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JzG

Initiated by - MrX 🖋 at 15:20, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Involved parties

• MrX (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
• JzG (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• September 9, 2020
• September 5, 2020
• June 9, 2020
• March 11, 2019
• June 3, 2016
• October 9, 2015
• August 6, 2015
• March 17, 2015
• January 10, 2015

Statement by MrX

I respectfully request that Arbcom open a case to fairly, but thoroughly, examine the history of JzG's actions as an administrator, and his general conduct that reflects adversely on his role as an administrator. The area where JzG struggles the most is with closing and re-opening discussions. On several occasions he has circumvented normal process, often when he has been involved with the underlying subject. He has also been formally warned for incivility, has engaged in edit warring, and has violated WP:INVOLVED on several occasions.. His attitude when confronted with these concerns have frequently been dismissive, indicating that he is not willing or able to change his approach.

I've have been considering bringing this case request to Arbcom for several years, but I was hopeful that JzG would take the hint after receiving so much feedback from so many other people. The precipitating events that finally convinced me that a case was necessary are the two most recent ones linked in the 'Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried' section above. In the most recent one that I'm involved in, JzG re-opened an RfC that I had properly closed three and half weeks ago. I reverted him and raised my concern on his talk page, advising him that there was a WP:CLOSECHALLENGE in progress. JzG then reverted me, effectively re-opening the RfC without regard to WP:CLOSECHALLENGE. He claimed that he did it because it was a WP:BADNAC, but did not explain his reason. I dispute that WP:BADNAC applies. I am an experienced editor who has closed nearly 100 RfCs, and I am completely uninvolved with the subject. I'm not even sure how JzG found the RfC buried on the talk page of an article he has never edited. After my post to JzG's talk page, he then closed the WP:CLOSECHALLENGE discussion prematurely.

There is a great deal more evidence that can be brought to bear that will show that JzG is unsuited to continue holding adminship. Given the number of complaints about JzG evincing a pattern of admin misconduct, and these recent incidents, a case seems long overdue. Thank you. - MrX 🖋 15:20, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

• Bradv It is my understanding that a closed RfC (or most any consensus-building discussion) should remain closed until there is a consensus to overturn the close. This is based on observed practice and the lack of any instruction in WP:CLOSECHALLENGE that says that a discussion should be re-opened during a close challenge. It kind of makes sense if you think about it, since re-opening it removes the closing statement from the discussion and allow editors to continue to comment in the discussion while the close challenge is underway. I can't recall ever seeing a case where an RfC close was re-opened during a close challenge. Are you aware of any such cases? - MrX 🖋 16:01, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
• JzG seems to be indulging in a bit of revisionism in his statement. The fact is, he reopened the RfC at at 18:53 yesterday. Only after I raised the issue on his talk page at 11:59 today, did he then close the discussion at WP:AN at 12:23. At least he admits that he was not evaluating consensus in the close review, but rather substituting his own view of my closure (Which is text book WP:SUPERVOTE). - MrX 🖋 16:43, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
• @El C: Would you please cite the policy advising that RfCs can be re-opened during a WP:CLOSECHALLENGE, especially by someone who has commented in the very same close review? While you're at it, feel free to answer the questions I asked in the actual close review. - MrX 🖋 17:10, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Statement by JzG

1. The People's Mujahedin of Iran RfC close

MrX performed a non-admin close. A thread was opened at AN. Based on input from El C and my own review of the close, I reopened the RfC (see ).

MrX reverted this: . That is inconsistent with WP:BRD. I reopened the RfC again, so MrX posted to my Talk page saying I'm surprised that you would edit war over this and use such poor judgement to circumvent consensus. . That is a rather idiosyncratic interpretation given that he had reinstated his own NAC after it was reverted by an uninvolved admin.

No prior attempts have been made to resolve this dispute, and I would go so far as to suggest it's actually a coatrack for the second item.

2. AE re. infobox on Frank Sinatra

Per and , there is no apparent disagreement that the sanction against I-82-I (which includes an indefinite block for editing logged out to evade scrutiny) is appropriate, but substantial and loud disagreement - with no obvious consensus in any direction - on what to do about some other editors. All the drama stems from the fact that the discussion had morphed into an ironically bad-tempered discussion of other editors, notably SchroCat.

The question therefore I guess comes down to interpretation of this from Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arbitration enforcement § Role of consensus in arbitration enforcement:

4) Although administrators do not need explicit consensus to enforce arbitration decisions and can always act unilaterally, when the case is not clear-cut they are encouraged, before acting, to seek input from their colleagues at arbitration enforcement. In addition, when a consensus of uninvolved administrators is emerging in a discussion, administrators willing to overrule their colleagues should act with caution and must explain their reasons on request. Administrators overruling their colleagues without good cause may be directed to refrain from further participation in arbitration enforcement.

The "steps to resolve" here would be via WP:ARCA, which is exactly where it currently is. Thus this probably fails the test of prior attempts to resolve.

That said, the substantive question would seem to be: is closing an AE with a sanction against the originally filed party inappropriate when there are admins arguing in good faith for sanctions against another party? Moreover, does the requirement to "act with caution and must explain their reasons on request" mandate something more than a willingness to talk about it?

As I said, I don't think a thread about an obvious bad actor should morph into sanctions against good faith editors, and I really do think de-escalation would be more profitable here. I hold to that view. Lepricavark makes the reasonable point in rebuttal: Your closure perpetuates an unhealthy environment in which myself and others are needlessly subjected to unwarranted and unsubstantiated attacks and accusations. Please reconsider. But I remain of the view that an AE against I-82-I was not the place to debate sanctions on SchroCat for a much wider pattern of conduct which many consider to be worthy of its own arbitration case, and which necessarily attracts the attention of partisans (SchroCat is as loved by some as he is disliked by others), and in any case AE does not permit of a partial close applying an obvious sanction to the original party while leaving discussion to run on someone else - and that seems to me to be an artifact of the fact that AE is not really designed for complex long-running multi-party cases, but for enforcement of breaches, often (usually?) by a single uninvolved admin.

Indefensible? To the point of requiring arbitration? Guy (help! - typo?) 16:24, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Statement by El_C

This seems like a frivolous request. Had I the time, I likely would have reopened the RfC myself. I thank Guy for, correctly, having done so. And, yes, I am the uninvolved with the most experience with the article, notwithstanding having taken a break from engaging it for the last several months — the Misplaced Pages:General sanctions/Post-1978 Iranian politics is a testament to that thorough engagement on my part (my role as an uninvolved admin in the article precedes that GS by many months, though). I'm certain that Vanamonde93, who has been the uninvolved admin with the second most experience with the article in question would confirm this. In closing, this was an inappropriate closure which needed to be overturned, and so it was. El_C 16:58, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

MrX, not all policy is written, and again, this is an article covered by General Sanctions. In fact, it's the article which largely gave rise to the GS in question. For the benefit of the Committee, this RfC was about condensing key longstanding text to something like 1/20th of its size. I have no opinion about the change itself, but you don't close a discussion which concerns a decision of such gravity with so little substance. That simply falls below standards. It was a closure which required correction and, dare I say, ought to lead to due reflection on the part of said closer. El_C 17:34, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Statement by Vanamonde

I'm still undecided on the closure itself, but the discussion was messy and contentious, and the topic is under discretionary sanctions, meaning that an admin close was probably a good idea. I don't see how this was misconduct at all, let alone misconduct worthy of a request to ARBCOM. Yes, I'm a party to the ARCA request involving JzG at the moment, but that doesn't mean I necessarily doubt his judgement in general. When the actions of long-standing administrators are in question, I think you need evidence of frequent or sustained bad judgement for a case to be justified, and you don't have that here. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:07, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Statement by Guy Macon

Previous discussion: Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard#RFC closure review

I am becoming concerned about MrX's NACs. I noticed a problem at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive323#Close challenge, where he clearly got it wrong and dug in his heels when multiple editors complained. Now he appears to be doing it again.

Here is a brief timeline with diffs:

On 19:41, 14 August 2020 MrX performed an extremely contentious NAC.

As can be seen at , the rough count was 7 yes, 4 no, so a reclose by an uninvolved administrator might very well come to the same conclusion, but WP:BADNAC is clear:

"A non-admin closure is not appropriate the outcome is a close call (especially where there are several valid outcomes) or likely to be controversial. Such closes are better left to an administrator." I don't think that any reasonable person would conclude that the outcome wasn't likely to be controversial.

(The Ayurveda RFC was also clearly controversial).

On 16:28, 8 September 2020 Administrator El_C !voted to overturn the close. MrX was aware of El_C's opinion.

I suspect that the comment "I found that Mhhossein's detailed argument was adroitly rebutted by Barca's." in the closing summary was inappropriate. It could be argued that the closer should talk about what the consensus is and not about who is right (with the exception of when an argument is against policy) to avoid the perception of a supervote.

On 18:53, 8 September 2020 Uninvolved administrator JzG undid the close, citing WP:BADNAC.

On 11:59, 9 September 2020 MrX reverted with the edit comment "Editors cannot unilaterally reopen closed RfCs" This claim directly contradicts Misplaced Pages:Non-admin closure#Who should close discussions:

"While rare mistakes can happen in a close, editors whose closes are being overturned at decision reviews, and/or directly reverted by administrators, should pause closing until they have discussed these closes with an administrator, and that administrator gained comfort that the closer understands their mistakes, and will not repeat them."

Our policy is clear: editors closes can be overturned by being directly reverted by administrators, and in such cases the closer should pause closing until they have discussed these closes with an administrator. Mrx first posted to JzGs talk page on this at 11:59, 9 September 2020‎ -- the same minute as the revert. In that post he wrote "Please don't unilaterally reopen closed RfCs. As an admin, you should know to follow WP:CLOSECHALLENGE", but CLOSECHALLENGE does not say that it is the only acceptable way to undo a close, and indeed administrators reverting BADNACs is an everyday occurrence.

If MrX had argued that his NAC wasn't bad, that would have been within policy, but instead MrX has repeatedly claimed that admins cannot undo NACs even if they are bad. And, given that "bad" specifically includes "likely to be controversial" this NAC was clearly "bad". --Guy Macon (talk) 17:31, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Statement by {Non-party}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the case request or provide additional information.

JzG: Clerk notes

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

JzG: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/0/0>-JzG-2020-09-09T15:45:00.000Z">

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse)

• MrX, can you explain a bit more of your thought process behind restoring your close while it was under discussion at AN? Procedurally, shouldn't you have waited for that discussion to reach a conclusion? – bradv🍁 15:45, 9 September 2020 (UTC)"> ">