised, unblocked the editor, and said she would learn from it and not do it again. The reason the dispute has run this long is that some people seem unwilling to accept anything less than harsh punitive action.

It's not completely clear here what the supposed role of Jehochman was in this - I was on the original list to which Durova mailed her suspicions, and Jehochman was not. Of course I should have looked into it and told her she was wrong. My bad.

One thing is abundantly clear: User:MyWikiBiz (Grgory Kohs) wants Durova and Jehochman out of the market. He is a competitor in the field of talking about Misplaced Pages, SEO and conflict of interest. His perspective is not quite the same as that of the average Misplaced Pages - which is why he's banned, I guess - and he has pursued a concerted campaign, with the able assistance of several Wikipedians who should know better, to damage Jehochman and Durova. Attempts to promote Kohs' theory caused significant escalation of the dispute.

Durova made a mistake, apologised, says she will learn from it, her reputation has taken a serious hit, she looks (and feels) very foolish, and I really fail to see what more needs to be done here. Do we need a blanket prohibition on admins privately discussing things? If so you'll need to shut down IRC. That may or may not be bad. Sometimes a second or third opinion is worth having. Guy (Help!) 14:51, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Dtobias

Guy's line about people being "unwilling to accept anything less than harsh punitive action" is amusing given that he is one of the more outspoken members of a faction that is all for "harsh punitive action" when it's aimed at those they see as The Enemy. To them, the main goal of our community is no longer to build an encyclopedia; it's to fight an open-ended War on Trolls, which is Misplaced Pages's answer to the outside society's War on Terror. Like in that other war, civil liberties should be considered a quaint old-fashioned notion that should be sacrificed to security (as defined and perceived by the rulers). If a few innocent people get harmed in the process, that's an acceptable loss; we must keep vigorously rooting out the evil conspiracy undermining Misplaced Pages, no matter how much conspiring and undermining we need to do in order to achieve that. Let's destroy the village in order to save it! *Dan T.* (talk) 15:02, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Wikidemo (uninvolved)

Regarding the appropriateness and scope of the case:

I'm not sure exactly what ArbCom is being asked to decide. Private "investigations" that don't use administrative tools are anybody's prerogative. That's just browsing Misplaced Pages and we're all free to do that. The question is what one does with the information, and how one goes about doing it. I see three related issues for ArbCom. First, it's an ArbCom choice whether to accept evidence from her or anyone else, what the rules and limits may be on investigative techniques, whether the information may be secret, and whether there will be a rule on it or simply an ad-hoc decision in each case on what evidence to consider. It's a fair request (but one that does not necessarily compel an answer, and that does not require a case for an answer) that ArbCom clarify or justify its position. A second question is whether an individual administrator should be allowed to act on secret evidence that she herself has gathered or if there should be a firewall, with a neutral uninvolved administrator reviewing the evidence and making decisions on it. Or perhaps it could be simply disallowed to use secret evidence as the basis of a block or ban except through ArbCom or some other body. I have my opinions on this but it seems premature to argue them now. I don't think ArbCom is the right forum for deciding administrators' blocking policy. That is a matter for the ordinary policy consensus process, and indeed there is already a proposed policy for use of secret evidence. Third and finally, Durova has been accused of misjudgment but not misbehavior. It is undisputed that she has caught a number of persistent trolls and sockpuppets this way, and also undisputed that she has made some mistakes. There does not seem to be a policy in place though. It does not seem reasonable to sanction her for violating a rule that does not yet exist so if ArbCom believes her past error rate or methods to be inappropriate, the only viable choice would seem to be laying out the rules and assuming she will follow them. Also, to the extent de-sysopping is proposed as a remedy Durova has already agreed to stand for recall, and we should follow that process before (and probably to the exclusion of) an ArbCom review of her adminship. Wikidemo (talk) 14:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Lar

Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Durova is listed as a prior step that has been tried. But that RfC hasn't even been properly certified yet (in my opinion anyway), and has hardly gotten to any consensus about what transpired or what should be done yet. Durova has stated running a proper RfC as a precondition to her recall, which some (including some parties to this case) have been requesting. Normally we wait for these things to get to resolution don't we? But perhaps matters are extraordinary. Are we to assume that if this RfAr goes forward, that RfC becomes moot (and I'm off the hook from trying to "clerk" it as Durova has requested I do)? Or is there a desire that it run first, run concurrently? What is the committee's pleasure in this? ++Lar: t/c 14:59, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Jossi

The community has responded to these issues already by creating Misplaced Pages:Confidential evidence. A better use of editors' time would be to focus on a constructive endeavor as upgrading that page to official policy, rather than spending a month in an ArbCom case. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:34, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Doc

Durova has been a fool - and is a patently incompetent "sleuth". But it doesn't need an arbcom case to establish that - it is an undisputed fact. And what possible remedy is there? Remedies are preventative, so the remedy should be to "de-sleuth" Durova: no more blocks from this admin unless there's a transparent reason. However, that remedy is effectively already in place. You need credibility to block someone for less than clear reasons - otherwise the block will be lifted in 10 seconds. Durova has no credibility left in this department - so there's no chance of future damage here. We have had a bad gaffe, but we have had an apology, and can be confident that this can't happen (from this admin) again. What more is there? (Except a baying for blood?)

If this case is taken though, I'd like arbcom to consider making a definitive statement on the posting of private e-mails. No remedies - just a statement for going forward.--Doc 15:55, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Mercury

She apologized, and pledged not to do it again. I'm not sure what more could be done. However, I do urge the committee to accept this case to look as the user conduct of all involved. That is to say, there are some things that were done on wiki in response to the incident that were not acceptable. If it takes arbitration to remind us all what acceptable conduct it, then let us do this. This arbitration should not be limited to named parties.

Clerk notes

Recuse from any clerk activity in this case (because of my participation in the original ANI thread concerning User:!!). Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:07, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (5/0/0/0)

• Accept. James F. (talk) 14:04, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
• Accept. There are several issues here which need looking into. Paul August ☎ 14:26, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
• Accept. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 14:44, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
• Accept. FloNight♥♥♥ 14:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
• Accept. Kirill 16:10, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero

Initiated by Rubén Mar (talk) at 11:46, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Rubén Mar (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Zape82 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Varano (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

I´ve notified both user via their discussion pages.

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

I´ve discussed the issues with Zape82 and Verano without reasonable responses or explanations that are factual. I´ve also raised the issue with an editor that commented on the issue; no resolution.

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero shows the history of edits and comments. Juzgados de Violencia sobre la Mujer (Courts for Violence against Women) is being deleted by Varano and so all the history comments are not visible. The mirror site in English is Spanish Courts for Violence against Women.

Statement by User:Rubén mar

This issue relates to both Spanish and English sites of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, in which Zape82 is refusing to allow inclusion of the issue of the crisis in the Constitutional Tribunal that occured as a result of Zapatero´s policies and is very widely documented in the Spanish press, and the Spanish site of Juzgados de Violencia sobre la Mujer, in which Verano has been deleting the site since I included the public remarks made by the president of the Constitutional Tribunal which are highly critical of Zapatero´s government.

Zape82 is claiming there is no adequate source mentioned, but I´ve included a link to the article published by ABC News, which is repeated across the media - El Mundo, El pais, etc. He says the comment is a "rant" when it is well known fact. He also tried the same tactic with the English site "Spanish Courts for Violence against Women" last month, saying it was a rant and unsourced, but other editors decided he was wrong and refused his deletion request. Zape82 has said he is a political science professional/ex-student based in Madrid.

Verano has been deleting the site Juzgados de Violencia sobre la Mujer, and I´ve not seen any normal voting process take place. At first he was putting the comment "plagiarism", and then after I removed the directly quoted press item I had added, is now just deleting the site without specific comment, and has so far failed to explain what the problem is; this started only since I added the recent well publicised comments made by the president of the Constitutional Tribunal which are highly critical of the current government.

I hope that Misplaced Pages articles would reflect current information that is balanced and not politically biased, as such, as there is currently a major crisis in the Constitutional Tribunal, which it´s president has stated is caused by political actions and manipulation of the current government without "reflection to judicial regulations", and given that she said its the most severe crisis affronting the Tribunal in its history, I think its relevant information, especially as if the Tribunal is allowed (its currently blocked by the politicians´ challenges to 5 of its members) to release its report on the constitutionality of the laws passed by Zapatero´s government, there really will be a crisis, and people need to know - well, that´s if you believe in democracy of course!

Statement by User:Zape82

• As per my talk page I have not received any communication.
• Claims edited by Rubén Mar regarding the Spanish law and politics, are unencyclopaedic and in many cases even delusional. Most of the edits done by this user are poorly edited and in many cases they are visually hurting (ie. excessive use of bold letters). And highly non NPOV, trying to use WP as forum or a loudspeaker for his intentions or political ideology. On the other hand as i said in Talk:José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero the CGPJ crisis is no caused by this editors claims but by the ending of the mandate of it's members, crisis that has affected the CGPJ designated members of the Constitutional Court of Spain.
• Independently of any ideology I contribute to the English WP mainly for a good understanding of the Spanish politics and polity, with >500 edits all trying to keep neutral and encyclopaedic on the issues related, User:Rubén Mar is far from this purpose.
• As stated by arbitrator Kirill it's a content dispute.

--Zape82 (talk) 19:17, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Varano:

Statement by uninvolved party SqueakBox

Please speedily reject I was a central figure in the last Zapatero dispute (completely different) and still watch the article, hence my amazement to see this. Since Oct 1st there has been one comment on the talk page, by Zape82 and one has to ask, why go to arbcom before using the talk page. This looks like a complaint that needs discussing on the Zapatero talk page and thus should be speedily rejected by arbcom as way premature. Thanks, SqueakBox 08:01, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Clerk notes

(This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/6/0/0)

• Reject, content dispute. Kirill 13:49, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
• Reject, content. --jpgordon 22:53, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
• Reject, content dispute. FloNight♥♥♥ 13:02, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
• Decline, content dispute. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 04:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
• Reject. James F. (talk) 14:09, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
• Decline. Paul August ☎ 15:06, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

MONGO 2

Initiated by Viridae at 03:41, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Involved parties

• MONGO (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Viridae (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Dtobias (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Alecmconroy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Amarkov (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• SchmuckyTheCat (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Krimpet (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Tom harrison (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Crum375 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Spryde (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Thomas Basboll (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• GTBacchus (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• MONGO:
• Dtobias:
• GTBacchus:
• Alecmconroy:
• Amarkov
• SchmuckyTheCat
• Krimpet
• Tom harrison
• Crum375
• Spryde
• Thomas Basboll
• GTBacchus

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/MONGO
• Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for arbitration/Seabhcan
• Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/SevenOfDiamonds
• Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/MONGO 2
• Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/MONGO 3
• WT:NPA

Statement by Viridae

Personal attacks

There has been recent disputes at WP:NPA over whether a section on external links is appropriate or necessary. There are people who are passionately arguing both sides, which I believe (despite accusations otherwise by commenters on the RfC) to be a good thing. However what is not good is the massive amount of personal attacks from MONGO, largely dismissing people’s opinions because they are either members of either The Misplaced Pages Review or Enclopedia Dramatica. MONGO has a history of this kind of behaviour. Approximately a year ago MONGO was desysopped by arbcom. As part of their findings of the arbcom stated “In many instances he has reacted inappropriately to such harassment and events, freely characterizing opponents in a derogatory manner…” This behaviour continues to this day. He has disparaged his opponents for perceived biases:

• “the only dispute is by those who contribute to WR”
• "revert, known ED contributor"
• "rv another ED contributor..."
• “so it certainly is a disgusting COI when partiticipants in those websites try and argue against not being able to link to them”
• “OH...hahahahaha! I don't participant in a website that is a capricious pile of shit like WR...you do! Yet you oppose banning links to it...okay...well, shucks golly gee...surely that's not a COI...surely.”

This is despite WP:NPA stating “Using someone's affiliations as a means of dismissing or discrediting their views -- regardless of whether said affiliations are mainstream or extreme.” and “Insulting or disparaging an editor is a personal attack regardless of the manner in which it is done.”

After all this, Alec started an RfC in an attempt to resolve the situation (linked above) which MONGO has refused to participate in, stating “I won't be party to your Rfc...I see it as blatant harassmen". In addition to MONGOs rejection of appropriate dispute resolution, those people that certified the RfC were accused of: being vindictive (Guy), harassing him (Guy, Crum375 three times, DHeyward, Slim Virgin), using the dispute resolution process to gain leverage in the NPA dispute (Addhoc), baiting him (rogerd), using the RfC to create drama (DHeyward). There is no alternative but arbitration, all avenues have been exhausted. MONGO has a history of uncivil behaviour that is well known on the project, and is constantly being enabled by others who are often equally uncivil. I do not wish to see MONGO banned as part of this arbcom, I simply want to be able to discuss the NPA policies in an adult manner without being constantly attacked.

Related edit warring

After a massive amount of edit warring (eleven reverts over four days) including 3 sets of three reverts on three different days by MONGO as part of a massive 27 reverts (if I have counted correctly) from the 17th of October when the policy page was unprotected to the 22nd of October when I re-protected and including one 24 hours period of protection. This means that over a third of those reverts were performed by MONGO.

This part of the dispute can be detailed if necessary, or sent to a member of Arbcom if they would prefer.

Please note that this abr request has been limited to the very recent behaviour surrounding one issue. If the arbitrators felt it to be more appropriate it could be expanded to cover all the incivility and personal attacks since the last arbitration case, for which he has been constantly taken to task with no visible change in behaviour (as evinced by the most recent bout). Viridae 03:58, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Clarification for the committee RE

Drama

This is the last point in the dispute resolution process. If you reject this it will erupt elsewhere at a later stage, such is the history of MONGO's interactions with the community. MONGO has been found to be uncivil and prone to overreaction and personal attacks by arbcom since the case in which he was desysopped in 2006. If this gets rejected, there is nowhere for it to go. A large subset of the community showed extremely bad faith inthe RfC, which voiced legitimate concerns. This won't increase drama, it will put it to rest. Viridae 20:22, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by GTBacchus

I would prefer not to be a party to this request. I have no dispute with MONGO, and I think things are working out (albeit very slowly) over at WT:NPA. I thank Viridae for his good-faith efforts, and I may have comments along the way, should the arbitration be accepted, but I don't see any reason for me to be a named party.

As far as the complaint in this case, it's entirely related to one content dispute over at Misplaced Pages:No personal attacks. I think we can work out the content dispute without the need for arbitration, if there's enough will to do that, and if we can put aside all of the name-calling and accusations of bad-faith. I guess whether or not ArbCom should take the case depends on the size of those two ifs. -GTBacchus 04:10, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Addendum from GTBacchus

I notice the assertion being made below that people who contribute to certain websites are "trying to weaken our external links policy", or that people are "working to allow external links to certain sites". As far as I can tell, that's false. Under the "weakest" version of the policy being considered, linking to harassment is still unacceptable and easy to deal with. Under the "strongest" version of the policy being considered, it will still be true that ad hominem arguments will be bad ideas that tend to increase drama. Whenever I've pointed out that we can still block people under the "weak" policy, or that abusive purges will still be disruption under the "strong" policy, I've either been ignored, or told that people will wikilawyer (as if that's going to be prevented by a cleverly worded policy). The fact that we don't have to put up with wikilawyering is of course ignored.

It's not a policy problem, but a behavior problem, and thus those seeking a policy solution from either side are taking a misguided approach.

I'd just as soon stay out, but if I have to be a party to this case to insure that these points aren't missed, then so be it. -GTBacchus 21:03, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Second addendum from GTBacchus

I've changed my mind. Arbitrators, please take this case. I'd like to add myself to the list of people requesting that you issue some kind of decision regarding the conflicts being played out at WT:NPA. The community is trying to work out the content dispute, but the effort is continually derailed by the failure of editors involved to understand that civility is mandatory - that we can't get work done without it, and that's why it's a rule. ArbCom has got to be clear on this point, that it is simply not okay to insult other editors on the wiki. This cannot be contingent on whether you're right, or a better Wikipedian, or anything.

Please ArbCom, do something to clarify that we do not tolerate a culture of personal attacks, but that we insist on showing class and dignity in all of our dealings. Tolerance of gross incivility is hurting the encyclopedia. Influential Wikipedians are being allowed to set bad examples, leading to increased incivility all over the project. We would love to just use reason to convince people to work cooperatively, but that's going to take forever at the rate we're going. Please take the case. -GTBacchus 02:08, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Alecmconroy

To add to what has been said above:

This cases is NOT about a policy dispute. The policy dispute over BADSITES is being resolved through the normal consensus building process, and there have been major strides in that direction. Arbcom is not being asked to settle the policy dispute-- the community is working on it, and will continue to. Though I don't know what the finished product will look like, I have confidence the community will be able to reach a consensus any content/policy disputes are under discussion. Indeed, two weeks ago, it had APPEARED we had reached consensus-- so clearly, the policy dispute resolution is coming along fine.

This case IS about a specific pattern of behavior by a singe user, MONGO, which is longstanding, disruptive, and frankly, deeply upsetting. MONGO has a documented history of engaging in disruptive and incivil behavior. This is a pattern has has, regrettably, continued.

Mongo continues to engage in disruptive editing. He repeatedly (19 times!) reinserted his own controversial views into Misplaced Pages Policy pages, without achieving any consensus for them. He continues to sling personal insults, making a habit of "commenting on the contributor, rather than the content" and attempting to "use others' affiliations (often imagined affiliations) to discredit ideas". With me personally, he continue to falsely imply or suggest that I have some connection to the website "Encyclopedia Dramatica", despite my frequent insistence that, outside of the Misplaced Pages policy dispute, I have no connection to the site whatsoever. I do not support the site, I do not approve of the site, I do not edit the site, and except in my capacity of a Misplaced Pages editor, I have never even READ the site.

I've tried everything I can think of to bring his behavior to a stop, nothing has worked.

• We've discussed MONGO's behavior extensively, in multiple different forums.
• I've personally, sincerely, and repeatedly apologized to him for any times that I've inadvertently upset him, hoping what would solve the problem of MONGO's behavior.
• I intentionally did not present any evidence about MONGO's behavior problems in the Attack Sites Case, hoping that after clarification from Arbcom, MONGO'S problematic behavior would cease.
• I wrote an essay urging the cessation of personal attacks in the policy dispute, hoping that would end the problem of MONGO's behavior.
• Along with others, I filed an RFC on MONGO's behavior in the hopes that that would settle the issue. Regrettably, most of the responses seemed to agree that the RFC was unlikely to solve the situation and that this should go forward to ArbCom.

I know we all loathe yet another case related to this matter, but I don't know what else to do. --Alecmconroy (talk) 14:17, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Addendum

For those who oppose Arbcom taking the case now, let me ask: when SHOULD we come back with a case?

Mongo has, without consensus and usually without discussion, readded his proposal to the policy page NINETEEN times, over SIX months:

No matter what anyone thinks of the merits of his proposal, we all agree that policies pages should only contain text that already has achieved consensus. Nineteen attempts to circumvent consensus, combined with rampant incivility, is a problem.

I think it's a problem that needs to be stopped immediately. But a couple people, who I truly do respect, suggest it's not yet a problem that Arbcom needs to solve.

So I'd ask this: If nineteen controversial reinsertions-into-policy without consensus isn't a problem Arbcom should look into, tell me just how many reinsertions MONGO should get before it does becomes such a problem, so I'll know when to come back. 20 reverts? 25 reverts? 30? 40? 50?

On the personal attacks-- Mongo is frequently incivil. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least SIX different long-term editors who MONGO has personally attacked: GTBACCHUS, Gentgee, Luna Santin, Me, DanT, and Viridae. I'm sure there are many more. Now if attacking six different editors isn't enough to constitute a problem worth Arbcom looking into, tell me just how users MONGO can personally attack before it IS a problem worth Arbcom looking into, such that I'll know when to come back. 10 users attacked? 15 users attacked? 20? 30?

I'm not trying to cause trouble, I swear. We all wish we could just not deal with the situation and hope it would get better. But this incivility and disruption has been going on for, I'm told, nearly two years, and we have to face it sooner or later. Today's as good a day as any.--Alecmconroy (talk) 19:41, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Addendum 2

I'm deeply confused by the belief, uttered people who know far more than I do, that avoiding this case will result in less drama. I firmly believe MONGO's problems are far beyond any one specific policy dispute. If the NPA policy debate were to reach consensus today, tommorow, or two weeks ago--- would that really be the end of MONGO's incivility towards others? (me included)

If you really think dodging for a time will resolve the situation, that's okay-- ya'll should know best. But speaking for myself, I don't understand the logic. Dodging the case now is just putting off the inevitable. Until we, as a community, succeed in communicating some firm boundaries to MONGO, I believe his behavior will continue unabated.

Looking at this situation in the LONG term-- if we want decrease drama, we should deal with underlying disease (incivility & personal attacks) , rather than fixating on particular symptom of that disease (NPA dispute).

As the old saying goes-- it's easier to put on slippers than to carpet the whole world. There will never be any shortage of people who MONGO finds himself in conflict with. His pattern began long before the NPA dispute ever occured, and unless we can find a way to communicate with him, I'm suspect his incivility will continue long after the NPA dispute is over. --Alecmconroy (talk) 18:20, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

And in fairness-- if I am the problem, that argument still holds. If I really am SO completely off-base that I'm the one causing all the problems but am just too blind to see it-- well, if that reallly were the case, ya'll might as well deal with me sooner rather than later. --Alecmconroy (talk) 18:27, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Addendum 3

Mongo has now added Spryde, Thomas Basboll, and admin Krimpet as parties in this dispute. None of these parties have ever edits NPA. (Although Krimpet has protected NPA). This should be a strong single that this dispute goes way beyond a mere NPA policy dispute, but instead involves a longstanding pattern of disruptive and incivil behavior. --Alecmconroy (talk) 23:17, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

How is MONGO not a problem that merits going through the dispute resolution process? His pattern goes far beyond any specific incident. Consider this edit in which he engaged in personal attacks and racial (or national) stereotyping) when he made an revert with the summary revert vandalism by anon IP, soon ot end up blocked...shoul we belive than an editor from Brunei Darussalam is not anti-American? I think not. Such despicable personal attacks are going to cause endless drama until they are dealtwith. MONGO IS going to Arbcom-- he can go today in this case, or he can go in some future case, but there is a problem here-- a big one. --Alecmconroy (talk) 22:31, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Tom Harrison

I don't see the need for this. With progress being made now on the talk page, this is more likely to stir things up again. Tom Harrison 04:33, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

If the committee does accept this, I hope they consider the behavior of everyone involved, including conflict of interest and the use of admin tools. I rely on anyone unable to do that to recuse himself. Tom Harrison 16:12, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Amarkov

The question is not if opening this case will cause drama. It will. But refusing to accept it, when people on both sides are begging Arbcom to step in and stop it, is stupid. -Amarkov moo! 17:50, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment by Newyorkbrad

I would certainly like to see an immediate and substantial de-escalation of rhetoric by several editors involved in the attack-page links/NPA controversy, which has received, by this point, a completely disproportionate amount of attention. Unless I am missing something, though, there seems to be a de facto consensus as to how most of these links are being handled in practice at the moment, while discussion of wording of formal policy language continues. While I respect the good faith of the filing party, I don't see opening another arbitration case at this stage as likely to assist with any aspect of the problem. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:43, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

In response to Dorftrotel, I will point out that if the case is accepted, the selection of a casename by the case clerk (which wouldn't be me) is just a shorthand identification for the case and does not limit the scope of the Arbitration Committee's review. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:32, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by SchmuckyTheCat

This is not about content (in the form of the NPA policy) it is about user behavior. Unfortunately, because multiple other admins are very vocal in their support of this user, no other admins are willing to address the behavior.

The only thing Arbcom needs to do is make a clear, and enforceable, statement that MONGO will be held to the same standard as every other Misplaced Pages editor. The "special rules for MONGO" have been well known for at least two years now. Time to end it.

There are two bad behaviors here:

1. Incivility and personal attacks by MONGO. That MONGO has been incivil and makes personal attacks has been the basis of previous Arbcom cases; has been a side issue in other Arbcom cases; and has been the issue in several rejected cases. MONGO continues to be incivil and make personal attacks. Blocks on MONGO based on his behavior have been the basis of wheel warring by admins. Contrary to discussion on the failed RfC, MONGO has not been baited or provoked (which does not excuse it anyway).
2. Edit warring, lack of discussion and ignorance of consensus by MONGO. MONGO's edit warring on the NPA page has gotten it protected multiple times. He has clearly gamed 3RR in his revert warring. He made a voluntary commitment to 1RR then broke it at the next opportunity. When discussion on the page turned towards a consensus to a minimal statement MONGO made no objection. MONGO then inserted a much longer statement against the emerged consensus without any discussion - and of course edit warred to keep it. I'm sure other editors could provide evidence (and may already have) of this behavior.

The first is an indisputable part of the Arbcom records. The second doesn't seem to be disputed either, when it is brought up his supporters simply talk past it and/or blame the other parties. But how many different parties have attempted ANI discussion, or RfC, or RFAR with MONGO? It's ALWAYS the other party.

Rebuttal of Tom Harrison

First, this is not about content, it is about user behavior. What actually happens on that policy page is an entire side issue. Second, any progress being made on the talk page is for appearances only, as we have seen multiple times. The NPA policy page gets protected by edit warring. The talk page becomes active and the BADSITES crowd says they can work together. The page gets unprotected. Everyone else says "we think this minimal statement provides all we need" and nobody disagrees. The BADSITES crowd stops talking. A week later MONGO places an entire new section into the policy without any previous discussion. The BADSITES crowd revert wars to maintain it with no talk page discussion. The page is re-protected. This cycle has now occurred multiple times and there is no evidence the cycle will not continue if the bad behavior of edit warring and ignorance of previous discussion is allowed to continue.

Comment to Newyorkbrad

This arbcom filing is unlikely to assist with any aspect of the problem if the problem is seen as the NPA policy page revert war. That is not the problem, the problem is MONGO's continued incivility and insults to other users, and edit warring and lack of discussion for his version of content. Arbcom would do well to ignore the battleground where this is occurring and focus on the behavior of those involved. The actual content can resolve itself when bad behavior is addressed.

SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Statement by Dorftrottel

Let me just say that if this case is accepted, I hope the focus will include the actions of all involved users. That's why I also think the title of this request is a bit unfortunate, to say the least. |dorftrottel |humor me 18:41, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by MONGO

I am hoping that the arbitration committee will indeed examine all parties. I am considering adding one or two more names to this case in the next 24 hours. As far as some other comments here...yes, I do think we are nearing a more adequate wording on the NPA policy in the wording primarily regarding external links, and no, I'm not engaged in any subterfuge in conversations there. I have made it clear that I do not believe that a few websites need to be linked to, but have stated that I also understand that the prolinks or WP:LINKLOVE crowd will not permit that to be acceptable in wording. I understand some, such as Alecmconroy, have long argued, for over a year now that we should link to almost everything, and I can understand his reasoning for that, but I don't agree with it and have stated this plainly. A few days ago, I added a new wording to the NPA page that didn't mention anything about websites...it mentioned only links to harassment...I then posted a short comment on the NPA talkpage and have been engaged (as I have been for some time, though not everyday) in ongoing discussions there. I then did one revert back to my version after I was reverted...so no, I did not violate my self imposed 1RR restriction on that page. I also want to state that some, but certainly not all WP:LINKLOVE advocates are participants in websites that have been known to engage in less than useful critique of our contributors. I see this as a COI when they then make arguments in favor of linking. Others have stated that they feel I may be overreactionary due to my previous (and ongoing, mind you) harassment by one website in particular and/or previously banned editors...and that I also have a COI whenever I discuss such matters...maybe this is the case, I do not know...I do try to remain clear headed as much as possible on this matter, though it may not always appear that way. My primary purpose on this website is to write and enhance our articles and I have proven that numerous times. I do get involved in several other issues as they arise, but there are generally peripheral to my main focus. I have been called on to help work on difficult areas and those areas do have a tendency to draw out the worst in all of us.--MONGO (talk) 20:53, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I would just like to add that Alecmconroy is a very problematic editor, who has repeatedly threatened me with being banned from this website...as if HE has that authority. The level of harassment I have had to endure at the hands of this editor needs to be examined. He has called me a liar repeatedly, has badgered me about the ED website links I removed, and has mischaracterized my contributions and commentary. He has been dead set on "getting me" for some time, and I am tired of it. I hope that the committee allows him to get his chance, and also allows me to demostrate what kind of editor would make so many wild accusations, threats and insults as Alecmconroy has. This needs to stop. Viridae has abused his admin tools repeatedly and has a number of other violations I can evidence. He is a contributor to wikipedia review and has argued in favor of linking to websites that attack our contributors...that is a COI. SchumckyTheCat has been engaged in a long standing effort to get back at me stemming from old disagreements we had regarding the article that used to exist on ED. He is an admitted ED administrator who has a serious conflict of interest by arguing about linking to websites that attack our contributors....that is a COI. Thomas Basboll is a single purpose account who has, slowly and to our detriment, worked to minimize factual evidence regarding the events surrounding 9/11/2001 and cautiously worded articles to try and minimize the known evidence. He has been a in a long standing feud with me, has filed a RFC and attempted an arbitration case against me in the past, but it was declined. I hope the committee permits him to have his day in court and I hope they examine my evidence of his misuse of the dispute resolution process to gain an advantage in an editing dispute, as well as his ongoing mischaracterizations and POV pushing. Krimpet is a problematic administrator who, after tossing an overly hostile block warning my way, blocked me for the excessive amount of 72 hours solely because I removed her warning from my talkpage...there are other issues regarding this editor that also need to be examined, and the abuse of admin tools I have found as well.--MONGO (talk) 23:04, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by JzG

There are, in my view, several parts to this dispute.

• The continued pursuit of MONGO by a small group of detractors.
• The constant rehashing of BADSITES, even where the proposal in play is clearly a compromise and not a hard-line anti link position
• An element of "We disagree with this editor but he won't shut up"
• A failure of some presumably well-intentioned people to understand the real effects of harassment (see Dan's "rutabaga" comment in the attack sites arbitration)
• A goodly dollop of trolling from single-purpose accounts and sockpuppets of sundry undesirables
• The continued pursuit of MONGO by a small group of detractors.

Especially the first and the last. I'd say that the anti-BADSITES people have developed a siege mentality and are having difficulty breaking out of it. Not too surprising.

It's not unreasonable to describe Miltopia as an ED contributor - he was. He's also banned for disruption, in case we all forgot. The fact that he was so adept at pushing MONGO's buttons was a good part of that. Perhaps if people stopped pushing MONGO's buttons, life might be a little quieter?

Nineteen edits over six months? Slightly below one a week? Not exactly a fast burning edit war, and the edits are not all the same. I'd say that with a bit more patience a consensus will be reached, but I am an optimist.

But here is a question: what should we do about people who, by sheer obduracy, cause others to lose their temper? Guy (Help!) 23:22, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Bigtimepeace

I have had nothing to do with the WP:NPA debate, the BADSITES debate, ED, or Misplaced Pages Review. I have had past experience with MONGO and observed some of the editing patterns outlined by other users above. As I have argued before, MONGO has made very large contributions to this project which should not be forgotten or ignored. There are, however, also severe problems with his behavior that come up repeatedly in forum after forum (ArbCom, RFC's, AN/I) and are pointed out by a significant number of editors in good standing. The issue is not, as JzG argues rather cheekily, the "continued pursuit of MONGO by a small group of detractors" anymore than it is the "continued defense of MONGO by a mid-sized group of supporters" (likewise while I agree it would be nice if fewer people pushed MONGO's buttons, it would also be nice if MONGO had fewer buttons to push). The issue is MONGO's persistent incivility--something which, I think, very few people deny. That incivility is sometimes directed at users who are admittedly quite problematic and sometimes directed at perfectly legitimate users with whom he disagrees. Whatever the cause and whoever is on the receiving end, his behavior is a significant distraction from writing the encyclopedia and a clear violation of a core policy which applies to all users regardless of the extent and value of their past contributions (both of which are, again, very significant in MONGO's case).

In an unrelated ArbCom case which closed exactly one month ago, evidence was presented which seemed to clearly demonstrate a problematic pattern of incivility on MONGO's part. Perhaps because it was deemed tangential to the central question of whether or not another user was violating a ban (or because the evidence was presented by said user, who was indeed violating a ban), the committee chose not to directly address the issue of MONGO's behavior, which is the only reason I bring it up here. Unsurprisingly, the problem has come up once more in a completely different part of the encyclopedia involving completely different users. I would hope that the committee deals with the issue now, lest it crop up yet again in one, two, or six months.

Because I'm familiar with it I have confined my comment to MONGO's behavior, but of course it goes without saying that the behavior of other editors in this dispute may well warrant equal scrutiny--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 04:50, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Durova

I do not endorse brusque behavior by any editor. That said, Viridae's request for arbitration largely hinges on a questionable interpretation of WP:NPA. Surely that policy is not intended as a cudgel to silence legitimate WP:COI concerns. There is a commonsense problem when editors from two websites that host blatant insults of Wikipedians engage in a long term campaign to weaken Misplaced Pages's external linking policy, then utilize their preferred policy version to link to insulting material of little or no encyclopedic value. Although the principle of free expression gained some broader support during the BADSITES discussions, that principle ceases to drive their reasoning when the question turns to free expression for MONGO. What takes its place is a very hard line WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA applied with a selectivity that demonstrates genuine chutzpah. If the Committee accepts this case I urge the examination of all involved parties' conduct. Durova 08:02, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

With regard to Thatcher's comments, in my eyes it's less a matter of whether certain individuals actually create such links themselves and more a contrast of the extremely lenient WP:NPA scope they extend toward those who do, versus the extremely stringent WP:NPA interpretation they advance regarding those who oppose the practice. It simply isn't tenable to endorse inconsistent policy interpretations that ensure one person gets baited, then hold him solely responsible for taking the bait. Taking bait is wrong, no question about that. So is the creation of an unequal playing field. Durova 20:25, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Thatcher131

Indeed, Viridae's quotation from WP:NPA stands in direct opposition to the Conflict of interest guidelines. If we consider the external affiliations of editors who make content edits that violate the principles of neutrality, verifiability, and so on, then can't we also consider the external affiliations of editors who make policy changes that are driven by those affiliations? That said, if this case is accepted I would like to see evidence that Viridae and Dtobias actually have introduced harassing links under the umbrella of their preferred version of the links policy, as opposed to assertions that they intend to do so. Thatcher131 12:37, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Crum375

I was added to this RfArb despite minimal involvement, but here is my perspective. From what I can tell, there are some admins and contributors from vicious attack sites that regularly engage in attacking, harassing, and attempted outing of Misplaced Pages editors. That these individuals are actually allowed to edit on this site is unacceptable to me, as their promotion of their external attacks clearly violates WP:NPA and WP:COI. They appear to have taken charge as a group of WP:NPA, and prohibit any change in its language to inhibit linking to the material on their attack sites, as a form of harassing our editors here. They also regularly bait User:Mongo, who has been viciously attacked by one of their sites in the past, and who is valiantly trying to hold off their gradual dilution of the NPA policy. This situation is appalling, requires action, and I hope ArbCom can act to bring it to an end. Crum375 (talk) 16:03, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Spryde

My involvement in this case stems from my participation in the NPA discussion and more specifically, the external links debate about what language should be included. I admittedly came late to the "party" but I immediately saw something wrong with the language that was trying to be inserted into the paragraph (this was, and still is, my opinion until all my questions are answered in a straight forward manner). I had a problem with the content and no issue with any particular editor. I stayed out of the debate until I saw the attacks based on "who" was inserting "what" instead of "what". The core part of NPA and we state it boldly at the top of the page is "Comment on the content, not the contributor." and ironically enough, this was most certainly not being done in discussion of the language at WT:NPA.

I am not going to link the same paragraphs as above as that would be rehashing old news. My concerns stem from the recent re-addition of the language without discussion and the subsequent actions by a few people on the side wishing to insert the language back into the article. This starts on or about October 31st where both sides of the debate, including MONGO, agreed to a version of the language to be included. This calmed tensions and it seemed the issue was finally settled after 6 months of debate. The NPA page was unprotected, the agreed upon language was inserted and two weeks of peace and calm pass with no incidents relating to this surfaced, were discussed on ANI or other noticeboards, etc. (and none have been provided by those wishing to insert the language). On November 15th, MONGO claimed WP:BOLD and added back in a reworded version of the same language that was the heart of the dispute for nearly six months. This reignited tensions as those on each side started debate all anew.

We now are at a standstill again with the same issues that were debated for six months, a NPA page protected, and some people flinging accusations all around. All throughout the recent NPA debate, one side has tried to frame the other as supporting links to harassment , commenting not on the content but the affiliations of those who are involved in the debate, accusing the other side of harassment, accusing the other side of trolling, etc. The other has asked good faith questions of which some have been answered, some answered vaguely, and others ignored. Based on the prior behavior in this debate and the edits that triggered the new edit war, an RfC was filed on MONGO because of the behavior displayed during the past six months of this issue that may or may not continue into the future, not to gain an upper hand in the debate on the NPA issue. I participated in the RfC mainly because of the manner of which the text was reinserted. WP:BOLD states that editors should act bold (revert and discuss to follow). People who act bold often fail to read the rest of the guideline. The rest states, "… but don't be reckless. ... The admonition "but do not be reckless" is especially important in other namespaces." with the last portion from "Non-Article Namespaces". MONGO is not a stupid person (far from it). He knew this would touch off yet another edit war as the previous version took nearly six months to develop. This is the very definition of disruptive editing.

I have asked questions throughout the current discussion and have yet to have anyone supporting the new text answer this very simple question: "What changed?". This question merely asks what happened in the last two weeks to prompt such a bold change to this very contentious section. Two other important questions have yet to be clearly answered by anyone supporting the inclusion of the next text are "What is deficient about the previous version?" and "What situation would the previous version allow and the proposed version not?". I can't speak for others but I have been discussing in good faith with the other editors despite their very blatant display of lack of good faith. Few have even asked us why people are objecting to the wording. They are spending their time attacking the contributors through direct comment and by attempting to frame the debate as those who support linking to harassment versus those bravely standing in their way. I can't speak for others but I am trying to get a clearer picture of what is going on to prompt this change from the previously agreed upon version and getting mud and other brown substances flung at me in the process.

This leads me to the fiasco that was and is the RfC. I have participated and brought good faith issues to the table as well as Alec and others. Others have called the actions and those who brought forth and certified the RfC:

• "harassers" or the RfC constituted harassment: ,,,,,,
• "baiting" ,

And this in my opinion is the most disgusting comment of all:

This absolutely shows the lack of good faith by some users in this whole process. By the very definition of WP:NPA, this is a comment that this person is basing their judgment not on what content and comments people provide but the comm enters themselves. The fact that this came from an Admin shocks me to the core. Clear evidence has been provided. Dispute resolution has been tried. One side has consistently mocked the process and the contributors while others tried to resolve differences without resorting to this ArbCom. It is very telling when people jumped into the RfC and supported the two positions that this is harassment and to have it closed immediately also did not support the most common sense item that every Wikipedian should stand for:

I am here to edit an encyclopedia. I have stated the principals I believe. I have even codified why I believe WP is here and why I am here in the first place on my user page. I want to be able to edit in peace without worrying that even good faith actions will be acted upon by those hellbent on purging WP of every last item and person they do not like. It is clear that ArbCom needs to deal with this issue and the behavior of more than just MONGO.

Addendum 1

Crum375's statement reinforces my statement through example. He is not commenting on the content but on the contributors of the content both on WT:NPA and here as well. I have never been involved with the ED cases nor ED itself (except as a reader to familiarize myself with all the background on this issue). Crum375 continues to lump myself and Alec into this group when I have expressed what my true concerns are (the content of this encyclopedia).

Statement by Dtobias (Dan T.)

I'm away on vacation for this (American) Thanksgiving week, and had intended to make it a more-or-less "Wikibreak" as well; not the somewhat pompous sort where I would make a long "goodbye and good riddance" rant (and soon be back anyway), but just a decision to quietly cut back my participation here (especially in politically-sensitive areas) because doing so has such a tendency to get me angry, and anger is not a good emotion to have while you're participating in a cooperative venture.

However, I seem to be dragged into this thing here, so I'd better make some sort of a statement. I don't need to say much, since others have made my point pretty well already (including even bringing in some of my own prior statements). The point here is not to rehash or reargue the BADSITES debate; that's the subject of a recently concluded ArbCom case and we certainly don't need another one. And the point is not to "harass" MONGO or anybody else; calmly discussing whether somebody's behavior is helpful or harmful to the project is not harassment. People keep saying that I cheapen the concept of harassment by the things I've done to ridicule BADSITES, but I think others are doing a fine job of it themselves when they apply the label to any instance of somebody saying something they don't wish to hear. Even a discussion on the mailing list of whether it might be desirable ever to have an article about Encyclopedia Dramatica, should appropriately reliable sources for its notability emerge, has been labeled as "harassment" of MONGO despite his not being either a subject or a participant of this discussion. Clearly, the concept has been stretched very far.

To answer some other points alluded to above, I don't believe that I've added any links (in recent months since BADSITES became a big issue) to the so-called "attack sites" in question (save for, in a few cases, reverting what I considered unjustified deletion of links others had added, usually in very old archives). A long time ago, I sometimes linked to those sites for the purpose of ridiculing them (I sometimes used names like "Wiki Whiners" to describe them); this is not the most civil of attitudes for me to have taken, and not necessarily anything to be proud of, but it wasn't aimed at Wikipedians, but at the anti-Misplaced Pages sites and the people on them. Saying that my opposition on principle to BADSITES and anything like it is out of desire to link to this stuff for the purpose of harassment is a huge and unjustified stretch, especially since I supported the wording in NPA that explicitly said that linking for the purpose of harassing is wrong and prohibited. MONGO also supported that wording, so I ask too "What changed since then?"

If anybody thinks I'm taking the position "I'm right; I'm perfect; Those other guys are wrong and bad!", then far from it. I know I'm imperfect. You don't have to dredge up old mailing list postings of mine to show it, as some have; I know that I've said and done things that don't live up to the high ideals I sometimes preach. Maybe I'm not the one to "throw the first stone". But somebody ought to look, in a fair and evenhanded manner, at the behavior of MONGO and some of his friends... and also at the behavior of his enemies and opponents... yes, at mine too. I really hope it can be accomplished without anybody getting banned (no, I'm not seeking a ban for MONGO), since there's been way too much banning going on lately. The concept recently being promulgated from up high (originating with Jimbo himself) to ban for "low-level trolling", a vague and subjective concept that can cover any activity that is found annoying by people of higher status than the one being examined, is a very disquieting thing and puts everyone in fear that they'll be the next to bear the brunt of it. *Dan T.* (talk) 18:06, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Krimpet

I really don't have any interest in getting further involved with this dispute. I seem to have been added to this case because I protected WP:NPA after the last revert war. There's been a lot of immaturity and lack of decorum on both sides of this dispute, and I really wish people could grow up, stop the personal attacks and mindless edit warring, and work together on forming a policy acceptable to the entire community. --krimpet⟲ 19:45, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Revised statement by Mangoe

I have decided that it simply isn't worth investing my diminishing sanity in another round of this and am therefore rescinding my statement. Mangoe (talk) 23:56, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Addendum

I'm frankly appalled at the reasons being given for rejecting this case, because as far as I can see rejecting this case is authorization for more drama, not less. Yes, NPA was developing a consensus; but this whole incident arose because MONGO charged in, ignored that consensus, and simply put the whole thing, text and discussion, to back before the whole BADSITES case. If that's OK, then the matter is doomed to be a perpetual battle. And if it's OK, and MONGO manages to swing things around to his POV, then it is OK for me to BOLDly drag the text back to the current-consensus version, without regard to the huge fight that will undoubtedly ensue. Mangoe (talk) 17:42, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Tony Sidaway

I've no idea what all the fuss and fighting is over. I suspect that the Committee is for the most part equally ignorant on this, for Misplaced Pages policy on attacks is quite clear, whether we have it written down or not. We don't permit Wikipedians to attack one another on the wiki, and it doesn't matter what weapons they choose to use for the purpose: whether by direct accusation, by sly innuendo, or by reference to purported external information of a venomous rather than informative nature, whether vaguely adumbrated or directly quoted. It would be sensible to adopt this case for the sole purpose of reiterating this policy, however obvious it may seem. --Tony Sidaway 22:32, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I suspect that I've been misread. If this case is to be taken, it's solely to reiterate that this is a policy matter and a very strong one too. We're not helping ourselves by turning these necessary discussions into conduct disputes. The Committee really does need to give guidance here. I think that's unavoidable. Attack policy should be dictated if that's what it takes to kill the drama. --Tony Sidaway 23:28, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Thomas Basbøll

My experience with MONGO in other contexts (see MONGO 2 RfC)suggests that arbitration is probably necessary. The RFCs that have dealt with his behaviour (and the editing controversies that these have resulted from) have the distinct appearance of a battleground. This is no doubt not MONGO's fault alone; he has allies and enemies to share the blame with. The result so far has been that neutral editors, i.e., those who are neither friend nor foe, have been pushed off the articles, and often after being unfairly lumped into one or another camp. I have long hoped that ArbCom would take a stand on this problem. In my opinion, Misplaced Pages does not need a "war against trolls". Right now, however, that's what we've got. MONGO may ostensibly be on the "right" side, but he is not likely to win a peace.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 08:45, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Addendum: The above was written before MONGO added me to the list of involved parties. If the scope of this arbitration is in fact to be extended then the MONGO 2 RfC should probably also be counted as a previous attempt to resolve the dispute . At that time, a number of us certainly did raise concerns about MONGO's incivility along similar lines as the MONGO 3 RfC. As in this case, we had a hard time getting commentators to concentrate on the behaviour itself rather than the issues that occasioned it, and the targets it was directed at.

His defenders argued mainly that, given the targets, his sometimes (regrettably) aggresive posture was generally warranted. MONGO himself maintained that he "had done nothing to warrant" the RfC, which struck me as odd because surely the act of requesting comments is not itself punitive. The RFC in any case closed with the following diplomatic summary: "MONGO should please refrain from being overtly rude to vandals, POV-pushers and trolls, however richly they may deserve it, but as complaints go this one has no legs." Whether or not I richly deserved to be treated rudely was left a bit vague, though I got the sense that I was thought of mainly as unavoidable collateral damage in a noble and at times somewhat epic struggle.

It should be emphasized that if the summary had said simply "MONGO should stop being rude to editors he thinks are vandals, POV-pushers, or trolls, regardless of whether he is right to think so" (a rather small difference in wording) it would have granted my complaint pretty much all the legs it desired (though "rude" is a bit of understatement). If the Arbitration Committee could make a statement to that effect in this case (with some sort of enforcement to back it up) Misplaced Pages would certainly become more enjoyable for serious editors and, I suspect, less fun for vandals and trolls. MONGO's approach to conflict (whatever the issue may be, it seems) simply encourages drama.--Thomas Basboll (talk) 20:50, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by GRBerry

I think the committe should take Tony Sidaway's recommendation. Rejecting this case will not prevent drama, it will most likely put the drama elsewhere for a short time before it comes here again. There is a adage that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. It applies to this dispute in two different metaphorical senses. Unless experienced editors take on board the notion that "Civility and no personal attacks begins with me and those I agree with" and the old warning about removing the beam in our own eye before working on the mote in someone else's we are going to have problems. GRBerry 18:07, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Utterly predictably, we now have an example of the drama to point at. followed by , and later discussion here GRBerry 22:29, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Barberio

Breaking my self imposed wiki-silence to simply state that this case goes to the root of why I withdrew from taking an active role in Misplaced Pages. The Project has lost many more productive contributors because of the actions of a small group of over-bearing and over-zealous admin. And while this group of admin have been an aid to the project, their continued aggressive and anti-social behaviors have far outweighed their contributions.

It is hard to understand an arbitration committee that would punt this case when it could be solved by such a simple and clear finding. The Civility policy applies to all contributors of the project, regardless of their standing in the project, and that such behavior by an admin will result in suspension of their admin powers at the least. Admin who become overheated may benefit from some time to cool down. Admin who habitually break the fundamental policies of the project should not be Admin.

I firmly repeat my reasons for leaving the project, that a clique of admin kept up a line of hostility and zealotry that made contributing to the project unbearable. Misplaced Pages as a community has tolerated, and in some cases fostered, bullying. To be frank, a project designed to inform and educate can not succeed when it's run by people acting like immature school children. The arbitrators who have voted to refuse this case have failed their responsibility to protect the project, and are fostering further 'drama' and bullying.

Again, I will not contribute to this project until the tolerance for bullying and incivility has ceased. --Barberio (talk) 00:21, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

After working out the numerics of the vote due to the 'four net votes' rule, there is no way this case can ever be accepted with the current active members so long as a minority of three holdouts refuse the case. Even if every other active member of the committee votes to accept, this case would not be accepted as there would not be sufficient 'net votes'.

This is a simply abhorrent state of affairs, and I appeal to the common decency of the committee members. Rule by minority because of manipulation of the rules, to protect the clique of administrators who want immunity from the civility policy, would be a grave and probably mortal blow to the project.

Failing that, I appeal to the community. Please reject the arbitration policy as failed if a minority of committee members can game the system this way. And just to make it clear. Yes, I am questioning the competence of this Arbitration Committee, to have let things get to this point. --Barberio (talk) 02:07, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I am appalled at Matthew Brown's statement. As I read it, this amounts to a threat of taking action against people who ask the arbitration committee to do their job! --Barberio (talk) 12:36, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by User:Rocksanddirt

I agree with Tony Sidaway and GRBerry. There is a general perception that civility applies differently to long time experienced users than it does to others. It is important for the committee to clarify if this is the case. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 18:22, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved kaypoh

Yes, some people are harrassing MONGO. Yes, that is a problem. But how MONGO reacts to the harrassing is also a problem. Even when people are not harrassing him, when people want to communicate with him in good faith, he thinks they are harrassing him. He makes a lot of personal attacks and gets into edit wars. We must stop him or he will cause more drama in other places. We must also deal with those who harrass him. So ArbCom, please accept this case. --Kaypoh (talk) 03:31, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Outside view by Mattisse

There is something wrong. MONGO has been blocked for a total of 2 hours, 15 minutes, 1 second since June 2005, yet it appears to be acknowledged that he has a long history of disruptive editing, whether or not he was "provoked" being irrelevant.

Considering the amount of disruption revolving around MONGO, I was surprised to see that his block record is the following:

1. June 8, 2005 - blocked for 24 hours -
2. June 25, 2005 - blocked for 15 minutes -
3. September 24, 2006 - blocked for 12 hours - unblocked 1 hour later
4. September 27, 2006 - blocked for 1 second -
5. February 21, 2007 - blocked for 24 hours - unblocked 20 minutes later
6. October 17, 2007 - blocked for 72 hours - unblocked 30 minutes later - ANI "discussion" -

Since June 2005, MONGO has been blocked 5 times. Not counting the first block of 24 hours in June 2005, MONGO has been blocked for a total of two hours 15 minutes, 1 second.

My attempt to understand this under "Discussion" in the RfC was used by at least one admin to attack another editor and only one editor's answer was responsive to my concern.

It appears that it is not possible to block MONGO regardless of his behavior. If the Arbcom is going to reject the case, as seems to be the situation at this point in time, then there must be a means of interrupting MONGO's uncivil and disruptive behavior when needed and to treat him as other editors are treated rather than as a perennial "special case". Otherwise, Misplaced Pages is without viable means to stop his edit-warring, personally attacking behavior , given the history above that a block never lasts more that 1/2 hour. I am not understanding how the current state of affairs is helpful to Misplaced Pages. Mattisse 15:05, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Statment by User:Travb

If there have been:

1. Likely violation of wikipedia policy (as Arbcom members have stated), and
2. There are a lot of editors who want this case to go forward...

• Why is the Arbcom hesitating to accept this case?

This is the only reason I can personally figure out:

Many members of the Arbitration committee are loathe to upset the community again by sanctioning Mongo further.

I really don't blame the Arbcom for not taking this case. No wikipedian would ever want the same condemnation of the same dozens of influential wikipedians who condemned the incredibly unpopular Mongo desop.

As I write this, despite the rule violations on all sides, no arbitor seems to want to be the pivotal fourth arbitrator to accept this case.

So like the US Supreme Court often does with incredibly controversial and explosive issues, the arbitration committee may well "punt" by voting to not take this case, and let the "mob" hopefully solve the problem. Jim Wales may simply ban the ED editors. Admins may eventually block or ban both parties, and the Arbcom avoids upsetting influential fellow wikipedians.

Travb (talk) 07:47, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Clerk notes

Could the filing party please clarify how Dtobias and GTBacchus, who are listed as parties, are involved? Picaroon (t) 03:50, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Both have been attacked by MONGO in the same manner as he has attacked Alec and myself, attacking their affiliations. Viridae 03:52, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (3/5/0/0)

• Reject. I'm certainly not comfortable with some of the language used; robust debate is OK, but everyone should be aware that edged weapons of rhetoric do not build consensus. On the other hand, we all know that the basic issue has been very divisive, and yet a working consensus of the place of WP:NPA in the context of external linking and WP:HARASS seems to be emerging. This is what the ArbCom would prefer, to having to intervene again to deal with ad hominem arguments (which are not always fallacious). Charles Matthews (talk) 17:28, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
• Accept. Mongo's behaviour has been problematic. Paul August ☎ 20:04, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
• Accept. This endless infighting needs to stop, voluntarily or otherwise. Kirill 20:25, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
• Accept. Echo Charles's comments, but sadly I feel that appealing to that participants not to attack each other will fail to work. James F. (talk) 22:44, 18 November 2007 (UTC) Reject. This would be a net disbenefit to the project. James F. (talk) 14:07, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
• Reject per Charles. Our main mission is to decrease disruption so that folks can go about their work here. I don't think opening another case on this topic will help us achieve this mission, instead it will promote more drama. FloNight♥♥♥ 16:48, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
• Reject per Charles and Flo. Pure drama dance. --jpgordon 17:01, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
• Reject per Charles, Flo, Jpgordon; note that if the drama does not stop all involved editors may be subject to sanction in future if they have gone too far. Consider this a final warning from me. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 09:32, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
• Accept. Many of the allegations made, if true, are actionable. Let's see the evidence. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 04:53, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Requests for clarification

Place requests for clarification on matters related to the Arbitration process in this section. Place new requests at the top.

Eyrian banned remedy

The remedy states that Eyrian's account is banned. However, FloNight states that this applies to the actual person, and not just the user themselves. Is FloNight's remedy the official one, and if so, how are we going to determine if someone is a sock of the Eyrian account holder, as well as deal with them? Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 16:01, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

This case is still pending and so this question really belongs on its proposed decision talkpage, but since it's here I can answer briefly. Subject to correction from an arbitrator, I think FloNight's comment simply made express something that would have been understood anyway. In no case is it permissible for a user banned by ArbCom as Username1 to start up anew under Username2. (That is a different situation from where the problem is with the username only, or where the committee says the person can continue editing but under only one account.) The procedure if the person were to return prematurely would be the same as for any other sock of a banned user. Note, though, that under the proposed decision, the duration of the remedy is flexible in this case. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:13, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Status of TruthCrusader block review?

On October 31st User:TruthCrusader was indefinitely blocked for off-wiki harassment of User:Calton. TruthCrusader maintains that he did not make the off-wiki postings he was blocked for and requested that the blocking admin, User:Jpgordon, provide evidence justifying the block. Jpgordon declined to discuss the matter on the grounds that reviewing the material would further aggravate the harassment by making the attacks known to a wider population. The suggestion was made that only ArbCom should review the evidence because of its inflammatory nature and TruthCrusader thus submitted the matter to ArbCom for review. TruthCrusader states that no response has been forthcoming to date.

Generally, I think the less which is done 'behind closed doors' the better. Making the evidence publicly available exposes it to additional eyes who may see things that a handful of arbitrators do not and thus actually prove the truth of the matter one way or the other. We've recently seen how that works in the !! case. We should only be invoking 'secrecy' in the most extreme of cases where personally identifying information, legal complications, or the like are involved... and then only for the smallest portion of those cases which actually must be kept from the public.

Regardless, it has been a past axiom of ArbCom cases (and common sense) that admins must be prepared to explain and justify their actions. If Jpgordon will not publicly discuss how he determined that TruthCrusader was behind the off-wiki actions attributed to him then at the least we need to hear from ArbCom that they have reviewed the matter. As it stands we've got a user blocked for nearly a month for actions he allegedly committed off-wiki. If he is or may be innocent that's unacceptable. If he is guilty then it is well past time to say so and close this matter out. --CBD 14:08, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Application of the Misplaced Pages:Civility and Misplaced Pages:No personal attacks policies

Can the Arbitration committee please clarify their position on the application of these policies. There seems to be notable general feeling that past rulings by the committee have set precedent that 'Standing', ie history of contributions and administrative work, can be used as mitigation for incivil behavior and personal attacks against other editors. Specifically, I ask if 'Standing' can be used as defense even if past history indicates the editor will continue to make personal attacks and other disruptive incivility, something that policy indicates should result in preventative block. --Barberio (talk) 23:07, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

"Standing" should obviously have no effect on findings of fact. Our custom is to allow standing to affect any remedy. If "remedy" is taken literally - the AC actually does try to fix up situations - it should be clear why that is. The process is not punitive, but has regard to the work going on daily on the site. Analogy with criminal proceedings can mislead. If you are asking whether the AC should apply remedies it knows in advance are likely to fail, the answer is "no"; though of course we are allowed to take a more optimistic view than self-appointed prosecutors. And mixing in policy is an odd thing here; certain kinds of disruption are within the remit of any admin, quite independent of what the AC says. But it is true that an AC case ought to be considered to have 'dealt with' past history, given in evidence. After all, blocking productive editors is a loss to the project. Generally it is not that helpful if ancient incidents are brought up against people. Charles Matthews (talk) 23:28, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply, however I'm not sure you clarified the point I was asking about. I find your statement that "certain kinds of disruption are within the remit of any admin" very confusing.

You also seem to contradict the policy by saying past history of personal attacks should not be considered. To quote WP:NPA : "Recurring attacks are proportionally more likely to be considered 'disruption'. Blocking for personal attacks should only be done for prevention, not punishment. A block may be warranted if it seems likely that the user will continue using personal attacks." This seems to me clear indication that someone with an obvious past history of personal attacks, who makes no effort or only token efforts to reform, and continues to make personal attacks may be blocked as a preventative measure regardless of their 'standing'.

I'm not entirely sure if you are saying that an editor who habitually makes personal attacks, and thus could be preventively blocked, can be a productive editor. It would seem to me that such an editor is being counter-productive. --Barberio (talk) 23:45, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

The statement about admins is consistent with what you quoted from policy, no? "Recurring" needs sensible interpretation; once a week, yes, if you go back six months, no. Admins do have some discretion here; blocks for disruption are always in some measure judgement calls. You asked how the AC sees it, and I am of course speaking for myself here. But the AC tends to work from principles, not detailed policy wording (which is always very much subject to mission creep). "Preventive" blocking; I think we'd not be happy to see indefinite blocks, but "cooling off" blocks are within admin discretion, assuming they are proportionate to the situation. On your last point, it seems clear that some productive editors do also indulge in personal attacks. There is no "entitlement"; what actually happens is that the AC is only happy to take cases on this alone (loudmouth stuff) when there is something fairly definite to point to. One final point is that civility paroles are a standard remedy, which the AC will use in cases (and if we don't, it is some indication). Charles Matthews (talk) 11:18, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

This raises the question of someone who after being warned about Personal Attacks, 'cleans up their act' for six months, but then reverts back to making personal attacks with signs they will continue. By your standard, we should not consider their history as it's 'the far past'. It is notable that application of 'civility parole' could lead to cases of this type arising where the editor returns to bad behavior some time after the period of parole is over.

This is explicitly not the standard that is applied to other cases of disruptive behavior such as edit waring. In those cases past history has been considered when an editor reverts to that behavior and appears ready to continue doing so. I'm confused as to why you feel this should not be applied to NPA and civility?

I'm afraid I must strongly disagree with you on your point that 'productive editors' may engage in personal attacks. By definition, productive editors are those who make contributions to the project. Making personal attacks significantly and strongly detracts from the project. Editors who are making personal attacks are not productive members of the project, and shouldn't be treated as if they are. A plumber who unclogs my toilet, repairs my shower, fixes my sink, then smashes all my windows; was not being productive. --Barberio (talk) 11:50, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) That's anyway not what I said. I said there is no entitlement to be incivil, whatever an editor's contribution. And you were asking about the AC's collective view, which I have tried to explain. Personally I'm a hawk on incivility - I always vote for civility parole remedies, as you could see from my voting record. I would answer your point by saying simply that the AC's real expertise is in the field of editor behaviour. We are expected to take everything into account, case-by-case. Your hypothetical plumber would be a vandalism case, not an incivility case. We are expected to place decisions in some sort of framework. That's what the principles are for. There are some relevant principles, but not what you are saying. Charles Matthews (talk) 21:05, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Would you be willing to restate, or link to, those principles you feel express the opinion of the ArbCom on this issue? --Barberio (talk) 21:37, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Armenia-Azerbaijan 2

I'm requesting a review on my placement under supervision by User:Ryan Postlethwaite for the following reason. The AA2 remedy #2 states: "Any editor who edits articles which relate to the region of Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran and the ethnic and historical issues related to that area in an aggressive point of view manner marked by incivility may be placed under several editing restrictions." Ryan Postletwaite claims that "Although I don't see any incivility, the scope of the remedy was supposed to cover disruption via incivility or edit warring". I don't see the word OR, which Ryan felt so strong about that he made it appear bold.

This is what Thatcher131 told me month ago: "So far, no admin including myself has found that you yourself have edited these articles in an "aggressive point of view manner marked by incivility" and so you have not yet been placed under the restrictions described here. Thatcher131 01:12, 26 October 2007 (UTC)"

Am I being compared to E104421 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)? Previously indef banned for edit warring, who was simultaneously edit warring with me and another user , , , . Who breached WP:3RR , , , , Who kept insisting (by reverting) that its gonna be his way and no other? even by reverting my minor edits . Who generally disregarded the talkpage and is yet to give justification for most of his POV reverts. Was I wrong, when I tried to compromise and only reverted partially? Was I wrong when I tried to keep the article as neutral as possible? As I said before, even though I was not under the restriction and supervised editing, I never reverted without justification, always explained and justified my edits in the talkpage. Most importantly my edits were not marked by incivility.

In fear of turning this board into another "he said she said" I request that only administrators respond to this request. VartanM (talk) 05:26, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Arbitration remedies are not meant to be carte blanche for administrators unless they explicitly provide for such authority. Ryan's interpretation of the decision here is incorrect; the remedy is applicable only to cases where the editor is incivil. Kirill 05:37, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

How about many other users, such as User:Aynabend and User:Baku87, who were placed on parole without any prior warning, while they both had a clean block log and never made any incivil comments? I don't think E104421 was incivil either. Both VartanM and E104421 were placed on parole for edit warring on Shusha article, since they made 3rvs each. VartanM had a previous official warning from another admin to stop edit warring, otherwise he would be placed on parole . So I think we need a clarification here. Can admins place users on parole for just edit warring, or they need to be engaged in both edit warring and incivility to be placed on parole? If the latter, then parole of some users has to be lifted. Grandmaster (talk) 07:50, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Krill for a super fast reply. Grandmaster the answer to your question is most probably that they need to personally come here and make their case. Assuming good faith on GM's part for ignoring my kind request. Good night to all. VartanM (talk) 09:07, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

We need to clarify the general principle of application of this remedy. If it applies only for incivilty, then User:E104421, User:Aynabend and User:Baku87 should be all relieved of it, since they never violated any civility rules, and the latter 2 editors have no previous blocks, warnings, etc, unlike User:VartanM. Grandmaster (talk) 09:21, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Kirill, User:VartanM is violating Users national background and neutrality principle by engaging in edit warring and POV pushing across several articles without restriction. We are yet to see how you address that by giving him a green light to continue doing what he is doing. And if VartanM's behavior was not marked by incivility, then how did the ArbCom address these , several counts of incivility not ever supervised, restricted or paroled? And if the VartanM's continuous editing conduct allows for interpretation against supervised editing, then how would supervised editing apply in case of the other user User:E104421, whose edits were not incivil. Based on POV pushed by User:VartanM throughout Misplaced Pages without any review or restriction, and paroles being deliberately applied only to contributors of certain one side, lifting the supervised editing is a delibreate violation of neutrality. Atabek (talk) 09:22, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

And why does VartanM cross out administrator's decision when this should be done either by administrator or arbitrator? Atabek (talk) 09:40, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

• The ArbCom notice reads: "Notice: Under the terms of Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2, any editor who edits articles which relate to the region of Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran and the ethnic and historical issues related to that area in an aggressive point of view manner marked by incivility may be placed under several editing restrictions, by notice on that editor's talk page." I edited the Shusha article for the first time yesterday. I did not edited in an aggressive point of view manner marked by incivility. I provided sources, cited the references, commented on the talk pages and edit summaries. On the other hand, VartanM deleted the new section, references and quotatins on "cultural life" added by myself from cited references. VartanM's POV is focused on my previous block-log due to my long term conflicts with Tajik on Nomadic Empires related topics. My last block is dated 1 April 2007. That case was closed. I edited for the first time an Az-Ar related topic in my life (just 4 times + 1 minor spell check), but it's claimed that i have history of Az-Ar related topics. Now, i was placed under the parole, but VartanM's parole is removed. What kind of double standard is this? Deletion of referenced material constantly is not regarded as edit-warring, but addition of "new section and references" are claimed to be edit-warring. What happened to the basic Misplaced Pages policies: "WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:DR"? Regards. E104421 (talk) 10:47, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
• Thanks Kiril for the response here. I was under the impression that this remedy tried to stop disruption in all forms (i.e. edit warring or incivility) due to the history of editing on these pages. Whilst I see that both users here have edit warred on the pages, I fail to see any incivility coming from them, so unless there's evidence of that, I'll remove both names from the supervised editing log. Ryan Postlethwaite 11:00, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Both User:Aynabend and User:Baku87 were placed under the same parole for a single page edit and without any incivility cited. So please, review their paroles as well. Thanks. Atabek (talk) 11:08, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I've removed Baku87 and VartanM for now - I'll wait for a response from the administrators that put E104421 and Aynabend under supervised editing before removing their names. Ryan Postlethwaite 11:19, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Ryan. Atabek (talk) 12:24, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Kirill, if I get this right, the remedy implies that the editors are free to edit war on topic related articles as long as they remain civil? If not, what the arbcom remedy proposes to stop edit wars, which were the reason to 2 arbcom cases in the first place? Thanks. Grandmaster (talk) 05:49, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

I share a similar concern with this remedy. Given the scale of the disruption on this topic, I don't think it's a good idea that users must be incivil with edit warring. Edit warring is disruptive on its own and this does seem to advocate edit warring on the pages provided that the users remain civil. I think when a case like this goes to arbitration twice, administrators should be given a little bit more freedom to interpret decisions because per the clarification from Kirill yesterday, I've had to remove five names from the supervised editing list that should all most probably have had their editing placed under supervision, but can't because of a technicality. In many ways it seems it's a way to game the system. Ryan Postlethwaite 12:47, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Last month I requested a RfC on the apparent arbitrary extensions of the powers that the RfA Armenia-Azerbaijan2 remedy created. Being out of the country for 4 weeks, I did not have the opportunity to see its result. Where (if anywhere?) would the archive of that discussion material be stored? I must point out to the initiator of this RfC, that remedy 2 does not actually contain the words he has quoted. The fact that it does not, was the crux of my RfC. Meowy 18:00, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

EK3 residual prohibition

On November 11, the main elements of the ruling Everyking 3, first imposed two years prior, expired. However, an AN discussion followed in which two arbitrators (Raul654 and Jpgordon) denied that some elements of the ruling had expired (remedies 5 and "X"), on the basis that those elements were not listed by name as expiring this November in the amended ruling of July 2006. However, I think that, because the amended ruling says that my previous restrictions (those imposed in November 2005) expire in November 2007, this logically must include everything that was imposed in November 2005, because it did not provide for any exceptions.

(The following, which could be interpreted as a violation of one of the prohibitions claimed to still be in effect, was approved for posting on WP:RFAR by Raul654.)

One of the prohibitions which I believe should now be considered expired deals with a certain user with whom I had a series of disagreements in 2005. This user has now left Misplaced Pages, with a parting message that gives every impression of finality. The practical reason I have sought to have my restrictions removed is not that I want to do the things they prohibit me from doing, but that the restrictions serve as a kind of "scarlet letter", and a case where I am prohibited from discussing or interacting with a user who has left Misplaced Pages is a perfect example of this: no benefit can come to that user from my restriction, since he has left, but I continue to suffer from the stigma of having that restriction formally applied to me.

I request, therefore, that the ArbCom determine whether the restrictions in question should be considered to have expired or to remain in effect, and if the answer to that is the latter, then I request that the ArbCom lift the restriction described in the previous paragraph. Everyking (talk) 02:25, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Request for expanded authority in the matter of Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Dalmatia

I request that the Committee enact a motion expanding the enforceable remedies in the Dalmatia case. While Giovanni Giove has continued to edit aggressively, he is not alone. Raguseo (talk · contribs) and Aradic-en (talk · contribs) are both relatively new accounts that edit solely on this topic and advance the same Croatian Nationalist POV. In addition, Raguseo has been abusing sockpuppets. Ghepeu (talk · contribs) (Italian side) and Kubura (talk · contribs) (Croatian side), while more experienced editors, have also participated in aggressive biased editing, although to a lesser degree that Giovanni Giove and DIREKTOR. DIREKTOR communicates extensively with Kubura and to a lesser degree with these other editors, frequently in Croatian .

I request these additional remedies, patterned on RFAR/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2:

1. Any editor who edits articles related to Dalmatia (broadly construed to include ethnic and nationalist disputes between Italy and Croatia) in an aggressive biased manner may be placed on Supervised Editing and Revert Limitation by any uninvolved administrator. Editors under revert limitation are limited to one revert per page per week, excepting obvious vandalism, and must discuss all reversions on the talk page. Editors on supervised editing may be banned from any or all articles relating to Dalmatia (as above) for aggressive biased editing or incivility. Violations may be enforced by blocks as described. Before any penalty is applied, a warning placed on the editor's user talk page by an administrator shall serve as notice to the user that these remedies apply to them.

Thatcher131 01:52, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to hold off acting on this for a bit; the current Macedonia case may wind up resulting in restrictions of some sort imposed over the entirety of Balkan topics, which would supersede anything imposed here. Kirill 02:55, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, so you'll patrol WP:AE for me, right? Dalmatia topics are going to get messy if Ragueso, Aradic-en, Kubura and Ghepeu are left unencumbered. Thatcher131 03:06, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Further note, Ragueso and Aradic-en 's first edits are just days before the Dalmatia case was accepted, so they missed the case by being too new at the time it was filed. Thatcher131 03:09, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

RFAR/Certified.Gangsta-Ideogram

I've been contacted by User:Certified.Gangsta, who left the project in June 2007 in consequence of the sanctions imposed on him in the Certified.Gangsta-Ideogram RFAR. He was finding it impossible to edit under them, and was feeling very frustrated. User:Ideogram is now under a community ban, where he was found to have baited Certified.Gangsta and attempted to drive him off the project (successfully). CG is thinking about returning, and wonders if he might possibly have his editing restrictions revoked, despite the infractions he has indeed committed. Would the arbitrators like to take a look at this case, please? To remind you of how it went, I've written up a short overview of the circumstances here. Other users should feel free to add their views of the matter at that subpage, or at this notification, whichever works. Bishonen | talk 09:44, 6 November 2007 (UTC).

The Committee is discussing this matter. Kirill 13:12, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Bishonen | talk 14:30, 6 November 2007 (UTC).

Comment. I would not personally recommend a lifting of the restriction, since Ideogram was not the only editor that encountered his edit warring and I fail to see a pressing need in the absence of his primary antagonist. Giving such a user the extra wiggle room of two to three non-vandalism reverts seems like a poor idea for an established edit warrior. However, I would not be opposed to the editing restrictions being lifted, since the community tends to take a dim view of continued nonsense from editors with a problematic history. If CG were to relapse towards poor behaviour, I'm fairly confidant it would be handled quite quickly without kid gloves. I doubt great harm would result from allowing him the chance to participate in Misplaced Pages productively without editing restrictions. Additionally, the endorsement of Bishonen and Jehochman for the lifting of restrictions is a strong point in its favour. A bit of thought on both sides of the coin. *hands out grains of salt* Vassyana 00:02, 10 November 2007 (UTC) Disclosure: I was the blocking sysop for the most recent parole violation.

Thank you, Vassyana. Some recent developments: in his edits of today, November 10, Certified.Gangsta points (on request) to his positive contributions to the project.. Please note especially his appeal here, and the new section "Contribution" on his talkpage, which he's in the process of adding to. Bishonen | talk 12:05, 10 November 2007 (UTC).

Motions in prior cases

Motions

Shortcuts WP:ARM WP:ARBM This section can be used by arbitrators to propose motions not related to any existing case or request. Motions are archived at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Index/Motions. Only arbitrators may propose or vote on motions on this page. You may visit WP:ARC or WP:ARCA for potential alternatives. Make a motion (Arbitrators only) You can make comments in the sections called "community discussion" or in some cases only in your own section. Arbitrators or clerks may summarily remove or refactor any comment.

Arbitrator workflow motions

Workflow motions: Arbitrator discussion

• I am proposing these three motions for discussion, community input, and a vote. Each seeks to improve ArbCom's functioning by providing for the performance of basic administrative responsibilities that sometimes go neglected, which, in my opinion, if successful, would significantly improve ArbCom's overall capacity. Motivation: We've known about the need for improvements to our workflow and capacity for some years now – I wrote about some of these suggestions in my 2022 ACE statement. It's a regular occurrence that someone will email in with a request or information and, because of the press of other work and because nobody is responsible for tracking and following up on the thread, we will let the thread drop without even realizing it and without deciding that no action is needed. We can each probably name a number of times this has happened, but one recent public example of adverse consequences from such a blunder was highlighted in the Covert canvassing and proxying in the Israel-Arab conflict topic area case request, which was partially caused by our failure to address a private request that had been submitted to us months earlier. Previous efforts: We've experimented with a number of technological solutions to this problem during my four years on the Committee, including: (a) tracking matters on a Trello board or on a private Phabricator space; (b) tracking threads in Google Groups with tags; (c) requesting the development of custom technical tools; (d) reducing the appeals we hear; and (e) tracking appeals more carefully on arbwiki. Some of these attempts have been moderately successful, or showed promise for a time before stalling, but none of them have fully and fundamentally addressed this dropping-balls issue, which has persisted, and which in my opinion requires a human solution rather than just a technological solution. Rationale: The work we need done as framed below (e.g. bumping email threads) isn't fundamentally difficult or sensitive, but it's essential, and it's structurally hard for an active arbitrator to be responsible for doing it. For example, I could never bring myself to bump/nag others to opine on matters that I hadn't done my best to resolve yet myself. But actually doing the research to substantively opine on an old thread (especially as the first arb) can take hours of work, and I'm more likely to forget about it before I have the time to resolve it, and then it'll get lost in the shuffle. So it's best to somewhat decouple the tracking/clerical function from the substantive arb-ing work. Other efforts: There is one more technological solution for which there was interest among arbitrators, which was to get a CRM/ticketing system – basically, VRTS but hopefully better. I think this could help and would layer well with any of the other options, but there are some open questions (e.g., which one to get, how to pay for it, whether we can get all arbs to adopt it), and I don't think that that alone would address this problem (see similar attempts discussed above), so I think we should move ahead with one of these three motions now and adopt a ticketing system with whichever of the other motions we end up going with. These three motions are the result of substantial internal workshopping, and have been variously discussed (as relevant) with the functionaries, the clerks, and the Wikimedia Foundation (on a call in November). Before that, we held an ideation session on workflow improvements with the Foundation in July and have had informal discussions for a number of years. I deeply appreciate the effort and input that has gone into these motions from the entire committee and from the clerks and functionaries, and hope we can now pass one of them. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:28, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
  • One other thing I forgot to suggest—I'd be glad to write motions 1 or 2 up as a trial if any arb prefers, perhaps for 6-12 months, after which the motion could be automatically repealed unless the committee takes further action by motion to permanently continue the motion. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 23:39, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Workflow motions: Clerk notes

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

• I've excluded from the vote counts the votes of arbitrators whose terms expired on 1 January. See WP:ARBPOL#Participation and WP:AC/CP#Tasks at the beginning of each year. SilverLocust 💬 00:46, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

Workflow motions: Implementation notes

Clerks and Arbitrators should use this section to clarify their understanding of which motions are passing. These notes were last updated by an automatic check at 16:18, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Motion name	Support	Oppose	Abstain	Passing	Support needed	Notes
Motion 1: Correspondence clerks	4	7	0		4	One support vote contingent on 1.4 passing
Motion 1.2a: name the role "scrivener"	2	6	2		5
Motion 1.2b: name the role "coordination assistant"	1	5	4		5
Motion 1.3: make permanent (not trial)	0	9	0		Cannot pass
Motion 1.4: expanding arbcom-en directly	3	5	2		4
Motion 2: WMF staff support	1	9	0		Cannot pass
Motion 3: Coordinating arbitrators	8	0	2		·	2 support votes are second choice to motion 1
Motion 4: Grants for correspondence clerks	0	8	0		Cannot pass

Notes

Motion 1: Correspondence clerks

Nine-month trial

The Arbitration Committee's procedures are amended by adding the following section for a trial period of nine months from the date of enactment, after which time the section shall be automatically repealed unless the Committee takes action to make it permanent or otherwise extend it:

Correspondence clerks

The Arbitration Committee may appoint one or more former elected members of the Arbitration Committee to be correspondence clerks for the Arbitration Committee. Correspondence clerks must meet the Wikimedia Foundation's criteria for access to non-public personal data and sign the Foundation's non-public information confidentiality agreement.

Correspondence clerks shall be responsible for assisting the Committee in the routine administration and organization of its mailing list and non-public work in a similar manner as the existing arbitration clerks assist in the administration of the Committee's on-wiki work.

The specific responsibilities of correspondence clerks shall include:

• Acknowledging the receipt of correspondence and assigning tracking identifiers to pending requests and other matters;
• Tracking the status of pending matters and providing regular updates and reminders on the status of the Committee's off-wiki work to arbitrators;
• Reminding members of the Committee to vote or otherwise take action in pending matters;
• Organizing related correspondence into case files; and
• Providing similar routine administrative and clerical assistance to the Arbitration Committee.

The remit of correspondence clerks shall not include:

• Participating in the substantive consideration or decision of any matters before the Committee; or
• Taking non-routine actions requiring the exercise of arbitrator discretion.

To that end, upon the first appointment of correspondence clerks, the current arbcom-en mailing list shall be renamed to arbcom-en-internal, which shall continue to be accessible only by arbitrators, and a new arbcom-en email list shall be established. The subscribers to the new arbcom-en list shall be the arbitrators and correspondence clerks.

The Committee shall establish a process to allow editors to, in unusual circumstances following a showing of good cause, directly email a mailing list accessible only by arbitrators and not by correspondence clerks.

All correspondence clerks shall hold concurrent appointments as arbitration clerks and shall be subject to the same requirements concerning conduct and recusal as the arbitration clerk team.

For this motion there are 15 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 8 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Support

• (former arbitrator) This is my first choice and falls within ArbCom's community-granted authority to approve and remove access to mailing lists maintained by the Arbitration Committee and to designate individuals for particular tasks or roles and maintain a panel of clerks to assist with the smooth running of its functions. Currently, we have arbitration clerks to help with on-wiki work, but most of ArbCom's workload is private (on arbcom-en), and our clerks have no ability to help with that because they can't access any of ArbCom's non-public work. It has always seemed strange to me to have clerks for on-wiki work, but not for the bulk of the work which is off-wiki (and which has always needed more coordination help). When consulting the functionaries, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that four functionaries (including three former arbitrators) expressed interest in volunteering for this role. This would be lower-intensity than serving as an arbitrator, but still essential to the functioning of the committee. We already have a number of ex-arbs on the clerks-l mailing list to advise and assist, and this seems like a natural extension of that function. The Stewards have a somewhat similar "Steward clerk" role, although ArbCom correspondence clerks would be a higher-trust position (functionary-level appointments only). I see this as the strongest option because the structure is familiar (analogous to our existing clerks, but for off-wiki business), because we have trusted functionaries and former arbs interested who could well discharge these responsibilities, and because I think we would benefit from separating the administrative responsibility from the substantive responsibility. The cons I see are that volunteer correspondence clerks might be less reliable than paid staff and that we'd be adding one or two (ish) people to the arbcom-en list. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:28, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

  I continue to urge my colleagues to support this motion to establish the trial of correspondence clerks. I hear the concern that this will add one or two more people to the mailing list, bringing it from 15 to 16-17, but I would suggest that the additional risk is quite small relative to the other considerations, which should predominate.
  Every new arbitrator elected in the future has access to every email sent to the committee now. One might estimate that over the next ten years, perhaps on average eight arbs will be elected per year of which four will be new to the committee. So, in addition to 15 current arbitrators, 40 future arbitrators will also be able to see the mailing list. (And let's be honest – it's not that hard to be elected to the committee.)
  By contrast, this proposal draws solely on former arbitrators (who have already had mailing list access), and doesn't increase the set much at all. And I trust that the committee will appoint only those former arbs who in its view retain its trust to access highly confidential information.
  In 2019, the community increased the size of the committee from 13 to 15, which reversed the 2018 change from 15 to 13. In neither discussion did the additional security risk of 15 mailing list subscribers (over 13), or the marginal security benefit of 13 subscribers instead of 15, even come up. The community was far more concerned with the effect of the committee's size on its ability to fulfill its functions.
  Similarly, here, I believe the committee should focus on whether this change could help the committee execute on its responsibilities. If yes, I urge the committee to give it a try; this nine-month trial isn't all that risky in the grand scheme of things.
  As for Cabayi's point that some material should be seen only by arbitrators, that's why this proposal explicitly provides that The Committee shall establish a process to allow editors to, in unusual circumstances following a showing of good cause, directly email a mailing list accessible only by arbitrators and not by correspondence clerks.
  Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 08:53, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

1. Contingent on 1.4 passing. This option was not my first choice, and I'm inclined to try having a coordinating Arb first, if we can get a volunteer/set of volunteers. Given that the new term should infuse the Committee with more life and vigor, we may find a coordinating Arb, or another solution. But I think we should put this in our toolbox for the moment. This doesn't force us to appoint someone, just gives us the ability and outlines the position. CaptainEek ⚓ 05:29, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
   • (former arbitrator) Slight support for this, mostly on the condition that it only be former Arbs that have consistent activity. One point I do wonder on is how the email clerks can ensure that Arbs actually get around to resolving the raised issues. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 23:20, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
2. Per below – the community wants us to solve problems, and this is what best helps us solve problems. I don't think we severely damage people's privacy by increasing the number of ANPDP-signed and trusted functionaries who view the emails from 15 to 16, and to the extent it's bad for the opacity of ArbCom as an institution, that's just not my highest priority. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 01:28, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
3. I think this idea would allow someone to nudge us to ensure votes would take place. In the past, this was done by individual arbs, and if that worked we wouldn't need this motion. However, it hasn't and thus outside assistance would probably be more likely to solve the workflow problems we experience. Z1720 (talk) 17:34, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
4. Per Eek. Former arbs know what this is like, they know how to push the buttons, they understand the privacy implications, and of the myriad imperfect solutions that have been suggested, it's imho the best one. Katie 23:12, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. I don't think we should extend access to the mailing list and the private information it contains beyond what is absolutely necessary. I understand the reasoning behind former arbitrators in such a role as they previously had such access, but people emailing the Arbitration Committee should have confidence that private information is kept need to know and that only the current arbitrators evaluating and making decisions based on that private information have ongoing access to it. - Aoidh (talk) 23:36, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
2. Might as well make it formal per my opinions elsewhere on the page. Primefac (talk) 13:24, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
3. This is limited to former arbitrators for good reasons, most of them privacy-related. But the same concerns that led to this proposal being limited to former arbitrators are also arguments against doing this at all. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:16, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
4. I don't find it hard to think of correspondence that the committee has received recently that absolutely should not have a wider circulation. I find myself in agreement with Aoidh - need to know. Cabayi (talk) 11:32, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
5. As I've made clear in private, I prefer having staff help (see that vote). I think that having non-professionals in this role mean that this proposal barely fails in balancing an acceptable level of "intrusion" on the list (ie the reduced privacy) against the probability of success and benefits. Sdrqaz (talk) 23:46, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
6. Roughly per Aoidh, with additional concerns about creating additional overhead such as another mailing list and creating a bottleneck that could become a problem if the clerk were to become inactive for any reason. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:58, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
7. Coordinating arbitrators appears to be passing, and that's my preference on trying to keep workflow moving behind-the-scenes. I am not necessarily opposed to this in principle, but my preference would be to try coordinating arbitrators (including one coordinating this portfolio) first, and if for any reason we get a portion of the way through the year and that still isn't working, very happy to look at this again. I was considering supporting for the same reasons as Eek (put it in our toolkit for a rainy day), but instead I'm voting oppose on the basis that, should we wish to try it in the future, it's a very easy vote to quickly run through at that point (and, even if this passed, we'd probably need to have an internal vote to implement it at that time anyways). Daniel (talk) 20:08, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Abstain

Motion 1: Arbitrator views and discussions

• I'd be glad changing this to only appoint former arbs, if that would tip anyone's votes. Currently, it's written as "from among the English Misplaced Pages functionary corps (and preferably from among former members of the Arbitration Committee)" for flexibility if needed, but I imagine we would only really appoint former arbs if available, except under unusual circumstances, because they understand how the mailing list discussions go and have previously been elected to handle the same private info. I am also open to calling it something other than "correspondence clerk"; that just seemed like a descriptive title. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:28, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

  I do like the idea of using our Arbs emeritus for this position (and perhaps only Arbs emeritus); it ensures that they have experience in our byzantine process, and at least at some point held community trust. CaptainEek ⚓ 01:31, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

  @CaptainEek: I have changed the motion to make only former arbs eligible. If anyone preferred broader (all funct) eligibility, I've added an alternative motion 1.1 below, which if any arb does prefer it, they should uncollapse and vote for it. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 02:07, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

• I also think that if we adopt this we should choose a better name. I know Barkeep49 meant this suggestion as a bit of a joke, but I actually think he was on the money when he suggested "scrivener." I like "adjutant" even more, which I believe he also suggested. They capture the sort of whimsical Misplaced Pages charm evoked by titles like Most Pluperfect Labutnum while still being descriptive, and not easily confused for a traditional clerk. CaptainEek ⚓ 03:21, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

  Whimsy is important -- Guerillero 08:55, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

• @CaptainEek and Guerillero: Per the above discussion points, I have (a) proposed two alternative names below that were workshopped among some arbs ("scrivener" on the more whimsical side and "coordination assistant" on the less whimsical side; see motions 1.2a and 1.2b), and (b) made this motion a nine-month trial, after which time the section is automatically repealed unless the Committee takes action to extend it. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 03:10, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
• I plan on supporting motion 1 over anything else. I've spent a week just getting onto all the platforms, and I'm already kind of shocked that this is how we do things. Not only is there a lot to keep track of, all of the information moves unintuitively between different places in a way that makes it very difficult to keep up unless you're actively plugged in enough to be on top of the ball – which I don't think anyone can be all the time. I just don't think a coordinating arb is sufficient: we need someone who can keep us on track without having to handle all of the standard work of reviewing evidence, deliberating, and making an informed decision. (Better-organized tech would also be great, but I'd need to spend a lot more time thinking about how it could be redone.) I understand the privacy concerns, but I don't think this represents a significant breach of confidentiality: people care more whether their report gets handled properly than whether it goes before 15 trusted people or 16. So, I'll be voting in favor of motion 1, and maybe motion 3 will be a distant second. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 21:40, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
• I just want to briefly address @Moneytrees's question. In my view, nothing a c-clerk (or anyone else) can do can make arbs fulfill their functions. What the c-clerks can do is help reduce the needless duplicated time and effort arbs spend on trying to figure out what matters are outstanding, what balls they might be dropping, where their time can be effectively spent. But if an arb truly is checked out, yeah, regular emailed reminders aren't going to help. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 08:59, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

References

1. Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Policy § Scope and responsibilities
2. Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Policy § Procedures and roles

Motion 1.1: expand eligible set to functionaries

Motion 1.2a: name the role "scrivener"

If motion 1 passes, replace the term "correspondence clerks" wherever it appears with the term "scriveners".

For this motion there are 15 active arbitrators. With 1 arbitrator abstaining, 8 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Support

1. Nicely whimsical, and not as likely to be confusing as correspondence clerk. CaptainEek ⚓ 04:11, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
2. per Eek :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 01:28, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. I think correspondence clerk is fine if role is something we're going with, it's less ambiguous as to what it entails than scrivener. - Aoidh (talk) 04:12, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
2. I have never heard that word before; at least "correspondence" and "clerk" are somewhat common in the English Misplaced Pages world. When possible, I think we should use words people don't have to look up in dictionaries. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:07, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
3. Follows on from my vote on Motion 1. Cabayi (talk) 11:38, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
4. As I've said in private, I think that this name would be unnecessarily opaque and complicated. Most people would need to search in a dictionary to understand what this means. Sdrqaz (talk) 23:46, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
5. This sounds too much like we are appointing pirates, IMO. Too obscure of a word. Z1720 (talk) 17:35, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
6. I might be in the minority but I have no issue with 'correspondence clerks'. Daniel (talk) 20:08, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Abstain

• (former arbitrator) I think that because it's more archaic and possibly less serious, I disprefer this to either "coordination assistant" or "correspondence clerk", but would ultimately be perfectly happy with it. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 03:11, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
• (former arbitrator) Agree with Kevin. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 23:20, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

1. I don't think the name matters overmuch, although I think even if this passed they'd probably still be called a clerk in practice because who wants to type out scrivener every time? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:58, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
2. I do. not. care. what it's called. Katie 23:12, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Arbitrator discussion

Motion 1.2b: name the role "coordination assistant"

If motion 1 passes, replace the term "correspondence clerks" wherever it appears with the term "coordination assistants".

For this motion there are 15 active arbitrators. With 3 arbitrators abstaining, 7 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Support

1. Slightly better, I guess, in that the role (whatever it is called) is more about coordination (keeping track of business) than actual correspondence (replying to people who contact us). Not exactly an issue of paramount importance. Sdrqaz (talk) 23:46, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose

1. bleh. CaptainEek ⚓ 04:12, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
2. Follows on from my vote on Motion 1. Cabayi (talk) 11:38, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
3. mm, not my favorite. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 01:28, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
4. Prefer correspondence clerks. Z1720 (talk) 17:36, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
5. Per 1.2a. Daniel (talk) 20:08, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Abstain

• (former arbitrator) I am indifferent between this and "correspondence clerk". Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 03:11, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

1. If we're going to use a role like this, either this or correspondence clerk is fine. - Aoidh (talk) 04:13, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
2. That would be okay. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:08, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
   • (former arbitrator) 🤷‍♂️ Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 23:20, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
3. I'm not fussed about what color we paint the bike shed. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:58, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
4. Per above. Katie 23:12, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Arbitrator discussion

Motion 1.3: make permanent (not trial)

If motion 1 passes, omit the text for a trial period of nine months from the date of enactment, after which time the section shall be automatically repealed unless the Committee takes action to make it permanent or otherwise extend it.

For this motion there are 15 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 8 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Support

Oppose

1. I recently experimented with sunset clauses and think that frankly a lot more of what we do should have such time limits that require us to stop and critically evaluate if a thing is working. CaptainEek ⚓ 04:19, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
2. If this change is necessary, there should be a review of it after a reasonable trial period to see what does and does not work. - Aoidh (talk) 01:34, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
3. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:10, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
4. Follows on from my vote on Motion 1. Cabayi (talk) 11:38, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
   • (former arbitrator) Agree with Eek. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 23:20, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
5. This is a big change and so I'd rather that we forced a review. Sdrqaz (talk) 23:46, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
6. If this passed it should require affirmative consensus to continue past the trial period. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:58, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
7. A trial first would be better. Z1720 (talk) 17:37, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
8. Daniel (talk) 20:08, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
9. Katie 23:12, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Abstain

• (former arbitrator) I have no preference as to whether this is permanent or a trial. I do think that nine months is a good length for the trial if we choose to have one: not too long to lock in a year's committee; not too short to make it unworthwhile. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 03:13, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Arbitrator discussion

Motion 1.4: expanding arbcom-en directly

If motion 1 passes, strike the following text:

To that end, upon the first appointment of correspondence clerks, the current arbcom-en mailing list shall be renamed to arbcom-en-internal, which shall continue to be accessible only by arbitrators, and a new arbcom-en email list shall be established. The subscribers to the new arbcom-en list shall be the arbitrators and correspondence clerks.

And replace it with the following:

To that end, correspondence clerks shall be added to the arbcom-en mailing list. The Committee shall continue to maintain at least one mailing list accessible only by arbitrators.

For this motion there are 15 active arbitrators. With 2 arbitrators abstaining, 7 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Support

1. Much less trouble to have them on the main list than to split the lists. CaptainEek ⚓ 04:13, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
2. Especially if it's former arbs who've already had access to most of the list at one point or another, I think the trade-off of scriveners being able to properly do their jobs is worth it. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 01:28, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
3. Per my vote above. Katie 23:12, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Access to private information should be as limited as possible to only what is strictly necessary to perform such a task, and I don't see allowing full access to the contents of the current list necessary for this. I'd rather not split the list, but between that and giving full access then if we're going to have a correspondence clerk, then it needs to be split. - Aoidh (talk) 04:21, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
2. Motion 1 is already problematic for privacy reasons; this would make it worse. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:14, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
3. Follows on from my vote on Motion 1. Cabayi (talk) 11:38, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
   • (former arbitrator) I think the lists should be split. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 23:20, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
4. If the clerk/skrivienenrener (see, I can't even spell it!) motion passes I would prefer to split the lists. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:58, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
5. I'd like to split the lists, in case there is a topic that arbs want to discuss as arb-only. The new role doesn't need to be observers in many discussions we have amongst arbs. Z1720 (talk) 17:39, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Abstain

• (former arbitrator) I would not really object to this. C-clerks (or whatever we call them) are former arbs and have previously been on arbcom-en in any event, so it doesn't seem that like a big deal to do this. On the other hand, I would understand if folks prefer the split. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 03:24, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

1. I am really torn on the competing arguments between decreased effectiveness and privacy of the lists. Sdrqaz (talk) 23:46, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
2. Per Kevin & Sdrqaz. Daniel (talk) 20:08, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Arbitrator discussion

• Proposed per Guerillero's comment below. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 03:24, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Motion 2: WMF staff support

The Arbitration Committee requests that the Wikimedia Foundation Committee Support Team provide staff support for the routine administration and organization of the Committee's mailing list and non-public work.

The selected staff assistants shall be responsible for assisting the Committee in the routine administration and organization of its mailing list and non-public work in a similar manner as the existing arbitration clerks assist in the administration of the Committee's on-wiki work. Staff assistants shall perform their functions under the direction of the Arbitration Committee and shall not represent the Wikimedia Foundation in the course of their support work with the Arbitration Committee or disclose the Committee's internal deliberations except as directed by the Committee.

The specific responsibilities of the staff assistants shall include, as directed by the Committee:

• Acknowledging the receipt of correspondence and assigning tracking identifiers to pending requests and other matters;
• Tracking the status of pending matters and providing regular updates and reminders on the status of the Committee's off-wiki work to arbitrators;
• Reminding members of the Committee to vote or otherwise take action in pending matters;
• Organizing related correspondence into case files; and
• Providing similar routine administrative and clerical assistance to the Arbitration Committee.

The remit of staff assistants shall not include:

• Participating in the substantive consideration or decision of any matters before the Committee; or
• Taking non-routine actions requiring the exercise of arbitrator discretion.

To that end, upon the selection of staff assistants, the current arbcom-en mailing list shall be renamed to arbcom-en-internal, which shall continue to be accessible only by arbitrators, and a new arbcom-en email list shall be established. The subscribers to the new arbcom-en list shall be the arbitrators and staff assistants.

The Committee shall establish a process to allow editors to, in unusual circumstances following a showing of good cause, directly email a mailing list accessible only by arbitrators and not by staff assistants.

Staff assistants shall be subject to the same requirements concerning conduct and recusal as the arbitration clerk team.

For this motion there are 15 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 8 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Support

1. I will come out here and support this, given my many comments in private, though it seems unlikely to pass now. Pragmatically speaking, I think that having staff on-list would have a greater likelihood of effectiveness due to being professionals who do this in their day job and having a greater obligation to help us because they're, well, staff (have a clearer subordinate–superior relationship in the WMF structure compared to a clerk, who is ultimately a volunteer that cannot be forced to work). Moreover, while I think that the separation between Community and Foundation is important, I feel that active Community members would have greater chances of having conflicts of interest due to pre-existing relationships; we have had very few petitions to us on Foundation actions in the last few years. Sdrqaz (talk) 23:46, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose

1. I appreciate that Kevin put this together, and I think this would be very helpful, maybe even the most helpful, way to ensure that we stayed on top of the ball. But just because it would achieve one goal doesn't make it a good idea. A full version of my rationale is on the ArbList, for other Arbs. The short, WP:BEANS version is that this would destroy the line between us and the Foundation, which undoes much of our utility. CaptainEek ⚓ 01:22, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
2. Per my comment on motion 4. - Aoidh (talk) 01:31, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
3. Might as well make it formal per my opinions elsewhere on the page. Primefac (talk) 13:24, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
4. I like the general idea of the WMF using its donated resources to support the community that made the donations possible. I am uncomfortable with putting WMF staff in front of ArbCom's e-mail queue, however, as this would come with unavoidable conflicts of interest and a loss of independence. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:05, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
5. The help would be useful, but the consequences would be detrimental to both ArbCom & WMF. Some space between us is necessary for ArbCom's impartiality & for the WMF's section 230 position. Cabayi (talk) 12:56, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
   • (former arbitrator) Not a bad idea, but I believe the various conflicts of interest between us and the foundation, both major and minor, make this unworkable. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 23:20, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
6. This would likely be the most effective way to go for keeping things moving, but I'm too concerned about the separation of Arbcom and WMF. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:58, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
7. I think other options need to be tried first before considering getting resources from WMF. Z1720 (talk) 17:40, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
8. Daniel (talk) 20:08, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
9. Under no circumstances do I want the WMF inserted into the arb list. Katie 23:02, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Abstain

Motion 2: Arbitrator views and discussions

• I am quite open to this idea. A professional staff member assisting the committee might be the most reliable and consistent way to achieve this goal. ArbCom doesn't need the higher-intensity support that the WMF Committee Support Team provides other committees like AffCom and the grant committees, but having somebody to track threads and bump stalled discussions would be quite helpful. I'm going to wait to see if there's any community input on this motion before voting on it, though. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:28, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Motion 3: Coordinating arbitrators

The Arbitration Committee's procedures are amended by adding the following section:

Coordinating arbitrators

The Arbitration Committee shall, from time to time, designate one or more arbitrators to serve as the Committee's coordinating arbitrators.

Coordinating arbitrators shall be responsible for assisting the Committee in the routine administration and organization of its mailing list and non-public work in a similar manner as the existing arbitration clerks assist in the administration of the Committee's on-wiki work.

The specific responsibilities of coordinating arbitrators shall include:

• Acknowledging the receipt of correspondence and assigning tracking identifiers to pending requests and other matters;
• Tracking the status of pending matters and providing regular updates and reminders on the status of the Committee's off-wiki work to arbitrators;
• Reminding members of the Committee to vote or otherwise take action in pending matters;
• Organizing related correspondence into case files; and
• Performing similar routine administrative and clerical functions.

A coordinating arbitrator may, but is not required to, state an intention to abstain on some or all matters before the Committee without being listed as an "inactive" arbitrator.

For this motion there are 15 active arbitrators. With 1 arbitrator abstaining, 8 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Support

1. This is currently my first-choice option; we have unofficially in the past had arbitrators take on specific roles (e.g. tracking unblock requests, responding to emails, etc) and it seemed to work fairly well. Having those rules be more "official" seems like the best way to make sure someone is responsible for these things, without needing to expand the committee or the pool of people with access to private information. Primefac (talk) 18:53, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
2. I may still vote for the clerks option, but I think this is probably the minimum of what we need. Will it be suffucient...aye, there's the rub. CaptainEek ⚓ 01:14, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
3. Of the motions proposed, this one is the one I'd most support. It doesn't expand the number of people who can view the ArbCom mailing list beyond those on ArbCom, and creates a structure that may improve how the mailing list is handled. - Aoidh (talk) 23:21, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
4. Per Primefac. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:19, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
   • (former arbitrator) Sure; this has been an informal position shared by many Arbs over the years (Barkeep, Maxim, Izno, L235, myself etc.) Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 23:20, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
5. Second choice to motion 1. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 01:29, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
6. I've mentioned that I don't think that having a titled role will make it more likely that the work gets done, but I accept that Kevin's arguments have some merit so here I am. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:58, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
7. Second choice to motion 1: I would prefer that the correspondence clerks be implemented instead: if this option worked, I think it would already be implemented (and has been implemented informally in the past in various forms). However, if motion 1 doesn't pass, this is probably the next best thing. Z1720 (talk) 17:42, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
8. First preference, per Primefac. Daniel (talk) 20:08, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Oppose

Abstain

1. I don't think that this needs to be in our public procedures and feel like this could have been carried out without needing a formal vote on the subject (see comments by Izno and leek/SFR). I do have some reservations over whether having a specific person to do x will mean that the rest of us won't do x, but we'll see. Sdrqaz (talk) 23:46, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
2. My first thought was "as long as I'm not the one who has to do it," and if that's how I'm thinking, I should sit this one out. Katie 23:01, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Motion 3: Arbitrator views and discussions

• I am also open to this idea, though I am worried that it will be insufficient and haven't made up my mind on my vote yet. This idea was floated by a former arbitrator from back when the committee did have a coordinating arbitrator, though that role kind of quietly faded away. The benefits of this approach include that there's no need to bring anyone else onto the list. This motion also allows (but does not require) arbs to take a step back from active arb business to focus on the coordination role, which could help with the bifurcation I mention above. Cons include that this could be the least reliable option; that it's possible no arb is interested, or has the capacity to do this well; and that it's hard to be both a coordinator on top of the existing difficult role of serving as an active arb. I personally think this is better than nothing, but probably prefer one of the other two motions to actually add some capacity. Other ideas that have been floated include establishing a subcommittee of arbitrators responsible for these functions. My same concerns would apply there, but if there's interest, I'm glad to draft and propose a motion to do that; any other arb should also feel free to propose such a motion of their own. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:28, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
• I was partial to this idea, though it was not my first choice. I proposed that we might make it a rotating position, à la the presidency of the UN security council. Alternatively, a three person subcommittee might also be the way to go, so that the position isn't dependent on one person's activity. I like this solution in general because we already basically had it, with the coordinating arbitrator role. CaptainEek ⚓ 01:35, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
  • @CaptainEek: I think your last sentence actually kind of nails why I don't love this solution? From a new person on the scene, it doesn't seem to me like trying old strategies and things we've already been doing is really going to solve a chronic problem. If there are arbs who really are willing to be the coordinators, that's better than nothing, but I haven't seen any step up yet and I'm not convinced that relying on at least one arb having the extra time and trust in every committee to do this work is sustainable. I am leaning towards voting for the scriveners motion, though, because I do love a good whimsical name theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 21:51, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

    My concern with this is that if an arb already has the time and inclination you'd expect them to be filling the role, as has happened in the past. Simply formalizing the role doesn't help if no one has the motivation to do it. It's still the option I support the most out of those listed, though. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:07, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

    I think formalizing it does move the needle on someone doing it. Two possible benefits of the formalization:

    • It makes clear that this is a valuable role, one that an arb should feel is a sufficient and beneficial way to spend their time. It also communicates this to the community, which might otherwise ask an arb running for reelection why they spent their time coordinating (rather than on other arb work).
    • It gives "permission" for coordinating arbs to go inactive on other business if they wish.

    These two benefits make this motion more than symbolic in my view. My hesitation on it remains that it may be quite insufficient relative to motion 1. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 22:18, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

• I could get behind this idea, not as a permanent single coordinating arb but as a "hat" that gets passed on, with each of us taking a turn. That would allow the flexibility for periods of inactivity and balancing workload when the coordinating arb wants/needs to act as a drafter on a complex case. It would also ensure that a wide-view of our workload was held by a wide-range of arbs. 3.5 weeks each and the year is covered. Cabayi (talk) 08:35, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Motion 4: Grants for correspondence clerks

In the event that "Motion 1: Correspondence clerks" passes, the Arbitration Committee shall request that the Wikimedia Foundation provide grants payable to correspondence clerks in recognition of their assistance to the Committee.

For this motion there are 15 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 8 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Support

Oppose

1. Misplaced Pages should remain a volunteer activity. If we cannot find volunteers to do the task, then perhaps it ought not be done in the first place. CaptainEek ⚓ 01:09, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
2. We should not have a clerk paid by the WMF handling English Misplaced Pages matters in this capacity. - Aoidh (talk) 01:48, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
3. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:18, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
4. I feel bound by my RFA promise - "I have never edited for pay, or any other consideration, and never will." Cabayi (talk) 08:41, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
   • (former arbitrator) Would be cool, but no. “To whom much is given, much will be required”… Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 23:20, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
5. Per the others. Primefac (talk) 07:23, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
6. Not against having a paid clerk in general, given my support of a WMF staff liaison, but would rather devote that money to a WMF professional, whom I believe would provide a greater likelihood of effectiveness. Sdrqaz (talk) 23:46, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
7. I might support something like this if it were to to hire a clerk independent of the WMF and volunteer functionaries, but I don't support paying a volunteer to tell other volunteers they need to respond to emails. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:58, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
8. Daniel (talk) 20:08, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

Abstain

Motion 4: Arbitrator views and discussions

• Proposing for discussion; thanks to voorts for the idea. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:00, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

  I am leaning no on this motion. The potential downsides of this plan do seem to outweigh the benefit of being able to compensate a correspondence clerk for what will ultimately likely be something like 5 hours a week at most. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 02:13, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Community discussion

Will correspondence clerks be required to sign an NDA? Currently clerks aren't. Regardless of what decision is made this should probably be in the motion. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:29, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Good catch. I thought it was implied by "from among the English Misplaced Pages functionary corps" – who all sign NDAs as a condition to access functionaries-en and the CUOS tools; see Misplaced Pages:Functionaries (Functionary access requires that the user sign the confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information.)  – but I've made it explicit now. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:31, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

You're right that that was there, but I missed it on my first readthrough of the rules (thinking correspondence clerks would be appointed from the clerk team instead). * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:37, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Why does "coordinating arbitrators" need a (public) procedures change? Izno (talk) 18:34, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

As Primefac mentioned above, it seems reasonable to assume that having something written down "officially" might help make sure that the coordinating arbitrator knows what they are responsible for. In any event, it probably can't hurt. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:08, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

It is a pain in the ass to get formal procedures changed. There is an internal procedures page: I see 0 reason not to use it if you want to clarify what the role of this arbitrator is. Izno (talk) 19:13, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

On top of that, this doesn't actually change the status quo much if at all. It is almost entirely a role definition for an internal matter, given "we can make an arb a CA, but we don't have to have one" in it's "from time to time" clause. This just looks like noise to anyone reading ARBPRO who isn't on ArbCom: the public doesn't need to know this arb even exists, though they might commonly be the one responding to emails so they might get a sense there is such an arb. Izno (talk) 19:21, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

While I appreciate that some functionaries are open to volunteering for this role, this borders on is a part-time secretarial job and ought to be compensated as such. The correspondence clerks option combined with WMF throwing some grant money towards compensation would be my ideal. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:35, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for this suggestion – I've added motion 4 to address this suggestion. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:08, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

In the first motion the word "users" in "The Committee shall establish a process to allow users to, in unusual circumstances" is confusing, it should probably be "editors". In the first and second motions, it should probably be explicit whether correspondence clerks/support staff are required, permitted or prohibited to:

• Share statistical information publicly
• Share status information (publicly or privately) with correspondents who wish to know the status of their request.
• Share status information (publicly or privately) about the status of a specific request with someone other than the correspondent.

  For this I'm thinking of scenarios like where e.g. an editor publicly says they emailed the Committee about something a while ago, and one or more other editors asks what is happening with it.

I think my preference would be for 1 or 2, as these seem likely to be the more reliable. Neither option precludes there also being a coordinating arbitrator doing some of the tasks as well. Thryduulf (talk) 18:49, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for these suggestions. I've changed "users" to "editors". The way I'm intending these motions to be read, correspondence clerks or staff assistants should only disclose information as directed by the committee. I think the details of which information should be shared upon whose request in routine cases could be decided later by the committee, with the default being "ask ArbCom before disclosing until the committee decides to approve routine disclosures in certain cases", because it's probably hard to know in advance which categories will be important to allow. I'm open to including more detail if you think that's important to include at this stage, though, and I'd welcome hearing why if so. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:08, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

I see your point, but I think it worth clarifying certain things in advance before they become an issue to avoid unrealistic or mistaken expectations of the c-clerks by the community. Point 1 doesn't need to be specified in advance, maybe something like "communicating information publicly as directed by the Committee" would be useful to say in terms of expectation management or maybe it's still to specific? I can see both sides of that.

Point 2 I think is worth establishing quickly and while it is on people's minds. Waiting for the committee to make up its mind before knowing whether they can give a full response to a correspondent about this would be unfair to both the correspondent and clerk I think. This doesn't necessarily have to be before adoption, but if not it needs to be very soon afterwards.

Point 3 is similar, but c-clerks and community members knowing exactly what can and cannot be shared, and especially being able to point to something in writing about what cannot be said publicly, has the potential to reduce drama e.g. if there is another situation similar to Billed Mammal's recent case request. Thryduulf (talk) 19:30, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

What justification is there for the WMF to spend a single additional dollar on the workload of a project-specific committee whose workload is now demonstrably smaller than at any time in its history? (Noting here that there is a real dollar-cost to the support already being given by WMF, such as the monthly Arbcom/T&S calls that often result in the WMF accepting requests for certain activities.) And anyone who is being paid by the WMF is responsible to the WMF as the employer, not to English Misplaced Pages Arbcom.

I think Arbcom is perhaps not telling the community some very basic facts that are leading to their efforts to find someone to take responsibility for its organization, which might include "we have too many members who aren't pulling their weight" or "we have too many members who, for various reasons that don't have to do with Misplaced Pages, are inactive", or "we have some tasks that nobody really wants to do". There's no indication that any of these solutions would solve these kinds of problems, and I think that all of these issues are factors that are clearly visible to those who follow Arbcom on even an occasional basis. Arbitrators who are inactive for their own reasons aren't going to become more active because someone's organizing their mail. Arbitrators who don't care enough to vote on certain things aren't any more likely to vote if someone is reminding them to vote in a non-public forum; there's no additional peer pressure or public guilt-tripping. And if Arbcom continues to have tasks that nobody really wants to do, divest those tasks. Arbcom has successfully done that with a large number of tasks that were once its responsibility.

I think you can do a much better job of making your case. Risker (talk) 20:05, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

I think there is a need to do something as poor communication and extremely slow replies, if replies are made at all, has been an ongoing issue for the committee for some time. However I agree that asking the foundation to pay someone to do it is going too far. The point that if you are paid by the foundation, you work for them and not en.wp or arbcom is a compelling one. There's also a slippery slope argument to be made in that if we're paying these people, shouldn't we pay the committee? If we're paying the committee, shouldn't we pay the arbitration clerks....and so on. Just Step Sideways 20:26, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

I fully share Risker's concern about a paid WMF staffer who, no matter how well-intentioned, will be answerable to the WMF and not ARBCOM. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:55, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

The 2023-2024 committee is much more middle aged and has less university students and retirees, who oftentimes have more free time, than the 2016-2017 committee. -- Guerillero 08:56, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

It seems to me that the issue of there often being some Committee members who, for whatever reason, are not "pulling their weight", is at the core of the problem to be addressed here. Because this happens "behind the scenes", the community has no way to hold anyone accountable in elections, and because of human nature and the understandable desire to maintain a collegial atmosphere within the Committee, I don't really expect any members to call out a colleague in public. I suppose there could even be a question of what happens if whoever might be filling the role proposed here nudges a member to act, but the member just disregards that. It's difficult to see how to make it enforceable. I don't have any real solutions, but this strikes me as central to the problem. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:31, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

I think this is largely correct. I was reluctant on the committee to even note this committee's inactivity problem (worst of any 15-member arbcom ever), even though it was based on a metric that is public, when I was still on the committee. And it gets further complicated by the fact that some people not visibly active in public more than pull their weight behind the scenes - the testimonials Maxim received when running for re-election being a prime example. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:00, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

During my first term it was Roger Davies. He was barely a presence on-wiki but he kept the whole committee on point and up-to-date about what was pending. Trypto is right that it isn't enforceable, it is more a matter of applying pressure to either do the job or move oneself to the inactive list.

I also think the committee can and should be more proactive about declaring other arbs inactive even when they are otherwise present on-wiki or on the mailing list" That would probably require a procedures change, but I think it would make sense. If there is a case request, proposed decision, or other matter that requires a vote before the committee and an arb doesn't comment on it for ten days or more, they clearly don't have the time and/or inclination to do so and should be declared inactive on that matter so that their lack of action does not further delay the matter. It would be nice if they would just do so themselves, or just vote "abstain" on everything, which only takes a few minutes, but it seems it has not been happening in practice. Just Step Sideways 00:14, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

And Roger was a pensioner which kinda proves my point -- Guerillero 08:53, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Roger may have been a pensioner at the end of his time on the committee (7 years), but he certainly wasn't at the beginning of his term. He was co-ordinating arbitrator for a lot of that time, and did a good job without a single bit of extra software. The problem with that software is that people have to already be actively engaged to even contemplate using it. My sense is that the real issue here is the lack of engagement (whether periodic or chronic) on the part of many of the arbitrators. People who are inactive on Arbcom tasks aren't going to be active on any tasks, including reading emails asking them to do things or special software sending alerts. Simply put, if people aren't going to put Arbcom as their primary Misplaced Pages activity for the next two years, keeping in mind other life events that will likely take them away, they should not run in the first place. Yes, unexpected things happen. But I think a lot of the inactivity we've seen in the last few years involved some predictable absences that the arbs knew about when they were candidates. (Examples I've seen myself: Oh, I have a big exam to write that needs months of study; oh, I have a major life event that will require a lot of planning; oh, I'm graduating and will have to find a job.) No, I don't expect people to reveal this kind of information about themselves; yes, I do expect them to refrain from volunteering for roles that they can reasonably foresee they will have difficulty fulfilling. Risker (talk) 04:21, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I might as well ask a hard question. Is there a way to make public enough information for the community to be able to evaluate ArbCom candidates for (re)election, in terms of behind-the-scenes inactivity? If individual Arbs were to make public comments, that would do it, but it would also potentially be very contentious and could reduce effectiveness instead of improving it. Could ArbCom initiate a new process of posting onsite information about the processing of tasks, without revealing private information (such as: "Ban appeal 1", "Ban appeal 2", instead of "Ban appeal by "), and list those members who voted (perhaps without listing which way they voted)? Maybe do that monthly, and include all tasks that had not yet gotten a quorum. Yes, I know that's difficult. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:48, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I question an answer to the problem of "we're having trouble finding enough people to do the secretarial work we have already" being "let's create substantially more secretarial work" even accepting the premise that people would then get voted off if they didn't pull their weight. While I think that premise is correct, what this system would also encourage - even more than it already exists - is an incentive to just go along with whatever the first person (or the person who has clearly done the most homework) says. And that defeats the purpose of having a committee made up of individual thinkers. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:55, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

That's a fair point. I'll admit that, even from the outside, I sometimes see members who appear to wait to see which way the wind is blowing before voting on proposed decisions. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:59, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

That's something that's hard to know or verify, even for the other arbs. The arbs only know what the other arbs tell them, and I've never seen anyone admit to that. Just Step Sideways 23:44, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I think the timing for this is wrong. The committee is about to have between 6 and 9 new members (depending on whether Guerillero, Eek, and Primefac get re-elected). In addition it seems likely that some number of former arbs are about to rejoin the committee. This committee - basically the committee with the worst amount of active membership of any 15 member committee ever - seems like precisely the wrong one to be making large changes to ongoing workflows in December. Izno's idea of an easier to try and easier to change/abandon internal procedure for the coordinating arb feels like something appropriate to try now. The rest feel like it should be the prerogative of the new committee to decide among (or perhaps do a different change altogether). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:44, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Kevin can correct me if I'm wrong, but I assumed he was doing this now because he will not be on the committee a month from now.

That being said it could be deliberately held over, or conversely, possibly fall victim to the inactivity you mention and still be here for the new committee to decide. Just Step Sideways 23:12, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Since WP:ACE2024 elections are currently taking place it makes sense to have the incoming arbitrators weigh in on changes like this. They are the ones that will be affected by any of these motions passing rather than the outgoing arbitrators. - Aoidh (talk) 00:27, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Oh I assumed that's why he was doing it also. I am also assuming he's doing it to try and set up the future committees for success. That doesn't change my point about why this is the wrong time and why a different way of trying the coordinator role (if it has support) would be better. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:28, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Regarding "timing is wrong": I think you both would agree that these are a long time coming – we have been working on these and related ideas for years (I ran on a related idea in 2022). I do think there's never quite a good time. Very plausibly, the first half of the year is out because the new arbs will need that time to learn how the processes work and think about what kinds of things should be changed vs. kept the same. And then it might be another few months as the new ArbCom experiments with less-consequential changes like the ones laid about at the top: technological solutions, trying new ways of tracking stuff, etc., before being confident in the need for something like set out above. And then things get busy for other reasons; there will be weeks or even occasionally months when the whole committee is overtaken by some urgent situation. I've experienced a broadly similar dynamic a few times now; this is all to say that there's just not much time or space in the agenda for this kind of stuff in a one-year cycle, which would be a shame because I do think this is important to take on.
I do think that it should be the aspiration of every year's committee to leave the succeeding committee some improvements in the functioning of the committee based on lessons learned that year, so it would be nice to leave the next committee with this. That said, if arbitrators do feel that we should hold this over to the new committee, I'm not really in a position to object – as JSS says, this is my last year on the committee, so it's not like this will benefit me. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 01:30, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

I think it's entirely possible for the new committee to have a sense of what it wants workload wise by February-April and so it's wrong to just rule out the first half of the year. By the end of the first six months of the year that you and I started (and which JSS was a sitting member on) we'd made a number of changes to how things were done. Off the top of my head I can name the structure of cases and doing quarterly reports of private appeals as two but there were others. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:47, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Here's what I'll leave you with overall. What you may see as a downside – these proposals being voted on relatively late in the year – I see as a significant possible upside. Members of this committee are able to draw on at least eleven months' experience as arbitrators in deciding what is working well and what might warrant change – experience which is important in determining what kinds of processes and systems lead to effective and ineffective outcomes. That experience is important: Although I have served on ArbCom for four years and before that served as an ArbCom clerk for almost six years, I still learn more every year about what makes this committee click. If what really concerns you is locking in the new committee to a particular path, as I wrote above, I'm very open to structuring this as a trial run that will end of its own accord unless the committee takes action to make it permanent. This would ensure that the new committee retains full control over whether to continue, discontinue, or adapt these changes. But in my book, it does not make sense to wait. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 22:58, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

• As a 3-term former arb and a 3-term current ombuds commissioner, I've had experience of about a dozen Wikimedia committee "new intakes". I am quite convinced that these proposals are correctly timed. Process changes are better put in place prior to new appointees joining, so that they are not joining at a moment of upheaval. Doing them late in the day is not objectionable and momentum often comes at the end of term. If the changes end up not working (doubtful), the new committee would just vote to tweak the process or go back. I simply do not understand the benefit of deferring proposals into a new year, adding more work to the next year's committee. That surely affects the enthusiasm and goodwill of new members. As for the point that the '24 committee is understaffed and prone to indecision: argumentum ad hominem. If Kevin's proposals work, they work. If anything, it might be more difficult to agree administrative reforms when the committee is back at full staff. arcticocean ■ 15:49, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

  If these pass now you will have new members join at a moment of upheaval as anything proposed here will still be in its infancy when the new members join (even if we pretend the new members are joining Jan 1 rather than much sooner given that results are in and new members tend to be added to the list once the right boxes are checked). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:55, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

  You're right. And it's important to be realistic: any proposal would be under implementation for several months, so say from December through February. Would that be so bad? Any change will disrupt, in the sense that a few people need to spend time implementing it and everyone else needs to learn the new process. But waiting until later in the year causes even more disruption: members have to first learn an 'old' process and then learn the changes you're making to it… New member enthusiasm is also a keen force that could help to push through the changes. arcticocean ■ 16:28, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

  I think new member enthusiasm is part of why I think this lame duck hobbled committee is the wrong one to do it. I have high hopes for next year's group and think they would be in a better place to come up with the right solution for them. And as I noted to Kevin above this isn't hypothetical - the year we both started as arbs we made a lot of process and procedure changes in the first six months. It was a great thing to funnel that new arb energy into because I was bought into what we were doing rather than trying to make something work that I had no say in and that the existing members had no experience with. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:34, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

  While I think a solution such as adopting ZenDesk is something that could face objections, personally I think the idea of having someone track a list of work items for a committee is a pretty standard way of working (including pushing for timely resolution, something that really needs a person, not just a program). From an outsider's perspective, it's something I'd expect. It doesn't matter to non-arbitrators who does the tracking, so the committee should feel free to change that decision internally as often as it feels is effective. I'd rather there be a coordinating arbitrator in place in the interim until another solution is implemented, than have no one tracking work items in the meantime. isaacl (talk) 19:30, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Just to double check that I'm reading motion 1 correctly, it would still be possible to email the original list (for arbitrators only) if, for example, you were raising a concern about something the correspondence clerks should not be privy to (ie: misuse of tools by a functionary), correct? Granted, I think motion 3 is probably the simpler option here, but in the event motion 1 passes, is the understanding I wrote out accurate? EggRoll97 02:15, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

@EggRoll97 Yes, but probably only after an additional step. The penultimate paragraph of motions 1 and 2 says The Committee shall establish a process to allow editors to, in unusual circumstances following a showing of good cause, directly email a mailing list accessible only by arbitrators and not by correspondence clerks . No details are given about what this process would be, but one possibility would I guess be something like contacting an individual arbitrator outlining clearly why you think the c-clerks should not be privy to whatever it is. If they agree they'll tell you how to submit your evidence (maybe they'll add your email address to a temporary whitelist). Thryduulf (talk) 03:01, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

In my experience working on committees and for non-profits, typically management is much more open to offering money for software solutions that they are told can resolve a problem than agreeing to pay additional compensation for new personnel. Are you sure there isn't some tracking solution that could resolve some of these problems? Liz 07:20, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

In our tentative discussions with WMF, it sounded like it would be much more plausible to get a 0.1-0.2 FTE of staffer time than it would to get us 15 ZenDesk licenses, which was also somewhat surprising to me. That wasn't a firm response – if we went back and said we really need this, I'm guessing it'd be plausible. And we've never asked about compensating c-clerks – that was an idea that came from Voorts's comment above, and I proposed it for discussion, not because I necessarily support it but because I think it's worth discussion, and I certainly don't think it's integral to the c-clerk proposal. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 15:00, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Well, offering compensation for on-wiki tasks would be breaking new ground for the project. I do wonder though about the possibility of securing former arbitrators for these correspondent clerks' positions. It sounds like all of the work of an arbitrator (or more) without any ability to influence the results. I don't know if we'd have many interested and eligible parties. How many clerks would you think would be necessary? One? Or 3 or 4? Liz 21:40, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, these are great questions. Responses to your points:

• On volunteers: As I wrote above, four functionaries (including three former arbs) expressed initial-stage interest when this was floated when I consulted functionaries – which is great and was a bit unexpected, and which is why I wrote it up this way. Arbitrators will know that my initial plan from previous months/years did not involve limiting this to functionaries, to have a broader pool of applicants. But since we do have several interested functs, and they are already trusted to hold NDA'd private information (especially the former arbs who have previously been elected to access to this very list), I thought this would be a good way to make this a more uncontroversial proposal.
• How many to appoint? I imagine one or two if it was up to me. One would be ideal (I think it's like 30 minutes of work per day ish, max), but two for redundancy might make a lot of sense. I don't think it's all of the work of an arbitrator (or more) without any ability to influence the results – because the c-clerk would be responsible for tracking matters, not actually attempting to resolve them, that's a lot less work than serving as an arb. It does require more consistency than most arbs have to put in, though.
• On compensating: Yeah, I'm not sure I'll end up supporting the idea, but I don't think it's unprecedented in the sense that you're thinking. Correspondence clerks aren't editing; none of the tasks listed in the motion require on-wiki edits. And there are plenty of WMF grants that have gone to off-wiki work for the benefit of projects; the first example I could think of was m:Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/UTRS User Experience Development (ID: 22215192) but I know there are many.

Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 21:59, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

I am quite confused, I often read arbs saying most of ArbCom work is behind-the-scenes work. But is all this behind-the-scenes work essentially just a one-person 30-minute-a-day work? If so, the solution here is that more arbs should simply pull their weight, which Motion 3 helps. I don't think WMF would pay someone to work 30 minutes a day either. Kenneth Kho (talk) 07:19, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

But is all this behind-the-scenes work essentially just a one-person 30-minute-a-day work?. No, the actual work takes a lot more time and effort because each arb has to read, understand and form opinions on many different things, and the committee needs to discuss most of those things, which will often re-reading and re-evaluating based on the points raised. Then in many cases there needs to be a vote. What the "one-person, 30 minutes a day" is referring to is just the meta of what tasks are open, what the current status of it is, who needs to opine on it, etc. Thryduulf (talk) 11:31, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, I realized I misunderstood it. I see that this is a relatively lightweight proposal, perhaps it could work but it probably won't help much either.

@L235 I have been thinking of splitting ArbCom into Public ArbCom and Private ArbCom. I see Public ArbCom as being able to function without the tools as @Worm That Turned advocated, focused more on complex dispute resolution. I see Private ArbCom as high-trust roles with NDAs, privy to WMF and overseeing Public ArbCom. Both ArbComs are elected separately as 15-members bodies, and both will be left with about half the current authority and responsibility. Kenneth Kho (talk) 01:54, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Thryduulf is right; I think Kevin meant that the tracking itself might be a 30 minute a day activity. But it has to happen consistently, and with a high catch rate. It also has to happen on top of our usual Arb work, which for me already averages a good ten hours a week, but can be more than twenty hours in the busy times. And I, like the other arbs, already have a full time job and a life outside Misplaced Pages. I don't like the idea of splitting ArbCom in twain, nor do I think it could be achieved. CaptainEek ⚓ 02:18, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree, having someone managing the work could really help smooth things out. Kenneth Kho (talk) 11:36, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

My first thought is that cleanly splitting arbcom would be very difficult. For example what happens if there is an open public case and two-thirds of the way through the evidence phase someone discovers and wishes to submit private evidence? Thryduulf (talk) 02:31, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree, the split won't be entirely clean. I'm thinking Public ArbCom would narrowly remand part of the case to Private ArbCom if it finds that the private evidence is likely to materially affect the outcome. Kenneth Kho (talk) 11:34, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

How will public know whether the private evidence will materially affect the outcome without seeing the private evidence? Secondly, how will private arbcom determine whether it materially affects the outcome without reviewing all the public evidence and thus duplicating public arbcom's work (and thus also negating the workload benefits of the split)? What happens if public and private arbcom come to different conclusions about the same public evidence? Thryduulf (talk) 11:39, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

You raised good points that I did not address. I think that a way to do this would be to follow how Oversighters have the authority to override Admins that they use sparingly. Private ArbCom could have the right to receive any private evidence regarding an ongoing case on Public ArbCom, and Private ArbCom will have discretions to override Public ArbCom remedies without explanation other than something like "per private evidence". Private ArbCom would need to familiarize themselves with the case a bit, but this is mitigated by the fact that they only concerned with the narrow parts. Private ArbCom could have the authority to take the whole Public ArbCom case private if it deems that private evidence affect many parties. Kenneth Kho (talk) 11:55, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

12 candidates for 9 open seats is sufficient. But it hardly suggests we have so many people that we could support 30 people (even presuming some additional people would run under the split). Further, what happens behind the scenes already strains the trust of the community. But at least the community can see the public actions as a reminder of "well this person hasn't lost it completely while on ArbCom". I think it would be much harder to sustain trust under this split. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:35, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

I honestly like the size of 12-member committee, too many proverbial cooks spoil the proverbial broth. I did think about the trust aspect, as the community has been holding ArbCom under scrutiny, but at the same time I consider that the community has been collegial with Bureaucrats, Checkusers, Oversighters. Private ArbCom would be far less visible, with Public ArbCom likely taking the heat for contentious decisions. Kenneth Kho (talk) 11:40, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree with L235 regarding whether this is all the work and none of the authority: it does not come with all the responsibility that being an Arb comes with either. This role does not need to respond to material questions or concerns about arbitration matters and does not need to read and weigh the voluminous case work to come to a final decision. The c-clerk will need to keep up on emails and will probably need to have an idea of what's going on in public matters, but that was definitely not the bulk of the (stressful?) work of an arbitrator. Izno (talk) 00:26, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

@Liz well that's what I thought. I figured that ZenDesk was the winningest solution, until the Foundation made it seem like ZenDesk licenses were printed on gold bars. We did do some back of the envelope calculations, and it is decidedly expensive. Still...I have a hard time believing those ZenDesk licenses really cost more than all that staff time. I think we'll have to do some more convincing of the Foundation on that front, or implement a different solution. CaptainEek ⚓ 01:29, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

I touched upon the idea of using former arbitrators to do administrative tasks on the arbitration committee talk page, and am also pleasantly surprised to hear there is some interest. I think this approach may be the most expeditious way to put something in place at least for the interim. (On a side note, I urge people not to let the term "c-clerk" catch on. It sounds like stuttering, or someone not good enough to be an A-level clerk. More importantly, it would be quite an obscure jargon term.) isaacl (talk) 23:18, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

To that end, upon the first appointment of correspondence clerks, the current arbcom-en mailing list shall be renamed to arbcom-en-internal, which shall continue to be accessible only by arbitrators, and a new arbcom-en email list shall be established. The subscribers to the new arbcom-en list shall be the arbitrators and correspondence clerks.

Something I raised in the functionary discussion was that this doesn't make sense to me. What is the basis for this split here? Izno (talk) 00:08, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

I assumed it was so that the clerks would only see the incoming email and not be privy to the entire commitee's comments on the matter. While all functionaries and arbs sign the same NDA, operating on a need to know basis is not at all uncommon in groups that deal with sensitive information. When I worked for the census we had to clear our debriefing room of literally everything because it was being used the next day by higher-ups from Washington who were visiting. They outranked all of us by several orders of mgnitude, but they had no reason to be looking at the non-anonymized personal data we had lying all over the place.

Conversely it would spare the clerks from having their inboxes flooded by every single arb comment, which as you know can be quite voluminous. Just Step Sideways 00:23, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

And it would also prevent them from seeing information related to themselves or something they should actively recuse on. Thryduulf (talk) 01:15, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

This suggested rationale doesn't hold water: someone with an issue with a c-clerk or where they may need to recuse should just follow the normal process for an issue with an arb: to whit, kicking off arbcom-b for a private discussion. Izno (talk) 01:39, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

I was thinking of material from before they were appointed, e.g. if there was a discussion involving the actions of user:Example in November and they become a c-clerk in December, they shouldn't be able to see the discussion even if the only comments were that the allegations against them are obviously ludicrous. I appreciate I didn't make this clear though. Thryduulf (talk) 02:35, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Making arbcom-en a "firewall" from the arb deliberations would inhibit the c-clerk from performing the duties listed in the motion. I cannot see how it would be workable for them to remind arbs to do the thing the electorate voluntold them to do if the c-clerk cannot see whether they have done those things (e.g. coming to a conclusion on an appeal), and would add to the overhead of introducing this secretarial position (email comes in, c-clerk forwards to -internal, arbs discussion on -internal, come to conclusion, send an email back to -en, which the c-clerk then actions back to the user on arbcom-en). This suggested rationale also does not hold water to me. Izno (talk) 01:43, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Apologies – if this was the interpretation, that's bad drafting on my part. The sole intention is that the new correspondence clerks won't see the past arbcom-en archives, which were emails sent to the committee on the understanding that only arbitrators would see those emails. C clerks will see everything that's newly sent on arbcom-en, including all deliberations held on arbcom-en, with the exception of anything that is so sensitive that the committee feels the need to restrict discussion to arbitrators (this should be fairly uncommon but covers the recusal concern above in a similar way as discussions about arbs who recuse sometimes get moved to arbcom-en-b). The C clerks will need to be able to see deliberations to be able to track pending matters and ensure that balls aren't being dropped, which could not happen unless they had access to the discussions – this is a reasonable "need to know" because they are fulfilling a function that is hard to combine with serving as an active arbitrator. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 01:54, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Well, I clearly totally misread your intent there. I.... don't think I like the idea that unelected clerks can see everything the committee is doing. Just Step Sideways 03:15, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, I oppose splitting arbcom-en a second time -- Guerillero 10:17, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Regarding 1.4, I think arbcom-en and -c are good ones for a c-clerk to have access to. -b probably doesn't need access ever, as it's used exclusively for work with recusals attached to it, which should be small enough for ArbCom to manage itself in the addition of a c-clerk. (This comment in private elicited the slight rework L235 made to the motion.) Izno (talk) 06:08, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

What does this mean – when was the first time? arcticocean ■ 15:52, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

@Arcticocean: In 2018, arbcom-l became arbcom-en and the archives are in two different places. -- Guerillero 18:54, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Appointing one of the sitting arbitrators as "Coordinating Arbitrator" (motion 3) would be my recommended first choice of solution. We had a Coordinating Arbitrator—a carefully chosen title, as opposed to something like "Chair"—for a few years some time ago. It worked well, although it was not a panacea, and I frankly don't recollect why the coordinator role was dropped at some point. If there is a concern about over-reliance or over-burden on any one person, the role could rotate periodically (although I would suggest a six-month term to avoid too much time being spent on the mechanics of selecting someone and transitioning from one coordinator to the next). At any given time there should be at least one person on a 15-member Committee with the time and the skill-set to do the necessary record-keeping and nudging in addition to arbitrating, and this solution would avoid the complications associated with bringing another person onto the mailing list. I think there would be little community appetite for involving a WMF staff member (even one who is or was also an active Wikipedian) in the Committee's business; and if we are going to set the precedent of paying someone to handle tasks formerly handled by volunteers, with all due respect to the importance of ArbCom this is not where I would start. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:32, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. Regarding little community appetite – that is precisely why we are inviting community input here on this page, as one way to assess how the community feels about the various options. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 02:01, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

I also like the idea of an arb or two taking on this role more than another layer of clerks. I'm sure former arbs would be great at it but the committee needs to handle its own internal business. Just Step Sideways 03:37, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

I think it is ideal for the arbitration committee to track its own work items and prompt its members for timely action, and may have written this some time ago on-wiki. However... years have passed now, and the arbitration committee elections aren't well-suited to selecting arbitrators with the requisite skill set (even if recruitment efforts were made, the community can only go by the assurance of the candidate regarding the skills they possess and the time they have available). So I think it's worth looking at the option of keeping an arbitrator involved in an emeritus position if they have shown the aptitude and availability to help with administration. This could be an interim approach, until another solution is in place (maybe there can be more targeted recruiting of specific editors who, by their ongoing Misplaced Pages work, have demonstrated availability and tracking ability). isaacl (talk) 18:01, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

2 and 4 don't seem like very good ideas to me. For 2, I think we need to maintain a firm distinction between community and WMF entities, and not do anything that even looks like blending them together. For 4, every time you involve money in something, you multiply your potential problems by a factor of at least ten (and why should that person get paid, when other people who contribute just as much time doing other things don't, and when, for that matter, even the arbs themselves don't?). For 1, I could see that being a good idea, to take some clerical/"grunt work" load off of ArbCom and give them more time for, well, actually arbitrating, and functionaries will all already have signed the NDA. I don't have any problem with 3, but don't see why ArbCom can't just do it if they want to; all the arbs already have access to the information in question so it's not like someone is being approved to see it who can't already. Seraphimblade 01:49, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

@CaptainEek: Following up on your comments on motion 1, depending on which aspect of the proposed job one wanted to emphasize, you could also consider "amanuensis," "registrar," or "receptionist." (The best on-wiki title in my opinion, though we now are used to it so the irony is lost, will always be "bureaucrat"; I wonder who first came up with that one.) Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:49, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Or "cat-herder". --Tryptofish (talk) 00:18, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Following parliamentary tradition, perhaps "whip". (Less whimsically: "recording secretary".) isaacl (talk) 00:31, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

@Newyorkbrad:, if memory serves @Keegan: knows who came up with it, and as I recall the story was that they wanted to come up with the most boring, unappealing name they could so not too many people would be applying for it all the time. Just Step Sideways 05:03, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

So, just to usher in a topic-specific discussion because it has been alluded to many times without specifics being given, what was the unofficial position of ArbCom coordinator like? Who held this role? How did it function? Were other arbitrators happy with it? Was the Coordinator given time off from other arbitrator responsibilities? I assume this happened when an arbitrator just assumed the role but did it have a more formal origin? Did it end because no one wanted to pick up the responsibility? Questions, questions. Liz 06:56, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I cannot speak for anything but my term. I performed this role for about 1.5 years of the 2 I was on the committee. To borrow an email I sent not long before I stepped off that touches on the topics in this whole set of motions (yes, this discussion isn't new):

• Daily, ~20 minutes: went into the list software and tagged the day's incoming new email chains with a label (think "upe", "duplicate", etc).
• Daily, ~10 minutes: took care of any filtered emails on the list (spam and not-spam).
• Monthly, 1-2 hours: trawled the specific categories of tags since the beginning of the month to add to an arbwiki page for tracking for "needs to get done". Did the inverse also (removed stuff from tracking that seemed either Done or Stale).
• Monthly, 15 minutes to prep: sent an email with a direct list of the open appeals and a reminder about the "needs doing" stuff (and a few months I highlighted a topic or two that were easy wins). This built off the daily work in a way that would be a long time if it were all done monthly instead of daily.

I was also an appeals focused admin, which had further overhead here that I would probably put in the responsibility of this kind of arb. Other types of arbs probably had similar things they would have wanted to do this direction but I saw very little of such. Daily for this effort, probably another 15 minutes or so:

• I copy-pasted appeal metadata from new appeals email to arbwiki
• Started countdown timers for appeals appearing to be at consensus
• Sent "easy" boilerplate emails e.g. "we got this appeal, we may be in touch" or "no way Jose you already appealed a month ago"
• Sent results for the easy appeals post-countdown timer and filled in relevant metadata (easy appeals here usually translated to "declined" since this was the quick-n-easy daily work frame, not the long-or-hard daily work frame)

(End extract from referenced email.) This second set is now probably a much-much lighter workload with the shedding of most CU appeals this year (which was 70% of the appeals by count during my term), and I can't say how much of this second group would be in the set of duties depending on which motion is decided above (or if even none of the motions are favored by the committee - you can see I've advocated for privately documenting the efforts of coordinating arbs rather than publicly documenting them regarding 3, and it wouldn't take much to get me to advocate against 2 and 4, I just know others can come to the right-ish conclusion on those two already; I'm pretty neutral on 1).

Based on the feedback I got as I was going out the door, it was appreciated. I did see some feedback that this version of the role was insufficiently personal to each arb. The tradeoff for doing something more personalized to each other arb is either time or software (i.e. money). I did sometimes occasionally call out when other members had not yet chimed in on discussions. That was ad hoc and mostly focused on onwiki matters (case votes particularly), but occasionally I had to name names when doing appeals work because the arbs getting to the appeal first were split. In general the rest of the committee didn't name names (which touches on some discussion above). I think some arbs appreciated seeing their name in an email when they were needed.

I was provided no formal relief from other matters. But as I discussed with one arb during one of the stressful cases of the term, I did provide relief informally for the duration of that case to that person for the stuff I was interested in, so I assume that either I in fact had no relief from other matters, or that I had relief but didn't know it (and just didn't ask for anyone else to do it - since I like to think I had it well enough in hand). :-) The committee is a team effort and not everyone on the team has the same skills, desire, or time to see to all other matters. (The probing above about arbs being insufficiently active is a worthwhile probe, to be certain.) To go further though, I definitely volunteered to do this work. Was it necessary work? I think so. I do not know what would have happened if I had not been doing it. (We managed to hit only one public snag related to timeliness during my term, which I count as a win; opinions may differ.)

There is no formal origin to the role that I know of. Someone else with longer committee-memory would have to answer whether all/recent committees have had this type, and who they were, and why if not.

I don't know how much of what I did lines up with what L235 had in mind proposing these motions. I do not think the work I did covers everything listed in the motions laid out. (I don't particularly need clarification on the point - it's a matter that will fall out in post-motion discussion.) Izno (talk) 08:48, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

The original announcement of the Coordinating Arbitrator position was here. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:29, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Archive zero: I love it! --Tryptofish (talk) 21:37, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Interestingly, that announcement also repeated the announcement at the top of the archive page that a departing arbitrator continued to assist the committee by co-ordinating the mailing list: acknowledging incoming emails and responding to senders with questions about them, and tracking issues to ensure they are resolved. So both a co-ordinator (plus a deputy!) and an arbitrator emeritus. isaacl (talk) 23:23, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

former arbitrator will continue to coordinate the ArbCom mailing list. was probably a statement along the lines of "knows how to deal with Mailman". And I think you're getting that role mixed up with the actual person doing the work management: the Arbitration Committee has decided to appoint one of its sitting arbitrators to act as coordinator (emphasis mine). Izno (talk) 23:46, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Obviously I have no personal knowledge of what ended up happening. I just listed the responsibilities as described at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 0 § Improving ArbCom co-ordination. I'm not sure what I'm getting mixed up; all I said is that a co-ordinator and deputy were appointed, and that a former arbitrator was said to be co-ordinating the mailing list. It's certainly possible the split of duties changed from the first post in the archive. isaacl (talk) 00:01, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Oh, I see that now. Izno (talk) 00:04, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I think I agree with Izno regarding the coordinating arbitrator role. There's no problem letting the community that the role exists, but I don't think it's necessary for the role's responsibilities to be part of the public-facing guarantees being made to the community. If the role needs to expand, shrink, split into multiple roles, or otherwise change, the committee should feel free to just do it as needed. The committee has the flexibility to organize itself as it best sees fit. isaacl (talk) 23:36, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I think this is the right approach. It doesn't need to be advertised who is coordinating activity on the mailing list, it just needs to get done. If it takes two people, fine, if they do it for six months and say they want out of the role, ask somebody else to do it. And so on. Just Step Sideways 23:50, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

For instance, I don't think it's necessary to codify whether or not the coordinating arbitrator role is permanent. Just put a task on the schedule to review how the role is working out in nine months, and then modify the procedure accordingly as desired. isaacl (talk) 23:32, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

One exception: the first bullet point regarding responding to communications and assigning a tracking identifier does involve the committee's interactions with the community. I feel, though, that for flexibility these guarantees can be made without codifying who does them, from the community's point of view. (It's fine of course to make them part of the coordinating arbitrator's tasks.) isaacl (talk) 23:41, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Izno, this actually sounds like a helluva lot of work, maybe not minute-wise but mental, keeping track of everything so requests don't fall through the cracks. I think anyone assuming this role should get a break from, say, drafting ARBCOM cases if nothing else. Liz 03:49, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

It might be a lot of work, but it wasn't the bulk of the work, even for the work that I was doing. There was a lot more steps to being the appeal-focused admin above. Izno (talk) 04:02, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

You made me laugh, Liz. That sounds like my normal start-of-day routine, to be accompanied by a cup of tea and, perhaps, a small breakfast. I'd expect most arbitrators to be reading the mail on a daily basis, unless they are inactive for some reason; the difference here is the tagging/flagging of messages and clearing the filters, which probably adds about 10-12 minutes. I'll simply say that any arb who isn't prepared to spend 30-45 minutes/day reading emails probably shouldn't be an arb. That's certainly a key part of the role. Risker (talk) 04:43, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

+1. In my thoughts to potential candidates I said an hour a day for emails but that included far more appeals than the committee gets now. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:47, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Never mind reading emails, the bulk of my private ArbCom time was spent on processing them: doing checks, reporting results, and otherwise responding to other work. You can get away with just reading internal emails, but it's going to surprise your fellow arbs if you don't pipe up with some rational thought when you see the committee thinking about something personally objectionable and the first time they hear about it is when motions have been posted and are waiting for votes. Izno (talk) 06:17, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Right now, I check my email account about once a week. I guess that will change if I'm elected to the committee. It would have helped to hear all of these details before the election. Liz 08:41, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

My hour included time to respond to emails, though I also note you're not going particularly deep on anything with that time (at least when ArbCom had more appeals). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:26, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Now that I'm off the committee and have had a moment to compile some fairly accurate stats, here was the committee's email load over the last four years:

• 2024: 6435 emails in 1040 distinct threads
• 2023: 7826 emails in 1093 distinct threads
• 2022: 7679 emails in 1103 distinct threads
• 2021: 9687 emails in 1271 distinct threads

These are undercounts of the true email load, because this only counts the main arbcom-en list and not the clerks-l, arbcom-en-b, and arbcom-en-c lists, all of which are used for ArbCom-related purposes. But hopefully this gives a general flavor for why, when I was on the committee, I viewed better managing the email workflow as a priority for the committee. My guess would be that these email rates are substantially higher than most, and quite possibly all, other volunteer-driven committees within the Wikimedia movement. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 23:51, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

By the way, I just did some counting and clerks-l had 2724 emails in the four-year period between 2021 and 2024 — which is substantially down from the average rate from when I was a clerk. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 23:54, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

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