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Misplaced Pages Arbitration
About arbitrationTalk Arbitration policy (CU/OS) Guide to arbitration Noticeboard + Talk Search archived proceedings Ban appealsReport
Open proceedings All open requests Case requests Clarification and Amendment requests Arbitrator motion requests Enforcement requests
Active sanctions Contentious topics (Log) General sanctions Editor sanctions
Arbitration Committee Discuss+ Contact Members Procedures ElectionsTalk History Clerks+ Talk Clerk procedures Conflict of interest reports
Audit Talk StatisticsTalk Reports (pre-2016)
Track related changes
v t e

Important — please note The Committee, in passing the motion to open this case, provided explicit direction to all editors participating in this case: "Editors are expected to observe appropriate decorum on the case pages and in any other discussion of this incident." "Editors are instructed to refrain from disclosing on-wiki the name or other identifying information concerning any editor who does not edit under or disclose on-wiki his or her real-world identity. Any evidence that would have the potential effect of making such a disclosure shall not be posted on-wiki, but shall be e-mailed to the Arbitration Committee. The committee will take appropriate steps to ensure that no editor is sanctioned based on private evidence without an appropriate opportunity to respond to such evidence, while also seeking to ensure that editors' identifying information is not unnecessarily disclosed." "All editors, whether or not they are potential parties to the case, are strongly urged to exercise consideration and discretion in dealing both on- and off-wiki with all aspects of this highly sensitive situation. Any behavior that would unnecessarily inflame or widen the dispute should be avoided." The Clerk for this case is KnightLago (talk · contribs) who will be assisted by non-recused members of the Clerk team in enforcing the above rules. The Clerks will, wherever it deems necessary, refactor and remove statements where they violate the above directions, or where they violate the general standards of decorum and Misplaced Pages policies. The Clerks will, where required for particular egregious or repetitive violations, ban participants from the case pages for an appropriate period of time. Both the refactoring of statements, and case page bans, that are implemented by the Clerks, can be appealed to the Committee. If any user requires assistance in submitting private evidence to the Arbitrators in the method requested by Committee (see the second bullet point, above), please contact a member of the Clerks or, alternatively, an Arbitrator directly. —User:KnightLago (talk) 02:17, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Given the exceptional nature of the case (insofar as it centers on the alleged contents of a private mailing list), the normal workshop format is not appropriate. This page will be used by the drafting arbitrator (Coren), or other arbitrators as required, to post redacted summaries of privately submitted evidence when appropriate and to ask questions to the participants in a format closer to that of an inquest. Please refrain from responding directly to statements made by others; this page is not appropriate for threaded discussion and such comments will be refactored. The prohibition against posting private information remains in force here. When in doubt, submit evidence to the committee directly.

Proposed temporary injunctions

Proposals for injunctions have been placed on the proposed decision page for voting; and the discussion suggesting them has been moved to the talk page. — Coren  01:17, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Questions to Tymek

Have you ever shared your password with anyone?

Has anyone recently sent you a file, or directed you to an unfamiliar web site? Jehochman 13:13, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Future Perfect at Sunrise

Future Perfect at Sunrise (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), a named party to this case, utilized sysop tools to unblock another party, Tymek (talk · contribs), over my objection. I had blocked Tymek as an apparently compromised account, or else as a disruptive account falsely claiming to be compromised. At the time I asked the Committee to consider the matter. Neither I nor FPaS has Checkuser access, whereas most members of the Committee do. In the block notice I specifically asked that the account not be unblocked without my consent, or else the consent of a Checkuser or ArbCom member. I consider FPaS action to be a serious violation of Misplaced Pages:Administrators. FPaS could have easily requested a clerk to perform the unblock if an unblock were needed. FPaS posted this message to my talk page upon performing the disputed sysop action. I request the FPaS be directed not to perform any further sysop actions on other parties to this case. I also request that the Committee respond to my message of September 16 so that I can understand whether you have looked into the matter of Tymek being a compromised account. FPaS seems to be concerned that you may have dropped the ball on that issue. I am also concerned. Jehochman 01:57, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Jehochman, I have e-mailed you, asking for clarification on what is going on. Somebody has stolen my password, this is a serious offence. I was awaiting your response, but I never got one. Why? Tymek (talk) 02:02, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I received an email from a party unknown to me. I have no way to verify that the party who sent it to me is you. I also have no way to verify that you are the proper owner of the account, rather than the person who claims to have broken in to it. We need checkuser help. It's been nearly 48 hours since I emailed the Committee and two other Checkusers. The only response I received from any of them is "Thanks for letting us know Jonathan". Could somebody with Checkuser access please give us direction? Is Tymek back in control of his account, or not? Jehochman 02:06, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps it would have been better to have written it to my e-mail, which is featured on my user page. I am in control of my account, but if somebody needs a checkuser, that would be good. Tymek (talk) 02:15, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

When an account declares itself to be compromised, I am not trusting any information coming from that account until there is a technical evaluation of the logs to determine (1) whether the account appears to have been compromised, and (2) whether any evidence exists that the proper owner has regained control. Emailing you would have been useless if your email account was also compromised. Considering the circumstances that your account emailed me and proffered an archive of your private emails, it was not an unreasonable suspicion. I still have no idea whether you are the rightful owner of the account. Jehochman 02:35, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

A couple of the arbitrators have already checked, but seem not to have posted publicly. As far as I can tell, the person currently using the account is posting from the same PC as the person who was using the account last week. On September 16 only, someone logged in from a different country and send 9 emails. Have you asked Fut Perf if he had private word from another checkuser? Thatcher 02:44, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

His comments thus far seemed to indicate he did not. Presumably that Checkuser would have unblocked the account if they found the original user was back in charge. Thank you for confirming the apparent hacking incident, and that the original account user appears to have regained control. Does the hacker's IP address lead point to any known users? Jehochman 02:50, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Not obviously. Thatcher 02:53, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I am residing in Chicago, and I use two computers, both IPs in Chicago. Now I would be grateful if somebody informed me who used my account, from what country, and if these messages were coming from my private e-mail basiaipiotr@yahoo.com, or from my Wiki account. And Jehochman thank you for you professionalism, I hope the messages you got from the cyber-thief were not my personal stuff. Tymek (talk) 02:55, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

No comment on the unblock, but just to clarify FPaS is not involved in these disputes. He is named in the case, yes, but has no meaningful involvement in the background that would compromise or reasonably be thought to compromise his judgment. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 02:57, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

9 emails were sent from your wikipedia account using the special:email function. The names of the recipients are hashed so I can not tell who they were. I can't give any more details about the second IP. I obviously have no access to your yahoo account. Now would be a good time to change all your passwords, though. Thatcher 03:03, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

To clarify: Just because somebody formally added me on the parties list – apparently more or less at random, based on the mere fact that I commented at the initial ANI thread , doesn't magically make me "involved" in the sense of the admin policy. I act here, in the best of my conscience, as a completely uninvolved administrator, because I know that's what I am. I have never been involved in the Easter European disputes, not even as an administrator, much less so as a party, and my practical involvement with this case is restricted to having received the whistleblower mail and forwarded it to the committee. As for checkuser information, I was trying to get hold of it for most of yesterday, but couldn't, because Jehochman, for reasons that have remained utterly mysterious to me, refused to even tell me which checkusers he had asked to deal with the case. It's a bit disingenious to complain of me not inquiring for the relevant information when he refused to tell me where to inquire, right? As it happens, I finally did get hold of a checkuser on IRC shortly after, who confirmed what Thatcher just said above, that the account was again posting from its legitimate IPs. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:18, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know who added or why you were added. Who knows? ArbCom may have evidence. You appeared on my talk page, applying pressure, and appearing to have a great interest in the outcome. Several other involved editors had pressured me before (by email and by talk page) for information. My response to all of you was that I wasn't sharing contents of private email, except as strictly necessary, and that I'd sent everything to ArbCom. Surely they could have unblocked Tymek if they wanted to. I don't have Checkuser access so I did not have a way to see if the account had be recovered by the owner. I told Tymek to email the unblock list or contact ArbCom. Your intervention FPaS was unnecessary, impetuous, and obnoxious. Jehochman 13:08, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

FPaS and I seem to have resolved our miscommunications. Would the Committee please state clearly one of these two alternatives: (1) FPaS is uninvolved and can be removed from the list of parties, or (2) FPaS is involved, and should not use sysop access in these matters until the conclusion of this case. Whatever clarity you can provide would help. Jehochman 14:23, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

On the use of the mailing list archive

To make things clear, the Committee did — and will continue to — examine the list of email that has been received for potential serious violations of Misplaced Pages rules. In particular, hounding, meatpuppetry and disruptively gaming the rules are all activities that are forbidden and destructive and that can (and usually are) made possible by coordination off-wiki.

In doing so, we are proceeding under a number of (rebuttable) presumptions: that the mail archive has not been fabricated, that most email within the archive have not been altered or falsified, and that completeness of that archive is unknown. Insofar as information in the emails correctly matches verifiable events on-wiki, they can be presumed to be authentic. Evidence otherwise is welcome and solicited, in particular from the participants of the mailing list.

There have been objections to the use of the archive entirely based on the allegation that it has been acquired through illegal or unethical means. It is to be noted that the archive has been received independently by a number of editors, none of whom are alleged to have stolen it, who then forwarded it to the Arbitration Committee. Claims that it has been obtained improperly by the original sender are unsubstantiated, and unverifiable by the committee. Other alternatives are equally likely (that it was transmitted willingly by a member of the list or that it was leaked accidentally then forwarded by an unknown third party for instance) and investigating the issue is neither possible, nor within the Committee's remit.

At any rate, even if one ignored the obvious fact that criminal rules of evidence do not apply to the Committee the original provenance of the email archive is entirely moot: the Committee is not bound by an exclusionary rule in the first place. Even if the allegations of the mailing list archive having been taken illegally by an outsider "hacking" were correct, they lie entirely outside the jurisdiction and reach of the Committee, and have no bearing on the propriety of using it.

— Coren  18:28, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I read your comment (above) with considerable interest. It is very well phrased and in most part almost self-explanatory, but would you please elaborate on it further? I’d like to see a link to a policy that explains how the Arbitration Committee is not, and will not be bound in its proceedings by unethical means of acquiring evidence against users? Unless a policy like that is already in place, wouldn’t such exemplary freedom be unethical in its own right? --Poeticbent talk 21:53, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

The Foundations servers were used to send emails that notified the Committee and other Misplaced Pages users of emails alleged to indicated problematic editing on site. In order to administer the site and make a case ruling, we need to examine the emails in question. All arbitrators understand and are bound by the Foundation privacy policy and can handle private and sensitive information. FloNight♥♥♥ 22:05, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

It's an interesting philosophical question. An important difference between ArbCom and criminal justice systems is that we are unable to compel production of evidence, and have no authority to seize it forcibly; making concerns of abuse of rights for the sake of expediency inapplicable.

A closer analog might be the example of an employee or agent that breaches an employment contract — or trespasses on their employer's computers — to get evidence of their wrongdoing to give the authorities. It's worth noting that many jurisdictions have in fact put in place laws to protect employees or agents behaving in that way (the so-called "Whistleblower" protection acts); because it was judged that, in the end, the objective of curtailing improper behavior from the employer was more important to the interests of justice than the breach of privacy.

In this case, ArbCom is in a good position to minimize the dangerous aspects of the breach (if breach there was) by maintaining privacy where it does not impact the just evaluation of the evidence.

Of course, that balancing act would topple entirely if ArbCom, or someone at our behest, were to obtain evidence by ethically dubious means. I'd be the first in line with a torch and pitchfork. — Coren  00:44, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

The critical difference is indeed one of jurisprudence. Many authorities throw out evidence obtained in certain ways purely in order to remove the incentive of enforcement agencies to obtain evidence in this way and in the process violate people's rights. For instance US courts throw out evidence obtained through illegal searches (no plain sight, probable cause, warrant, and so on) because law makers feared (and feared rightly) that otherwise police would habitually ignore people's rights to privacy. No Misplaced Pages arb, cu, or admin has the practical power to check email groups, so there is no threat to civil liberties we need to counter by throwing out evidence. In fact, in our position, we can't afford to. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 03:06, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Even the US courts do not always throw out illegally obtained evidence. See the "limitations" section of exclusionary rule. Thatcher 03:20, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

We don't know that there was actual hacking. In theory, the account password could have been loaned to a friend who logged in to create the appearance of hacking. The situation is completely fogged. Jehochman 03:22, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

It does matter who that really was. If that was a member of the group (a "whistleblower"), this is one story. But if that was a professional FSB hacker, this is a completely different story. Jehochman, since you have a copy of this archive and I supposedly one of the "plotters" who created it, could you or someone from Arbcom please send me their copy by email? That might help me to clarify this question.Biophys (talk) 03:40, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I've turned over everything I had to ArbCom. They can share as they see fit. Jehochman 03:53, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying which American legal (and social) contracts may, or may not apply here. I don’t think we need to go as far as criminal justice system for inspiration, because we have our own rules designed to deal specifically with the open source format – a legal novelty. The Arbitration Committee must address the fact that the initial mail was sent by an undisclosed user from another user’s account (a WP email headed with his opponent's user name). ArbCom can confirm that fact using our own tools, and decide, what approach to take. There’s no need to protect the whistleblower because nobody knows who that is in real life. Secondly, if the Foundation’s servers were used, we should be able to find out who else received the same initial info via our own servers other than the Arbitration Committee. The complete list of the recipients would indeed be quite telling, because they were all hand picked for a reason. The whistleblower knows them, and intentionally armed them with private correspondence of their active opponents, which can be used outside Misplaced Pages to harm living beings (remember this?). No ArbCom has any control over that sort of aftershock; however, disclosing the monikers of all the recipients of the initial info would hurt nobody here, and reveal the real scope of this situation. --Poeticbent talk 05:47, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Is it actually a known fact that "the initial mail was sent by an undisclosed user from another user’s account" or is that speculation at this stage? Presumably the question of whether the apparently compromised account was the original source of the leaked emails or whether the involvement of that account was an apparent reaction to those emails having been leaked from elsewhere is something that needs to be resolved at an early stage in building a picture of what happened. Has it been? 87.254.84.181 (talk) 07:32, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

No, and it is highly unlikely that the Arbitration Committee will have a definitive answer about who was the person that sent the emails from the server. It is beyond our capacity to do an investigation of whether there was hacking of a computer/email list archives/or user account/email account, or password/account sharing or multiple people using a computer that lead to leaks, or a whistle blower from the group. All possibilities. FloNight♥♥♥ 11:23, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

It should be taken into account that these private mails were all released right after User:Russavia got banned indefinitely who was the most active "Russian nationalist" editor. Whoever released tbese archives did so because it was in the interest of "Russian nationalist" users. I'm not accusing anyone, but just want to confirm that it's impossible that it was leaked "accidently". Someone purposely leaked private material and that means that whoever did so should not be rewarded by the unbanning of Russavia and blocking of many users which is probably exactly what he / they wanted to achieve. I'm not saying there shouldn't be sanctions, but the fact that a crime was performed should definitely be taken into account. Grey Fox (talk) 20:08, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Proposal by JzG

I believe that much of the problem would be solved if we had a general prohibition on admins using their tools in ethnic disputes when those admins closely identify with one side of the ethnic dispute. Ethnic issues have probably the longest history of dispute, right back to Gdanzig and beyond, and I think that any administrative action should be strictly at arms length for these articles. I don't see how Piotrus, for example, can ever be perceived as an honest broker by the opposing side in these disputes - however carefully he might weigh the neutrality of every action, the mere fact of his involvement will be inflammatory to a deeply entrenched opposing camp - muc more so than would be the case with, say, William and climate change articles, where there is at least an objective standard by which to judge the issue. In many ethnic disputes there never can be an objective single value of truth, which is why they are so intractable. Guy (Help!) 16:38, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a good proposal in general (although probably peripheral to this case). Please review my admin log actions history, where you'll see I've never used my admin tool to further "Polish agenda". You are welcome to point out any controversial admin actions I've taken here, or add them to evidence, and I'll be happy to address them. PS. I'd also like to add to this proposal that admins should be prohibited from taking administrative action in ethnic disputes when those admins have identified themselves as being prejudiced against a certain ethnic group (ex. ). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:51, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I would go further than Piotrus and say that admins that have identified themselves as being prejudiced against a certain ethnic group should lose their adminship, since ethnic prejudice is one of the least desirable traits imaginable in an administrator (or any editor for that matter).

But the diff you put up (from a promptly banned SPA account) does not remotely provide any evidence that a particular administrator has "identified themselves as being prejudiced against a certain ethnic group," so I'm not sure why you included that (some ill-advised comments maybe, but hardly admissions of ethnic prejudice). I'm also not sure unsubtle jibes directed at particular users are a very good strategy for you or anyone else connected to this case. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 17:53, 19 September 2009 (UTC)