I'm just getting an increasing feeling that all three of our recent de-sysops could have been handled by less severe steps, the best phrasing of which was probably 1.1 in this case. I'd be interested to see if a majority of arbs are opposed to a version of that proposal in any circumstances (that is, they feel that anyone with such significant potential restrictions has functionally reached a point of desysopping anyway) or if they just don't feel the recent cases were suitable for it. Nosebagbear (talk)
While it's not a case of non-cases reaching ARBCOM, these are 3 non clearcut cases, and while ARBCOM absolutely could have been right in each judgement, it pushes me to see whether every alternative was sufficiently thought out and why they might have been declined. Nosebagbear (talk) 23:43, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
There's been a real human cost in each of these desysops. That's important and as someone who hopes to be a compassionate individual it bothers me. However, maybe we're seeing more desysop because that's what our community supports/wants? Perhaps the community voted in arbitrators who would be more willing to desysop, especially in light of a recent RfC that sees support for a method for deysops beyond ArbCom. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:59, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
I think part of the problem is why xeno and others have been thinking about RFC/U. People get jaded or worn out over time, and I think in this (and other) cases what we're seeing is long time editors who simply need a clue adjustment. The outcomes of this and the BHG case aren't surprising; it should be obvious that the path these editors were treading was fraught. The problem is that these admonitions rarely come from allies---or come too late, or in insufficient volume, or with insufficient force---and so aren't heeded. It leads to a situation that everyone feels could have been avoided, but wasn't. Ideally, RFC/U was supposed to provide that warning with sufficient gravity in a timely manner from a wide swath of the community. I applaud the attempts to think outside the box in this case, but I feel that maybe the reason it was unsuccessful was, in part, that this is a problem that cannot be resolved by ArbCom. (edit conflict) — Wug·a·po·des02:22, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
Not commenting on BHG's desysop, which surprised me a lot but which I didn't look into much. The outcome of Kudpung's case was discussed at length on the proposed decision talkpage, with multiple people saying desysopping BHG while letting Kudpung off with a lesser remedy would be showing preferential treatment to Kudpung. An arb also rejected the idea as "kicking the can down the road", iirc. I was sympathetic to the idea of an admonishment remedy (see SoWhy's oppose !vote to the desysop remedy in the PD) on the idea that if it worked and Kudpung became a better admin going forward, that was great; otherwise there could be another case later, as is fairly common. That is, "kicking the can down the road" is not so bad.
But, based on Kudpung's long-term habits and his refusal to make any such commitments in the case, I wasn't optimistic about a second chance working, even if it was still worth a try. I think similar reasoning led to the desysop, and a few arbs may have said as much. I think the case might have come out differently if Kudpung had taken ownership of the issues that were raised. 2602:24A:DE47:B270:A096:24F4:F986:C62A (talk) 01:31, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
Congratulations ArbCom, not only have you desysopped two of our longest-term and most productive administrators (BrownHairedGirl and Kudpung) within two months of your installment as the new Committee, but you've also driven them off of Wikipedia.
No such administrator should be desysopped by ArbCom initially unless they have committed serious infractions -- sockpuppetry, WP:UPE, WP:OUTTING. Any longterm, highly valued, extremely productive, and very well-respected administrator to whom Wikipedia owes an incalculable debt should not be desysopped on the first ArbCom case in the absense of such serious infractions; they should be admonished or warned that further problems or the next ArbCom case may or will probably result in a desysop.
Seven people should not have the power to desysop the most valuable administrators we have in the absence proof of serious infractions. "Conduct becoming of an administrator" is a matter of perception and situation. Conduct can and usually will change with an official warning or admonishment. Based on the individual, and in some cases fairly casual, perceptions of seven (or nine against six in the case of BHG) arbitrators, you have given these two immensely qualified administrators no chance or opportunity to change.
I believe that the community deserves the right to overturn these two desysops (and effective banishments since this ungrateful slap in the face to both of them was bound to lead to their exit, which it has) based on the fact that no serious infractions (sockpuppetry, WP:UPE, WP:OUTTING) were committed and no official ArbCom admonishment or warning was given beforehand allowing them to change. Softlavender (talk) 01:07, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
I think part of this is that this ArbCom is probably responding to calls for an easier desysop process that people have been going on about and to some degree responding to the FRAM situation, where they also gave one of our most productive administrators many chances by declining to take cases, and that led to WMF intervention. I personally think they've swung too far in the other direction, but I get that many probably see themselves as responding to a desire on the part of the community.On the flip side, to your comment about overturning, the community can always overturn it at WP:RFA, which is something I called for after the BHG case. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:30, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
In theory, yes. In practice, it is very difficult to be reopped after a "under a cloud" deop, and ArbCom qualifies as "under a cloud". After all, if ArbCom found reason to believe that their conduct was poor enough that they should not have the bit anymore, how can we trust them with the bit? The former admin could have been a saint in the intervening period and will still tank at RfA because of ArbCom. I also agree that the spate of deoppings is, in part, a bit of a reaction to what happened as a consequence of Framgate. That isn't to say that these deops aren't justifiable, but given the totality of the circumstances around Framgate (especially post-WMF-clusterfuck) there needs to be some other outlet other than ArbCom to try and make an admin change their behaviour, and it needs to not be gameable. RFC/U is not it. Recall procedures, whether voluntary or German-styled, are not it. Trust and Safety can't be trusted with it. We need to come together, as a community, and figure this out sooner rather than later. We've needed to figure this out since the Framgate case. —A little blue Boriv^_^vOnward to 202005:27, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Arbitration is a measure of last resort. It is not supposed to be used in lieu of a tiered warning system. There are plenty of examples where case requests were declined as the involvement of ArbCom was deemed a premature and extreme next step. In fact, I believe BHG is one of those cases. Additionally, the committee has accepted cases about administrative misconduct where the admins were not defacto desysopped. The Giantsnowman Case is a recent example. In my opinion, under no circumstances should an editor be given a warning or probation if the committee has found them clearly at fault and they: fail to participate in the process, fail to acknowledge any fault on their part, and/or not agree to correct their behaviour and actions in the future.
Finally, the community has the authority to grant them the tools again via RFA which serves as a check and balance to a committee out of control. Many editors have been sanctioned at ArbCom and immediately retire, to then come back after a break, even short ones. While it remains to be seen with BGH and Kudpung, they will always have the option to return. Not everyone will agree with ArbCom's decisions. We did not have a unanimous consensus on the material proposed decisions. The community feedback was also split, albeit not evenly. For example, a considerable number of editors expressed dismay that a suspended desysop remedy was put forward and at one point was seemingly going to pass. Mkdwtalk01:40, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
@Softlavender: I would also like to remind you of your comments here in August when you accused ArbCom of driving away Ritchie333 following the implementation of an interaction ban against Ritchie333, an action significantly less impactful than a topic ban, desysop, or block.
While Ritchie did announce his retirement, many people were pleased that it ended up being a 40 day break instead. Every ArbCom action or case is different and retirement is not exclusively a response to desysop. Ritchie's IBAN was yet another example where ArbCom acted in a measured and appropriate way. Ritchie was blocked for subsequently violating that IBAN but ArbCom felt the situation had been adequately resolved at AN and did not proceed to desysop him there either. The IBAN was a quick solution implemented that was seemingly more in alignment with your statement above, but you still sharply criticized the committee for doing it at the time.
In BHG and Kudpung's case, the situation was quite different. As in all cases, ArbCom must consider the other parties involved including those who filed the case request as well as the editors who felt severely impacted by a situation or an editor. We rarely think about the consequences of editors who also make significant contributions to the project who ultimately quit because a situation has escalated and where unfortunately, in many cases, the community and ArbCom have failed to address the problems. In Kudpung's case, the misconduct was serious; Arbitrators who voted against desysop still supported findings about deeply concerning conduct. You may disagree. Mkdwtalk07:52, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
If you think someone shouldn't be an admin, the only recourse is ArbCom, because only they can involuntarily make someone not an admin (excepting crazy emergencies). Relatedly, admins are de facto an "elite" class of users, because of the Super Mario effect. Outside of all but the most outrageous stuff, for admins ArbCom will, as you note, finger-wag, then de-admin, while ordinary Joes who behave similarly get finger-wag, maybe sanctions, then site ban. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 03:18, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Tony, in Kudpung's case, lesser remedies were discussed but for various reasons not pursued. I found Mkdw's reasoning above (regarding Kudpung's not participating in the arb case) to be persuasive in retrospect. There have been some cases (e.g. Alex Shih) where the person completely stopped editing, resulting in a case being accepted but suspended for a year. That always seemed ok to me, to let stuff cool down etc. Kudpung, though, kept editing, and commented on the ongoing arb case in various places around the wiki while not deigning to post on the actual case pages. So I don't think arbcom should have bent over backwards for him. 2602:24A:DE47:B270:A096:24F4:F986:C62A (talk) 02:25, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
No comment on the Kudpung case as I can't be bothered checking. But BHG received multiple admonishments from the community. Any admin who requires admonishment from arbcom to stop behaving as utterly atrociously as BHG was, has absolutely no business being an admin. (Yes BHG has retired and I would prefer not to talk about her any more. But if people are going to keep bring her up as a martyr, it's entirely reasonable for others to respond in kind.)Nil Einne (talk) 03:45, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
At the time of the decision, BHG had said she intended to retire. Softlavender said she had been driven off. I assumed without checking she had left as originally planned. However she still seems active so the statement doesn't seem accurate and I've withdrawn that part of my statement. I have not, and will not, pay much attention to the ongoing issues so I'm not sure of BHG's ongoing plans. If she does retire, she has my sympathies. I do not believe it had to come to that, but I also do not believe arbcom is at fault as her de-sysop was well deserved. I stand by my view that for all the good she has done, she clearly has no business being an administrator for her utterly unacceptable behaviour. And if she require admonishment from arbcom to stop that behaviour, instead of taken the multiple admonishments from the community on board and ended it, doubly so. Nil Einne (talk) 03:58, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
One final comment before I leave this discussion probably for good. (In part because I find it silly as a lot of these discussions are. I have no idea why anyone expects that the process of last resort on wikipedia should be for repeating admonishments the community has already given.) As I understand it, the issue that concerns Softlavender most of all is the de-sysop. Yet in both these cases, there was no minimum period before they may RfA. Therefore while we cannot overturn arbcom's decision (at least not without a lot of rigmarole of changing arbcom policy etc), we can easily re-sysop the two again if they are willing to go through the process. This is completely up to them. If you are sure that the community will re-sysop them both, you can encourage them to run. I would urge caution though, there's one obvious example where that didn't work well. Nil Einne (talk) 04:09, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
Well, I think most know that de jure someone can RfA one second after de-admin unless ArbCom says otherwise, de facto they have a scarlet letter which makes a successful RfA unlikely. ArbCom de-adminning is typically a one-way street. I'm just pointing this out, not judging whether this is good or bad. Of course, RfA scarlet letters can affix as well to people who've never been admins. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 03:18, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Softlavender, a lot of what you said is inaccurate. For instance, both editors were given ample opportunity to change long before these cases ever arrived at ArbCom. Your assertion that conduct can and usually will change with an official warning or admonishment suggests to me that you haven't sufficiently acquainted yourself with the reasons for why both individuals ended up at ArbCom. Moreover, neither individual was driven off. If they leave, it is by their own free choice and not because anyone forced them to do so. Portraying their departure as the fault of ArbCom perpetuates the notion that these individuals are somehow not responsible for their own actions. And if you wish to talk about slaps to the face, it was a slap in the community's face that Kudpung essentially ignored his case while it was active. It's too late to complain about it now. The community does have the right to overturn these desysops at RfA, but I don't anticipate that this right will be exercised. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 04:28, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
The point about "seven people" is interesting to me because the arbitration process is usually thought of as a considerably high hurdle for desysopping, to the extent that the community tries perennially to introduce a secondary process to make it easier to desysop administrators, the most recent such discussion being WP:DESYSOP2019. Mkdw is right that by their "last resort" nature, ArbCom cases inherently involve disputes where a user has been given ample opportunity to discuss and reflect upon their behavior with other editors and the community—if this isn't the case, then perhaps ArbCom shouldn't have been hearing the case in the first place. Mz7 (talk) 05:31, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
It does sound like you feel admins should have "social privileges", or in other words that there should be a high bar for removing adminship. That's an opinion, and of course everyone is allowed to have their opinion, but if that's a widespread view I feel like it should be reflected in policies. Wikipedia:Administrators is not surprisingly pretty vague about exactly what kind of admin conduct is unacceptable and can result in loss of adminship, apart from the bright-line stuff that most agree on, such as intentional outing or blatant tool abuse. Since there might not be firm consensus on this the best that can probably be done is summarize different views. I'm thinking of this mainly for people who are not "Wikipedia regulars", feel that an admin has done something they disapprove of, and go to that page to find out what the deal is with these admin people. "Hidden knowledge" like people's views on de-adminning tends to promote a feeling of unwelcomness among people who aren't "in the know". --47.146.63.87 (talk) 03:18, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
I opposed desysopping BrownHairedGirl, but please note that she has not retired, and in fact made several thousand edits today. Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:02, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
@Newyorkbrad, my talk page has been flooded with massive support for me and disgust at ArbCom's appalling handling of my case ad its counter-factual findings of "fact". That has persuaded to review my decision to retire.
I haven't made a final decision. I am still working on some unfinished tasks which I had planned to wrap up before retiring, and I will see what I think about the situation as I wrap those up. I still hold by the views I expressed during the case at User talk:BrownHairedGirl#Statement_by_BHG_on_the_ArbCom_decision: that ArbCom is leading Wikipedia down a very bad path in which its core purpose of building an encyclopedia is being treated as a poor second to social media principles. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 08:19, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
As noted above, BrownHairedGirl has not "come back". Her final statement on the matter, which she has never retracted, is:
So, after over 1.6 million edits in the course of over 14 years as an editor, and nearly 14 years as an admin, I will therefore wind up some incomplete tasks on my to-do list, and then leave Wikipedia. In the meantime I will also provide whatever assistance I can to other editors who would like guidance or tools for the tasks I used to perform. If you would like any pointers, please just ask. I expect that this will take a few weeks. Then I will permanently disable both my main account and my bot account, by removing the email link and scrambling my password. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Softlavender (talk • contribs) 08:23, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
Those were difficult cases and though it was possible that other action could have been taken, I consider that the results were appropriate based on the evidence and the community expectations for admin behaviour, and the well advertised issue that arbcom is the last resort. Expecting further last chances from arbcom is unrealistic. Failure to act would have been more divisive. Note that each of the users who lost their bit are free to request it back through exactly the same process that they got it through in the first place, whenever they like, so if the actions taken are considered unnecessarily harsh by the community, the community is free to give them the bit back if requested. · · · Peter Southwood(talk): 11:32, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
In theory.
But in the practice, the RFA process has now become an all-consuming hazing process, in which the crowd is entitled to ask endless questions, and every previous disagreement is weaponised against the candidate. When the candidate has been highly active for over a decade, the result is a pile-on. And where the candidate has previously been an admin, every grudge-bearer gets a free pass to throw rotten tomatoes. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 11:41, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
Not really anything I can do about it, but I sure feel pretty horrible about this decision. I didn't follow the ArbCom case, it's too depressing for me to see editors (note the plural, I've had good times with everyone involved at different times) I really enjoy collaborating with have to go through all that, but I had hoped for a different outcome. If Kudpung ever runs for adminship again, I'll certainly be out in full force, and until then I hope to have more good encounters with everyone here. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 19:05, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
In truth, there has never been a case that resulted in desysop that felt good, but I know what you mean. I think those who voted for desysop felt the whole situation was regrettable especially since it felt entirely avoidable. Even in other instances such as Edgar181's case, where there was deliberate egregious long-term abuse that went on undetected for years, it still felt like a sour pill because Edgar181 otherwise had been an exemplary admin and editor. Their bad hand conduct was that much more of a betrayal and I was left wondering, what the hell happened? Mkdwtalk20:11, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
Since, as I said, I didn't follow the case, I'm not criticizing ArbCom on this. I don't intend to read through everything, so I can't say whether or not you made the right call. And no matter how this ultimately ended someone would be unhappy, I don't want to join the backlash on any given case; my personal feeling certainly shouldn't guide a decision. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 21:07, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
Even as I support every effort to hold admins accountable to the same standards that regular editors are held to, and cannot fault ArbCom for doing what they were elected to do, I still wince at the thought of the pain inflicted upon the very real human beings behind these removed sysop flags, after their many years of dedication to Wikipedia. I feel for them, even as I support ArbCom in the difficult decisions they had to make, and I advocated for these decisions in two of the three cases. But I similarly feel for the many more wrongly treated regular editors. I believe that a combination of long-standing factors have brought Wikipedia to a point where we elected (and will probably continue to elect) an ArbCom willing to make these very difficult decisions, because they are all we have. As much as the personal toll on these three sysops has to weigh, the toll also weighs on regular editors who are lesser heard and differently treated at ANI, lesser heard at RFA when they Oppose based on not knowing the candidate well enough through not having seen them active enough in the trenches, and ignored on 'crat chats where those very kinds of opposes are likely discounted and discretionary range is taken to mean automatic promotion. Would we see less of a need for these weighty and painful desysops if we a) re-instated RFC/U to have those warning shots sent earlier, b) demanded that admins hold other admins equally accountable at ANI as they do regular editors, c) weighted the "we haven't seen you in the trenches and don't know you well enough" opposes at RFA equally with others, and d) elected crats who would also respect those Opposes and not automatically promote in the discretionary range? It is all too easy for admins, safely behind the shield of their tools and knowing that ANI will rarely take fellow admins to task, to forget how it is for those without that same protection. Long-time admins may forget what is painfully obvious to those without the tools, watching as admins routinely get away with violating both content and behavioral policies, watching as sometimes bringing this to ANI can result in topic bans or threats to the regular editor, watching as we conduct unnecessary RFCs about issues that might be resolved via examining conduct. Too many times in my regular daily editing, it is an admin who is misbehaving or breaching content policies. Too many times in my daily editing I watch admins turn a blind eye to egregious behaviors if those behaviors line up with their "side" (for example, fringe medical topics). Too many times I see regular editors intimidated for speaking obvious truths in civil tones, while one can find in the same discussion, admins watching other admins behave in a way that could get the regular editor blocked and saying not a word. A most curious thing happened to me yesterday. As I observed the Kudpung sysop enacted, and saw Kudpung cleaning up their user and talk pages, which included a link to how long ago he was given the tools, my curiosity was piqued, and I went back to see if I had weighed in on that RFA. (After 15 years it is easy to forget who one knows or has encountered in here ;) I should have listened to myself then, and stood my ground, as my initial impression is now all too familiar. I know this wasn't easy on anyone, but I respect the arbs we elected for doing what they were elected to do. And I hope we will see changes at ANI, at RFA, at RFB and with some sort of new RFC/U that will help us not have to go this way often. IMO, if admins would better "police" their fellow admins, we would all be in better shape here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:11, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
No comment on the specific cases, but I think Wugapodes is absolutely spot on above. We have had a long-running problem with productive contributors who are abrasive and unpleasant in their interactions with other editors, and refuse to take feedback on board. There is of course a lot of variation in how much community feedback they receive, and in how egregious their behavior was to begin with; but this single theme is present in virtually every ARBCOM desysop in the last few years, and in a good many other sanctions against established contributors. I strongly support attempts to resuscitate RFC/U, but I can't help but feel that the problem runs somewhat deeper than what mechanisms we have to deal with it; we don't really know how to deal with people who are unreceptive to personal feedback from their peers. Vanamonde (Talk)21:27, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
As I mentioned on this talk page a month ago, that was the whole problem with RfC/U: at that stage, editors were not receptive. Any revival needs to provide incentives for editors to engage. I didn't research back to the start of RfC/U, but maybe someone can recall: was it ever effective at providing feedback that resulted in positive, permanent reform? Is there something we can learn from any success stories?
If you're interested, I made a very small suggestions in the diff I linked to. It would not help for the vast majority of cases, but it's also virtually no overhead, so the benefit to effort ratio might be worthwhile. isaacl (talk) 22:19, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
Before serious thought is given to exhuming RFC/U from its moldy grave, we would do well to consider the reasons it was put out of its misery in the first place. All of the ill feelings of an ArbCom case but no mechanism for actually removing someone's tools if it's warranted? No thanks. 28bytes (talk) 21:34, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
Fully agree with User:SandyGeorgia's comment above. As a fellow human being I hate to see any admonishment, desysopping, block, etc. meted out against those who have given their all to the project for numerous years, and in most cases have done so in good faith, despite whatever issues have arisen to lead to the ArbCom case. I cam truly empathise and I know I would find that a tough pill to swallow too. But equally, I empathise with the rank and file editors, including regulars, content-creation specialists, those who have kept their heads under the radar and maybe aren't dominant personalities around the Wiki, as well as newbies who are trying in good faith to learn the ropes, who find themselves on the receiving end of poor civility by an administrator. The tools are not supposed to be a big deal, but the reality is that admins are trusted editors whom the community expects to abide by the policies at WP:ADMINACCT. If individual admins are not able to do that, and continue to struggle with civility after they have been given sufficient opportunity to improve, which all three recent desysoppings appear to have been given, then really ArbCom has no choice but to remove the bit. But even now it's not too late. Rather than retiring, demonstrate to the community in six months to a year that the issues have been resolved, and I'll gladly support a resysop. — Amakuru (talk) 22:49, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
And to respond to all who point out that RFC/U is no panacea, I listed four possible things to work on. If RFC/U isn't the solution, something has to be, because dealing with this problem (which comes down to entitlement, whether among admins or in top contributors) has an enormously detrimental effect. If a regular editor cannot expect that admins will deal with other admins at ANI, and there is no RFC/U-type process-- there's nothing but ArbCom. It seems that, in those with a tendency towards entitlement, the stress of dealing with Wikipedia can cloud our view of our importance (we are all very expendable here), and lead to behavior we would not engage in real life. That's why what I want to see at RFA or RFB is enough history of how an editor engages in the trenches to be assured they can stay humble and maintain perspective as the stress builds. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:57, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
Or to put it in engineering terms, if they haven't been stress-tested, don't put them in a place of structural importance. Although, to push the metaphor, that still leaves the question of what to do about metal fatigue. Gog the Mild (talk) 23:08, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
As I alluded to in the case request, interpersonal dispute management is difficult, all the more when using a consensus-like decision-making process in a large group for anything other than clear-cut cases. I've been trying to think of ways to get a trusted editor involved, as has been suggested by some editors, but it's a hard thing to formalize without falling into the problems of clique behaviour. Maybe a list of volunteers can be created, who would try to identify someone that the editor in question trusts? Regarding providing greater incentives for editors to engage with the RfC/U process, again taking cues from the real world: perhaps a mediator could manage the process, soliciting answers for specific questions from specific editors and the subject of the RfC/U. This would help filter out nuisance complaints, and hopefully reduce the feeling of everybody against one. Should we unredirect Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/User conduct and start a conversation there on more ideas to provide incentives to engage? isaacl (talk) 23:19, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
Ah, that was you ... I was trying to remember who brought that up and where. I think it was you who said editors should identify someone they would trust and listen to. And I will again comment that, in the most abusive cases I am familiar with (and I don't just mean abusive admins, I also mean abusive non-admin but entitled contributors, who are quite certain the world will stop turning if they stop editing), there seems to be a tendency among the entitled to be surrounded by like-minded people who never call them out, and always reinforce the behaviors. And if one (as a non-admin) speaks up, one is threatened. A lot of what is true in real life is true on Wikipedia: you are known by the company you keep. Those who are comfortable with bullies hang out with other bullies. And then they lose all perspective; they don't even realize what they sound like or how they are acting. If their closest friends are unlikely to call them out, then admins at ANI should be more aware of what role they might play. I am not good at coming up with ideas for how we might address these issues, but I see the problems quite clearly in my everyday non-admin editing. How often I come along on a page where three admins have posted right under an outright personal attack, to be the only one to say, "we don't do that here". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:30, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
The general idea of getting a trusted editor involved has been brought up by several editors... Just as you aren't claiming RfC/U to be a panacea, I don't think anyone is claiming that intervention by a trusted editor is a magic fix, either. I understand that it's really hard to receive negative feedback, and so I'm sure that some editors are just not going to have anyone who can reach them. But in that case, there's nothing we can do other than trying to keep them involved with others they get along with (just like happens in the real world). For any process to work, we need to try to figure out what approaches can be attempted to get by the natural defensive reactions and be effective. If there is a trusted editor that can help out, making use of them may be a good approach. Perhaps a good-faith mediator, even if not a trusted editor, can help generate constructive feedback that can be better received.
These are very difficult questions, so I don't think anyone is good at coming up with answers. My suggestion is to start with a structured discussion somewhere. It could be at the ideas village pump, the RfC/U talk page, or somewhere else. Let's look at what success stories are out there, if any can be found, and try to learn from them. isaacl (talk) 23:48, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
But ... but ... but ... it's so much more fun to come here and whine than to actually do something :) (I'm not starting any ideas moving while I'm preparing to face coprolalia coming from the main page all week :) But my first idea is that this stupid pingie-thingie has been a huge detriment to civility. We used to actually go to people's talk pages and talk to each other. The damn pingie-thingie adds another layer of impersonalization. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:56, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
Ummm.... I was thinking of ideas related to your discussion on RfC/U, because it's too easy to lose focus by trying to discuss multiple things at once. If you'd rather start with the echo notification mechanism though, then sure, that can be done. isaacl (talk) 00:12, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Some of ya, have brought up the idea of resurrecting RFC/U. There's a reason why RFC/U was discontinued. It was nothing but a space for editors to 'sh-t' on an accused editor. This is one bloke, who'll oppose any attempts to resurrect that bullying pen. GoodDay (talk) 23:55, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
The main problem with RfC/U was its awful structure that was antithetical to any discussion - people just broadcast comments, which were endorsed by a random number of people. You couldn't "not endorse" but had to make some other broadcast statement. It was like a whole bunch of people with loudspeakers and no-one listening. (archives at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct/Archive) It could have some use if restructured completely differently to promote discussion and negotiation Cas Liber (talk·contribs) 02:13, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Such a restructuring would make it functionally equivalent to either ANI, AE, or ArbCom, with the disadvantage of being focused on one person and having all of their opponents come out of the woodwork. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:16, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
It is pretty clear what is next. People should be encouraged to go to the talk page of the user they have issues with and discuss these issues to the user, and see whether it can be resolved in any reasonable way. I myself had difficulties two years ago, when a number of users thought my behavior is not acceptable (with one of them stating I must be happy if I do not get indefblocked), but I never had any formal warnings (not even speaking about being blocked) and never had anybody coming to my talk page to discuss issues (with one exception). If you want the message to go through, you should send the message and not hope that the addressee somehow would come to the state of enlightenment on their own. Of course you have to be polite and try to find the best approach, but this is the matter of efficiency.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:24, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
{[u|Ymblanter}}, at this level (need for AN/I, ArbCom or other resolution), we are generally talking about cases where that has been tried over and over and over again. Enablers come out of the woodwork, and the person raising the concerns ends up with an AN/I thread in their honor. We are trying to figure out what is next for the intractable cases who will not hear a message, polite or not. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:52, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
No, not really. I was taken to ArbCom in a completely bogus case, and the arbs finally declined but it took them a month to decline, and they were seriously discussing accepting it. (And the justification was - you guess it - that since only ArbCom can desysop, no previous discussions are needed). If really everything has been tried, then the ArbCom is the next obvious step, and I do not think anybody protesting against this. However, I do not think that the mere fact that someone has been taken to ArbCom means that everything has been tried. In fact, it became unfortunately too common to shut down ANI threads about administrators and after half a day go to ArbCom, with a justification that ANI can not desysop. Sure, it can not. And if you go to a take page, you can not either. But if your goal is not to desysop by all means, but to make sure the user understands what is going on and what the concerns are, their talk page is a necessary first stop. I would go as far as shutting down ANI page if the talk page discussion has not been previously attempted.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:42, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
@Softlavender: Kudpung had many chances to ameliorate his behavior; he took none of them. The end result of this case is quite literally his own making (especially via his refusal to actually engage with the process), and instead of introspection he has immediately gone to repeating the exact behavior mentioned in the case findings. He has validated the case in brilliant fashion. Your argument is that some editors should be more equal than others, a premise I fundamentally reject. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchstalk00:41, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Well, there was MEDCOM (also defunct now). Beyond that is the truism that "the light bulb has to actually want to change". There are problematic editors who are usually good but occasionally go on tilt and act against common sense. Maybe they understand the issue and could benefit from maintaining more self-awareness or whatever. Then there are also the editors who are problematic because they are chronically annoying, yet usually not flagrantly abusive. It is probably harder for them to do anything differently. Finally, even the most obnoxious and useless editors often have enablers and supporters, and those are the voices they will listen to. I think these cases all have to be considered separately. 173.228.123.39 (talk) 04:46, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
MEDCOM was for content disputes though, not user conduct problems. However, a non-binding offer of mediation by a neutral third-party might be a useful step in resolving user disputes, if - as you point out - the users in question are actually willing to consider being at fault. In the events that led to this case, Newyorkbrad attempted to mediate between chris.sherlock and Kudpung (which led to his latter recusal) and might well have been successful if the case had not been requested while he was trying. So maybe we should consider having a group of selected users (non-arbitrators but possibly ex-arbitrators) who enjoy a high degree of community trust offer mediation in suitable cases. It could address the concern people have and had with RFC/U, i.e. that it was only a way for people to air their grievances without any structure to actually solve it. Regards SoWhy08:54, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
I'm not overly enthusiastic about what could look like an ex-Arbom sub-committee but I can certainly see how it might work. My thoughts are that Arbom itself has now proven in can handle complex, multi-faceted behavioral cases. The relevant polices need to be updated based on the recent cases' core findings. In particular what must be dispelled is that Admin abuse is confined only to tool misuse - something I have seen claimed by others here. There should also be standard questions at RfA to ensure that candidates actually understand the detail of WP:ADMINACCT & WP:ADMINCOND. Leaky caldron (talk) 09:11, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
That ArbCom can handle cases does not mean that we (the community) should not try to find other ways to handle problematic user conduct before it rises to the level of ArbCom, potentially avoiding harsher sanctions in the process. If an admin (or generally any user) is willing to enter into mediation, it might address problems before it's too late. As for updating policies, I don't think that is really necessary, ADMINACCT already mentions a number of non-tool-related reasons for losing adminship. Regards SoWhy11:11, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Comment I'm somewhat disappointed that I didn't notice this case until today. Back in December, Kudpung engaged in some pretty grossly unbecoming admin conduct in this thread, essentially saying that I am not a part of the Wikipedia community, I am therefore not welcome to come to noticeboards when I have legitimate grievances, and refusing to reply when asked why he thought that. I drafted a query for his talk page off-wik, which I was probably going to revise before posting, but I was honestly too frightened of reprisals to do so, even while invoking ADMINACCT. I think it is a good thing that ArbCom has finally desysopped him for the behaviour that should have probably been addressed years ago (he essentially did the same thing to me back in 2013), but I think it is unfortunate that the evidence presented against him was apparently more narrow than it perhaps should have been. I have, in the past, seen desysopped editors act essentially as "admin emeritus" (non-admins who engage in the same behaviour that led to their mop being taken anyway, but who have de facto unblockability due to the respect they carry in some quarters), and I hope Kudpung does not become one of those but rather takes on board the criticisms that have come to light in this case and attempts to amend his behaviour accordingly. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:38, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
@Softlavender: (Sorry -- I couldn't figure out where the string of response to your original comment, and responses to Tony's response, ended, so posting it here.) I'm a little surprised to see you defend Kudpung in this case. While it (unfortunately) didn't apparently play into the ArbCom case, what he subjected me to in December had me convinced that desysopping was the only viable solution. He had been throwing his admin weight around for years, shutting down discussions about user behaviour based on his personal opinions of those involved, with the bogus excuse that they were "content disputes", and honestly any admin who harasses and threatens editors who disagree with him needs to be struck down from above, since those below are likely to be too intimidated to bring them to task. (FWIW, I've had similar, though less extensive and clear-cut, issues with BHG. The list of admins and other editors we've lost recently -- or posted retirement notices before coming back at some point later -- who I thought at the time were seriously driven out without good reason can be seen here.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:48, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
I don't know of any instances of someone posting a retirement notice and not eventually coming back (unless the retirement notice was very recent in which case we have to wait and see). Usually when someone quits wikipedia for real, they just stop editing without posting a notice. We've lost lots of editors that way, some of whom I miss quite a lot. Retirement notice is a drama thing. I'm sure there's a name for it in psychobabble jargon but who cares. 173.228.123.39 (talk) 06:58, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
I posted a retirement notice on the Russian Wikipedia on 16 May 2011 and have never edited it since (with an exception of one accidental rollback which I immediately reverted).--Ymblanter (talk) 07:46, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
FWIW, this conversation is completely peripheral to my point, which I only included to clarify why, for example, Swarm is on my list despite still being active as of March 2020. And I don't think very occasionally editing this or that article one is reading disproves the claim that one is "retired" as a Wikipedian; between 2008 and 2012, I made a couple of edits now and then, but I was effectively retired; I came back because circumstances IRL had changed. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:30, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
There may be 5,117 pages in Category:Retired Wikipedians, but that doesn't equate to 5,117 Wikipedians as there are lots of obvious duplicates - people with both their userpage and their usertalk in the category. It wouldn't surprise me if some alt accounts are in there as well - I'm sure I've seen some former bots with retired notices. As for the percentage of retired Wikipedians currently editing, remember this is one snapshot in time. There have also been a number of editors over the years who put up that retired template then later came back and took down the template. ϢereSpielChequers23:41, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
Update The mess Kudpung caused on ANI in December flooded back to the article talk page, until eventually another admin had to step in and close it, but then (because Kudpung had refused to do his duty and actually look at the evidence posted on ANI rather than posting his opinion on one of the editors personally) the disruptive editor Kudpung had in effect defended dragged it on further, and it now looks set to cause another broo-ha-ha on ANI. I think it's outrageous that Kudpung was allowed to steamroll a good-faith request for administrative intervention in December, and probably did this to countless other editors the cut of whose jib he didn't like over the years. I am honestly somewhat disappointed that Kudpung wasn't admonished to make amends for his disruption or face further sanctions -- claims that he is no longer actively editing are demonstrably false, and it seems pretty likely that he's already effectively become one of the aforementioned "admins emeriti". Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:34, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
1) I'm confused by the proposal of an arbcom subcommittee that hears complaints in a more structured(?) way than RFC/U: does that mean something like an arb case, but that can't actually impose remedies? That sounds like a terrible idea. 2) Supplying gentle feedback on a persistently obnoxious user's talk page might help once in a great while, but it's far more likely to be get a hostile response and basically be useless masochism. Anyone who edits for a while knows Wikipedia is full of aggressive and annoying users and the route to keeping sane is to stay away from them as much as possible. RFC/U was in fact a better place to speak up if you had an issue with someone. If RFC/U emperically didn't work, posting on talk pages would have been even worse. An exception might be if you were on good terms with the person and felt they were likely to listen to you, or if the person is basically sane but slips now and then. But in that case you should probably contact them privately rather than on their talk page. 2602:24A:DE47:B270:A096:24F4:F986:C62A (talk) 17:04, 3 March 2020 (UTC) (= 173.228.123.39)
Here's a novel idea, if you want to keep the admin bit, then behave in a way that's WP:ADMINCONDUCT. If an admin needs to lose the bit to be knocked off their pedestal and stopped threatening people with vague threats of investigation and blocks, or whatever other behaviour was problematic, you won't find me crying for them. They can rejoin the ranks of the regular folks and eat humble pie, just like the rest of us. Should we need ARBCOM for this? No. De-sysopped (or a rectified behaviour) should have happened long before ARBCOM. But that's all we've got. And if you can convince a majority of ARBCOM, which is the most highly trusted body of Wikipedia (save perhaps crats), that the behaviour was problematic enough to remove the bit, I think you've cleared the bar against this being "frivolous complaints" against said admin. Headbomb {t · c · p · b}16:44, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
Sorry for not doing my homework before I asked the question (I'm a dork, and I really do have the t-shirt to prove it); that must be a painful memory. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:05, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
@SandyGeorgia: Not really. The only consequence of this is that some deletions have a different name in the logs, that some fully-protected articles getting edit warred over get edit requests on their talk page rather than edits made directly, and that some templates don't get maintained as well as they should be. Maybe a couple of vandal edits didn't get revdel'd because I didn't feel like making a revdel request. If someone gets worked up over that...
There might be status that comes with adminship, but if you care about having status, you shouldn't be an admin in the first place. As evidenced by everyone losing admin bits because they think their shit doesn't stink. Headbomb {t · c · p · b}17:28, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
Cultural divide
This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
On the themes we have been discussing here and elsewhere about changing community norms, a just-closed RFA provides some hard data. Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Guy Macon finished at 41.6% support. Almost half of the support came from users with advanced permissions, or from those accustomed to editing in the medical area (four medical editors total), where civility is all too often suspended. Based on diffs presented, all other editors supported the candidate at about half the rate as those with advanced permissions did. With an edit summary of "When you went to school, was it on the long bus or on the short bus?" this is one of several diffs presented during the RFA, which included the statement, "Re your 'Either you are trolling me, grasping at straws to support your POV, or have a WP:CIR problem.' comment, go fuck yourself, asshole."
Admins, arbs, checkusers, 'crats and medical editors A
All other editors
Total
Support
Oppose
Support
Oppose
24 A
17
29
56
126
45%
55%
23%
77%
Note A: includes Doc James, who co-nommed but did not enter a Support, and three other medical editors who supported. Also includes Kudpung (recent desysop) representing users with advanced permissions.
I have edited in the medical area for almost 15 years; I have stopped editing there many times, for many years, not because of the woo vandals and fringe POV pushers, but because of the behaviors from within. With the exception of WP:BLP policy, Wikipedia's medical content is already protected by our strongest sourcing guideline (WP:MEDRS); the battlefield mentality is not needed. As long as this cultural divide persists, we should not be surprised by WMF intervention, and the community is likely to continue to clamor for an ArbCom that will deal with the civility problem and the different standards in evidence in the data above. It should be eye-opening that our editors with advanced permission, or who edit in the medical realm, are more willing to accept behaviors that the broader community rejects. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:37, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
Sandy: "It should be eye-opening …" Was this intended rhetorically? I have been active on Wikipedia for a little over two years, and this (bar the medical bit) has been clear to me for nearly that long. It is one of the first things that strikes a newcomer: authority is there to look out for their own, not to help you. I realise that this possibly only applies to a minority and I know any number of admins who fully live up to expectations, but there is enough of this attitude to cause me, for one, to be somewhat mistrustful of those who are supposedly being held to a higher standard. Gog the Mild (talk) 23:18, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
Well, of course it is obvious to so many of us, but I suspect it may be eye-opening to many others. We lose perspective all too easily in here; taking many years off can be a good thing :) And yes, for me as well, there are WAY more arbs, admins, crats and checkusers that I admire than not, but this is the first time I have seen an opportunity to put together hard data that shows there is some sort of cultural divide. One thing that I found odd is that we have had ... what? ... at least eight RFAs and three RFBs this year, including some very good candidates, but some medical editors showed up only to support this one in particular. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:43, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
I don't think it's unusual for editors to make an extra effort to support someone they know through their interactions on common areas of interest. Regarding the split, it's a natural development. Editors become less patient over time, or are just looking for more time-efficient ways to interact with new editors, and generally become more terse and sometimes more abrupt. Continually renewing the editing population is one way to try to manage this, but of course that's a bit of a catch-22. I understand how frustrating it is to interact with editors that are seemingly not interested in understanding the viewpoints of others, and the temptation to use aggressive approaches. We need ways to expeditiously handle inexperienced editors or editors who goals aren't aligned with Wikipedia's, so that aggression is no longer an effective strategy to deploy. For better or worse, with an editing population as large as English Wikipedia's, that will probably mean some form of editorial control, which would make aggressive behaviour moot and potentially a negative strategy. isaacl (talk) 00:30, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
I think (or hope) that we all know enough senior editors with integrity and high standards to know that it is not necessarily true that "it's a natural development" or that "editors become less patient over time". But for those who accept that reasoning, perhaps it explains why almost three-fourths of those supports came in even with evidence on the page of diffs that would cause a regular editor to be blocked or banned for a very long time. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:39, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
I see a clean block log there, so I'm not sure what that phenom represents in terms of generalities and the cultural divide I am trying to highlight. I was distinguishing between those who have the power to block other editors while supporting another editor with pretty serious blockable diffs given on the page, for which any other regular editor would surely pay a steep price. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:48, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
I am not going to dispute your contention of the cultural divide. It's worth grappling with. However, you've decided that Guy - who has left the project (at least temporarily) because he couldn't get advanced permissions - is not a regular editor because he has a clean block log. That seems to be changing the data to fit to the outcome you believe to be true - regular editors pay a steep price for incivility. An alternative which this data actually fits is that no one (or rather very few) - regular editor or those with advance permission - pay a steep price for incivility. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:37, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
No, that is not what I have decided, but apparently I have not been able to communicate the general point in a clear enough way for you. I am happy if we all understand there is a deep divide here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:58, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
An anonymous editor, or someone with a thin edit history, who snaps at another editor will usually at the very least get slapped with a talk page warning. I think there's quite a lot of evidence that the same is not true for editors viewed as "Wikipedians in good standing". I think SandyGeorgia was referring to the former group as "regular editor[s]", as opposed to "special" ones. Whether this state of affairs is desirable is a separate issue. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 03:18, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
By no means is such a progression universal, so of course there are editors less susceptible to this tendency than others. And if you edit in quiet areas with little exposure to problem editors, it helps a lot. Incivility is not excused by a weariness with dealing with inexperienced editors, or those with agendas contrary to Wikipedia's goals. But to deal with it, we have to be honest about understanding some of the human imperfections that can contribute to it. (There are, of course, many other triggers for abrasiveness, not the least of which is that in small doses it's often a winning strategy.) isaacl (talk) 10:14, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Gog's It is one of the first things that strikes a newcomer is true. I started editing here a little over a year ago and it was the first thing that struck me. Levivich[dubious – discuss]05:04, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
My experience (in 2006) as a new editor was different. Many helpful editors and admins took me under their wings, in spite of me being probably a supreme pain in the neck, and showed me the ropes, and held my hand through a gazillion questions, and even protected me through several outrageous attacks on me by now-banned editors, and even a very frightening arbcase where the editor who went after me was banned. At one point I was attacked by a self-described group of admins, one now desysopped, and then I did see the dark side, and then I did fully understand how vulnerable those without the mop are. We can be run out for simply crossing the wrong person or group. But I'm sorry to hear what you and Gog experienced from the get-go, because that was not my initial experience. I remember and remain grateful of all the kind admins and arbs who shielded me through some really awful attacks on me for my work in maintaining FA standards. I think we need to take very seriously what editors like Gog and you are expressing about the current perceptions and environment. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:29, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
What Levivich said. My personal edit count is a consequence of stumbling across events like this, and deciding that no hobby could possibly repay so much risk and stress. Heaven help anyone who identifies as a free content activist, and therefore feels they must stay. HTH. Xeriphas1994 (talk) 16:25, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
SandyGeorgia, I'd suggest your analysis is incomplete. (Nowithstanding that I agree with your conclusion, but based on different and more anecdotal evidence.) You'd have to do the same for other RFAs where civility was not a concern, to see if editors-with-rights also support those at higher rates than editors-without-rights. My hypothesis would be that administrators tend to be more supporting of RFAs in general than non-admin (because they want the help? because they feel obligated?), and that editors familiar with the candidate (regardless of what subject area) tend to support at higher rates than others. I don't know if that's true or not, though, just a hypothesis. Levivich[dubious – discuss]05:08, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
@Levivich: I suspect you are probably on to something, but I'll let someone else run those numbers :) The problem is, I'm not sure we have another comparable case, or at least, I'm not aware of one. In other RFAs, senior editors may discount opposes, and support at a higher rate for the reasons you mention, but I can't recall (I may have forgotten) seeing diffs presented that were as egregious as those presented in this case. I thought this example presented data that was difficult to refute. I was unable apparently to make that case to Barkeep49 (I'm not known for precision in writing :), but those are diffs that would get any editor blocked, and yet, senior editors supported a candidate for RFA even after seeing them. I am not sure you can make such a case for most RFAs, where it is easier for senior editors and 'crats to overlook content opposes, or claim opposers are bearing grudges for minor issues, etc. I felt this was a more clear example of how wide the cultural divide is. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:29, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
An interesting analysis but I think it is limited in that you are only looking at one example from the thousands of RfAs that have been successful and unsuccessful and it is impossible to find a pattern in just one example. I'm also not sure why this discussion is on the arbitration committee noticeboard and not at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship where it might be more relevant. The ArbCom has no influence over RfAs. LizRead!Talk!06:41, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
It follows from the discussion of why the community has elected, and will probably continue to elect, arbs that will make the unpleasant decisions to desysop, after and partly because other admins themselves don't police the conduct of their fellow admins to the same standard they do non-admins-- precisely what we have been discussing about the three desysops. I'm not sure any discussion at WT:RFA ever made a difference to anyone about anything, but arbcom elections are a REAL election, where numbers count, and we elected a slate that will take this problem on, and yet they are criticized for these desysops. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:00, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
@SandyGeorgia: Yeah, studying "admin bias at RFA" is like studying "admin bias at AE" – every case is fairly unique and has too many variables to control for, such that apples-to-apples comparisons are elusive if not impossible. But there are potential explanations for an editor supporting an RFA in spite of evidence of egregious incivility, other than a general willingness to accept incivility (or general lack of caring about civility). For example: they may have committed equally or more-egregious incivility infractions themselves, and not want to judge another editor for it; they may have !voted early, and when the diffs were brought forward, seen that the RFA was already tanking, and decided they don't need to "pile on" by switching from support to oppose (in other words, their support may not have actually been a support); they may have planned to switch to oppose later pending the candidate's responses, but the RFA was closed early; they may have a very deep well of experience with the candidate and feel that the one or two or three or four diffs are outliers, and that they generally know and trust the candidate as being usually civil; they may not have read the diffs, or read any of the opposes. For another example, if you were to run for RFA, I would support, even if someone brought out some diffs of you saying some very terrible things, because I've read like megabytes of what you've written at this point, and a few examples of you having a "bad day" would not change my overall positive impression of your temperament. That doesn't mean I'd be "willing to accept" incivility–even from you–it doesn't mean I wouldn't say something to you if I saw you be uncivil "in real time"–but it means I'm not going to judge you based on a few diffs, no matter what those diffs say. I have this other giant reservoir of experiential first-hand data from which to judge you. So that may explain the medical-editor votes, for example. I mention all this to say: I think the outlook is more optimistic; I don't think that because editors (even editors-with-rights or medical editors) support a candidate in spite of civility concerns, that that means those editors don't care about maintaining civility on the project in general. There's just a lot of other possible explanations. Levivich[dubious – discuss]06:44, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Yes, too many factors to control, and I can understand those who supported before the egregious diffs were presented not wanting to abandon ship and drown someone on a sinking ship-- that would just be unkind. But, again, many supports came in after diffs were presented that would sink most of us and would have gotten us blocked. Many supports were moral supports that could have been entered as neutrals. As in our other discussions here about what led us to be in a position where arbcom has had to make three desysops, one wonders why no one did something sooner to address this behavior, and why the appearance is that the nominators and nominee were unaware that he had posts so bad that they would come back to sink the RFA. Are we so accustomed to this level that we forget? The whole scenario is a curious one and I hope the discussion leads us to consider productive ways to deal with whatever is behind whatever it was. SandyGeorgia (Talk)
SandyGeorgia: I've interacted with Guy Macon a few times and I think of him as a dedicated Wikipedian and a good guy in general, but one who supports a more rule-bound and bureaucratic vision than I do about how Wikipedia should work (NOTSTATUTE is important to me). I wonder if the cultural divide you mention also reflected that type of philosophy difference: i.e. I wonder if, statistically speaking, the admin population likes rules and bureaucracy more than the non-admin population does. As far as civility lapses go: of course we should avoid making them, but an awful lot of the time, they are understandable because the target of the incivility really has done something obnoxious. 2602:24A:DE47:B270:A096:24F4:F986:C62A (talk) 06:40, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Once maybe. Twice? How many more? If you have that kind of behavior in your background more than once, this would be something to disclose up front and discuss at RFA. Anyway, it was not my intent to discuss one particular editor I barely know-- rather the cultural divide that has led the community to elect an arbcom that will take this on. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:14, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
When you stated that editor in question has exhibited behaviour that would typically get other editors blocked, you implicitly introduced a different factor than the breakdown you initially presented. As Levivich stated, I think if you have worked positively with an editor, you're more likely to weigh that heavily versus the editor's weaknesses. For some long-time editors, this network of collaborators will have significant overlap with administrators. For others who have edited in less prominent places, there may be a smaller degree of overlap. To try to separate these trends requires a finer breakdown of the admins expressing their views (such as Wikipedia age and degree of interaction with the administrator candidate) and a broader examination of more RfAs. isaacl (talk) 10:08, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Hi @SandyGeorgia: - two queries/points. Since this is raised as a concern about the admin perception of civility, but you also raise it as an issue at MEDR, could you filter the admin pool in some rough and ready fashion on whether they are MEDR editors? As a second point, following on a little from what was said above, voters vary very heavily between RfAs (way more than I'd thought) - to a heavy degree depending on field. My one, for example, had many of the "AfD gang". Nosebagbear (talk) 10:08, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
For the record, speaking as an admin (but hopefully not one that many people regard as having civility issues), I didn't vote in Guy Macon's RFA because there didn't seem much point - it was clearly going downhill from day one. Had I voted, though, I would probably have opposed, based on the evidence presented. So the statistics above are slightly skewed because people like me who might have !voted in a knife-edge RFA are omitted... and perhaps experienced editors/admins are less likely to add a pile-on oppose than others? It's a possibility... — Amakuru (talk) 11:10, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
I am not aware of you having ever failed to behave civilly. Or at least, I can't recall such. Anyway, I can no longer assert that this data has any meaning, and would not mind if some kind arb would close off this section of discussion. I consider the data now to be moot, as we have no way of knowing if some !votes were driven by private knowledge of Guy Macon's heart attack, which would render them logical supportive and compassionate !votes in an RFA that was heading one way. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:33, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
Sure, I'd agree with that. Hatting it would be a good idea. I actually hadn't yet seen the sad news about the heart attack when I posted my comment above (I was initially a bit confused about what you meant when you said "It seems courteous to drop this conversation at this point"). Hoping that Guy will be back to full health and editing here again very soon, anyway. — Amakuru (talk) 16:52, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
Findings
I think there is a cultural divide. We see it in findings like these. Ok, the case resulted in a desysop of one of the most productive admins in the history of the project (2nd in deletions, 4th in protections, etc.) But why was this even mentioned? Why is a person's record being held up as important to include? Answer that and you begin seeing the underpinnings of the divide. We are not all held to the same standards. ArbCom's proven this on multiple occasions. But, they are not the cause. They are just a symptom of this cultural divide. As mention by some in this thread, this divide is detrimental to good faith newcomers. The divide is one of the factors causing this project to fail. There are no easy answers to fix this. It's a cultural sea change that has to happen. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:37, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
I don't think the finding has any relevance to the question of cultural divides. They're being included because the Committee wants to recognize that editors make good contributions even if we're sanctioning them. Perhaps it's irrelevant as the editors still like to storm off in a huff. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchstalk15:23, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
It highlights that length of service/amount of contributions elevates an editor above others. It should not be necessary to mention such service in the context of sanctions if we are to treat all editors who break our norms the same. Indeed it is important to recognize great service to the project. To do so in the context of sanctions supports the cultural divide. The situation is that if an editor of 100,000 edits says to somebody "You are a <expletive> <expletive>! You are the worst <expletive> scum that's ever edited this project!", and an editor of 100 edits says the same thing, they will be treated differently. In the former case, we're likely to say "Well, it appears to be an isolated case, so a cautionary note will do". In the latter case we're likely to block. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:37, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
Hammersoft, the finding put the other findings in context too - an individual with 500k deletions is likely to see more absolute errors than someone with 5k. WormTT(talk) 15:38, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
Hammersoft, "treat all editors the same" makes sense and sounds good on the surface, but the reason there is this apparent disconnect between that ideal, and the reality, is because the ideal is not an ideal, but rather a combination of logical fallacies. We do not treat all editors the same, and we should not treat all editors the same. Equality is not equity. "Equality" is "sameness"; "equity" is "fairness".
Scenario A:
An employee at your workplace who has been there for 25 years tells the CEO to "fuck off."
An employee at your workplace who has been there for one month tells the CEO to "fuck off."
Scenario B:
Your sibling tells your other sibling to "fuck off."
A stranger on the street tells your sibling to "fuck off."
In either scenario, will the two incidents be treated the same? Should they be treated the same? No, and no. When you work somewhere for 25 years, or when you're someone's sibling, you can say "fuck off", and while there may be consequences, it won't be the same consequences that would be met by a new employee or a stranger. Nor should the consequences be the same.
There are limits to this principle, of course, and it also works in reverse. If a stranger on the street tells you to fuck off, you might ignore it. If it's coming from your sibling, you might say "fuck off" right back. If a manager tells one of their subordinates to "fuck off", the manager might actually get fired or demoted for that (because it abuses the power imbalance), whereas if one "rank and file" employee tells another "rank and file" employee to "fuck off", that might be ignored by management altogether.
And so it is on Wikipedia. It matters whether "fuck off" is one out of 100 edits, or one out of 100,000 edits. The editor who has been volunteering their time to the project for years will have more leeway when they break the rules, than someone who breaks the rules before they're extended confirmed. That's normal and proper. It's fair. We earn leeway through our positive actions. We deserve leeway because of our prior voluntary contributions. Just like you're going to let your sibling or long-time employee "get away with" more than a stranger or new employee, we will let our longstanding volunteers get away with more than new volunteers.
And so, to say that everyone should be treated equally, and one's contributions to the project should not be a factor–that's not equity or fairness, that's equality, and it's unfair. We want to treat all editors equitably, not equally. Levivich[dubious – discuss]15:57, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
There's validity (to me) in some of what you say. The problem is the cultural divide we have has at times resulted in some long time contributors being distinctly verbally abusive for years before anything is done about it. There is a big difference in a long time contributor saying something deeply reprehensible once, and doing so hundreds, even thousands of times. Where do you draw the line? How many good faith contributors does such a person cause to not stick with the project? We have no way of knowing of course. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:06, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
Agreed, I think that there's a third case to think about in Levivich's Scenario A - the 25-year vet (or CEO) swearing at the new guy. Should we be tolerating that just because he's a long-term employee? creffpublica creffett franchise (talk to the boss) 17:40, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
Fuck off, Creff[FBDB] Thank you for insightful comment, Creffett. Should we be tolerating the veteran swearing at the new guy? It depends. Did the new guy sleep with the veteran's wife? If so, then yes, I think we should tolerate the veteran swearing at the new guy. Does the veteran swear at every new guy? If so, then no, I don't think we should tolerate that. Unless all the new guys slept with the veteran's wife, in which case, I'd be back to tolerating the veteran swearing at the new guys. It all depends on the circumstances. Levivich[dubious – discuss]18:12, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
Wait, don't all veterans swear? :) Back to the thread topic; maybe being a wiki-vet tends to make us all more verbally abrasive as we become more distant from our own days as beginners. There is likely a tendency to become less tolerant of what we see (now) as newbie errors. I hope I don't do this, but human tendencies being what they are, I'm sure I've done it from time to time. Signed, a guy not stupid enough to sleep with a veteran's wife (well, unless it was one of THOSE parties), --Hammersoft (talk) 19:18, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
:-D Back to the topic at hand, I think the first offense or occasional incivility should just be ignored – we all lose our cool sometimes. If someone is being chronically uncivil, the first step is a friendly message on their talk page. If they're still uncivil, the second step is a "formal" template warning. Third step: a noticeboard. Often we get to the noticeboard without any of the prior steps, and the noticeboard complaint is just dismissed. I wish I could convince editors writ large to engage in steps one and two more often, which I think will make step three happen less often. We can eventually build a culture where people will "get the message" that chronic and unjustified incivility will not be tolerated. Levivich[dubious – discuss]19:28, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
@Levivich: Like all minor user rights, autopatrolled is granted at the discretion of individual administrators. Some administrators may, in their discretion, view it as appropriate to grant arbitration clerks certain user rights. My personal practice is to grant certain rights (e.g. mass message sender, template editor) that are necessary for clerks to carry out their duties, but those actions are made in my individual capacity as an administrator and are subject to community review in the same way that all other ordinary administrative actions are. Kevin (aka L235·t·c) 01:26, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Don’t think so, but it’s also not really a big deal (also courtesy ping to Thryduulf since this is fairly obviously about his recent grant to Cthomas3.) I’m assuming the logic is that they have to create a ton of pages and frequently make mass edits to talk pages, so anyone who uses the old school methods of patrolling will probably find all the various pages annoying for no reason. Autopatrolled doesn’t just impact article space from a technical perspective.The real question is if there’s any real risk here, and there really isn’t. The guideline is a “suggested standard” and if a sysop sees a trusted user where giving it to them could be beneficial, it’s fine. All of the guidelines for user rights are functionally “Can this person be trusted not to mess up with this” and admins have a lot of discretion in granting them. The world isn’t going to end here one way or the other. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:33, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Please can we keep discussion of this one place. I don't particularly mind whether that is here, my talk page, the talk page of the Jytdog case, or some other appropriate venue but my actions are at the centre of it. I'm about to go to bed and I'd significantly prefer there to be as little of people talking past each other as possible. So please could someone pick a single location and direct everything and everybody else there (there is also a slim but non-zero chance I'll be afk or have significantly reduced time for Wikipedia for a few days, which would make multiple discussions even trickier for me to learn anything from). Thryduulf (talk) 01:37, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
There's definitely precedent for granting arb clerks the autopatrolled right, but I don't think it's standard practice, nor should it be. Autopatrolled is fundamentally about reducing the workload on new page patrollers, so granting it based on project-space creations misses the point of the user right. Arbitration clerks are also not vetted for their article creation experience, which means granting this role automatically results in a gap in our quality control process. Perhaps someone could write a bot to autopatrol the creations of clerks in arbitration-space. That seems like a simple enough task, and I suspect it would satisfy the competing interests at play here. – bradv🍁02:07, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
I respectfully disagree and think we are overthinking something relatively simple. If an editor is trusted well enough to be appointed an arbitration clerk, the odds that he or she would publish an unsuitable article into mainspace are remote. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:14, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Considering that we have some admins and other well-respected users repeatedly creating problematic articles kind of contradicts this of course. Not discussing this specific case, which I haven't looked at, but granting autopatrolled should be done based on the quality of article creations only, not on other considerations. Fram (talk) 08:27, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
^^^This rather than, "I did it because nothing explicitly said I couldn't" while pretending that a tool that in spirit is clearly intended to reduce new page patrollers' workloads is somehow essential to backroom pages such as these. ——SN5412908:50, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Possible admin abuse case mailed
Hi, just a note that I have posted the committee about a possible case of admin abuse (involving one or two admins, one is accusing the other so...). It involves outing and off-wiki issues (meetups) and so on, so I've taken it to mail instead of opening a case. I forgot to change the heading of my email, so it may inadvertently end up in your spam or get ignored. Fram (talk) 08:26, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
Shouldn't the "Analysis of evidence" come before the "Proposed final decision" sections? It seems to me that a natural progression is to first analyze the evidence, and only then propose a decision. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:20, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Thank you very much to everyone who has taken the time to say something nice. Serving our project as a committee member was mostly a pleasure and rarely a chore. To everyone who has thought about volunteering for the role, I encourage you to self-nominate at the next election. AGK ■13:05, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
I commend the Arbcom for their timely deliberations and careful consideration; it was nice to see a proposal put up on time and closed without unnecessary delay, in spite of the last-minute concerns about a potential "quiet" return. I trust that this arb committee will have their eyes on the ball, with the best interest of Wikipedia, content, and editors in mind. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:03, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Kudos to ArbCom for its deft handling of this case. I hope it signals that bullying behavior will no longer be tolerated on Wikipedia. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:04, 14 April 2020 (UTC).
I agree with both SandyGeorgia and Xxanthippe. In combination with the other recent decisions this is a good signal that the English Wikipedia is beginning to get its house in order regarding bullying and gross incivility. Thryduulf (talk) 08:26, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
In the intervening time between Callanecc's return to Wikipedia and the reassignment of checkuser rights, Callanecc has almost quashed the WP:SPI backlog, reducing it by well over half of what it was. What remains are mostly the cases which need CU attention, to which I'm sure Callanecc will soon contribute. Welcome back indeed! Mz7 (talk) 20:27, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Comment on Bbb23 and symptoms of an overactive ArbCom
I posted this to CheckUser-l and ArbCom-en, but I think it worth posting publicly:
Just a general comment without being particularly aware of any specific incidents:
I’m sure there were likely checks that can be questioned, but that can be said of literally anyone who has the tool because the use of the tool is discretionary and discretion means that people are going to make errors in judgement calls. An error rate of 2-3% in any line of work requiring discretion is more than reasonable, but Wikipedia/Wikimedia’s system of accountability only looks at individual events.
Given the scale of his work, I’m sure whatever letter ArbCom sent could likely have enough individual events justifying it that would not reflect the scale of his good work. Given that he ran around 2,000 checks a month, even an error rate of 0.5%, which would be more than reasonable, would be 10 checks to point to a month when drafting something. There are of course individual events that might warrant this, but those are egregious ones involving using the tool to manipulate and control or intentional release of data, none of which I have seen here.
Having looked through his log, while he was more liberal than I may have been, but overwhelmingly he was right, and from a statistical standpoint likely was around the norm or better.
This is a symptom of an overactive ArbCom, probably in reaction to last one, but I am quickly losing confidence in the ability of this committee to be fair to anyone who is active in difficult areas, and have lost substantial respect for many of its members. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:54, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
One of the primary roles of the committee is to audit the use of checkuser and to provide appropriate corrective guidance where necessary. –xenotalk14:10, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
That response assumes infallibility. Given the last 3 months, this ArbCom has proven itself to be the most unfair and overactive that we have seen in recent memory. We have a desysop based on blatantly false FoFs (BHG), an ArbCom case over an IBAN that should have been kicked to AN and resolved in 72 hours, and now this. Sure, it’s within your authority to do all these things. My point is that you all have rushed to get involved in matters faster than any ArbCom in recent memory, and have a remarkably high public error rate because of this haste. This was an unforced error. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:22, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
No. I’m saying that the response of “this is within our remit” when the criticism is that they’ve been rushing into things all year and making mistakes along the way is an argument from authority that assumes because they can do it that they get it right. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:27, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Okay, I can see the reasoning behind that even if I don't agree. Personally, I've been very pleased with this committee's work and in light of the Framgate debacle from last year I don't think anyone should be surprised if ArbCom is more inclined to take initiative than they have been in the past. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 16:34, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Unfortunately the argument that the more work one does inevitably leads to a higher error-rate in doing so was found inadequate in RHaworth's arbcom, and I assume the same princile applies. Also—and I don't think I'm known as a cheerleader of this arbcom, probably far from it—but although we're only painting pictures here, if there were policy violations involved (IF—I'm not sayng their were) then they would specifically not be mitigated by volume of activity.I can well understand Bbb23's refusal to be micromanaged, if that was the case—it's an absolutely untenable position to put anyone, and absolutely impossible for anyone to accept. It would be odd, indeed, if anyone thought it would have another outcome than it did. ——SN5412914:10, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
To summarize my arguments on CU-l:
Volume does not and should not negate intentional policy violations.
Enforcing established standards should be done even if it makes other admins/functionaries who also violate those standards uncomfortable and scared to continue violating those standards. Relevant for this case, and all the recent desysops.
Don't worry too much, he'll be back. The average enwiki retirement lasts about two weeks. But not before tens of users come out to lend emotional support, which becomes even more comical for the users on their 5th+ "retirement" who still get the same "oh the wiki will crumble without you" comments every time.
As to the specific case, I have enjoyed working with Bbb23 in the past, and hope he returns and continues with the 97% of his work that was excellent. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 14:50, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
The problem with that argument is there isn’t any evidence objective standards have been violated. Subjective ones possibly, sure, but very few things here are objective. The standard allow for discretion and are fairly vague. I could probably find checks in any individual CU log I wouldn’t have run, including arbs, stewards, and ombuds. That’s normal because there’s judgement involved and different people will have different judgement. The argument here is essentially that CUs are expected to make no errors, and that those overseeing the issue also make no errors. That’s not possible when dealing with matters of judgement. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:15, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
CheckUser does require judgment calls, but those calls still need to be made within the framework of the global and local policy. Nobody expects CUs to be perfect and error-free all the time, but problems arise when there is a trend of improper use of the tools, the user has previously been cautioned or made aware of what the problem is, and the behaviour continues regardless. Bonus points for sanctimonious dismissal of concerns and no self-reflection or attempt to understand what the problem is (Not necessarily saying that is the case here, but certainly has been with a lot of the recent desysops. And the same "judgement and vague policies" argument can be made with respect to those cases, in a similar irresponsible manner IMO). I think it is entirely acceptable for ArbCom to issue a warning to a user in that situation, if for no other reason than to reinforce what the standard is. As the local group responsible for oversight of functionary tools, that should be not only their right but their responsibility. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 15:30, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Ajraddatz, there's no way to know for sure if the reason anyone returns at all is not precisely the kind of overwhelming emotional support they receive, is there? Usedtobecool☎️15:54, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
No way to know for sure, but I expect it has far more to do with addiction to the website than the predictable outpouring of support every time an admin/long-term editor "retires". -- Ajraddatz (talk) 16:00, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
@TonyBallioni: just to be clear have checkusers been given more insight into what has happened here or are you speculating nearly as much (obviously you can see Bbb's checks in a way the rest of us can't so you have some more information) as the rest of us? Because from what Bbb has posted, I can speculate about two possible ideas behind ArbCom's actions. Option 1 is the error rate idea that seems to have been the focus here. If that's the case it appears like there are differing views among checkusers (sample size 2 in this thread but obviously also the checkusers of ArbCom deciding to warn but not revoke) about Bbb's performance. Alternatively, Option 2 is that there were certain categories (triggering events?) of checks that Bbb was performing that ArbCom wanted him to stop performing. I don't know which of these is more likely, but perhaps you do.Regardless, I don't blame Bbb for being really upset. Not in the least. But my hope is that in a few days or few weeks or even few months when he's in a better place that he can restart communication with ArbCom so he can find a way to not feel micromanaged and return to the valuable work he has done onwiki. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:23, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
I recognize that CU is a very privacy-sensitive area, but in the interest of transparency, would ArbCom be willing to comment generally on what CheckUser policies Bbb23 violated? creffett (talk) 15:27, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @Barkeep49 and RoySmith: Roy, see User talk:Bbb23: Bbb23 has retired after a warning from the committee.Barkeep, we haven’t had specifics but have had discussions, but from what some arbs have said and what Bbb23 has publicly said, they have disagreements over interpreting the CU policy (particularly wikipedia:CheckUser#Grounds_for_checking.) That’s fine, but I also think if ArbCom were to propose a stricter interpretation of that in an RfC the community would overwhelmingly reject it, and so what we have amounts to ArbCom attempting to change policy by enforcement rather than its members trying to change the actual policy. I do not think the community as a whole supports reading the policy to effectively eliminate the fourth ground for checking, which places substantial discretion to the individual CU. It needs to be justifiable, but I don’t think Bbb23 was going around checking his enemies and I think he likely had a good idea why he was looking when he looked. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:37, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
@TonyBallioni: regardless of Bbb23 (right now), perhaps such a general RfC is warranted, vis a vis finding out/confirming exactly what the community wants/expects from CU discretion. A positive enforcement of the current wording—which I agree would be the most lkely outcome by a landslide—would presumably prevent this happening in the future. (Assuming, of course, that that's what's happened this time.) ——SN5412915:57, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
What is this? Like I think the community would support giving CU discretion. I don't think the community would support checking on every first time RfA voter (as Wikipedia Online speculates happens but I've always understood doesn't happen). So using an RfC to rebuke this ArbCom based on facts that we don't know (and which it seems even CUs don't fully know seems unwise). Using the RfC, in a thoughtful manner to evaluate to what extent the community is and isn't comfortable with the use of checkusers using their powers, all within the confines of global policy, does seem like this could be helpful. So as with so much on wiki, the devil's in the details. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:11, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Serial Number 54129, RfA because I wanted to give an example of something that critics have speculated about and which I think if true (and I don't believe it is) the community wouldn't support. Rebuke because Tony has been critical about this decision and you used the phrase "prevent this happening in the future". Now maybe that's a misreading. That's why I started with the question of what the "this" that you used in your last two sentences would be. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:26, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
This is a great loss & I hope Bbb23 returns. But many members of the "community", as I have read it, have been sensitive about some checkuser blocks which, by their nature, are often unexplained or are not supported by SPI reports which have been filed. The community has to trust (or at least accept) checkusers and their judgment to act within the existing guidelines. I don't think an RfC proposing a general extension of permission to checkusers to be more liberal in their checks of editor accounts would be supported by all. LizRead!Talk!16:32, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Speaking as one of the community members who share the sentiments you described, I certainly wouldn't be supportive of such an extension. When a CU says they have evidence of socking, the common folk are expected to believe them. ArbCom says they have evidence that Bbb23 violated policy. Well, I believe them. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 16:37, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
I wouldn’t support expansion either. I also am pretty sure that an RfC to tighten the policy would be defeated in a landslide. This committee’s views on the policy I do not think are in line with the community view on it and sock puppetry. The issue isn’t only Bbb23. The issue is a committee doing via enforcement what individual members couldn’t get passed via RfC: namely tightening use of the tool beyond what is currently authorized by policy. There’s a fine line between interpreting policy and changing it, and I think they’re trying to cross that line. There’s a happy middle ground, and I think the existing policy is actually works quite well. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:48, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Who the checkusers are checking is always a black box to the rest of us, and has to be so. But my interpretation of Bbb23's statement is that ArbCom suddenly told him they didn't trust his judgement: "They have ordered me to limit my checking to 'non-discretionary' cases", and the "warning" was that they could take away his CU bit at any time. That's a serious attack on his integrity without possibility of rebuttal; I sympathise with his reaction and unless the committee—or the other CUs, who I know properly consult with each other frequently behind the scenes—had previously expressed concerns, I do think this was overly harsh. ArbCom is charged with disciplining and judging all of us, and has the power to destroy people's on-wiki reputations, but those reputations are the product of years of work here, and those with higher permissions have them because they are trusted and have the responsibility of exercising judgement in difficult situations. ArbCom telling a trusted editor they are unworthy of that level of trust is not a small thing, and their career can and should be mourned. Yngvadottir (talk) 16:42, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
I also think there was a conversation to be had between the Committee and Bbb23 first, before escalating to an outright directive.El_C16:49, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
According WP:AUDIT/STATS from January to December, Bbb23 performed 20,905 checks last year. Either he's CU'ing everything that moves, or then socking is a such a widespread issue that you can't really have proper grounds for checking and there's no way to audit that kind of amount. Of course this wouldn't be a problem if IP information was masked (T227733)... --Pudeo (talk) 17:00, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Considering that a given sockpuppet case will have up to 20 or so socks, that's only maybe 1,000 or so cases. And considering Bbb23 does several cases per day, and is our most active and trusted CU, that's not all that many CUs. Softlavender (talk) 17:11, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Pudeo, handling the kinds of SPIs that Bbb handled frequently indeed takes a lot of checks. If an SPI has 20 socks, it may well be that you have to run CU not just on a lot of the socks but also on a lot of the individual IPs used by the socks you're checking. And handling such big cases can get enormously complicated, with a ton of windows open and comparisons drawn constantly between socks and IPs and whatnot, especially if the sockmaster isn't just using one machine to make the same kinds of edits in the same pattern. Guess who I always called on when it got too complicated for me--that's right, I called on Bbb23. Drmies (talk) 01:57, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia shouldn't need to rely on one anonymous volunteer to look at private data more than 20,000 times a year. That's a systemic failure. Mr Ernie (talk) 07:28, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
This current ArbCom seems determined to rid us of our best admins. So far they are succeeding admirably, and very few people seem to care or to realize what a ridiculous and insidious form of authoritarianism this is, that a mere handful of people can peremptorily drive the best, hardest working, and most trusted admins off the project with complete impunity. And apparently there's nothing we can do about it, and too few people that care or realize the danger to put a stop to it. Softlavender (talk) 17:08, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
I prefer the interpretation in which the current ArbCom is committed to holding even the most prominent, well-connected admins responsible for their conduct. Which is very much a good thing. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 17:16, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
It's highly unlikely anybody has been driven off the project. Bbb23 chose to take what is far more likely a wikibreak than a retirement – and chose to announce it as a probable retirement on his widely-watched talk page – knowing full well that it would ignite the next overblown superuser drama, this time with him at the center – knowing full well that many editors would be quick to pick up the flag as yet another loss of a highly-experienced and highly-competent editor resulting from the deplorable, outrageous overreach of a group that has more power than they do. Oh, the humanity! Retirement is not a political tool. In all likelihood, Bbb23 has not left the project, and, if he has, that was entirely his choice and his decision. That sort of hyperbolic talk (and hyperbolic thinking) has no place in rational discussion, but we see it repeated in each and every case like this. That's the more important story in my estimation. ―Mandruss☎19:17, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm thinking this "acceptable error rate" argument is not a particularly good one. The acceptable error rate for an admin, AFAIK, is zero, with occasional, independent exceptions that happen in good faith and are easily and rapidly resolvable. You never hear about this supposed "acceptable error rate" defense for normal users. I don't get to make a bad block and then tell the community "I have an error rate of only 1%, so just look the other way". I mean, sure, we all screw up sometimes, and that's okay, but those of us who block vandals aren't running a 3% percentage of bad blocks. Those of us who close AfDs aren't running a 3% percentage of closes where we get overturned at Deletion Review. Those of us who delete CSDs don't get a 3% allocation of out-of-policy deletions that we can perform before someone does something about it. In any of these areas, if we screw up we get called out on it, and we're expected to not do it again. If we're continually misusing the admin bit, we get desysopped. It does not matter if it's 3% of the time, whether you make 1000 actions in a year or 50,000. Yet ironically it's only the user who makes 50,000 who will be granted this defense that their 250 bad actions in the past year is within some sort of acceptable "error rate". Nah. That's not the standard we're held to. The standard is that if you're making so many edits or actions that you're running an "error rate" that is having any sort of negative impact, you're working too fast, and your priority needs to be to slow down and eliminate your errors. I've been a strong critic of the overreaches of this Arbcom but also of Bbb. I don't have absolute trust that Bbb deserved this, nor that this is just another overreach by Arbcom. We don't have the facts and likely never will. What I do know is that Bbb consistently seemed completely unaccountable, both when he was in the right and in the wrong. There have been no shortage of on and off-wiki discussions about this, I'd go so far to call it a well-known fact. When he was in the wrong, and he sometimes very obviously was, even in spite of the confidentiality he was protected by, there was never anything anybody could do about it. He got away with it purely because of his activity levels; he was the undisputed king of the CUs. I for one assumed that he would remain untouchable no matter how in the wrong he was. Even knowing the facts, how deserved this measure was would probably still be up for heated debate. But I have to say, I appreciate Arbcom's willingness to hold him accountable. We're primarily responsible for enforcing accountability amongst our individual selves. When that fails, the community is supposed to step in. Bbb consistently failed in this, and due to his "confidentiality", the community could not realistically do anything about it. Whether or not their specific sanction was justified (to me it comes across as lenient, in lieu of revoking CU, an extremely restricted privilege), this is exactly the situation where they should have become involved. I applaud them. ~Swarm~{sting}17:20, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure that's right. If someone's contributions is orders of magnitude greater than someone else, it does stand to reason that their errors would be greater by virtue of sheer volume. El_C17:27, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
I think the argument Swarm was making in that regard was if they are making so many contributions that errors are getting introduced, maybe they should slow down to eliminate such errors instead of just excusing them. I do not wish to speak for Swarm though, so I could be mistaken. PackMecEng (talk) 17:31, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
That notion is exactly what I'm disputing. Like I said, that argument only holds up if an "acceptable error rate" is a thing, which it isn't. It's an unacceptable excuse that only gets invoked with power users with a high number of errors. No one else is afforded this "free pass" for any number of errors. ~Swarm~{sting}17:33, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
El C, this thread opened with a vehement argument that an "error rate of 2-3% ... is more than reasonable". Swarm seems to be countering that no it isn't, and that this would seem to be ArbComm's position. While we all screw up on occasion I cannot but agree with Swarm that in this sort of area "The standard is that if you're making so many edits or actions that you're running an "error rate" that is having any sort of negative impact, you're working too fast, and your priority needs to be to slow down and eliminate your errors." And if you don't and won't it is appropriate for the stick to be pried out of your hand while you are shoo'ed away from the horse. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:35, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Gog the Mild, I'm not even sure that error rate is a meaningful concept here. It is expected that CU checks will turn up negative and positive results. Do they mean 2-3% of checks fall outside of policy, or 2-3% of positive checks are successfully demonstrated by an appealing user to be false positives? Either of those would be rather high, and I doubt that either is actually the case here. As usual, we can't know the details. That's the really frustrating part. Guy (help!) 17:41, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Gog the Mild, I was speaking imprecisely. See below for clarity: I suppose a better way of saying it is that for any judgemental area, 2-3% room for disagreement between people who take a more liberal view and people who take a more stringent view is allowable, and that people are likely going to make mistakes in their judgement on occasion in addition to these disagreements. There’s a difference between that, which I think in unavoidable in ever area, and a forced error like checking an opposer in an RfA where you were the nominator. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:51, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
I was recently warned for saying something was Nazi-esque. I've made 14,290 edits, and only one of them broke Godwin's law, putting my Godwin Error Rate at 0.007%, but exactly none of our colleagues would find that line of argument convincing. Same with admin tools. The commonality between RHarworth and Bbb is that the high volume is, itself, the problem. There are other admin who are similarly high-volume-outliers, and they would similarly be well-advised to slow down. One might change the oil on 10 cars a day without spilling any, but not 100 or 1,000. Some actions on WP need to be done slowly and carefully, and CUing and blocking users should be top of that list. Levivich[dubious – discuss]17:38, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Swarm, but also want to point out that we aren't really talking about an error rate here. Bbb23 isn't making widgets and occasionally making honest mistakes that result in the widgets being unusable. Bbb23 is making judgment calls as to whether there is sufficient evidence of abuse to justify the invasion of a user's privacy, and he is routinely not making those calls correctly. This has been going on for a long time, and is another one of these funny Wikipedia memes that everyone knows is true but nobody has done anything about. I'm glad that these cases are being dug up and actually addressed. I've never found myself fanboying over the Arbitration Committee before, but the leadership demonstrated by this Committee has been refreshing. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 17:44, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Well, if consensus is against my view, that's something I take to heart. Speaking for myself, I've been more active lately with the world-wide pandemic crisis, which has resulted in more errors than normal by virtue of sheer volume. But maybe I should slow down, then. I'm just not sure it'd be to the benefit of the project to do so at this time... El_C17:54, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
I want to speak generally and not specific to Bbb. I think we can talk about errors and uncorrected errors. If I make an occasional mistake in most contexts and fix it that makes me a good Wikipedian. If I make the occasional mistake as an administrator and someone points that out to me and I fix it, well that makes me a good sysop. Certain kinds of errors would never be acceptable - 1 instance of a checkuser releasing private information would fall in that category. But for the most part I think it behoves us to think differently about mistakes that are fixed and mistakes (as defined by the community) where the person making the mistake digs their heels in. So if you increase volume but don't increase uncorrected mistakes I don't think you (El C) or anyone else is doing anything troubling. At least that's my take Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:10, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Ironically the pandemic strikes me as an apt invocation. Some people, in my region at least, are touting the seemingly small death percentage as an argument that it's "not a big deal", and that the societal shutdowns are draconian and irrational. Why should we destroy the economy by shutting down business when the death rate is not even 2%? 98 percent of people who get it live through it and are fine! Well, it doesn't sound like a big deal when you put it that way! But 2% of the American population is 6,544,000 fucking people! It doesn't matter what your ultimate contribution is if the damage you're doing is significantly harmful. Your damage percentage, or euphemized, your "error rate", is irrelevant. Your contributing the same level of damage either way. ~Swarm~{sting}18:25, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
From what I can see that Bbb23 wrote, it is not his error rate that ArbCom is concerned with, but that they claim he was using CU in ways "that violate policy". That's a completely different thing from making mistakes. Black Kite (talk)17:39, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Let me clarify: there is no objective standard as to what constitutes a breach of WP:NOFISHING, and the text allows a lot of discretion. My 2-3% rate was arguing that for any judgemental area, that’s about the best you can expect someone auditing judgement calls to disagree with even if you’re doing your absolute best. There’s a difference between disagreeing on what constitutes reasonable suspicion and blatantly violating the rules we are explicitly not allowed to follow. One mistake in the latter isn’t allowable. In the former, I’m willing to give everyone in every position some room for disagreement. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:46, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Hey all, sorry for the sort of ad-hoc response you're getting here. We had intended this to be a private advisory note to Bbb23 and not a public rebuke, and so we did not prepare a public statement about our inquiry. I want to be clear that we did not issue this notice to Bbb23 based off
of one or two checks in which a checkuser on the ArbCom would have made a judgment call different to the one Bbb23 made. As TonyBallioni and others have already mentioned, the CU policy (like most policies) is open to interpretation, and reasonable people will interpret the same policy differently. We absolutely expect and understand that checkusers will not agree 100% of the time on whether a specific check should be run. However, given the private information that is exposed to checkusers when a check is run, we do expect checkusers to be able to justify the checks that they are making are supported by policy, and are not "fishing".
Following multiple complaints to the Committee, as well as the results of checkuser block appeals considered by the Committee, we performed an audit of Bbb23's checkuser tool use. I will note that we did not calculate a threshold of acceptable errors, as has been discussed here, but instead reviewed whether or not there was a pattern of running checks on users that did not appear to be supported by policy. We also reviewed whether Bbb23's checks were in line with the kinds of checks being run by the other checkusers on the checkuser team—again, we understand that policy is open to interpretation, and wanted to form a view of whether Bbb23's interpretation was in line with that of the rest of the enwiki CU team. We contacted Bbb23 to ask about the standard he applies when deciding to check users, as well as request more detailed justifications of some individual checks. Following this conversation, the Committee sent Bbb23 a notice that reiterated checkuser policy, especially against fishing, and asked him to avoid performing checks that fall in the "grey area" around what is considered fishing. We also encouraged him to consult with other members of the checkuser team when in doubt of the validity of a check, and warned that further misuse of the checkuser tool would result in removal. I hope this provides a little more clarity. GorillaWarfare(talk)18:20, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
"We had intended this to be a private advisory note to Bbb23 and not a public rebuke, and so we did not prepare a public statement about our inquiry." When will you learn? --~Swarm~{sting}18:28, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Both I suppose, given the global CU policy requires strong justification for a check, but primarily the (much more specific) local policy. GorillaWarfare(talk)18:36, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, GorillaWarfare, I really do appreciate your public response here. I think it’s fine to say to Rschen7754 that the dispute is functionally what the policy WP:NOFISHING means for new accounts behaving like socks where a master is not known. We all make these checks and there is no clear line. I wouldn’t want a hardline interpretation of it, but others might. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:40, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
@TonyBallioni: I disagree with you that this is about the ArbCom taking a hardline stance on WP:NOFISHING. We are not making an example of Bbb23 for making the same kinds of checks that "we all make", if that's how it appears to you—again, we did examine whether Bbb23's checks were in line with the kinds of checks being made by the rest of the enwiki CU team. GorillaWarfare(talk)18:44, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
GorillaWarfare, two members of the committee have privately made claims that directly contradict that policy: namely that outcome has any impact on if the initial check is valid. Yes, this is about the committee taking a hardline and individual committee members thinking they have the authority to disregard the community’s established norms and replace them with their own. As I’ve said on list: if this is the line some arbs want to take; they should try to amend the policy. No such consensus exists for that view, which is why that RfC will never be started. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:50, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Just curious...what does it hurt? It seems to me that the biggest risk is to the IPs who have something to hide. Are we at the point we can't trust our most trusted users in the effort to protect anonymity? Perhaps incidents such as this one will help make a case for registration where only a select few highly trusted CUs are allowed access to the info - maybe WMF could consider obtaining a surety bond to cover them as a precautionary measure. I have far more trust in our CUs than I do in, say, members of WP:COIN. AtsmeTalk📧12:05, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
GorillaWarfare, thank you for commenting on this, whether or not people agree with ArbCom's action I hope they at least appreciate the statement - it's clear that you all were caught off-guard by this becoming a public issue. creffett (talk) 18:29, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
I don't doubt that Bbb23 ran some checks that fell in the "grey area", and I dare say that any active CU will have at least a few such checks in their log, but I trust that they were done out of a desire to protect the project, not of out any malice. At any rate, you've lost one of your best, most experienced CUs. —DoRD (talk) 18:35, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
To be clear, I don't believe Bbb23's motivations were bad. But this is not about "a few" grey area checks. Checkusers have an obligation to abide by the CU policy, and the ArbCom has an obligation here as well to investigate complaints and ensure the tools are used in accordance with the applicable policies. GorillaWarfare(talk)18:40, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
TonyBallioni, have you been reading a completely different set of comments from GW to the ones on my screen? I was a little twitchy before, and am now much reassured. Although Swarm's comment was to the point. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:58, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
I wasn’t referencing GW, who I appreciate. I’m more concerned that some arbs have privately expressed that they’re looking at outcomes in determining this. That’s a direct contradiction of policy. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:06, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
@TB, if you and I mean the same thing by "looking at outcomes", then it seems perfectly reasonable to me regardless of what policy says. A CU who runs 100 checks, 99 of them turn out to be socks, is less likely to be acting inappropriately than a CU who runs 100 checks all of whom turn out to be innocent new users. There's always been some leeway given for "copper's instinct"—as formalized in WP:DUCK—but when the instincts are consistently off, that's a problem. (Disclaimer that I no longer have access to the CU logs and have no idea if this is what's been happening here.) ‑ Iridescent19:10, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
I think that’s a fair point that could be raised in a discussion. I’m concerned that it’s being used in way to claim one of our best CUs is violating policy. There’s a valid discussion to be had around if one person should be doing so many and what lines are to be drawn concerning fishing, but there should be an assumption this person was trying to help the project and was acting within his understanding of policy. I’m not sure that’s the case here. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:23, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Well with that response from GW I am fairly confident that the committee acted appropriately and clearly within their authority. Seems more like a nothing to see here kind of situation. So lets not add to the drama and just move on. PackMecEng (talk) 19:46, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
If the purported standard is "discretion" than we have to have a group of uninvolved CU's (which Arbcom is) make the determination -- leaving it to the one CU to be the sole judge in his/her own actions, is not a standard, it's a licence to complete unaccountability. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:22, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
I know Bbb23 has been a workhorse, and has had the best interests of WP at heart; I've had a few disagreements with him about how he interacts with the hoi polloi on-wiki, but I've never doubted his integrity, especially regarding the use of checkuser. But knowing that and saying it doesn't address the actual issue, because we obviously have no idea whether Bbb23 was running too many fishing-type checks or not, and have no way to ever find that out. For me, at least, there are enough sane individuals I'm familiar with on ArbCom, that I'm confident that the decision to send a cautionary email of some kind was not just plain crazy or out of left field; there was probably some kind of legitimate underlying problem there. However, if I can be forgiven for making wild-ass guesses based on observations of past behavior, I would not be at all surprised if (a) the email was worded (in retrospect) somewhat poorly and/or too aggressively, and (b) Bbb23 over-reacted to it. It's almost as if the members of ArbCom and Bbb23 were all imperfect human beings or something. I remain deeply impressed and appreciative of the tireless unpaid work that both ArbCom and Bbb23 perform, imperfect or not, and wish this had gone down differently. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:34, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Floquenbeam, the email has been shared with the checkuser team. It was firm as it needed to be, but I do not believe it to be aggressive.
This was not out of the blue, we had sent a general reminder on similar issues last year, to the entire functionaries team
When I was relatively new, and all I knew about CU was the policy summarized at WP:SPI in stern words, I believed CU to be a very rarely used tool. It seemed almost impossible for me to provide sufficient reasons for a check to be done, in almost all cases. When I gained experience, over time, I noticed that this impression seems to be wrong. The wording of the policy isn't as strict as WP:SPI makes it look like, and checks are performed more easily and regularly than I ever expected. I'm not even saying this is a bad thing, but it surprised me. There seems to be a difference between a naive policy reader's perception of CU practice and the actual requirements for a check. The discussion seems to confirm this view: The wording of the policy looks strict to the naive reader, but is being interpreted pretty loosely by those bound to it. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 02:01, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Would it be possible to publish some (anonymous and aggregated) statistics about CU usage? ~ ToBeFree raises a valid question. Things like:
Number of checks performed per day
Percentage of check requests that are rejected
Percentage of checks that are done without a third-party request
Percentage of checks that are negative
would go a long way towards helping the rest of us understand the extent of this tool's use, and don't seem like they would be in conflict with our privacy policies. -- RoySmith(talk)15:03, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
I anticipate protest about the last bullet point, claiming that this is an irrelevant metric. I disagree with this protest in advance. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 15:05, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
ToBeFree, Why is it irrelevant? I certainly agree that it's an inappropriate metric to use to judge any particular check, and I'm not asking that it be broken down by individual CU. But, we're entrusting a group of people with a sensitive tool. It would be good to know how carefully they're wielding it. I'm also aware that the set of CU's is small, so the anonymizing power of aggregation is limited. Particularly so if the distribution of checks performed per CU is highly skewed, as it appears to be. Still, it should be feasible to give us some idea of how the tool is being used without impacting the confidentiality of the checkers or the privacy of the chekees. -- RoySmith(talk)15:17, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
I think it's relevant, for the same reasons. There has been some discussion above whether ArbCom used this metric to admonish Bbb23, and whether that would have been in line with the policy. However, I think that a high number of negative results can indicate a problem with the policy, and a low number of negative results can confirm that the policy has been well-designed. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 15:27, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
ToBeFree, Ah, I mis-parsed what you wrote earlier. You said you disagreed with the protest. I mis-read that as disagreeing with the desire for the statistic. My apologies. -- RoySmith(talk)15:36, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
User:RoySmith, User:ToBeFree: I'm not sure there is really a concept of a negative check. CU is not like a coronavirus test. It's evidence gathering. Evidence is any info that changes the user's subjective probability of some hypothesis. Sometimes it nails a suspicion established some other way, while other times it only helps notice a pattern. I can accept the term "positive" for a conclusive finding from a CU, but that doesn't make an inconclusive finding negative. 2601:648:8202:96B0:E0CB:579B:1F5:84ED (talk) 07:35, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
In case you're not already aware, we do publish monthly checkuser and oversight statistics at WP:AUDIT/STATS. I don't see any reason we couldn't publish a daily version, though I'm not sure it would provide insight that the monthly numbers do not. Your other requests are a little trickier. While it would potentially be feasible to gather statistics on how many requests for CU at SPI are rejected, checkusers receive requests for CU from all sorts of venues, including private messages, which we don't have access to. The same goes for your third request -- we don't necessarily know at a glance which checks are based off third-party requests or which are from the CU's own suspicions, so gathering this data would require each CU to go back through their checks and report this to us. Again, not impossible, but certainly difficult. As for the last question, this is perhaps the hardest to elucidate. Checks often do not result in a binary "positive" or "negative" result, but rather provide an additional data point into an investigation that also takes into account behavior and other inputs. Sometimes checks do not immediately result in anything, but later in combination with other evidence result in action. GorillaWarfare(talk)15:16, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm surprised to read we don't necessarily know at a glance which checks are based off third-party requests or which are from the CU's own suspicions, so gathering this data would require each CU to go back through their checks and report this to us. I imagine there is some sort of log of CUs (on the CU wiki?). Checkusers should be recording somewhere the reason each check (or batch of checks) was performed, even if it's a multiple-choice "SPI/talk page req/mailing list/private email/on own initiative" selection. That would make it easier to gather that aggregate data. If this isn't already done, I hope some changes can be made, because we should have a record of why every CU was run. Levivich[dubious – discuss]16:00, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Checkusers do enter an explanation for checks they run (much like an edit summary). However we mostly use this to record the justification for the check and not necessarily the origin of the check -- checks requested at SPI do autofill into the CU log so that's easy, but not all checks originate from an SPI. GorillaWarfare(talk)16:04, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the quick response, GW. Maybe it would be helpful to use like a four-letter code in the "edit summary" explanation that denotes the origin of the request, assuming that would be searchable, we'd know what portion of CUs are done based on public complaints, private complaints, or no complaints. Levivich[dubious – discuss]19:31, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
@ToBeFree: I deduce two things from your applange.i) that a phenomenally small number of CU-checks are run (still in single figures this year), and thatii) the logs, such as they are, are publically available (with the unspokeniii) being, so why aren't ours). ——SN5412916:39, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Ajraddatz does that table represent the total number of "incidents" where CU was used on dewiki? Because if so I think the difference between enwiki and dewiki is radically different - we have about as many SPIs with a CU action (which we know is not the only circumstance which triggers a CU) as they have total. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:46, 3 April 2020 (UTC) Fixing ping of AjraddatzBarkeep49 (talk) 16:47, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Points to note:
Enwiki logs are per check, Dewiki logs are per case
Dewiki activity is about 1/7 (personal estimation based on various statistics) of Enwiki activity
Stewards' checks on global account creations do not appear in either statistic
Dewiki CU policy is extremely strict; checkuser is limited to requests from third parties; requests must be public except in rare circumstances; all non-public requests lead to public log entries. The log is comprehensive, without exceptions. See de:WP:CU:
("Die Checkuser-Berechtigten werden ausschließlich bei Anfragen Dritter aktiv."; "Eine nicht öffentliche (per E-Mail oder im IRC gestellte) Anfrage ist beispielsweise möglich, wenn unerlaubt eine Privatadresse veröffentlicht wurde und eine offene Checkuser-Anfrage dem Betroffenen durch die damit verbundene erhöhte Aufmerksamkeit nur zum weiteren Nachteil gereichen würde.")
"nein" ("no") entries are declined requests for CU action.
Indeed: while the enwiki policy is quite liberal compared to some projects, from my understanding the dewiki CU policy is one of the strictest. Though I will say that if people here are interested in either changing the enwiki CU policy around when checks may be run, or requiring CU investigations to be publicly logged like they are at dewiki, that's probably a better conversation for a place like WT:CHK or WP:VPP. GorillaWarfare(talk)17:07, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Not sure if you meant to ping me, but I can confirm that dewiki has probably the strictest CU requirements out of the Wikimedia family. They take the two-part test for deciding whether a checkuser should be done (1 - is there evidence of disruption and 2 - is there evidence of misuse of multiple accounts) to its most restrictive bounds and end up only investigating around 5 cases per month. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 17:32, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
As someone told me, it's almost a public vote on whether a CU should be performed - everyone winds up complaining about the privacy of someone being violated and in the end the CU is almost never performed. --Rschen775418:06, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
That's good, because there's no evidence to suggest Bbb23 would have failed to comply with Committee directive. He disagreed with it, so he quit. Simple as that. El_C18:12, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, it's clear from what GW has said that Bbb23 was nowhere near being "desysopped or worse."-- P-K3 (talk) 19:57, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Well darn. I'm sad to hear about this. Bbb23 was one of the few willing to really dig in and do the dirty work. ~Awilley (talk)18:18, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Maybe, with last year's big issue being a bit of a wakeup, we're transitioning from old days when a little critique / guidance to an admin/CU/major figure was so rare (and non-existent to the pillar people) that it was interpreted as a sledge hammer; transitioning to where it can viewed as a more routine healthy thing. Nobody is so perfect that such input is never needed. If the wording was diplomatic & appropriate, perhaps Bbb23 could re-interpret it that way. If it wasn't, perhaps Arbcom can make it so and then Bbb23 take it in that way. North8000 (talk) 19:43, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
For the record, the language of the email has been shared on the CU mailing list. Some of our CUs think we are changing policy, but they don't seem to think the language was unduly harsh. I'm sure they'll correct me if I'm wrong about that. Actually I'm not sure why we can't or shouldn't just post the entire thing on-wiki but I'd want to clear that with the rest of the committee first. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:00, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
I haven't commented here but I was one of the ones most vocally critical on the mailing list. Beeblebrox's summary is accurate: the email we saw was in the diplomatic language we all expect from ArbCom; we disagreed with some of its content but I don't think any of us thought it was harsh. I would say the CUs who spoke up see it as a novel interpretation of policy which also conficts with a previous interpretation of policy, and more importantly what we understand to be community expectation for use of the tool, and as such we suggested the Committee should test their guidance with a public RfC before pursuing enforcement of it. Nonetheless, I don't see the benefit of publishing the email here, it was intended to be private correspondence and making it public is unlikely to change anything. Had Bbb23 wanted it to be published he could have done so himself; it would be a violation of privacy for no productive reason to publish it, which ironically is what the policy is all about in the first place. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 12:37, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
It's really hard for the community to weigh in without the ability to see the CU log unfortunately. I don't know that publishing the email would really help. --Rschen775418:10, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Meh. We're all volunteers here. Anyone can withdraw their services for any reason or no reason at all. If Bbb23 thinks the new requirements are so insulting and meddlesome that he doesn't want to do the work anymore, then he has every right to walk away. You don't need to agree with his interpretation of things, but you do need to respect his decision to leave. It's not like WP has a claim on his time. ReykYO!13:29, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
My take on this is there should be an RfC. We've already heard from three CUs who clearly disagree with ArbCom's interpretation. It's reasonable to expect there's others who agree but aren't as vocal.
So, what we've got are two groups of the most experienced, trusted, and empowered people in the project at odds with each other over interpretation of policy, with nobody else privy to the details. Neither of those groups makes policy. The community makes policy. Functionaries implement and enforce it. So, let the community decide if the guidance ArbCom is giving to the CUs falls within policy. One of two things will happen. Either the community will agree with ArbCom's interpretation, in which case the CUs will have clear direction. Or they will disagree, and again the CU's will have clear direction.
Much of what ArbCom and CUs do is confidential, and rightly so. Policy decisions, however, need to be done in the open, and by the community. In theory, the community has the final say because we can vote in a new ArbCom next year. But given the current opacity around the details, we don't even know which arbs voted which way, so people who disagree with the decision have no information on which to base an informed decision comes election time. -- RoySmith(talk)16:00, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Can you clarify what you're talking about? What exactly is this "difference in interpretation" of CU policy that is being discussed? From my reading of GW's comment, the actual issue was WP:NOTFISHING, the simple principle that CU checks must be motivated by evidence to begin with. What constitutes "evidence" is subjective and open to interpretation, sure, but you seem to be saying that Arbcom has taken up some sort of novel, radical interpretation of the policy that is egregiously out of line with the traditional views by the CU team and by the community, to the extent that they're "rewriting policy". So what exactly is this controversial new stance that they have taken? ~Swarm~{sting}16:21, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Swarm, No, I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is that we have no information about what the disagreement is, and that's a bad thing. I wish I could clarify what I'm talking about, but I can't, because not enough information is being made public.— Preceding unsigned comment added by RoySmith (talk • contribs) 16:36, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Well you say that they have made a "policy decision" that CUs are disagreeing with. GW says they're being accused of "rewriting policy". So presumably they've stated some sort of contentious policy position, yes? Sorry, I assumed you were one of the CUs who disagreed. I am in agreement with you that more information is needed, but I see now that you cannot be the one to provide it. So, if any Arbs or CUs would like to provide this clarification, I agree that we should hear it. ~Swarm~{sting}16:45, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
@Swarm and RoySmith:, I’ll reply since I’ve been one of the more critical ones: the issue some of us had was the phrasing surrounding what justified a reason to check an account that is new. “Obvious not new” or some variation of it has been one of the more common reasons to run a check for a while. The thing is that policy requires reasonable suspicion of abuse of multiple accounts. The most common reason to check an account that is clearly not new to Wikipedia but where a specific master is not known is involvement in project space discussions, which is prohibited under WP:SOCK. Another common reason to check would be use of an undeclared alt to edit in areas where community review of actions is normal, such as areas under discretionary sanctions or pages that are highly controversial as not using your main account there may constitute an effort to evade scrutiny. Brand new accounts creating spam pages perfectly with no errors, perfectly formatted citations, and link spam disguised to look like citations is another common reason.About a year ago, ArbCom sent guidance to the functionaries list cautioning that simply not being a new account is not a valid grounds for a check without an indication of abuse if the account was in fact not new. The three reasons I listed above were included as valid reasons to run a check if there were enough indications to suggest that the account was not in fact new, because those constitute violations of the sockpuppetry policy. The email ArbCom forwarded us that they sent to Bbb23 appeared to several of us on the list to say that these checks were no longer valid, and several of us objected saying that it was inconsistent with last guidance and would amount to a change in policy. Worm That Turned replied to an email I sent clarifying that what the committee was saying was that simply being a new user in project space, a controversial area, or creating a spam page was not on its own a reason for a check, but that they may be valid reasons for a check if other indicators existed suggesting that there was abuse of multiple accounts. This statement is something I think the CU team as a whole agrees with, I personally agree with, and I read as being consistent with the guidance issued last year, and I think everyone is on the same page with that. I’ll ping Risker, Ivanvector, and GorillaWarfare since they’ve all commented, to see if it’s a fair summation of the discussions.Tl;dr: I think after dramah surrounding this, there’s a general sense of people finally being on the same page. TonyBallioni (talk) 05:09, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
TonyBallioni, So are you now withdrawing your complaint? And do you agree that there is not "anything in the message to Bbb23 that was in any way a change in the interpretation of policy" ? (see Risker's comment below). Or if you don't agree with that, would you agree that Risker's comment is at least a reasonable way to see the message to Bbb23, and concede that Arbcom's message was reasonable? If checkuser is a difficult area to work in, is it that you don't "respect" that Arbcom is a difficult area to work in? And to begin with, why would you put your criticism in such personalized terms, at all? -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:15, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Risker that the individual checks pointed out were not checks that I would run and that pointing this out would be consistent with policy. I would disagree with her that the entirety of the email that was sent read in a way that was consistent with past guidance and policy, and others have commented similarly. When multiple CUs, including past arbs, are reading an email you send as a policy change, at best it is poorly worded. I do think that it was clarified after the fact to something everyone could agree with, but yeah, I’d have been pretty mad too if I had received an email where reasonable people could read it and think policy was being changed and I was being negatively impacted by it. My overall criticism that this ArbCom has been rushing into things resulting in making mistakes along the way stands. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:46, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Without knowing the applicable history, or how long we deliberated about the email notice, are you really well-placed to say we were rushing? –xenotalk15:23, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Let me clarify: by rushing into things I mean this committee has been substantially more active than any committee in recent memory and looks from the outside to just be trying to get stuff done to say it’s doing stuff. In the process you all desysoped someone based on dubious findings of fact, accepted a case that could have been resolved in 72 hours at AN (Motorsports) that probably wouldn’t have been accepted as a full case by past committees, and lost one of our best CUs by sending an email that multiple others on the team thought contained language that changed policy and wasn’t consistent with prior guidance. That just looks like a committee that wants to get stuff done and doesn’t particularly care about the collateral along the way. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:45, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Months of work, and in this matter work over two successive Arbcoms seems hardly rushing anything (time is not infinite for any of us), especially if privacy violations go on in the meantime. As for mistakes even when not rushing (are checkusers rushing around doing privacy violating checks, and are they in too much of a rush to listen to Arbcom and eachother about bad checks), and then defending checkusers for being mistaken, but turning around to insist that Arbcom must be perfect is at best ungenerous. And even though you can't seem to consider you were wrong in not understanding the e-mail, Arbcom is rightly (even in their human imperfection) willing to talk it out in the checkuser forum, even if you begin with accusations (and personalization) against them. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:47, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
I do not insist in perfection by anyone. I am not perfect, I don't expect ArbCom to be perfect, and I certainly don't expect any other editor on this site to be perfect. I do think this committee has been more active than others and making mistakes along the way. I consider the way this was handled a mistake, but I'm grateful to those committee members like Worm That Turned, Maxim, and GorillaWarfare who were willing to engage and listen to the concerns raised. That doesn't negate my view that this committee needs to reconsider when it is best to be involved. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:54, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
@TonyBallioni: You have said that you would not have run the examples of Bbb23's checks we presented to the CU team, and you have clarified below that you agree with our interpretation of policy now that the misunderstanding has been cleared up. So why do you still believe the Arbitration Committee should not have become involved here? The Arbitration Committee has a duty to investigate complaints of checkuser misuse, and to act when those complaints are valid. In my view we acted about as leniently as we could have, by sending a private note to Bbb23. But if I'm understanding you correctly, you believe we should not have involved ourselves at all? GorillaWarfare(talk)17:05, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
GorillaWarfare, no, I'm saying in my view the current committee has trying to be more active and take more on it's plate, and when that happens you get things like emails where you upset people because there's unclear clauses that can be read as a change to a commonly understood norm and past guidance. I'm basically saying "Let's do something" is less ideal when a lot is going on and that more mistakes, even ones of understanding, are likely to be made by a committee that is getting involved with most things sent to it these days. I hope that makes sense. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:13, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
I can assure you we are not getting involved with most things sent to us. But I do think I understand what you were saying now, thank you for explaining. GorillaWarfare(talk)17:25, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
I hope this committee doesn't reconsider when it is best to be involved. Motorsports was a bit puzzling to me too but then I think of this perspective. I think at least one of the things that really has you upset - the desysop of BHG - is because the previous ArbCom did the "let's wait" approach that you seem to be advocating. If they had accepted the first case I don't think that outcome happens. What you characterize as "rushing" I characterize as "not willing after FRAM to kick cans down the road". Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:07, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Not averse to saying the occasional 'the less Arbcom does the better', but seeing how difficult and long their work is, and how little in the scheme of this project they structurally can do and do (to begin with, is there a greater break on human activity, than doing something by committee -- (talk about compounding human imperfection)), I just can't see the problem is so-called rushing. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:49, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, that's fair. Probably a better way of saying it is I'm generally of the view that this ArbCom has tried to take on too much and achieve big results for the things it does take on, and in doing so has made mistakes in either outcomes or communications that in my view resulted in the project being worse off. I think that's a fair critique, and obviously people are free to disagree with it, but it's what I've been trying to get across. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:59, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
The question is what other approaches are available for long-simmering problems? The arbitration committee could just hand back issues to the community to resolve, but as you said yourself, it sucks even for experienced, respected editors to intervene. I've been trying to think of ways to encourage fruitful intervention, but it's hard to know who can do it effectively. I suggested that editors could pre-identify who are their trusted editors, but I recognize that only the smallest fraction of editors would ever bother, and of that, only some of them will identify trusted editors who truly feel comfortable in raising negative behaviour. I thought of a volunteer group of experienced editors who could take requests to try to figure out who would be a good trusted editor for a given person, but that basically creates a clique of editors that isn't necessarily representative of the community. At least the arbitration committee is elected. Without a hierarchy to make decisions, the only approach most people will take is the same as in real life: voluntarily separate themselves from those they are unable to collaborate with. Unfortunately, this provides an incentive for editors to be more aggressive towards others to drive away those with different opinions (either unknowingly or not). isaacl (talk) 21:46, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
I think it is most unlikely anyone is motivated by big results (indeed that looks like an assumption of bad faith). If I recall correctly two of this years cases were accepted by last years committee (reinforceing the long-tail nature of Arbcom and suggesting this years committee rather continues the plodding work, like in this CU matter), and all committees only have a very few remedies to begin with, further diminishing doing anything. Thus, the much stronger incentive and systematic bias for Arbcom will always be to do nothing and when they reluctantly get around to it, take half-measures (those almost invariably short of banning, or of removing permissions forever, and a few-times, you maybe have a half-way probation). Read the 1000s of words of case requests statements in total, and regardless of the import of the matter, they are uniformly mind-numbing or soul-crushing further incentivizing doing as little-as-possible. And on top of all that, how these people get to the committee is by an invasive process of community support, entrusting them, usually after years of service and community trust, and then the majority of these trusted and independent thinkers have to be convinced to maybe do anything, at all, against the eternal human allure of passing it off as someone else's work or problem, against the eternal human fear of mistake, and amidst the flood of e-mails. At any rate, in this CU matter, the silver lining of it becoming public, is the non-CU community (99.999 etc percent of us) gets to see even opaquely, that the people Wikipedia has entrusted actually does do their assigned and entrusted review (at least, occasionally.) -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:06, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
From reading the above discussion, it looks like the disagreement is centered around: 1) Whether CU's have unreviewable discretion, and instead should be entirely free of all review, audit, critique, and communication regarding their actions; and 2) assuming auditing is generally valid, whether WP:NOFISHING is meant to completely shield whole classes of CU actions from review and audit, by allegedly prohibiting any review and audit of a CU check where the check has turned out negative.
There's been a long discussion on the checkuser-L mailing list about this. As it turns out, when some examples of "concerning" checks were presented to the enwiki checkusers, the discussion participants seemed to pretty uniformly agree that they were inappropriate checks. Thus, the rationalization that the comments to Bbb23 was in any way a change in policy is not really right. As one of the few people who's held the CU permission for 10+ years, and who spent a lot of time on the now-retired Audit Subcommittee, I don't see anything in the message to Bbb23 that was in any way a change in the interpretation of policy. I will point out to everyone here that, while Bbb23 has stated that he is retiring, he has not resigned as a checkuser, has not turned in his bits, remains subscribed to the checkuser-L mailing list, and nobody on Arbcom (as far as I can tell) has even suggested that his bits should be removed involuntarily at this time. Nobody rewrote policy, and nothing that happened here is new interpretation of that policy. It's the same interpretation that's been in place since I first got the bits in 2009. Risker (talk) 19:48, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Risker, thank you. Were comments made to Bbb23 prior to the letter? This seems to have come as a shock to him, a formal warning when one might have expected some more gentle steering first. Guy (help!) 19:58, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
That's also what I alluded to above (see stricken comment), but Bradv did clarify that this was part of an ongoing discussion. There's no way for us to tell, one way or the other, as far as shock goes. Of course, the loss of Bb23 is saddening, to say the least. El_C20:02, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Levivich, respectfully, I don't think that (talk page curation) is indicative of anything. I, at least, am not taking Bbb23's announcement lightly. El_C20:38, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
El C, not that I'm taking it lightly, but I do kind of feel differently about it. Imagine if I had posted a retirement notice in response to the warning you recently posted on my talk page. If I had done that, that would have been really a dickish thing of me to do to you. It would "pin" my retirement on you. It wouldn't be fair to you. It's really the same thing when an admin pins their retirement on Arbcom as a result of receiving a warning. It's kind of a dickish thing to do to Arbcom. Now we're all (or some of us are) questioning whether Arbcom's warning was justified and asking Arbcom to "defend itself", which the arbs are doing. Of course it's never good when we lose longstanding dedicated contributors, but at the same time, I think this kind of dramatic retirement is not really cool. On top of it, when the retiring editor continues editing to remove posts from their talk page that are in any way slightly critical, I do think it's indicative of the suggestion that the editor is overly sensitive to criticism, as is retiring in response to a warning. I don't know, I don't want to be "gravedancing", but I feel like that needs to be said. Bbb certainly isn't the first or the last editor to retire and take parting shots on the way out, but I feel like we shouldn't condone that kind of retirement. Levivich[dubious – discuss]21:13, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Levivich, I understand your point, but I think Bbb23 has earned the right to leave with a protest, whether we consider it due or not. El_C21:22, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
leave with a protest - Assumes facts not in evidence. The number of longtime editors who have "left with a protest" and stayed gone is small compared to the number who have "left with a protest" and returned after their "leaving" has leveraged maximum effect. Real protest retirements more often occur following a cool-down wikibreak. I could be wrong in this case, but the objective reality favors a skeptical view. ―Mandruss☎23:39, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Anyway, for me, the level of one's contributions to the project plays a key part in that determination. El_C23:53, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
I support the ArbCom decision and hope that we see more investigations like these from ArbCom in the future. Also, Bbb23 always doesn't like to be criticised. I have noticed this since I came to Wikipedia. Bbb23 isn't the only admin like this, many admins hate to be criticised which is why admins are driving away editors from this project.
I am only here to help grow this project and to make it more reliable, I don't want unknown checkusers to see my private information. I wish I can see how many times a CU editor asked about my private information. Can we make this real? Maybe I should propose this. Every editor has the right to know if his private information was exposed. If I see a CU editor violating the checkuser policy, I am going to report them to the ArbCom.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 03:57, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
The CU log isn’t public because if it was it would expose your private information to the public. You could require notification anytime an account is checked, but that’s unlikely to gain consensus because there are cases where the reasons behind the checks are sensitive and you do not want the person being checked to know: example, an administrator is running accounts with tens of thousand of edits like happened in the last ArbCom election.Also, there’s no requirement that my posting a comment on ACN saying the 2020 ArbCom has been rushing into things headlong and making mistakes this year because of it have a neutral header. This isn’t an RfC. As Ivanvector pointed out above, there are several CUs who have criticized the email ArbCom sent as being inconsistent with prior guidance and the actual policy. I think that wouldn’t have happened if this ArbCom took a more cautious approach than it has been. Since the email was sent and this thread was started, I think everyone has come to an agreement on what they view as the requirements of policy, myself included. This was intended as public criticism of an elected body who made an unforced error here. Requiring a neutral header for that makes no sense at all and there’s no policy requiring it. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:32, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Except it's not clear at all that they made an error - at least it's not clear to me as a noncheckuser that they did especially in light of comments by people like Risker. Acted imperfectly? Of course it's made up of humans but it's not at all clear that the underlying action - asking Bbb to act in-line with established policy and doing so privately in the hopes that drama could be avoided - is an error let alone an unforced one (as xeno mentions above we have no idea what triggered this discussion so who knows what the inciting (forcing) incident was). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:46, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Regardless of whether ArbComm's cautioning of Bbb23 was correct, his reaction reveals his unsuitability for high responsibility as he appears to completely reject any notion of accountability for his actions. Once someone puts themselves above the project, and sees themselves as not being answerable to anyone, and not needing to explain themselves, be it to the community, to ArbComm or to other CU's, then it is time for them to go. SolTrek (talk) 04:14, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Bbb23 is allowed to disagree with Committee directive and resign in protest. They have contributed much to the project, but that seems to be overlooked by some here, which is a shame. El_C04:32, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Oh you mean when Bbb23 blocked you for socking because you edited while logged out, and you said that wasn't socking, and then you discovered that WP:LOGOUT lionks to WP:ILLEGIT, so you admitted that you were technically socking? [2] And this was after you were re-instated to editing and admitting to having had a previous sock account? [3] You mean that kind of "abuse"? I'd call that being a good CU. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:35, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
The purpose of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines is to provide a framework for the smooth operation of the project rather than to provide admins with technicalities on which to block productive editors for sport. Yes, technically, I was socking. You got me! Or did you? Continue reading to find out.
First, since you've asked, this completely unrelated AN notice you linked to is from 6 years ago, when Bbb23 "welcomed" me to Wikipedia with an absurd indefinite block, one that got promptly (I wish) vacated resulting in what can only be described as Bbb23 grasping at straws to get his way and have his bad block reinstated. This included him demonstrably (please, do ask me to demonstrate it) lying about my edits as well as opposing my username change request when it became clear the suboptimal username was his/her one last hope of making a reblock happen (spoilers: a reblock didn't happen). I did create another account at the time, after the block, unfamiliar with Wikipedia's policy, making no attempt whatsoever to conceal the connection between the two, but that's neither here nor there as you can't expect a new user to be familiar with the way things are done. That second account was blocked upon my request after I had the multiple accounts situation explained to me. Technically, sure, "socking" did occur but let's be real here: if we go by the spirit of the policy rather than robotically following its letter, there was none. Also, Bbb23 didn't have CU access at the time, and the block itself had nothing to do with socking or CU checks.
Now let's discuss the abusive CU block, the one that actually matters here as opposed to the 2014 abusive non-CU block that I have no idea why you even brought up. To make matters clear, there were two concurrent CU blocks, a three-month block placed on my IP range and a one-week block placed on my registered account. I will refer to them simply as "the block" to make my explanation easier to follow. Here's what was wrong with it. 1) The block was placed on an IP range with nothing but good edits from it. 2) The block was placed on a registered account with also nothing but good edits from it. Don't ask me why a block that was supposed to prevent me from IP editing was extended to my registered account because I have no answer to give you. Bbb23 works in mysterious ways I suppose. 3) The block was based on a CU check with no basis in the global CU policy which states in no uncertain terms that the CheckUser tool "must be used only to prevent damage to any of the Wikimedia projects. 4) It was what I call a sudden block. Not a soul complained about any of my edits (unsurprising, considering there was nothing wrong with them) which, from that particular IP range that was blocked, spanned over 12 months if memory serves. Bottom line: the CU check was frivolous, and the blocks were not preventative of anything that needed to be prevented. In fact, it is my strong belief the blocks were dished out as a means of making the frivolous CU check appear legitimate (after all, if a check results in blocks, it must've been good, right?), which is a very unpleasant thought indeed but to this day I can come up with no other plausible explanation. Another, even more unpleasant, theory that I have only shared privately up to now is that the ridiculously high volume of Bbb23's checks is to a large extent the result of him/her going through histories of various project pages and indiscriminately using the CU tool against every single IP in there in hope of "catching" logged-out editors so he can then block them for what technically constitutes "socking" without even looking at the actual contributions. Since I have no access to the CU logs, it's mere conjecture that almost reads like a personal attack, but is it really just that? Based on what I've experienced first-hand, I don't think so. It's a good thing the Committee has finally decided to wake up and clean house. A timid warning issued in private is nowhere near good enough though. Bbb23's overreaction to it demonstrates that point better than anything else ever could. Here's a revolutionary thought: if an admin or a functionary finds themselves unable to operate within the norms of the Wikipedia community, perhaps they shouldn't be policing its members. Iaritmioawp (talk) 13:47, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Break
To hopefully help with clarity and transparency, particularly with respect to the allegations made above that we are somehow changing policy, here is the relevant part of the email that ArbCom sent to Bbb23:
Invalid reasons for checking accounts include the following:
Suspicious new users.
There must be clear evidence of misuse of multiple accounts. Just being a new account is not enough.
Creating a new article.
If the article is spam, treat it as such. The CU tool should not be used without evidence that multiple accounts are being misused.
Editing a contentious topic.
Many of our new editors get involved because they see an error and want to fix it. This is encouraged, even when the topic is considered contentious.
Commenting at ANI, ANEW, the TEAHOUSE, RfA, or noticeboard.
Editing project-space must not trigger an automatic check; new users are allowed to ask for help or report problems.
An editor returning after a hiatus, with no evidence of disruption or sockpuppetry.
There must be onwiki evidence that an account has been compromised. This should not trigger an automatic check.
A clueless newbie making newbie mistakes.
Help them if they need help, don't violate their privacy or try to find reasons to block them. We must AGF, especially for new editors.
This letter was voted on by the committee, which maintains that these types of checks, particularly when performed routinely, violate the the CheckUser policy. The same policy also states that the use of the CheckUser tool on the English Wikipedia is monitored and controlled by the Arbitration Committee, and CheckUsers may have their permissions revoked by the Arbitration Committee for misuse or abuse of the CheckUser permission.
I can understand and appreciate that Bbb23's sudden retirement came as a shock to the checkuser team, and it is entirely reasonable for people to question ArbCom about how we got to this point and whether our actions were appropriate. While we are not prepared to share the details of the investigation or our deliberations, I will contest the accusations that we are "overactive" or "rushing into things". This was a long time coming. – bradv🍁15:54, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
That seems pretty reasonable, and to be merely restating policy as it is broadly understood and expected. And since Bbb23 has "left" of his own accord, I guess this can be closed and we can all GoAndRightAnArticleOrSomethingTM :) ——SN5412916:04, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Well spotted, Thryduulf, although for once it was deliberate: "...WriteAnArticle" would exclude colleagues who may not write, but do maintain the encyclopedia in other ways. The play on words is intended to include editors who "right" (i.e.undo damage to) the thing as well as "write" the thing :) ——SN5412918:02, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
If we have articles that need righting, <div style="transform: rotate(180deg);"> ought to do it. – bradv🍁18:31, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, this is the portion of the letter that generated controversy: as I said above, being an editor who is clearly not a new user where there is reasonable suspicion of it being a sockpuppet but where the original master cannot be identified has been seen as grounds for running a check so long as there is reasonable grounds to believe there was a policy violation. Many items in the list above were listed as policy violations that along with an account showing signs of not being a new user would be valid grounds for a check in the email sent by the committee in April 2019.Since it was sent and several of us objected to it saying that being a suspicious account indicating signs of sockpuppetry in one of these areas has been seen as a traditional grounds for a check for years, which is why several of us objected it it (Ivanvector and I probably the loudest, but there were a few others), it has been clarified that the meaning was that these on their own were not grounds, and there needed to be suspicion of use of multiple accounts, but that if there were reasonable grounds to believe that a new user wasn't new and was editing in a way that suggested reasonable concern about misuse of multiple accounts (which each of the bullet points is) a check would be valid, which is where we left it and I think everyone agreed. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:16, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Tony, you are acting as though we have said that "suspicious new users" may never be checked, no matter what. If there is evidence that a suspicious new user is engaging abusive sockpuppetry, that is justification to run a check, and both our email and the WP:NOFISHING section of the checkuser policy are clear on that. But simply being a new user and acting "suspiciously" are not valid reasons alone. As you know, new accounts are generally considered "suspicious" when they know too much (finding noticeboards easily, using intricate syntax) and there are plenty of valid reasons new users can know about Wikipedia: they were active on other projects, they have WP:CLEANSTARTed, they were editing as an IP for a while before creating an account, etc. That is what we are trying to clarify. GorillaWarfare(talk)16:59, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, I think you have since clarified that: as I said, I think we are all on the same page now, but like I said on the list: when you have several people saying to you that this email reads as being a difference from policy and previously communicated guidance, that shows it probably could have been worded better. Why people are angry is that under a strict reading of the above, you could probably find issues with any active CU since those are a listing of the most common policy violations of WP:SOCK. That's the concern people had.What we do agree on is that simply being a new editor in those areas is not enough unless there is an indicator that their behaviour there would constitute a violation of the sockpuppetry policy. I don't think anyone, myself included, has disagreed with that, and like I've said multiple times here, I think everyone is on the same page. Also on a personal note, thank you for being so willing to engage. It is noticed and appreciated, GorillaWarfare, especially when I'm being prickly :). TonyBallioni (talk) 17:13, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
I think we may have crossed edits a bit—I deleted my comment (the 16:59 one) with the summary "the linebreak threw me off, did not see the second portion of your comment. Appears we agree on this point." I think you may have started replying before I did so, though, and the comment returned as a result. GorillaWarfare(talk)17:22, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, many edit conflicts and I screwed up the formatting :) Like I said a few times here, I think everyone is finally in agreement. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:27, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
On the subject of edit conflicts, I have to admit I was an edit conflict away from posting something earlier in this thread which, upon further reflection, I probably would have regretted. So, hurrah for edit conflicts :-) -- RoySmith(talk)17:45, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
The vague wikispeak "editing in a way that suggested reasonable concern about misuse of multiple accounts" could be used to justify any check at any time.
Let's cut to the chase. As an outsider, I think this is about: if a CU sees one account that they think is "suspicious", for whatever reason, can they run a checkuser on that one account in order to try and find other accounts that may be socks, OR does a CU need to have at least two accounts in mind, suspected of being controlled by the same person, in order to run the check to see if those two accounts match? In other words, can you run a check on one account to see if it matches any other accounts, or can you only run a check to see if two or more specified accounts match with each other. This is what I understand the core of the NOFISHING policy to be. To me, in order to have "suspicion of use of multiple accounts", one must have identified at least two accounts that are suspicious. One cannot have a reasonable suspicion of the use of multiple accounts if you can't name what you think the second account is. It seems some checkusers want to CU a single account if they think it's suspicious to look for a second account, even if their suspicion doesn't tell them what the second account is. In other words, can you check a "sock-with-no-master". Do I have that right? Is that what this is about?
As an editor who was checkusered as a new user simply because I wandered into the back room too early (and who has had to deal with socking accusations as a result ever since, even a year later), this issue hits close to home for me. Levivich[dubious – discuss]17:10, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
This is actually addressed directly in the WP:NOFISHING portion of policy: For example, it is not fishing to check an account where the alleged sockmaster is unknown, but there is reasonable suspicion of sockpuppetry, and a suspected sock-puppet's operator is sometimes unknown until a CheckUser investigation is concluded.GorillaWarfare(talk)17:23, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, what GW said. This is explicitly allowed by policy so long as the other requirements are met, so you would need a change to get rid of it, which is why I and a few others were originally concerned. We get these requests in private fairly frequently from members of the community and it would be a pretty drastic change. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:38, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) All "fishing" means is "to check an account where there is no credible evidence to suspect sockpuppetry". It is an incredibly serious accusation because it means a checkuser has gone willy-nilly and checked users without reason, hoping to "fish" out sock puppetry. The policy does not require a CU to have at least two accounts to compare; sometimes a single account exhibits behavior that amounts to "credible evidence to suspect sockpuppetry". Mz7 (talk) 17:43, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Mz7, I think you're right, "credible" is probably a better word than "clear", as we used it in criterion #1. By emphasizing the point we may overstated it, and that is duly noted. – bradv🍁17:49, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
I think Mz7 has said what everyone has been trying to say on this thread and multiple emails in one paragraph. Someone should buy him alcohol of his choice while maintaining social distance :) TonyBallioni (talk) 18:05, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you to everybody for their comments. I just want to clarify that my earlier request for an RfC should not be interpreted to mean I had taken a side. I was just looking for a mechanism which would bring more information to light. At this point, there's been enough said, by both arbs and CUs, that I'm satisfied I know as much as I can reasonably expect, or need, to know. -- RoySmith(talk)16:52, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. That does indeed seem like a fairly uncontentious assessment of expectations in line with general SPI practice. I do see how it can be controversial if the CUs have traditionally been granted a good deal of discretionary leeway in terms of checking obviously non-new accounts based on their own judgment, and they're worried their discretion is being curtailed, and that they made a chilling example of the #1 CU, but at the same time GW says the standard of acceptable discretionary judgment was measured against the general, mainstream practices of the CU team, which does not sound particularly unreasonable. ~Swarm~{sting}17:09, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
It seems much too much, that this is over the exceedingly short elliptical phrase "on their own", especially in a long message, but good to know Arbcom is taking its duties seriously and will talk it out. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:21, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
If Bbb23 is retired, does he need the CU - or admin - privilege any more? It seems unnecessary for him to have it if he won’t be using it. 69.238.208.194 (talk) 19:26, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Except for this: "A user who resigns from a role but does not then avoid the concerns of their peers, does not cease engaging in discussions about their behavior, and does not seek to evade dialog or prevent resolution of the concern, might or might not be sanctioned in the end, but they would not usually be described as resigning "under a cloud" since the matter was allowed to resolve and a conclusion reached at the time. (This might be the case for someone who resigns early on in a matter because of respect for community concerns.)" - the problem is that they are avoiding the concerns of their pears and refuses to engage in discussions about their behaviour and is evading dialogue to resolve the concern. There is a behavioural issue here in regards of lack of accountability and refusal to discuss their behaviour. This shows a temperamental unsuitability for the position and it is my understanding that this lack of accountability and refusal to discuss or allow critique of their actions is a longstanding and chronic issue. SolTrek (talk) 01:17, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
The point remains that Bbb23 has not resigned, and so "resigning under a cloud" does not apply at all. If Bbb23 returns to activity and does not follow policy, we will act accordingly. He has read our message to him, which is all we needed—if he wished it to be a continued dialogue we certainly would participate, but we are not requiring it of him beyond the dialogue we already had before issuing the warning. GorillaWarfare(talk)01:25, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
If Bbb23 does not return within the next ~3-4 months his permissions will be removed for inactivity. If at some point after that he wishes to request the tools back the committee will need to decide whether to (a) grant them as they would to a returning user who became inactive while in unambiguously good standing; (b) require further discussion about the current situation; or (c) simply refuse to regrant them. I don't know currently what my vote would be if I had one, but the CU policy would seem to allow any of the options and so its probably worth the committee members thinking about it now while things are fresh - an extended period of time thinking about it (while possibly simultaneously bringing a future committee up to speed) at the time of request wouldn't be fair to him imo. Thryduulf (talk) 01:41, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
I am not prone to using this kind of language, but this move by ArbCom is a true outrage. To hobble the war against sockpuppetry by restricting one of the very best CUs that we have is cutting off your nose to spite your face. I would like to see a clear and comprehensive accodunting of who voted for this very stupic move, and who voted against it, but I do warn you that every single arbitrator who voted for it will be opposed by me at the next election. I suggest that before you have another rebellion on the order of the Fram debacle, that ArbCom rescind the warning, apologize profusely to Bbb23, and ask him to please return to his post. This is just madness. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:55, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
And I will note that there are commenters above who have good reason to be happy about Bbb23's being provoked into resigning, since, sooner or later, they will inevitably slip up and reveal what banned or blocked account they are a sockpuppet of. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:09, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
Most of us aren't privy to the information ArbCom used to make this decision, we don't know what the dialogue between them and Bbb were leading up to the warning, and as can be seen in the conversation above, they've been open and upfront in answering the questions that have been asked, as far as possible while maintaining privacy. Answers that seem to have been accepted, even if not fully agreed with, by even those critical about what's happened. You're free to vote for whomever you wish in next year's ArbCom election, but I don't agree with you that the committee is out of line with community expectations at this time and a "rebellion" won't help anybody. Personally I'm sorry to see Bbb23 go, and I certainly hope they'll come back and resume their excellent work, but if the committee felt there was a need to act then I believe them. — Amakuru (talk) 07:17, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
Beyond My Ken, as explained elsewhere, this was a warning to Bbb23 to act within our guidelines. We had given a general reminder to all CUs last year, which he did not heed.
I do not expect that we will be releasing the voting, suffice it to say that it got a majority of arbs. I will say that I voted for this email to be sent. I have since seen further statistics that have surprised and concerned me and I do not regret the actions taken by the committee.
Now, Beyond My Ken - if that means you don't vote for me in 2 years (assuming I'm even running), I can live with that. indeed if you want to make a song and dance about it, you can use my recall system on my user age as an arbitrator recall - send a message to the committee that the community isn't happy. It's set up to do that, if you feel strongly enough.
There are privacy issues, sure - I wouldn't expect that ArbCom would release the names of those editors who complained (although I'd love to see it and evaluate who they are), but there ia absolutely no reason why our elected representatives shouldn't release the names of those Arbitrators who voted in favor of the restriction and those who did not. That information should be made public immediately, so we know who's responsible for this terrible, ridiculous and harmful decision. There is absolutely no justification for keeping that information secret. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:25, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
Beyond My Ken, this wasn't a public decision. The committee does not need to release it's voting on every point. In this case, a pure vote tally tells a very different story to the statements made. For example, what if an arb voted oppose as they believed the email was not strong enough? There is no way to release this tally accurately without releasing additional information, and these deliberations were necessarily private.WormTT(talk) 19:49, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
It may not have been intended to be a public decision, but the decision itself is now quite obviously a de facto public matter, so there is no longer any justification for hiding behind privacy issues. I think the community has a right to know who supported this decision, and who did not. If it was unanimous, say so. If ArbCom as an institution is too afraid of releasing the information, then I call on each Arbitrator individually to say, here in this forum, whether they supported the decision or not, or abstained. We trust ArbCom to be well aware of privacy concerns and heed them, which is why I strongly supported ArbCom throughout the T&S debacle, but this debacle is of your own making, and there is no provacy issue involved, since Bbb23 has revealed the gist of the restriction warning. You no longer have a leg to stand on in not releasing how our elected representatives voted on this matter. If you believe your decision was right, then there should be no reason to not stand behind that decision, other than your own personal discomfiture. You folks were on the right side of the Fram mess, but you're on the wrong side of this one. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:43, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
Also, if there are nuances such as you posit, i.e. that an Arb voted against it because the warning wasn't strong enough, the obvious answer is not to release a simple "yes/no" list, but to have each Arb say why they voted yes or no. I'm not asking for a release of the transcript of your discussions, as telling as that might be, but there simply cannot be a privacy issue when elected representatives are voting on sending a warning in the name of the community. You've taken an action, supposedly as our proxy, which was secret because of inherent privacy issues, but those don't exist anymore, so telling us how you voted is simply a no-brainer. I think it's called "transparency". Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:50, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
I don't think you've read the room accurately. Several people were upset when this news first broke, but most of them have settled down and moved on, even if not all are fully pleased with the outcome. The arbs have done an excellent job of responding to input here. There has been no debacle and it hasn't been helpful for you to storm in here guns blazing after the dust had settled. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 23:39, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
I disagree. I think that you're quite happy to "read the room" the way you wish it to be. I came here when I found out what happened. I would have come earlier if I had heard earlier. The mistake that ArbCom made hasn't become less of a mistake because a mere couple of days has passed, and their obligation to the community to have as much transparency in their decision as possible hasn't evaporated either. There are fundamental issues here that need to be addressed by the Committee which, so far, is simply waving its hands and telling us we're not looking for these droids. No one has addressed the bottom line that an action which was intended to be private is not longer private, and therefore the changed circumstances requires them to behave differently in their obligation to the community, or the fact that their actions caused significant damage to the community's ability to keep sockpuppets at bay. I'm sure that wasn't their intention, but that was the ultimate result -- and, if we listen to the other CUs who have commented here, that standard which is being upheld by the Committee is not in line with the standard as understood by the community or by the CU corps. If that's the case, there are definitely issues to be discussed, so let's start with the most immediate and easiest one, which is who voted how, and how they justify their votes. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:28, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Beyond My Ken: what has been made public are the types and nature of checks that we asked Bbb23 to refrain from performing. I don’t see anyone arguing that these types of checks are permitted by local or global policy, and the committee - in its entirety - is bound to ensure that these policies are followed. –xenotalk01:37, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
I'll comment here since I started this thread: while I'm not entirely convinced of the method ArbCom used here to look at this in terms of assessing what the risks the policy is trying to prevent are and the scope of the problem combined with the use of judgement, as Risker has pointed out there's general agreement amongst the CUs who have commented, myself included that we would not have run individual checks pointed out by the committee. When combined with the scale of his activities, I think because of the gross amount of potentially similar checks, sending an email probably made sense.I think the email was poorly worded: even though everyone is in agreement now, when the email was first forwarded to us, there was disagreement between members of the team and the committee as to the language posted above, that's a fairly good indication it could have been improved, just as the fact that I've had to explain myself to reasonable people multiple times here in some of the things I have said is an indication that I was not clear as I should have been in my communication. Mistakes happen in communication.BMK, while I'm probably much closer to you and Softlavender on this than I am to xeno's position, I think the important thing here in the big picture is that there is a general understanding between the CU team and arbs who have commented as to what the policy means and what has been accepted previously as practice. There will be disagreements in judgement going forward, that's the nature of judgement, but an understanding of principles is the most important thing.While I certainly hope Bbb23 returns, and I do think there are lessons to be learned here (and I'm not exempting myself from the group who could learn from this), ultimately I don't think it does the project, Bbb23, or the team any good to make this particular discussion any more heated, and think now is the time to deescalate. There will be ArbCom elections in November. People will have the opportunity to vote and write guides then. I'm not trying to get anyone out of accountability here, but I think for what was essentially a private warning to someone that they decided to make public, the arbs have been as transparent and engaged as probably could be expected, which I thank them for, even the ones who I've had harsh words for. I probably should also apologize for any words that were unnecessarily harsh while I'm on the topic. People of good will can and do disagree in good faith, and sometimes the best way to handle that is moving on once common ground has been found. Sorry if I waxed poetic there. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:05, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
There was no restriction issued. Arbcom presumably checked some of Bbb’s 50+ looks per day into private user data, found a few potentially or directly inappropriate checks, and reminded Bbb privately about the guidelines. As a result Bbb diva quit and the whole thing turned public. Bbb is free to resume checking thousands of accounts per month anytime they want. Arbcom is completely justified in maintaining the standards of the CU right. Mr Ernie (talk) 07:18, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm confident that there is not going to be a rebellion similar to what happened during FRAMGATE. A large part of the reason that so much anger was directed at T&S was that they stubbornly refused to explain their actions. Whether or not one agrees with ArbCom's actions here, it's plain to see that the arbs have been prompt and responsible in answering questions and explaining why the email was sent. How you choose to vote is your own business, but I sincerely hope our arbs aren't making decisions with the aim of helping themselves get reelected. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 14:38, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
It sounds like Arbcom did their job and gave a mild warning. Bbb23 should accept it as guidance (which we can all use) and come back. North8000 (talk) 11:50, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Tony Ballioni. ArbCom has turned into a witchhunt against longterm effective admins, apparently believing it has a remit from T&S to rid us of all the most productive admins on the slimmest grounds possible. I am taking careful note of all the current arbs who are enabling and supporting these actions regarding the four admins (so far since January) in question, which (ArbCom actions) are in my mind clearly doing immeasurable harm to the project, and I will vote against them in the next ArbCom election. I also hope that all of the current arbitrators are going to spend several hours of each day to take up the slack at SPI that Bbb23's absence causes. He took a wiki-break a few years ago and SPI got so backed up it took weeks to get any SPI report looked at. Softlavender (talk) 00:18, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Softlavender, it's comments such as yours in this thread that help foster an environment in which well-connected individuals are able to get away with harmful behavior simply because they have enough influential friends. The current ArbCom has earned my respect by taking on tough cases and refusing to let prominent editors off lightly for poor behavior. While these actions may anger those who put personalities above principles, the current arbs are to be commended, not condemned, for their courage and commitment to doing their job in an equitable fashion. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 01:53, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Softlavender has every bit as much right to voice her opinion as anyone else here. And remember - the door swings both ways. Who is connected to who perhaps is the question. I haven't followed any of the recent proceedings, as least not any since Framgate - so I'm not taking any sides here; but it does trouble me when one user tries to shut down another user from voicing their views. — Ched (talk) 02:19, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Ched, I am not seeking to shut anyone down. I am very much aware that Softlavender is entitled to express her opinion, which is that ArbCom has adopted the goal of deliberately ridding the community of productive admins. I am merely voicing my opinion that this ongoing vilification of the arbs is harmful to our community. It contributes to an atmosphere in which those who are well-connected are not held responsible for their behavior because those who attempt to do so face an onslaught of anger. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 03:06, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Indeed. Bottom line here is that he was doing something he should not have been doing. And then got caught. And then had the chutzpah to complain about it. A private warning that he made public. Makes you wonder how long the mis-use of tools had been going on for, and the wider implications of such actions. LugnutsFire Walk with Me06:52, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
You want to talk about chutzpah? How about an editor who's been an admin-basher from way back, almost never has a good thing to say about an admin -- unless, of course, they want something from an admin, in which case they become a silver-tongued sycophant blowing smoke up the admin's ass. Now that'schutzpah, among other things. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:26, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Only bash the bad 'uns and the ones that break the trust of the community. Shame your buddy can't help you out now each time some goes to to 3RR about your conduct. LugnutsFire Walk with Me09:18, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
You bash 'em all, actually, but that doesn't matter, because Bbb23 is not, and never has been a "bad 'un', "buddy" = and that's precisely the problem about what's happened here. ArbCom's actions provoked the loss of by far our best CU (no offense meant to our other fine CUs), and that harms the community, but ArbCom is unwilling to take responsibility for what they did by revealing the voting on sending out the warning. We've been told that there was a "consensus", but -- as we all know -- a consensus does not require unanimity, so it's likely that some were for it, and some were against it. Considering the damage their action resulted in, and the transparency that the Committee owes the community now that a private matter has been made public, asking for the voting to be revealed to the community is a reasonable request. Every Arbitrator ought to be willing to stand by their decision and, if necessary, make arguments justifying it. That doesn't appear to be the case. What happened to Bbb23 made me mad, but what ArbCom is now doing makes me sad: I thought these were people we could count on to behave ethically when the chips were down. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:27, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Lugnuts specified both 'bad 'uns' and those who break our trust. As far as I am concerned, few actions warrant the loss of trust more than the misuse of CU privileges. In fairness to Bbb23, I admittedly don't know how serious this misuse was. Evidently it was not too extreme since ArbCom merely issued a warning, but it is nevertheless troubling to know that our most prolific checkuser was violating policy, possibly because they did not fully understand the policy under which they were operating. Perhaps if Bbb23 had stuck around to answer community questions about their actions, we might have more information. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 13:44, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Beyond My Ken, you seem to be ignoring why arbcom sent a policy reminder. It was because Bbb wasn’t adhering to the CU policy, which deals with sensitive and private user data. What exactly is unethical about that? Mr Ernie (talk) 13:51, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
One thing that will never help is the conflict between ideals (privacy) and technical realities. I'm not convinced that it was literaly "mis-use of tools", even if it went beyond common interpretation of policy. CUs are already trusted to be able to look at some information the general public has no access to. Because of the way processes work with the project's ideals, they must also justify each access. This is an incredibly unefficient system to deal with the persistent problem of socking and there also appears to be a gray area (if I understood the above, CUs were somewhat divided on the interpretation of policy or on technical issues). I understand that on the mailing list a consensus eventually formed before the warning, however. If mis-use of tools was so blatant, CheckUser right would likely have been removed (and could be via a case, of course, just like the admin rights)... —PaleoNeonate – 07:52, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Funny that BMK is selective on the crux of this matter - that Bbb23 got caught doing something he should not have been doing, and goes down the personal attack route instead. I guess that's Ken's modus operandi. An admin who doesn't like to be told he's in the wrong and doesn't take constructive feedback about their actions. That's a bad combination. LugnutsFire Walk with Me14:47, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Giving bad behavior a free pass because the offender is "longterm" and "effective" is such a well-known cancer on Wikipedia that it's humorous that you would tout it as some sort of immunity unironically. I don't care how "longterm" or "established" you are, if you're routinely violating policy someone has to draw a line in the sand eventually. I've criticized this Arbcom's draconian measures myself but this is not even a draconian measure. If anything it seems like they've listened to feedback. Bbb was warned, continued violating policy, and was *gasp* warned again. ~Swarm~{sting}19:33, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
I've had a look through my email archives to see if I complained about Bbb23 - I haven't, though I see references to a few edits such as this and this and this which generated off-wiki discussions about their behaviour with various users, and all of which ended concluding that there wasn't much point in trying to take any action over it.
The principal problem with Bbb23, as least from my viewpoint, is nothing to do with sockpuppetry or checkusers. I've said a couple of times I really don't care how the encyclopedia gets written as long as it gets done, and discussions about who did what where and when and playing amateur detective are of no interest to me - if somebody evades a block and is disruptive in exactly the same way as before, we can just block them for the same thing regardless. I don't really mind what people working in that area of the project do and leave them to their own devices. Rather, my problem is with unacceptable communication. If you take action against someone, explain why you've done it using words they understand, or get a completely uninvolved admin to explain it to them if you're getting nowhere. If you can't back up and defend your actions, you shouldn't be making them, and that's policy.
As far as I can tell, all Arbcom have done is have a quiet word to get Bbb23 back on track and be a productive admin who gets on well with everyone, not just the corpus of people who do the same sort of work as them. The resulting flounce suggests that Arbcom's action was justifiable in this case. I hope that the criticism over the conduct is taken with the right spirit, and they learn how to become a productive administrator. If they can't do that, then I wish them well in whatever else they decide to do in life. I have to say I am scepitcal of this, as they have scrubbed a bunch of critical messages over their conduct since "retiring", which leaves me to think the opportunity for remorse is slight. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)12:23, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
I agree, belatedly, that the discussion on the mailing list led to a consensus, eventually, that Arbcom's actions were warranted here. Speaking only for myself here: this was another incidence of the Committee communicating a decision to affected community members poorly, and then reacting poorly to criticism, leading to unnecessary drama. The way this was communicated and subsequently handled reminded me of the 2FA guidance from about this time last year, where the Committee produced a notification to admins which appeared to require admins to enable 2FA, and when questioned initially insisted they had policy backing to make such a requirement (they did not). In this instance, the very first that any of us heard that there was any investigation in progress was Bbb23's note about it. The cu-l thread started with a post from a checkuser asking if anyone else on the list had heard anything about it and/or knew any details; we had not and did not. When other list members also pressed for details, a few members of Arbcom responded somewhere between vaguely and aggressively that they had investigated a complaint and that their interpretation of the policies violated were correct (in a way which implied that their interpretations are above criticism) but not the nature of the complaint or any details about the investigation. When pressed further, arbitrators responded with investigative metrics which are clearly against policy, such as that a high rate of checks not resulting in a finding of sockpuppetry was proof in and of itself that the checks were inappropriate. At least one arbitrator chastised the checkusers as a group for having not detected the issues with Bbb23's checks on our own, still without having said what those issues were. So, yeah, there was animosity.
It was only after a different arbitrator provided specific examples of checks they considered problematic that we really began to have a constructive discussion, and after that Risker has already accurately described how things went afterwards. We were shown four specific checks which depending on which arb was commenting were from a day of a few dozen or "hundreds" of checks. Every CU who commented afterwards agreed that those checks appeared to be problematic, although we were not privy to Bbb23's justification for them so we're still commenting at least partially blind.
My only real point here is that there was no reason for the Committee to have been so opaque with the checkusers on our own private mailing list. I don't know what they were trying to accomplish by shutting us out but it only led to drama. I'm purposely not naming names but I'm sure the arbs and CUs know who I'm referring to, and so a belated thank you to those arbs who treated us as trusted peers rather than petulant subordinates. And I hope the others will take this in the spirit of constructive criticism from which it's intended, though your actions in recent memory do not inspire confidence. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:01, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Ivanvector, Unfair. You already know there was reason for the committee to do it privately. When a committee has already decided to have a private communication, it is unreasonable to expect individuals to blab all about it on a dime. I am sure if you consider, there might actually be good faith reasons for not dragging out another CU in-front of you. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:03, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
No, this was a measured warning issued in private to a member of the CU team after the problem was discussed with them. The warning was necessary because after outlining several concerns they doubled down and dismissed them which left the committee with few other options. Unfortunately, that individual chose to go public with it. The committee was accused of gross misconduct and attacked well before the committee had the opportunity to properly explain it to the rest of the CU team. I was not part of this decision or subsequent discussion but I watched it go down and I am disappointed and turned off by how it went down. The assertion that the committee poorly communicated the issue and caused unnecessary drama seems very unforgiving to the fact that no public statement was planned in advance; members of the committee were accused of terrible gross negligence before it could be comprehensively and adequately explained. Many inflammatory accusations were made early on and later backtracked after the initial "criticism" turned out to mostly be misinterpretation. Even within this ACN discussion, a considerable number of accusations have been backtracked. Constructive criticism and trust must be built upon mutual respect and I did not see that here. I found the whole thing incredibly disrespectful. Mkdwtalk01:54, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
CU's are not assigned by the community, they are assigned by a small committee. There is no actual basis for the community-at-large to trust CU's, what the community has done and does is place its trust in a committee to assign and review them. Then too, the community has insulated admins by assigning their review to this same small committee (a committee of other admins and CU's, no less). It's hard to imagine a system more protective of admins and functionaries. Even apart from Softlavender's battlegroundy 'note taking' which then makes even more absurdist their 'witch-hunt' stuff, we can be certain that the community trust is in the committee, not Softlavender and not me. As for the overwrought 'harm to the project', you know who else makes that slippery (shibboleth) argument: the socks, who are just here to improve the pedia, we hear. The community neither accepts that from the socks, nor from special pleaders for favorite admins or CU's, who just haven't managed to be accountable, or even receive communications or listen about issues. The community has decided, it places the responsibility for bad checks and poor conduct by admins squarely in the committee. Think about that, the committee is responsible for each bad check. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:49, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Looks like this is about violations of users privacy when their edits are not, have not necessarily caused detrimental effects on the project, we should all be happy that Arbcom is focussed on this type of personal intrusion into what in many many cases are just good faith users. Sock hunters might think they are doing the right thing but actually it is content and contributors that are king and queen here. Govindaharihari (talk) 13:59, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Now that you and MrErnie has argued for the viewpoint in opposition to my own, I now know that I am correct in my thinking, as it's been my observation that the two of you are consistently wrong in almost every major Wikipedia debate. 11:09, 8 April 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Beyond My Ken (talk • contribs)
Look BMK, we get that you are upset but you really should dial back the personal attacks. Ad hominems aren't going to accomplish anything constructive. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 12:15, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
What seems obvious to you may not be perceived that way by others. I'm not interested in agreeing or disagreeing with your assessment. This thread is for the discussion of issues relating to Bbb23 and ArbCom. Whether you think certain participants have been right or wrong on other issues is immaterial. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 14:01, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Despite your repeated efforts to personally discredit individual participants in this thread, this discussion is still very much about Bbb23 and ArbCom and not about whether you have agreed or disagreed with specific people in the past. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 14:29, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Beyond My Ken: could you clarify your position? Is it that Bbb23 should not be subject to the global and local checkuser policies and should not be subject to auditing by the committee simply because they do (did) the lion’s share of CU work? –xenotalk12:04, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
No, I have never said that, and that is not my position. ArbCom has the task of monitoring and auditing the behavior of functionaries, but they need to do so in a reasonable and responsible way that does not harm the community. My position is that ArbCom took an action which resulted in the retirement from CU activity -- hopefully short -- of one of the best CheckUsers we have, who has worked tirelessly to keep our community safer. I take it for granted that ArbCom did not intend to cause Bbb23 to retire, but that is nonetheless the result. What was intended as a private matter has become a de facto public matter, and since it has, ArbCom is under an obligation to be transparent with the community and reveal how the members of the committee voted in regard to sending the memo, and for what reason. Further, if ArbCom was serious about protecting the community, they should be acting as vigorously as possible to heal the rift with Bbb23 and convince him to return -- perhaps they are. I have not asked for anything private to be revealed -- who the complaining editors were, for instance, however much that might shed some light on ArbCom's actions (cf. the farcical comments by Iaritmioawp just above the break), but simply that the Arbitrators own up to their action now that it has blown up in their faces. I cannot personally evaluate whether ArbCom's position regarding Bbb23's checks was justified or in line with policy as understood by the community, because that data is not public, but I do know that hiding behind "privacy" concerns at this point is unwarranted, and a failure on ArbCom's part to be responsive to the community which elected it to serve us. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:22, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
To boil that down a little: you had a job to do, and you did it, but you apparently did it badly, judging by the results, and now you won't own up to your responsibility for the mess. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:27, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
At any point was there a dialogue between abitrators and Bbb23, in which you traded your interpretation of policy with the interpretation of a valued and experienced functionary (much more experienced than any of you), or did you just lay down the ArbCom interpretation as a fiat about which there can be allowed no disagreement? Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:42, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
You are, of course, completely wrong about that. I trust Bbb23 implicitly, as I do a number of other admins and functionaries -- including some members of the Committee as individuals. In the past, I have trusted ArbCom, and supported them against what I thought was unwarranted criticism, but that trust is wavering now, as they refuse to do what is obviously the right thing. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:46, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
SN: I'm not sure who you're replying to, but if it's me, my use of "you" above (i.e. "you had a job to do...") was plural, and therefore collective. It was not addressed to Xeno individually. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:49, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, I was replying to you. My point, really, was that in a collective decision making process, the identities of those who came to the decision should be irrelevant. See Chatham House Rules: making committee members publicly responsible as individuals, rather than as a collective, would stymy the process for the future. To put it another way, you would be hard pressed to find a member willing to express an opinion on anything—however innoccuous—if they thought it would do their legs down the road.My points shoud, I need not remind all, be taken as being from someone who has probably earned the enmity of most of the committee (collectively and individually!) over the years: I am not in the business of cheerleading them. ——SN5412914:07, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Really? Then why is the voting on all ArbCom public cases completely open and transparent? They don't vote in the back room and announce the results, we see how each Arbitrator voted. The same goes for motions -- all public. So you are incorrect in saying the ArbCom decisions are "collective". Beyond My Ken (talk) 14:14, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, really. The decision, once made, is collective, and private decisions stay private. Incidentally, if you could tun the noise down, it'd be appreciated. Bbb23 doesn't need you cheering them: he needs t come back and abide by policy. It's not difficult; most of us manage it every day. ——SN5412914:20, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
No evidence has been presented that Bbb23 broke policy, only ArbCom's word, which I'm rapidly beginning to trust less and less, given their unwillingness to admit to their errors. In the meantime, Bbb23 remains innocent until proven guilty. Other CUs have said that they wouldn't have made the checks in question, but they haven't said that the checks went against policy, only ArbCom has said that. Who on ArbCom? We don't know, because they won't say. Beyond My Ken (talk) 14:27, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
@Beyond My Ken: There was an advisory email sent last year to all checkusers, which Bbb23 received. Bbb23 had other (imo, better) options apart from a public objection and retirement: he could have responded to the committee with a rebuttal; he could have sought additional clarification; he could have asked us to bring the rest of the checkuser or functionary team into the conversation; and of course he could have heeded the request to be more circumspect, seeking advice from the committee or other checkusers if he felt the need to perform a check that would be considered invalid per the above list. He expressed his feeling that we were "unappreciative of [his] CU work": not so - the very first line of our email expressed gratitude. He also wrote that we advised if he performed a "check in a manner that [we] deem violates policy, [his] CU privileges will be removed without further warning." - this is the only part of the email that I feel was ill-considered, and I take responsibility for not noticing that before it was sent and have advised Bbb23 on the checkuser-l thread that I would ask my colleagues to look into softening that line should he choose to re-engage with the project and return to CU work (since it would certainly be not a comfortable position to know that he was potentially only one check, one discretionary disagreement, away from being removed). –xenotalk13:58, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
That line, threatening to cut off his CU privileges without warning, was a very nasty threat, and I don't blame Bbb23 for doing what he has done -- if I were in his position, I too would feel that my years of hard work protecting the community were being taken for granted and not appreciated (no matter how much boilerplate language there was in the note). This is exactly what I meant about you -- the Committee -- doing your job badly, and by doing so causing harm to the community. It's unconscionable that such language was used on that particular person: you have treated him like dirt. Such an action doesn't warrant "I'm going to try to fix it", it warrants a full and abject apology from the Committee to Bbb23, and for you all to get down on your knees and beg him to return. You obviously find fault with the language used, but somebody put it in there, and I want to know who. Beyond My Ken (talk) 14:09, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
"it warrants a full and abject apology from the Committee to Bbb23, and for you all to get down on your knees and beg him to return" - Haha, probably the funniest thing I've ever read on here! Remind me on who was calling who a sycophant?! Bbb23 was hoisted by his own petard. Deal with it. LugnutsFire Walk with Me14:15, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Glad you found it amusing. Some people will laugh at any old thing. Me? I find hypocrisy absolutely a stitch, which is great because there's so much of it around these days, especially in RL. Beyond My Ken (talk) 14:19, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
The email was reviewed/voted on by the entire committee except those that were recused or inactive on the motion; as SN has noted, we bear a collective responsibility. –xenotalk14:58, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Baloney. If you reviewed/voted on it, then those votes need to be released to the community now that the matter is obviously no longer private. You have an absolute obligation to do that, and that the Committee continues to hide behind the fig leafs of "privacy" and collective responsibility is a serious ethical failing on its part. My regard for ArbCom has fallen significantly. I know you have a hard job, but you must all be willing to take individual responsibility for your actions when you do it badly. Beyond My Ken (talk) 16:39, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
I think they did just fine with transparency and explaining what happened and why. It appears they did nothing wrong here. PackMecEng (talk) 16:44, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Really. We lose a valuable service from a respected community member, and as a result we're a little less safer, and they did nothing wrong? No, just, no. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:13, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
@Beyond My Ken: There is no obligation to release the votes as you claim, nor is it true that "the matter is obviously no longer private". Bbb23 decided to publish that he was warned, but the issue still centers around non-public data, and our votes were based off of information that we can't and won't make public. Per WP:ARBPOL, private deliberations are a standard occurrence on the Arbitration Committee, and the votes from those deliberations are not published. The obligation is actually in the other direction: The Committee treats as private all communications sent to it, or sent by a Committee member in the performance of their duties. While I have no personal objection to my own vote being published, publishing the votes without the rationales and alternatives will make very little sense, and publishing the additional context presents privacy concerns given that the discussion centers around non-public information. If it is useful to you to know, I voted in support of the warning, so feel free to oppose me if and when I run for ArbCom again.
As for your claim that the ArbCom "treat[ed] Bbb23 like dirt", I disagree—while I think "without further warning" should have been omitted from our letter (since I don't think we would remove the CU tool without at least asking for justification of the checks in question) it is also true that we will not tolerate continued misuse of the tool by continuing to issue warning after warning. It is a part of ArbCom's responsibility to audit checkusers, to advise a checkuser that they need to be adhering more closely to policy when there have been issues, and, if necessary, to remove access to the tool. If adhering to my responsibility means you won't vote for me at the next ArbCom elections, so be it.
I have had concerns for some time around the enormous number of checks Bbb23 has been running in proportion to the rest of the team—for burnout reasons, bus factor reasons, and because it's such a high number of checks to justify. It does not seem healthy for a team to have one member performing thousands of checks a month when the standard checkuser performs maybe a couple dozen. My worries are reinforced by some of the comments we're seeing here, including your demand for the ArbCom to "get down on [our] knees and beg him to return". These comments seem to me to be saying that Bbb23 performs such an important service that he cannot be reminded of policy even if he's not adhering to it. While I certainly would be delighted for Bbb23 to decide not to retire, the warning was justified and our request to him remains in force should he desire to return to activity. If it turns out to be true that the entire English Wikipedia will collapse or be overrun by sockpuppets or what have you if Bbb23 does not return to activity, the problem is not that he has left, but that we let it get to a point where the project was so dependent on one individual. GorillaWarfare(talk)20:25, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Is ArbCom's "Check User for Idiots" (see above, just after the Break) the only valid interpretation of En.wiki CheckUser policy? If so, how did this interpretation come about, and under what remit did ArbCom decide that this interpretation is singular and binding on all CheckUsers? Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:49, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
The bullet points we provided are just a handful of examples of circumstances that, alone, are not valid reasons to check a user. They are based on both the enwiki checkuser policy and our own knowledge of how the checkuser team interprets policy (after all, members of the ArbCom are also for the most part checkusers). It's not new policy, and it's not not novel interpretation. Given that it's just a few examples, no it is not the "only valid interpretation" of CU policy. But if you're asking if someone could reasonably interpret the enwiki CU policy to say that any of those bullet points are allowed as a singular reason to check a user, my answer is also no. As for your question about remit, the Arbitration Committee is the group that oversees the enwiki checkuser team, per policy at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/CheckUser and Oversight. It is also made clear in the checkuser policy: The use of the CheckUser tool on the English Wikipedia is monitored and controlled by the Arbitration Committee, and CheckUsers may have their permissions revoked by the Arbitration Committee for misuse or abuse of the CheckUser permission.GorillaWarfare(talk)01:16, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy#Scope and responsibilities specifies that among ArbCom's responsibilities is "To approve and remove access to (i) CheckUser and Oversight tools". Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/CheckUser and Oversight says "Please note that CheckUser and Oversight permissions are subject to periodic review". WP:CheckUser says "The use of the CheckUser tool on the English Wikipedia is monitored and controlled by the Arbitration Committee, and CheckUsers may have their permissions revoked by the Arbitration Committee for misuse or abuse of the CheckUser permission."
I do not see in any of these policies something to the effect that "The Arbitration Committee is the sole valid authority for interpretation of how the CheckUser tool must be used, and this interpretation is binding on all CheckUsers. Individual CheckUsers have no lattitude for interpretation of the CheckUser policies and must adhere to ArbCom's interpretation at all times." Where do I find that? If it's not spelled out in policy, then if ArbCom wants to be the only valid interpreter of CheckUser policy, that should be specifically proposed by the Committee and approved by the community.
As far as I am aware, ArbCom is only authorized to interpret policy when there is a dispute within the community as to how the policy should be interpreted. Where is such a dispute?
@Beyond My Ken: Following your logic, the Arbitration Committee would never be able to remove access to the tool, because any decision that a checkuser had misused or abused checkuser would be "interpreting policy". But that is of course specifically authorized in policy. In this case we decided to issue a private warning rather than revoke access to the tool. Furthermore, as Risker and others have pointed out here, the examples we provided are not controversial among the checkuser team. Is there a specific item on that list you're taking issue with? GorillaWarfare(talk)02:17, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
Finding that abuse has occured does not require the institution of a single overarching interpretation of policy, which is what seems to have occured here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:45, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
We told Bbb23 that we believed he had been running some checks that were not in line with policy. We indicated which kinds of checks were problematic, which we shared here, and we shared more specifics with him and the CU team (which we obviously cannot share here). What you seem to be proposing is that we tell him that we think has misused the tool, but not actually tell him which kinds of checks were the problem. I'm not willing to provide feedback to someone that doesn't give them constructive information so they can change their behavior, and that is what we did here. We did not institute a "single overarching interpretation of policy", as I have already said—we provided a small number of examples of invalid reasons to run a check. If you have questions about any of them or disagree with them, I'm happy to discuss further. I see that you are dropping the matter and so I will do so as well, but I hope you can at least see where I am coming from here. GorillaWarfare(talk)02:52, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
Look, you folks are clearly not going to fulfill your ethical obligation to be transparent to the community, so I'm obviously tilting at windmills. I have no way to force you to do anything except by appealing to your consciences, and that appears not to be working, so I'll back off with these final words:
I sit here in my living room waiting to see if I'm going to get sick and possibly die, while all around me, my country and the world at large moves closer and closer to authoritarianism. What I don't need, and I don't think the rest of the community wants, is for the leadership of a project dear to my heart to start taking steps in that direction as well, but that seems to be what has happened when you promulgate what you seem to believe is the only valid interpretation of a policy.
You took certain steps that you thought were justified, and it blew up in your fact, and you're not willing to take the responsibility for that, you hide behind the collective. Your explanations amount to "We know what's best", which I might be more inclined to accept if you were simply more honest with the community about how it happened, and if you seemed to have any willingness to take steps to ameliorate the damage. Of that I see almost nothing, bar Xeno's taking personal responsibility for not seeing the threatening language in the warning. If there's anything we lerned from the fall of Communism, it's that you can't change human nature, so when you threaten a hard-working community servant like that, it is to be expected that they would react unfavorably. That you all didn't see that coming is pure incompetence on your part. That some of you intrepret Bbb23's large number of checks as being inherenty problematic is indicative of your disconnection with the community: the sockpuppetry problem is a very serious one, the most serious problem confronting the project, and needs to be controlled, but you have taken steps to loosen our safeguards against it. This is, again, incompetence.
To me, you appear to be living in a fool's paradise in which it's more important for the authority of ArbCom to be followed blindly then that the community be protected from sockpuppetry. That's very unfortunate. In my opinion, this Committee, even though it has in its members ship quite a few people I have come to appreciate and respect, is an abject failure. Personally, I would recommend that, since you seem determined not to take individual responsibility for the actions taken, you collectively resign, and allow the community to elect a new committee immediately -- and, yes, your failure and incompetence does go that deeply.
Sorry BMK, I have no intention of resigning for doing my part to uphold the community checkuser policy. That is an important part of the job we were elected to do. – bradv🍁02:52, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
Of course not, I didn't expect anyone to. I did (and do) have hopes that perhaps their ethical failings and awareness of their botched communication might finally get through to one or two of the better members of the Committee, even though nothing in any Arbitartor's comments here would lead me to expect it. Still, there are those who haven't commented, so... I am, obviously, extremely disappointed - I thought better of (some of) you folks. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:35, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
I understand that stresses are high right now, and that the world is a scary place. In every country people are terrified of this pandemic, and the extreme measures we're all taking to distance ourselves from others are leaving us feeling bored, frustrated, and alone. This has had a bit of weird effect on Wikipedia. I have noticed editors turn what would be minor disagreements into major conflicts, complete with accusations of bad faith between people who would otherwise consider each other friends. I have noticed people who are accustomed to spending a bit of their free time on Wikipedia instead pour themselves into their editing as an escape from the world, even to the point of losing all perspective of what we're doing here. And in the midst of this new editors are showing up in droves — to help curate the best possible collection of information on the current pandemic, to delve into the science behind viruses and tell us what they know, or even just to help with our vision of documenting the sum of all human knowledge. Editors remain our biggest asset in pursuing the goals of this project, and we need to value them, especially those who are just joining us. We need to give people a chance to participate, even if they've had a chance before and screwed it up. If we're turning over every rock and fishing in every pond to try to uncover bad behaviour and drive people away, the project will suffer. I believe our sockpuppetry policy strikes an appropriate balance between giving people the tools to limit disruption, and assuming good faith on the part of new editors. Now, more than ever, it's important for us to look for the best in people, to be patient with each other, and to remember that we're all in this together. I'm sorry you feel that I have let you down; I cannot show you the evidence behind my vote, but I just hope that you would be willing to take my word for it that this warning was necessary, assuming that I have the best interests of the project at heart. I know you do too. – bradv🍁03:44, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
Beyond My Ken, Even if everything you said was accurate (and I disagree with the much of it), on Wikipedia consensus is king. So, you would need other people to ascribe to your view. I have already offered you my resignation. You simply need to have more than 10 editors agree with you and less than that number disagree - if you think that's possible, please, do start a numbered petition on my talk page. In reality, I strongly believe the community is behind us in this matter, and you are a lone voice who is simply upset that we warned someone you consider a friend. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Worm That Turned (talk • contribs) 08:15, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
I would politely suggest that latecomers to the conversation make sure they actually understand the situation, I realize this discussion has gotten very long, but it isn't helpful to come in late and without full possession of the facts, at least the ones that are publicly available. To that end:
Kind of surprised to see anyone still saying this was "out of the blue" when we have repeatedly explained that our email was merely the last part of a months-long conversation with Bbb23.
As to this being a witch hunt, I would note that this, like most things the committee does, was the result of community members coming to us with their concerns. We generally have more than enough on our agenda without going looking for more.
I would also note that everyone who still seems outraged at this has not seen the actual evidence. We may have done a poor job communicating initially why we took this action (since this caught us flat-footed as up until then it had been a private conversation) but at this point there is a consensus amongst those who are allowed to see such things that there was indeed a problem. Very often we see accusations of users of advanced permissions "circling the wagons" to protect one of their own. In this case the opposite has happened, eventually, and there is general agreement as to the inappropriate nature of some of Bbb23's checks.
If you think any of us actually like doing this sort of thing, think again. Most of the time there is sufficient discussion and feedback between functionaries that any outliers that aren't acting within policy basically are self-corrected without the need for the committee to step in. In the rare cases where that does not happen, it is our responsibility to take appropriate action to correct the issue, whether we like it or not.
I also think this has already been discussed adequately and there is little to be gained from continuing. I concur, —PaleoNeonate – 07:56, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
I also concur. There is no similarity between this and Framgate, and just because ArbCom dropped the ball badly on the BHG case doesn't mean there is some conspiracy to get rid of high-profile admins - that's simply tinfoil-hattery. Black Kite (talk)12:14, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Completely bizarre. "We're through the looking glass, people" applies if it's meant in any other way than parody. ——SN5412912:29, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Beeblebrox, Yes, the issue appears to have been around messaging, and Bbb23 having been the first to bring it up, necessarily with his own take on it. The only takeaway would be to have a suitably depersonalised explanation ready whenever a formal warning is issued to a functionary. But that's not a very common thing, right? Guy (help!) 17:04, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
It looks like Wikipedia privacy policy would make that exceedingly difficult (impossible?): "The Committee treats as private all communications sent to it, or sent by a Committee member in the performance of their duties." Trying to draft a public communication individually and as a committee that can't reveal the substance, context, or identities would be a nightmare. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:33, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Alanscottwalker, true, but this is about having a response ready as and when someone else pulls the curtain aside. "The committee reviewed a number of uses of checkuser and identified a shortfall in compliance with policy; corrective action was taken" or some such. Guy (help!) 09:15, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
The committee deals with a large number of private matters. I don't think it needs to be ready with a public statement for all of them. However, this was an admittedly difficult situation with a widely respected and even more widely known editor. Being ready with a statement should that editor choose to make things public does seem sensible and would be something I hope this arbcom considers doing differently in the future. So I basically agree with Guy. However, in the grand scheme of things being caught a little flatfooted on messaging (and I need to emphasize a little because overall I think their response has been timely, thoughtful, and complete) when being right on the merits does not seem to be commensurate with a weeks worth of (sometimes quite hurtful to arbitrators who are editors too) comments. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 12:42, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
User:Beyond My Ken mentions a "war against sockpuppetry"[4] to which Bbb23 was a good contributor.
CU is a sock-hunting tool whose usage is constrained by local (en.wp) wiki policy. de.wp's CU policy is even stricter than ours, so maybe they are more vulnerable to sock abuse than we are.
Some editors like Bbb23 and apparently BMK place very high importance on sock hunting, thus BMK's mention of a "war". So (ISTM) they want more CU'ing, and if that runs against the current CU policy, then the policy is getting in the way.
Bbb23, apparently, some of the time, resolved the conflict by ignoring the policy (WP:IAR) and running more checks than the CU policy authorizes.
BMK says he trusts Bbb23 about the checks. At the level of trusting Bbb23 to not misuse private info found in the checks, that is fine. I have no reason to think Bbb23 abused the info, so in that sense I also trust Bbb23.
OTOH, arbcom is pretty good at seeing what someone did and comparing those actions to site policy, so I trust arbcom when they say Bbb23 ran afoul of policy, even if in a good way.
So it sounds to me that the underlying issue from Bbb23 and BMK's perspective is that the policy itself is too strict. Their solution (my interpretation!) is that arbcom should have let the IAR keep going, instead of intervening as it did. Another approach would be to revise the CU policy to allow more checking, bringing it into sync with Bbb23's judgment of best practice in this area, which is grounded in his experience and deserves to be listened to.
Calling the policy too strict is of course in tension with editors who want the policy to stay where it is, or become even stricter on privacy grounds, or who see sock-obsessed admins as battleground editors peddling a moral panic du jour as a vehicle to act out their aggressive impulses. Socking is a malum prohibitum on Wikipedia after all: some other sites allow using multiple accounts freely, or don't even have user accounts.[5] One can put the problems socking causes into perspective with Wikipedia's infinite numbers of other problems, and conclude that some editors do tend to go overboard about the subject.
What we're left with is a philosophical divide about how to balance editor privacy interests against sock protection. BMK and Bbb23 apparently want more sock protection, Swarm(?) and others seem to want more privacy. It is a clash of values and that's why there's such intensity in the opinions. Revising the CU policy would take opening a discussion, and I don't know what the result would be. It seems to me that Arbcom has done a decent neutral job of observing existing policy, independently of the politically subjective question of whether the current policy is the best one possible. 2601:648:8202:96B0:E0CB:579B:1F5:84ED (talk) 06:38, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
While I disagree with a large amount of Beyond my Ken's numerous posts, both in terms of content and tone, I do actually share his viewpoint that arbitrators should not be able to use grounds of collective responsibility to avoid indicating their individual votes. We require such for public cases, and in several older cases made in private, the arbcoms of the time got crucified for not providing a breakdown or stating a decision was made in consensus, though those votes were on blocks/desysops rather than a warning. @Worm That Turned:, of course, makes a very legitimate point that (for example) oppose !votes could be made for more than one reason, so a pure support/oppose breakdown would be insufficient, and the full vote reasoning would leak private information. However, I'm disinclined to accept that - certainly an intermediate option exists. Arbs could provide their vote, plus a single line summary (e.g. "Oppose, as situation warrants more severe action"), even if the grounds that rests on couldn't be given. As a note on the below, I'd rather the conversation weren't closed till an arb or two could comment Nosebagbear (talk) 10:06, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Nosebagbear, I'm just not sure what a 'sanitized' publishing of the positions individual members took would solve. It could also set a dangerous precedent that an editor subject to a private action just needs to go public with it in order to gain insight into the private voting record. I feel this would negatively impact the good and proper functioning of the committee, which often has to make difficult (and unpopular) decisions in private. So let's say we post the record, and those voting were in unanimous agreement that an intervention was required- this perhaps increases community confidence in the action taken, while possibly deepening the divide between the committee and Bbb23. Let's say we post the record, and it was a split decision: this does not change the end result (as the majority still rules), and serves to increase community discord. I'm not seeing an upside here. If an editor wants to know an individual member's position to inform their own voting decision in a future candidacy of that member, I would suggest that could be raised during the ACE question period. –xenotalk14:23, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
@Xeno: - firstly, thank you for your reply. I would argue that a member subject to a private action is entitled to the full voting record whether or not they go public with it - I would consider it immoral to require them to go public to get that information. Concerns about a split voting record increasing community discord, whether accurate or not, is also fairly unimportant to me (in this specific regard) - no privacy concerns should be based on that as an aspect (taken to its extreme conclusion, controversial cases should thus always be made private, regardless of other facets). The upside is that it is in line with enabling as much oversight of Arbcom as possible, while not revealing an editor's private info. Auditing of actions, positions, and so forth, of ARBCOM (or indeed Stewards, though not relevant here) isn't something that should be reserved for the elections, even though that may be the only time they could actually be removed. Nosebagbear (talk) 15:25, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Nosebagbear: could you explain how it enhances oversight of Arbcom? The motion carries when a majority of active, non-recused arbitrators support it. Who cast what bean doesn't seem to enhance oversight. –xenotalk16:00, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
xeno - arbcom, as like Wikipedia, is the sum of its members - accused parties especially may want to know to inform future discussions (as one assumes they have all the information), observers might want to know members summary thoughts for when interacting with them in public cases or judging them on patterns of severity (I for example, factored in not voting for arbs whose voting patterns indicated they were particularly more severe than the general arb body - but that info can also be important before the elections etc). Nosebagbear (talk) 16:15, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Without agreeing or disagreeing with your position, I am willing to disclose that I supported the motion. –xenotalk16:51, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
@JzG: - I disagree with "it's not a bad thing or a good thing" - it could indeed have some positives, but it also has significant negative aspect(s), which I've raised above. So at best it's mixed - this is particularly the case when it's on any substantive issue. RL uses of per curiam cases, in most jurisdictions that allow them, are reserved for non-controversial/non-substantive aspects. ARBCOM makes comparatively few non-substantive decisions. As a mixed action, discussion and disputes over its usage are reasonable Nosebagbear (talk) 15:25, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
If even some minority of Arbcom members has concerns about CU checks, they should relate the concerns to the CU, not relating the concern would be breach of faith with Wikipedia. I've said what the silver lining of this becoming semi-public is, that we know Arbcom is doing the review entrusted, but part of the darkest aspect here is the apparent disregard for privacy (most concerning in some CUs). It is universally a matter of natural justice and civilized society that privacy of communication is protected in order to promote communication. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:53, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
This bodes ill for a number of reasons, foremost among them Bbb23 had a real gift for sniffing out the socks, and was often good at keeping track of long term socks and LTA accounts. Now I'm out one of the best CU's I've ever known, and I'm not sure if anyone else can step into and fill those shoes anywhere near Bbb23's ability to do so. TomStar81 (Talk) 13:56, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
TomStar81, I think the controversy is because Bbb23's "gift for sniffing out the socks" was the results of his out-policy CU's. An analogy might be a police officer whose "gift for drug busts" came from improper searches or wiretaps. Do we want the busts more than we want to not live in a police state? Opinions will vary, and that is what we are seeing here.
BMK, it's not clear what you want Arbcom to have done instead of what they did. Maybe they could have worded their email more gently (per Xeno), but at the end of the day Bbb23 has done a DIVA exit. 2602:24A:DE47:B270:DDD2:63E0:FE3B:596C (talk) 09:42, 28 April 2020 (UTC) (Note: that was me further up on 2601.something).
@Thryduulf: I think that discussion above can probably be closed now; it's had no substantive commentary for three days now, and has begun attracting anonymous trolling. ——SN5412910:21, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
It was not intended as trolling. I spent a long time reading that thread and the comment was my attempt at making sense of what happened and what the disagreement was. Whether it contributes anything of value is not for me to decide, of course. But I tried. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 18:55, 14 April 2020 (UTC) (aka: 2601:648:8202:96B0:E0CB:579B:1F5:84ED:) Added: I'm glad the earlier thread wasn't closed. I don't monitor this page, but saw the old thread when I came here after jytdog's case closed, so I read through it and commented. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 19:38, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
I agree with the other IP and have resisted commenting on the case above until now, but felt it necessary given the extent of arbcom misconduct at this time. The other IP states my concerns exactly. Absurd that people are calling the other IP a troll for providing a full and complete assessment of the issues. For the record, I’m an old editor who left the project in part due to egregious arbcom misconduct, but have never been banned or otherwise investigated/sanctioned by arbcom, and any checkuser is free to check and confirm this if they so desire. The current arbcom has overstepped in multiple cases this year, and as I’ve considered returning to help out given I’m a medical professional and the current situation, your egregious misconduct has cemented my decision not to return. It is absurd that users are being sanctioned, warned, and desysopped for having the best interests of the encyclopedia in mind. The goal of Wikipedia is to make an encyclopedia, and arbcom should stop trying to be “social justice warriors” above and beyond that goal. 52.119.101.25 (talk) 10:33, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure why this section is being used to discuss an unrelated one above, but it might be helpful to clarity whether you (52.119.xx) are concerned with the Bbb23 decision, the Jytdog decision, or both. –xenotalk11:01, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Xeno, I think 52.119.101.25 is unhappy about BHG's desysopping a while back (see my talk page). Could you or someone move this side discussion up to the Bbb23 section? You are right that it is unrelated to the Jytdog case. Fwiw I'm mostly happy with arbcom's Jytdog decision. I might have handled a nuance or two slightly differently, but every case will always be like that. 2601:648:8202:96B0:E0CB:579B:1F5:84ED (talk) 19:08, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Agree - Jytdog is fine. Other cases under this arbcom have been a farce and have driven good editors away simply because arbcom can. I highly suspect I’m not the only old contributor who has not returned to be a productive editor because of what I’ve seen from arbcom this year. 52.119.101.25 (talk) 21:43, 15 April 2020 (UTC)4
Apologies for the formatting, hard to do on mobile and this is the first time I've (52.119.xx) been able to correct it. @Xeno: It is glaringly obvious that multiple other checkusers have a problem with *at a minimum* the way this was worded - the fact ArbCom will not release the full voting record is telling of a desire to "protect your own". The community elects ArbCom - and the community deserves to know every single arbitrator who approved this "warning" (which wasn't so much a warning as a "lol, you suck, and this is a formality before we remove your rights altogether"). Any arbitrator who approved this "warning" is at fault for the shitty warning - and the fact that you and other arbs are still trying to protect each other from the valid criticism for the approval of this warning is telling of how ArbCom has become a "hat collector" group and no longer is actually the community guardian it has been for 10+ years. Again - I am a past editor who left of my own volition, not under any cloud whatsoever and not under risk of any sanctions whatsoever - and I am not returning because I refuse to be subjected to the community run by this ArbCom that has desysopped two admins inappropriately and is now driving one of the best CUs away from the project because they can't get over themselves. Seriously - the message you sent was so arrogant and ridiculous - and the fact that no arbitrator saw that or at a minimum you didn't listen to arbitrators who did see that? It's pretty clear ArbCom has become full of itself - and I fear part of this is because people I truly respect (ex: GorillaWarfare) have been on ArbCom so long they've become oblivious to actual community concerns. I know that these comments aren't going to do jack shit to any of you - I fully suspect I'm going to be written off as "just another IP troll" internally - but that itself should be a warning sign that you guys are operating wrongly. I was glad to see you elected because after the Fram debacle I trusted you to do what needed done on ArbCom - but to date you are the only one who's fully admitted this was a mistake and admitted you voted for said mistake. Whatever. I'm too fed up to bother trying to fix this anymore. Have fun in your positions of power over others when you aren't doing anything that actually improves the encyclopedia. 52.119.101.25 (talk) 02:24, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
WTT advised upthread that he supported the motion as well. I don't think issuing the guidance itself was a mistake - as I was concerned with off-side checks, but I do think that one line (removal w/o further warning) was what made it untenable for Bbb23 to continue. –xenotalk12:55, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
@Serial Number 54129:I don't see any trolling, as an opinion your free to take it or leave it of course, but it's not trolling. Now the quantity of ink spilled in that thread could almost certainly have been put to better use elsewhere, but you could just as easily criticize any of the other commentators. 2604:2000:8FC0:4:68BA:3B32:8613:8B6D (talk) 22:31, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
First, I would like to thank the arbs for this motion. Second, it is quite possible that we soon start getting questions similar to ARBPIA: which articles are eligible, and who may add notices at talk pages. Should we assume that the answers to these questions are the same as ARBPIA4?--Ymblanter (talk) 20:51, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
Since World War II in Poland is generally considered to have started in 1939, I just wanted to ask: was "1933-1945" intentional or a typo? Nyttend backup (talk) 00:12, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
It was the original scope of the Antisemitism in Poland restriction, but also matches the sanctions from WP:ARBGWE scope, which was 1932-1945. I proposed the wording on the ARBGWE sanction that defines it 1932-1945, and the reason for that was to broadly define the WW2 era to include anything involving the Nazi German government, its rise to power, and the war. It's very difficult to talk about the history of Europe in the 1930s without the context of what happened 1939-1945, and I think Wikipedia using a broad definition of 1932/33-1945 is likely a good way to handle it. Basically you can think of it as The World War II era or The Nazi era. The events of that terrible period in human history were set in motion in the early 1930s, and it's very difficult to understand the events of the War without understanding the decade prior. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:31, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
This year has just been massive event and case after case after case (Portals, Rhawoth, Kudpung, Jytdog, Bbb23, Medicine, and now the rfc) thank you arbs for being on time and consistent- especially with the virus going around. Moneytrees🌴Talk🌲Help out at CCI!02:33, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
It's not overly important and I feel confident I can figure it out for myself, but isn't there typically a "Not voting" section? ~ Amory(u • t • c)09:42, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
If you look back through the ACN archive, we're not consistent about it. But for clarity, all the arbs not listed didn't vote on this motion. – Joe (talk) 12:09, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
I just looked over the contributions of the two alternate accounts, as well as some of the Wikipedia-space edits of Therapyisgood in the lead-up to Guerillero's checkuser blocks. I'm confused as to why he felt it necessary to create new accounts for those posts. Was it meant to evade scrutiny? Also, are these two accounts the only instance of such misconduct taking place? I feel like this is a pretty mild first offence to merit a full-blown ArbCom restriction, let alone a full month after he had already been blocked on his main account. Kurtis(talk)12:54, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
@MJL: I had assumed as much. Even so, I'm still not sure if a public announcement of this sanction was warranted. I feel as though it might have been more prudent to privately notify Therapyisgood, particularly as the decision seems to be based on private evidence. Just my $0.02, so I encourage anyone reading this to take it with a grain of salt. Kurtis(talk)07:03, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Our procedure is that motions that aren't purely internal should be announced here. And bureaucracy aside, an editing restriction like this needs to be known to the community if it's to be effectively enforced. – Joe (talk) 07:25, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
I left some feedback to ArbCom here on the PD talk page: [6], but I think it's worth repeating two points here. First, the decision to eliminate word count and diff count limits was an experiment that should not be repeated. (No problem with the normal practice of extending limits on individual request, case-by-case.) Some editors just threw everything at the wall to see what would stick, and there was too much tit-for-tat. Also, too many editors used the evidence page to post opinion essays instead of evidence with diffs. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:50, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
Absolutely agree (although I think it's more of a comment than a concern). No prejudice on regaining at RfA, but I firmly believe that any sysop who "needs" an editing restriction should be reevaluated for community trust. I imagine this would make ArbCom less likely to place editing restrictions on sysops, which is not a good outcome, so I can't quite square those two beliefs, but I do agree. ~ Amory(u • t • c)11:56, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
I would actually prefer that ARBCOM be willing to sanction admins without desysopping them. It's critical to remember that admins are humans and are not perfect; certainly, there have been administrators who've made misjudgements severe enough to require a desysop, but there's been others who have exhibited a single blind spot where their judgement is impaired. We should be willing to recognize that those folks can still be a net positive with the tools. Desysopping any admin for behavior worthy of a sanction risks further inflating our standards for adminship. Vanamonde (Talk)17:02, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
I'm also with Vanamonde on this - there have been a number of complaints that three sysops were recently removed by this ARBCOM when a lesser sanction might have worked. That was partly refuted by many on the basis that significant sanction and desysops are exclusive. However that basically leaves ARBCOM no flexibility, and a "you're screwed" set of options in any case involving an Admin which isn't egregious. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:06, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
Has the community ever endorsed someone at RfA who had an active editing restriction? I suspect we have different standards at RfA than we do at ArbCom about whether someone should be an admin, and like Amorymeltzer, I don't know how to resolve that. It may start with lowering our standards at RfA, which, somewhat ironically, may start with demonstrating a willingness to hold administrators to account. – bradv🍁14:54, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
The only one I can think of offhand is from way back in 2009 and was for a prior sysop (removed and restricted by ArbCom), so it may not be particularly informative (fwiw, I supported the RfA at the time). To (somewhat) clarify my above comment (cc Vanamonde93), I'm not necessarily saying that a sysop that needs restricting by ArbCom shouldn't be a sysop, but rather that the community should have an opportunity to redecide for itself; there is no other process through which the community can do so. It could be a matter-of-fact/automatic thing where if a sysop is restricted another remedy requires them to start a reconfirmation RfA within one month! Maybe it's only if restrictions are for longer than 1/3/6/12 months! Absolutely folks can still be a net positive with the tools, I just think it should be ratified by the community. I do think that if this sort of thing happened, it would lower rather than raise, since we'd see more folks with some dirty hands and a track record. ~ Amory(u • t • c)17:34, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
Personally, I think community deadminship with a 50% threshold is a great idea. It's worked fine at Commons for years. But for some reason it will never pass at enwiki... -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠17:49, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
True. I don't have the link handy, but I remember counting the votes in the last RFC for community desysop, and IIRC it was like 80% of non-admins in favor and 80% of admins opposed. However, that may be changing: many if not all RFA candidates in the last year have added themselves to WP:RECALL, which is an indication that community desysop may be gaining favor even within the admin corps. Levivich[dubious – discuss]17:28, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
@Bradv: I looked into something similar (but not exactly this) earlier this year, User:Thryduulf/What happened after a desysop and the discussions where it is linked. Between 2015 and January 2020, only 3 editors desysopped by arbcom have run for re-RfA so there is really too little evidence to make any general statements about standards in this regard. Those three editors were: 1 (Rich Farmbrough) was unsuccessful because the issues that resulted in the desysop were continuing, 1 (Hawkeye7) was unsuccessful (twice) because of new issues since the desysop and 1 (Fram) was unsuccessful immediately after the case closed. Nobody who has taken the time to demonstrably resolve the issues that led to the desysop and has not done anything (else) that would prevent a successful first RFA since has stood. I would guess that very few people with arbcom editing restrictions stand for RFA so it will be difficult to provide any meaningful generalisations. Thryduulf (talk) 20:45, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure that I agree that any admin who is sanctioned should be desysoped. However, if I routinely ignored ONUS and BRD and edit-warred, I'd be blocked for it. If I ignored an RFC outcome and kept adding the same content anyway, I'd be blocked. If I did it while an Arbcom case was open, I'd be blocked. It would not take an Arbcom case to get me sanctioned for this behavior. Think of the editor resources that went into addressing DJ's behavior: we're probably talking hundreds of labor hour by dozens of editors over the course of a year (maybe longer). All spent just to get DJ to stop adding prices from a database to pharmaceutical articles. An admin should be much more cooperative than that; it shouldn't take an Arbcom case to get an admin to follow ordinary editing process. (And a WMF trustee, even more so.) Privilege comes with responsibility, and following the rules the rest of us follow is the least that we should expect from all of our administrators. Maybe I do agree that any admin who is sanction should be desysoped, after all. Levivich[dubious – discuss]17:37, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
Not really sure who I'm replying too, but more generally I've never actually seen any evidence that holding administrators more accountable (which is usually pretty undefined when said) or easier desysoping has any impact on RfA. It's a commonly repeated thing, but I don't think it has had any impact on actual RfA trends. The last few years we've arguably been better at desysoping people than we've ever been, and RfA, while having a higher pass rate also has probably has more stringent requirements than we've ever had. 3 years ago when I passed RfA 12 months of active editing was considered golden to pass, and you could get away with 8-10 months if you were an "all-star". Now we have opposes over "not long enough" for editors who have been here 18 months.Additionally, the last 6 months or so RfA has probably been the most brutal its been in a while in terms of climate. This while we have three very high-profile long-term administrators who have been desysoped this year. If easier desysoping in addition to the sanctioning of Doc James that is being discussed here had an impact, you'd expect standard to be lowering instead of being raised. If more accountability and easier desysoping are what is needed to improve RfA, that actually hasn't materialized in the voting at RfA. If anything our standards now are the highest they've ever been with a more hostile environment than we've seen since probably 2015 when the new RfA reforms were implemented. If people want to have more admins get lesser sanctions than desysops, that argument might have merit, but I would consider it on its own merits rather than looking at RfA standards. There doesn't appear to be any clear correlation between standards used by voters and how we deal with admin conduct issues. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:41, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
It's not clear to me if there will be a correlation in practice, but if there is one, I expect there will be a lag time for any change in RfA standards. However I suspect there are too many confounding factors to draw a clear conclusion. Seeing the long timeline required to impose sanctions on administrators might just confirm to some people that it's an arduous process, and so standards should continue to be high. isaacl (talk) 00:50, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
@TonyBallioni, you passed RFA in 2017, and I cannot recall ever having encountered you before my extended absence from Wikipedia after the cult of corruption overtook the area I most edit. (My sincere apologies if we "met" previously and I forgot, but 15 years is a long time :) But my point is that I am not sure you are in a position to judge long-term standards at RFA, which I believe to be at an all-time low. We have way too many admins passing who have never engaged the encyclopedia adequately, and we today have even arbs who haven't built enough content to understand the first thing about dispute resolution, respected editors, and respect for policy. I hope we will return to the days when one was expected to have an FA to pass RFA. At the simplest core of this case is non-policy-based, POV, UNDUE, original research editing from editors we expect to understand how to use sources, and yet have come to realize they may not. This is a serious problem when it affects content that has to do with one's health, and it has become more serious because ArbCom did not take it seriously. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:58, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
I was discussing the basic “before we even look at other things” standards like number of articles created, number of edits, number of months active, etc. You’re right that I wasn’t particularly active before 2016, my point was that if someone had opposed my RfA in 2017 with “only 14 months of active editing” they’d likely get laughed out of the RfA. Stuff like “only 18 months editing” has popped up recently and not as a fringe position. That’s an easily measured increase in “standards” more so than the more subjective ones. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:13, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
(ec) As I see it, there are three major eras in RfA history: 2001-2005 (anyone remotely competent who asked for the tools got them, not many applicants because Wikipedia was small), 2006-2009 (prime time for admin promotion, standards were gradually raised during this period), 2010-present (consistently low promotion rate and high standards). Trust me, admin standards have never again returned to their pre-2010 lows. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠01:14, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
You are correct-- the all-time lows occurred before I was active (but the work was also less challenging back then, as wikipedia was not so highly trafficced), and I should have said all-time low during my time, by which I mean understanding of content building is no longer a requirement, to the extent that the content contributions of some (not all) of the arbs are shocking, particularly when they are !voting on other editors' futures based on personalities rather than policy-based evidence. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:50, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
(Is it all right to do subsections here? Please just remove my header if it's not.) QuackGuru's topic ban from "articles relating to medicine, broadly construed" seems very broad. The finding of fact concerns drug pricing and e-cigs (and, glancingly, Judeo-Christian articles, but those are obviously not in question here). He's surely a useful editor in medicine-related articles generally. See also this comment by Bluerasberry. Would any arb like to indicate why the ban isn't from drug pricing and e-cigs rather than medicine generally? @Newyorkbrad:? Bishonen | tålk11:02, 4 June 2020 (UTC).
Speaking for myself: the narrower a topic ban is the harder it is to enforce. Since the work of enforcing it is almost never actually done by ArbCom, I try to avoid burdening AE-patrolling admins and the community in general with the responsibility of micromanaging another editor's conduct. The evidence showed that QuackGuru has been disruptive within the medicine topic and that similar conduct in other topics was enough to get him topic banned and blocked. A topic ban from medicine is therefore proportional because no editor is irreplaceable. – Joe (talk) 11:32, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
I agree with the premise behind WP:YANI but I never thought I would ever see an arbitrator cite that as a supporting tenet for an imposed remedy. No opinion either way about it, just a bit surprised.--WaltCip (talk) 11:59, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
As someone who patrols AE, a very wide topic ban actually makes it more difficult for admins at AE. To use this example, it is very obvious to work out if an editor is breaking a topic ban on e-cigs or drug pricing, whereas a ban from a really vague area like "medicine" means there are going to be thousands of edge cases. And in this case, whilst something like Positions of medical organizations on electronic cigarettes is obviously covered by a medicine topic ban, one could argue that the main Electronic cigarette article actually isn't. And certainly e-cig related articles like Vape shop or Flavored tobacco? Not covered, as far as I can see. Given that one of the loci of the dispute was e-cigarettes, this seems like a shoddy remedy. Black Kite (talk)12:16, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
The broad topic ban was because QuackGuru keep demonstrating themselves unable to edit and collaborate constructively in contentious topics, and as such medical articles are best done without him. The argument in the workshop against removing him entirely from these topics is "but those are the only topics QuackGuru edits", which seems to me the entire problem right there. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchstalk13:07, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
It's not unlike any other controversial topic area ranging from GG to GMO to AP2. I'm well aware of indef t-bans that were issued for much less, and the decision was made to make it broadly construed because it becomes too difficult to unravel the complexities of what applies to the t-ban and what doesn't. Like politics, medicine is everywhere. AtsmeTalk📧14:34, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Didn't QuackGuru completely abstain from the case despite being unblocked so he could participate? More than anything, he could have shown he can actually listen and work with other editors. Now it's spilt milk. --Pudeo (talk) 15:11, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
When I spent time to really examined QG's history I was surprised at what I found. I feel like if a case had been brought against QG specifically, and I would argue such a case would have been likely to be accepted had it been brought given the numerous efforts stretching back years to address disruptive behavior, that a single topic ban would have been among the mildest outcomes ArbCom could have imposed. I think QG benefitted from being a small part of a larger case and also from their tactical decision to not participate in the case despite being unblocked in order to do so. I didn't comment about this at the PD phase despite thinking about doing so because this topic ban seemed, again, the mildest such remedy for QG and I am not "out for blood" against an editor who has given so much and done a lot in fighting "woo" on Wikipedia. So I have no issue with this remedy, as I'd have had no issue with more severe remedies, and hope QG can find productive ways to edit going forward. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:21, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Barkeep here, and add that what is unfortunate here is that ArbCom simply dealt via remedy with the most obvious, indisputable low-hanging fruit-- yet did not even summarize that entirely in a useful way for arb enforcement. That CFCF cast egregious aspersions was an easy finding. That QuackGuru was "drinking at the last chance saloon since forever" was another easy finding. That DJ editwarred was indisputable-- and yet ArbCom only found him to be edit warring on drug prices, in spite of a long-term history of editwarring on many topics, many issues, and with many editors, including other physician experts, with multiple examples that admins would not block or enforce. And then, the fourth remedy was discretionary sanctions in a very limited area, which will accomplish zero in the matters affecting medical editing. (We already had an RFC that said those prices could be deleted, so no effect here.) So, we basically engaged in six months of good-faith dispute resolution to accomplish what could have been done in a couple dozen diffs, and went backwards on the actual disputes in the drug pricing area, where consensus on the RFC and enforceable remedies on the two parties responsible for drug pricing advocacy were not enacted. Why would any sensible editor again engage dispute resolution, which can simply be ignored, rather than walk away from the content area? Every reliable ArbCom follower I know advised me that the arbs would never enact serious remedies in this case, and I didn't expect realistically or practically that would happen; but neither did I expect to see us move backwards after months of dispute resolution, to end up with not even findings of fact that can be acted upon by admins should the behaviors continue, or that will address the entire suite of issues impacting medical editing. When the arbs agreed to accept the full case (Medicine rather than drug pricing) and relax the word limits, hope was raised that they did intend to pay attention, and yet there are numerous indications on the case pages that most of the arbs weren't even reading. This is a sad misuse of editor time, as expressed elsewhere on this page by Levivich. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:56, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
This isn't quite an accurate summary. Tryptofish asked me a question about a specific piece of "information about automated word recognition". Since there was no link I asked him to clarify what information that was. The case was closed before he could respond, but we followed up at User talk:Joe Roe#Your question to me. In retrospect I don't think I misunderstood anything about Bluerasberry's comment and wouldn't change my vote. To reiterate that vote, the only conclusion I drew from the cited evidence was that Colin has at times commented on the contributor rather than the content of a dispute. Is that in any way in doubt? – Joe (talk) 12:36, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
FoF 6 Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Medicine#Doc James states that "Doc James (talk · contribs) has repeatedly edit-warred[53][54] to add or retain pricing information in articles", but the diffs point to evidence of edit warring that goes well beyond "pricing information".[9] Could the arbs please explain why evidence of extensive edit warring was diffed in the finding, and yet the finding was restricted to only drug pricing? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:44, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
At Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Medicine/Evidence#Referred pages, no clerk or arb responded directly to my question about referred pages in userspace, although David Fuchs did say that referred pages did not need to be moved. I entered several referred pages as evidence, and now am being requested to delete them.[10] It would have been helpful to have been told I needed to subst the evidence at the time the question was asked on talk. Is the old finding referenced by Jo-Jo on my talk still accurate, and considering that I did not receive an answer from a clerk or arb about referred pages, is a courtesy blanking necessary? Deleting the pages will remove evidence, which seems counter-productive and not helpful, particularly after no arb or clerk answered my question about referred pages, and David Fuchs' answer to Colin left the clear impression they were not a problem. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:44, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
The sum of these questions is that communication could be improved, and there were multiple indications that not all arbs were reading the pages or the evidence. Perhaps ArbCom will review its procedures relating to necessary recusals, so that editors asking for recusal do not risk becoming the target of reprisal.
There were around a dozen indications that arbs had not read the evidence or the case pages. Can we expect some internal ArbCom reckoning? If so, I will post my list of the astounding instances of statements made on case pages that clearly indicate parties were not reading the case pages.
Is there an explanation for there not being more active clerking of the case pages, including answers to queries on talk, and removal of diffless allegations? In this ArbCase, a finding about an editor is entered with the arb casting the deciding vote clearly stating they were not aware of the problems with the evidence.
An Arbcase should help end or contain extended disputes that the community cannot resolve, but there are so many loose ends here that I fear that just the opposite will occur. The Principles are not reflected in Findings of Fact or remedies (like reminders), the basic bookkeeping has inconsistencies, and problems may fester as a result. Could the arbs explicitly let me know-- since I did not receive an answer when I asked six weeks ago-- what is the consensus now on referred pages? And since the impression six weeks ago was that they were fine, should the text now be retroactively inserted so the evidence is not blanked? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:49, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Regarding linking to other pages, did you link to a specific version? If so, the link will continue to point to the text you were referring to at that time. isaacl (talk) 20:04, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Which is what I was told at the time, but now I am being asked to delete those pages. Which means diffless aspersions which were cast at me get to remain on the page, while I am expected to delete my response. I would like for the arbs to help resolve this dilemma, since they apparently were not responding to talk page queries during the case. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:44, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
In the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Medicine/Evidence#Referred pages, you asked about linking to subpages of Colin's user page as evidence. If you had asked about analysis that you documented in subpages of your own user page, then I would have advised including it directly on the workshop page, as per standard practice. (Evidence of things that happened can be pointed to; analysis is new and should be part of the case pages.) isaacl (talk) 00:23, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
Not really; Colin asked about his pages. I asked "what happens in the future vis-a-vis arb archives, when evidence is stored in user space?" and indicated that "I also need to build some lengthy evidence in my user space (if I can ever get the WMFLabs tools to cooperate)". I got NO answer from any arb or clerk. End result is that aspersions that were cast at me get to stand on the page, multiple pages, multiple instances, no diffs, but now it appears that my responses may be deleted, along with a lot of evidence in the case (that was possibly never read). If arbs did not even read User:SandyGeorgia/Dyslexia GA diffs, it is no wonder they did not have an FoF of coordinated editing. Reading the evidence helps, and it appears they may not have. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:42, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
I went back and looked at the Dyslexia GA page in this context. What I think is of little importance, but I can imagine a scenario in which Arbs did read it, and were just not persuaded. So I'd also be interested in having a direct reply from Arbs about Sandy's points. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:03, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
That page in isolation says little, but one expected (quite unrealistically, I now see) that all of the arbs would be reading all of the evidence, and that is only a small part of the evidence on that topic. We have multiple instances of Ozzie following James to disputes,[11] (even if he doesn't fully understand those disputes or core medical issues), then we have Ozzie basically acknowledging on arbcase pages that he does follow James to disputes because he is an "elite editor",[12] and then we have an astounding GA pass of an Ozzie article with James claiming it is a poorly researched area (demonstrably false) and using marginal sources like student theses that contain information disputed by secondary reviews, and now two unresolved (yet archived) issues on article talk at Dyslexia. Yet somehow the 2009 ArbCom made a finding of coordinated editing on evidence much thinner than this. The Dyslexia diffs are only significant when viewed in the context of the big picture, and if most of the arbs weren't actually reading the evidence, it is not surprising that one stand-alone page (sans context) shows nothing. Separately, Tryptofish, I am going to wait another day to respond to the rest of the Bookkeeping issues, in the hopes that some arb will actually read this page and respond; I hope you realize I am not ignoring your request, but allowing time for arbs to engage. Which they have not after more than two days ... meanwhile, the lake and the woods at the cabin are good for the soul. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:32, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
Further, I think it's just the way that arbitration works, that case pages end up having negative assertions about editors on them, not all of which are true. If ArbCom does not include those assertions in the final decision as findings of fact, then there is a presumption that the editors who were criticized may not really have been at fault. There is no assumed need for it all to be refuted. And it would be rather strange to go back and scrub all the case pages of every negative assertion that was made. But pages in userspace that specifically focus on assertions of editor wrongdoing really do fall under WP:POLEMIC and WP:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Longevity#Deletion of evidence sub-pages. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:19, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
Although I think a temporary exception would be made if there is still going to be dispute resolution about the content of those pages, along the lines of "ArbCom got it wrong", per what WP:POLEMIC says about timely use. But not beyond that. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:31, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, I re-read that conversation too quickly. Yeah, the development of new text on a user subpage should just be a place to draft; standard practice is to put all new text on the case pages. I suggest to the arbitrators and clerks that the text be moved appropriately. isaacl (talk) 01:46, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
So, we probably need to talk about this. In this arbitration case, the committee decided to try something new and lift word limits entirely. What we hoped by doing that was that people would present evidence more clearly, and that diffs would be accompanied by context, quotations, and analysis to make it easier to understand. While that certainly happened, we also ended up with vast quantities of evidence that was less relevant to the actual substance of the case. Even more problematic was the fact that so much evidence was submitted that it was overwhelming to even read it all. All told, this case had over 52,000 words on the evidence page and 86,000 words on the workshop. Both of these pages are longer than ANI at the time I write this. For further context on just how much information this represents, Moby Dick is about 95,000 words, and takes about 8 hours to read. Suffice it to say, this is an experiment that should not be repeated. 1000 words is clearly not enough – I believe we all agree on that – but unlimited is clearly not the right approach. SandyGeorgia, I'm sorry we weren't able to answer all of your questions. I am confident that we got the final decision right at the end of the day, but the process was harder than it should have been, and there may still be details that were missed. I will draw the rest of the committee's attention to your comments and questions above. – bradv🍁21:15, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for answering, Bradv (and for your attempts during the case to encourage others to actually engage the facts); however, I still need answers to many of my main questions above (the specific ones I asked). Separately, that the Committee decided not to engage or act on an abundance of evidence of the type that would result in sanctions for most regular editors is a different thing than "we also ended up with vast quantities of evidence that was less relevant to the actual substance of the case". That those who decided to make it not relevant had not fully digested the evidence, or decided to ignore it, is why we are left with no workable remedies. This case achieved not one single thing except to remind CFCF not to cast aspersions. Curiously, the Omnibus Case of 2008 was much longer, and those arbs managed to understand Coordinated Editing, digest the big picture, and put up reasonable findings that ended the problem, for good. Perhaps it was because we had a smaller committee in those days, so the arbs had to actually pay attention-- and now with a larger committee, attention is disperse and we end up in this sort of problem, which past committees were able to deal with. Or perhaps the problem is that modern ArbComs are passing their work off on to admins via AE-- and yet in a case this big and with this much misbehavior, how do we expect AE to get their arms around something when ArbCom did not even provide any workable remedies for them to deal with ? We don't have solutions in this case-- just minimal hard-to-understand read-between-the-lines remedies, that don't address a single problem and won't solve a single problem. I suggest that taking more time to digest and understand the full picture would have been better than overlooking evidence, and leaving the clear impression of a marked double standard applied to different kinds of editors. Also, what is the reason for clerks and arbs not keeping up with diffless casting of aspersions? Bluerasberry's type of evidence should never have been used for a finding, particularly not one that prejudiced an editor simply trying to uphold policy, while the fait accompli of those not respecting policy was solidified by the findings and remedies here. I appreciate that you allowed full evidence to be presented, but considering the time available to all of you to read and digest it, saying it was overwhelming (yes, try editing in that environment) so as to avoid addressing the serious problems is not a good way to do business. It is a big problem-- one affecting content that matters-- the community expects and deserves for the Arb Committee to sift through a big problem enough to grasp the nature of just how serious it is. Most editors would be banned from Wikipedia for one-tenth of what is going on here, and yet we end up with a series of non-remedies, combined with a series of uncorrected diffless casting of aspersions on Arb pages. It's just not right for the Arb Committee to punt a case because they couldn't digest it, and yet to lodge a finding based on spurious evidence that was not even read by the arb member who cast the deciding vote. No, I don't think "too much evidence" is a valid excuse for not getting some job-- any job-- done here. Even some minimal remedies or findings of fact that actually relate to the principals-- which the arbs acknowledged-- could help in enforcement. As it stands, this committee left AE nothing workable to enforce that will affect the problem in any meaningful way-- all you did was enshrine five years of fait accompli. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:53, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Bookkeeping continued
I asked Joe Roe some questions about Blue's evidence at Joe's talk page, and there is an interesting discussion there. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:03, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Joe Roe said, In those cases, I'm minded to give more weight on the assessment of a sensible and respected editor like Bluerasberry than to isolated diffs. – Joe (talk) 11:44, 4 June 2020 (UTC). [13] And that is just astounding. Personalities over facts and diffs? This merely confirms-- in black and white-- exactly what was seen throughout this case. The evidence was not difficult to follow or overwhelming-- it just didn't lead where some wanted to go, so we are left with an unsolved problem. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:09, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
More fully, I said, It's extremely difficult to point to a set of diffs when the problem is sustained incivility rather than bright-line instances of misconduct. In those cases, I'm minded to give more weight on the assessment of a sensible and respected editor like Bluerasberry than to isolated diffs. – Joe (talk) 12:38, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
That is still astounding, Joe. You're saying out loud that you're choosing favoritism (giving more weight to a sensible and respected editor) over evidence (isolated diffs). To me, being an impartial arbitrator means you don't treat some editors as more sensible than others. Levivich[dubious – discuss]17:41, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
After two days in the woods at the lake, I still find this too astounding for a collegial response, so I will try tomorrow. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:34, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
Tryptofish, I hope you don't mind that I sub-head this portion, as I still haven't gotten answers (above) to my bookkeeping questions, so don't want to fill up that section with this response. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:27, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
Joe Roe I have been known to miss obvious humor, so kudos to you for the best edit summary ever-- "Please don't quote me out of context"-- in a discussion about you voting in favor of a Finding of fact on Colin based on him being quoted out of context.
Unidentified arb's misconduct is the continuous use of negative tone.
Unidentified arb X routinely speaks with a negative tone. In WikiProject talk pages, this arb says (names masked):
No, please, let's not encourage this absurd escalation of X's WP:IDHT behaviour
He has invented this anally retentive "academic standard"
endless, tedious debate
just another example of ---'s disruptive insistence
his own, "logical" criteria rather than sources
Please, User:X, drop this disruptive and tendentious crusade, or at least try writing an article about Y so you can express an informed opinion.
this becoming seriously disruptive
does not come across as a good faith effort to build consensus.
I think it's your mindset that was the problem there.
to which you responded with even more hostility.
it's absurd to describe
you made serious accusations
or even the courtesy of
based on incorrect assumptions and mischaracterisations
collegiality goes both ways
this kind of "us against them" mentality
all you achieve is to annoy good-faith editors
you are being extremely harsh
using this talk page as a quasi-forum for rants
If that is "evidence", we have arbs (and countless editors) who will fare much worse than Colin under this discredited methodology, and yet Colin has an FoF based on it. It's entirely possible that multiple arbs did not understand the methodological issue, and I note that even Tryptofish (who followed the case closely) was not aware and acknowledged that "Had I known that before the workshop phase had closed, I would have removed my reference to that evidence from my own workshop proposals, but I only realized it after". (A similar recognition by DGG or Joe Roe would not be remiss for the baseless casting of aspersions that remain on the Workshop pages and FoF5 in the final decision.)
The inclusion of Bluerasberry's post as a diff in a proposed FOF raises multiple questions about ArbCom functioning in this case:
How many of the arbs actually read the evidence? Do the arbs typically rely on only the diffs given in the Proposal, or do they read the actual evidence and case pages?
Is it standard for only the drafting arbs to read the evidence?
Why did clerks or arbs not intervene with non-diffed "evidence", which were followed by non-diffed casting of aspersions, multiple times?[14] (Related to why aren't my four questions above being answered by arbs so that I can resolve the matter with Tryptofish?)
How many arbs read the ANI, where they would have been aware of the poor methodology in tone policing even if they missed WAID's later post on talk?
Joe Roe, while you added "it is hard to draw a conclusion about a pattern of behaviour from the evidence we have", you nonetheless cast a deciding vote that explicitly singled out Bluerasberry's evidence, and then expressed an opinion about an involved party (Bluerasberry-- who altered established redirects that pointed to a policy page to point instead to a false statement in an essay he wrote[15]) as a "sensible and respected editor". Generally, if an arb is unable to make a decision based on evidence, or holds strong opinions about involved parties, they should recuse; deciding an FoF without basing it on diffs and evidence is a failure to do the job expected of ArbCom. Isn't the role of an arb to take the opinions of involved parties with a grain of salt, and strictly evaluate the evidence via diffs? One hopes that ArbCom is reviewing its recusal policies after observing these incidents, and the unretracted aspersions cast by DGG in this case. Why do we bother with evidence at all, if arbs are going to decide a finding based on opinions over diffed evidence?
The minimum the community should expect from ArbCom is that evidence will be read, diffs will be used, and arbs and clerks will communicate on and read the case pages; this does not appear to have happened throughout this case, and there are still four questions above that go mostly unanswered three days after I asked them here, and six weeks after I asked them on case talk pages. Thankfully, Isaacl and Paul August (along with Bradv) have offered an opinion; we still need overall resolution of this, considering the communication failures and the number of referred pages in the case evidence. (I used referred pages to spare you all from my endless stream of typo corrections, and had I been informed they would later be deleted, I would have transcluded them.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:02, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
Specifically, to resolve
We have contradictory or incomplete input from case talk pages (Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Medicine/Evidence#Referred pages), feedback from a former arb, feedback from two uninvolved editors, and yet a threat from Tryptofish on my talk about evidence lodged on case pages.[16]. Some resolution is needed because when I asked on case talk, the impression was left that referred pages were acceptable for evidence. Remember-- an Arbcase is supposed to resolve conflict, yet here we have a new conflict, that is directly a result of poor communication on the arbcase. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:17, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
SandyGeorgia, it used to be standard practice for ArbCom to mandate the deletion of evidence subpages once the case is over (example). Even though we did not pass such a remedy here, I would encourage you to follow that precedent. You'll also recall that I substed a few of your evidence subpages onto the actual case once the evidence phase closed, so there shouldn't be a need for these anymore. – bradv🍁22:54, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
@Bradv: that is precisely part of my confusion. Because you decidedly replaced my subst'd pages with the actual text-- while leaving the others intact-- I took that as additional feedback that the referred pages were allowed (as expressed on the case talk pages). Could we hear from more of the committee on this? If we have to delete all the referred pages (I think there are about a dozen), then the case evidence is gutted, and this is a bad precedent to set based on a lack of communication on case pages when the question was first raised. I am quite concerned that you are often the only arb responding and would like to see some Committee functioning, as there will be a lot of confusion just like this as a result of how this case was handled. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:06, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Changing my mind about that. Rather, I think that pages with data about drug prices and so forth are fine, but pages that assert wrongdoing by editors, particularly when the final decision did not treat that as having been wrongdoing, should all be deleted. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:06, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
But likewise, what happens (in the context of Arbs not answering the questions when they were asked, and considering alternate views from Paul August and Isaac) when someone else asks for more evidence to be deleted? I care less about what happens with this specific page of evidence, than what happens with all the referred pages, and what we must to do to get the Committee to engage on Arbcom pages. Also, since you want deletion of that which "the final decision did not treat as having been wrongdoing", do I get to request that DGG's casting of aspersions at me on Workshop pages are also deleted? Or that Bluerasberry's false allegations about me are also deleted? Or that DJ's claim that I "harassed" him with pinging is also deleted? We have a big problem here if we start deleting evidence upon which no findings were based ... and it would be nice for the arbs to answer my four "bookkeeping" questions, particularly when the consensus so far is two independent editors (including a former arb) opining differently than the one arb who has deigned to answer. Considering false charges of harassment via pinging, what must I do here to get an answer ... start pinging arbs, submit a request for clarification as you suggested, send the page to MFD to see what the community says? I cannot figure out the lack of engagement of arbs on this case ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:41, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
@Bradv:, sometimes I know just enough to be dangerous; I hope I am using the term Subst'd correctly. I subst'd transcluded some evidence pages, and linked others. You replaced the subst'd pages with exact text, but left the linked pages as links, which I interpreted to mean the links would stand, consistent with the responses on the Evidence talk page. To my knowledge, there are at least these pages-- there may be others. I am quite concerned that we hear from more of the committee on this, as if we have to delete all of the linked pages, the case evidence is gutted, and we would be doing that because the arbs failed to answer the question when it was directly raised at the talk page of the Evidence page. Could we see more of the arbs engaging on this matter? I am concerned about the lack of engagement throughout this case, and that you seem to be doing all the reading and heavy lifting; that is not optimal ArbCom functioning. Is it the intent of the committee that linked evidence-- which was allowed to stand per talk page queries-- should now be deleted? (I will be making the six-hour drive to my cabin in the morning, and need to load the car now-- I can read and make limited posts from iPhone hotpot on iPad, but nothing significant, so please allow time.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:19, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
With the case done, I would agree with Brad that as much material should be aggregated as possible. Deleted pages aren't a real issue as administrators can view the contents at any time. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchstalk22:21, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
Thanks David, but dumber than I look ... what do you mean with "aggregated"? Bradv asked if there were more transclusions that he missed, and I gave him the list (linked some rather than transcluding, and did all of this to avoid subjecting all of you to my ten-for-one typos), and both Paul August and Isaacl say the evidence should be added to the case pages, so I can delete them from user space. I would like to get this settled in a way that the entire list of evidence pages won't be subject to later deletion. Is that what you mean by "aggregated"? Also, do you have any suggestions as to how I can get answers to my other questions in Bookkeeping? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:05, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
Yes,David, that's everything (with an indication of the three that Bradv already transferred in).[18] I hate leaving you with the work; let me know if I can help or if you want me to do it myself. Also, there is an outstanding faulty link (that is included in the final case decision) described here in case you want to fix it as well. Thanks for responding at what must be a very busy time for ye arbs. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:37, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
Sandy, I hope this will work. There is no need to do anything with the page about FAC, and no need to do anything with Colin's pages that compile drug pricing and sourcing. The only ones to consider moving are ones that assert wrongdoing by named editors. (And you might not even need to do the rest of those unless someone else complains, or unless you want to.) Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:23, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
Sandy and I agree: she should get timely answers to her questions. I'm going to give this another day or so, and if we still have crickets, I'll start a formal request for clarification. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:48, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
I am at a loss for what to do next. Perhaps I am really stupid, or willfully obtuse, or too tired from painting the cabin for days, but I don't know what "aggregated" means. And with the false charges of "harassment" over pinging, I don't want to start pinging all the arbs. I would like to be done with this page and move on, but need to resolve all the referred links. I will be again driving back home for six hours tomorrow, and if there is still no answer the following day, I will post to each arbs' talk page to see if I can get an answer that way. Sorry for the delay, Trypto, but it's not for not trying. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:42, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
That's OK, I don't want to hurry you – and both of us are very eager to be done and move on. (I'm guessing that "aggregated" means some sort of transclusion followed by deletion, but I'm probably wrong.) I think that a clarification request can be better than individual discussions on each user talk page, because it gets everyone in the same place and reduces the problems with contradictory individual answers. In my experience, they feel (understandably) done by the end of a case and tend to pay only passing attention here, but they feel more of a responsibility to respond to a new "request". --Tryptofish (talk) 22:50, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
OK, typing from the computer and connection I have at the cabin is miserable. If there is no answer by the time I am home, I will coordinate with you to develop a clarification request. I have no experience or idea about how that is done or where, will figure it out with you if nothing has changed by Wednesday ... cleaning, closing up cabin, and driving all day Tuesday. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:58, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
PS, by coordinate, I mean that I need to go through and figure out which referred links were already transcluded ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:59, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
That's fine with me. Personally, I'm only looking to ask about the one page that focuses on me. If other editors want to complain about any of the other pages, they will have to do it themselves, because I'm not going to do it for them. I'll make a draft of the request in my user space, and run it past you before I actually post it, so we can more or less agree on what to ask and how to say it. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:07, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
But remember that I am much less concerned about that one page, than I am about what happens if all the referred links must be deleted, which completely guts the page evidence. If we were only talking about your page, the quickest/easiest solution would be to just delete it ... I am worried about the communication problem, and the precedent, and the contradictory answers, and what will happen if all the other referred links must be removed. That is, I would not want to initiate a request for clarification about only one link ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:11, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
In that case, if you would just CSD:U1 the one page about me (my original request on your talk page), I'll drop the entire issue, no muss, no fuss. I don't care about doing anything about the other pages and am fine with leaving them alone. If other editors want to raise more issues, they will have to do it themselves. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:17, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
We may be talking past each other; I am concerned that the arbs should answer the query, and that I not delete one page which would set a precedent for deleting the rest. I have now reviewed those that Bradv subst'd after the Evidence page closed, and updated the list of referred pages at User:SandyGeorgia/sandbox2#Arb data. If we must file a clarification request, I would be asking about all of those pages, which are linked in evidence. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:28, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for clarifying that, and thank you for putting together that compilation of the user pages that you want to ask about. I can see that we have different views and different questions that we want answered, so I think it's best if we each write what we want to write, separately, instead of trying to make a joint statement. The clarification request format makes that easy to do. I'll get it started within the next day or so, and of course I'll notify you right away. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:53, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
Noting, with some sadness, that CFCF has not edited since May 25 and Doc James has not edited since May 30, I want to expand on some things that are in part directed at editors who are sympathetic to them, and in part directed at ArbCom. As it happens, some of this overlaps with the RfC about harassment, but I want to focus more on this specific case.
In the final decision, we have very similar findings of fact about two editors, one of whom received a "reminder", and the other of whom received... a finding of fact. I think that from whatever side one looks at that, it doesn't make for a reassuring result. Some editors will feel that the editor who received no remedy should not have been subjected to a finding either, and others will feel that it was a double standard to only "remind" one of the two editors. It is to the second of those editor groups that I want to offer some advice. (And doesn't a finding of fact, in itself, remind the editor it's about? And yet one editor supposedly needed a further reminder, whereas the other did not.)
First of all, even if you don't like what happened with CFCF and Doc James, it's important that you don't ignore the feelings of editors on the other "side". Don't re-litigate what has already been looked at in this case. What's done is done, and it's time for everyone to move on. And don't fail to engage meaningfully in future discussions. Don't ignore discussions, and don't WP:IDHT. Try to avoid "per"-another-editor comments, and instead say it in your own words. This is important. You don't have to keep repeating what you said, no matter what else is going on, but just say it once.
Call it "bludgeoning" or "filibustering" or "not dropping the stick" or whatever you want, I think it's a failure of this case that it did not get addressed in the final decision. But that doesn't mean that you have to put up with it. There is a finding of fact, and you can cite that at WP:AE under the discretionary sanctions. Maybe AE will deal with it effectively, even if ArbCom didn't (that was the pattern after the GMO case, by the way). Or maybe they won't.
Remember also that ArbCom answers to a higher power. No, I'm not going all biblical on you, but I'm kinda going Walter White. I'm talking about the WMF. (And look at who is on their board of trustees!) There's something going on there that you should find, um, interesting, and you should start paying attention to. It's located here and being discussed at various places, including here. They are taking the position that there is a problem across multiple wikis of "harassment, toxic behavior, and incivility", and they are thinking about ways of doing something about it. En-wiki already has structures in place for dealing with actual harassment. But, in one fish's opinion, en-wiki needs to get better at dealing with incivility and "toxicity" (or whatever one wants to call it). A lot better. And I think that "bludgeoning" and "toxicity" have a lot of overlap. (I'm not saying that anyone should send a super-secret message to T&S if AE disappoints. But Walter White might be.)
As ArbCom knows very well, after the Framgate fiasco ArbCom has firmly and properly taken over responsibility for that stuff here at en-wiki, from WMF T&S, who had proven themselves, um, bad at doing it. But ArbCom, you need to be good at dealing with more than just clear-cut stuff like harassment and obvious personal attacks. I think you should look upon what WMF is doing as something where we all are stakeholders, and you should look hard at reflecting the spirit of what they are talking about, here. And if you don't, I would regard that as a kind of institutional failure that just might require intervention from "above".
Or, here's a novel idea: how about, going forward, editors on all "sides" put the past in the past and just play nice together? That would be the best outcome of all.
And by the way, if anyone ever becomes interested in having a community RfC that actually will resolve the content dispute, User:Tryptofish/Drug prices RfC draft 2 is available under CC by SA for anyone who wants to use it as a starting point, to restart discussions about what such an RfC might be. Just sayin. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:47, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
Tryptofish, Seriously, I do not think any of that is going to get fixed in the absence of a binding mechanism for settling content disputes. Right now the problem seems to be that the only way a long-running content dispute gets definitively resolved is when one or more participants either flames out or quits out of frustration. Guy (help!) 22:46, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
I don't disagree with you. (Remember that during the case request, I recommended declining the case!) I hoped that the definitive resolution you refer to would come out of the decision here, but, no. I'm about as frustrated as one can get, and have pretty much decided to give up on content contribution: why should I donate volunteer time and effort to a project where I feel bad about doing it? I "came back" from "retirement" in the hopes of getting something good to come out of this case, but I still plan to go back to being largely absent once I tie up some loose ends here. It's not for nothing that I talk about institutional failure. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:58, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
Tryptofish, I completely understand. Heads against brick walls, with both sides differing as to which is which. I hoped that a managed RfC would work but that got derailed within minutes by the same circular arguments. And it's no more fixed now. Guy (help!) 20:58, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
It's disappointing but not unexpected. I trust the various arbitrators involved in making this decision will now step up and undertake more routine SPI work. Nick (talk) 08:25, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
It can be tempting to use the CU tool to fish when something doesn't make sense and I know that some editors believe Checkusers act without oversight. Thanks Arbcom for showing that the review process can work and thank you Bbb23 for your precious help over the last 5 years. -- Luktalk08:52, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
If Bb23 "continued to run similar questionable checks, and refused to explain these checks on request" as ArbCom has concluded, why on earth are they still an admin? Someone who's been misusing one set of advanced permissions despite an ArbCom warning should not hold other advanced permissions. Nick-D (talk) 09:08, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
I assume it means that Bbb23 can still block sockpuppets; they just now have to make their reason extra-clearer or get a second opinion for it. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)10:25, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Well, shit. Hopefully the other non-arb CUs share this position. Not being able to see the communications I don't really know which side is right - but CU and SPI are going to take massive hits in the meantime. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:28, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Bbb23 did a huge amount of great work using the CU tool defending the integrity of the project. It's sad to see it end this way, but I respect that we have strict CU policies that must to be enforced. - MrX 🖋11:28, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
+1 "Not being able to see the communications I don't really know which side is right"...the non-Arb checkusers would be in that boat because we don't have all the pieces either. We have seen some communications but not privy to all. I haven't seen enough meaningful dialog between the parties...I've seen a lack of it. Maybe more will come to light on wiki now. — Berean Hunter(talk)11:46, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
A lot of people took up Bbb23's defense when the restriction was handed down in April, but Bbb23 never answered to the community at that time or since their return. Regardless of the amount of work an admin does, they are still accountable for all of their actions. A continuation of the problematic behavior in combination with a refusal to explain their actions rendered this outcome necessary. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 12:16, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Lepricavark, "with a refusal to explain their actions rendered this outcome necessary" is NOT true. He wrote an extended explanation and posted on cu-l a few days ago. Arbcom have stripped his cu bit without replying to it and he has valid points. — Berean Hunter(talk)12:20, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Berean Hunter, Bbb23 was asked to explain 3 checks, with the knowledge that he had been restricted as part of the warning in April, which had been posted in full to the CU list (and in part here). In response, he attacked of members of the CU team based on their comments in April - and stated quite clearly "At the same time, I decided I would not comply with the unfair restrictions." It is regretful that this is the outcome, as Bbb23 was clearly a hard worker and did a lot of good, especially in training, but I cannot see what other options we had available to us. WormTT(talk) 12:32, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
I did not "attack" anyone, let alone CUs. I was attacked in the initial CU-l thread in early April and never responded. Given the latest events, I decided to respond this time. With one exception, all of my comments about specific people were to members of ArbCom, not "real" members of the CU team.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:18, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
What I wrote above isn't quite right. Most of my comments about specific people were indeed about members of ArbCom. Another was directed at someone who is not a CU on en.wiki (they apologized after my comment), and one was about someone who is ostensibly a member of the CU team.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:48, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Berean Hunter: Do you think Bbb23's chosen methods of response: first re-publishingresponding to our email to his talk page and semi-retiring without substantive response to the committee, and now postingcopying a response to CU-L rather than responding to the committee directlyprivately, is part of the reason "meaningful dialog" between the committee and Bbb23 is lacking? –xenotalk12:37, 18 June 2020 (UTC)13:43, 18 June 2020 (UTC)14:12, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Bbb23 never republished an e-mail, although he discussed it. But let's just say he had--so what? Why is that being brought up? What does his sharing that e-mail, or its contents, have to do with his checkuser-related behavior or his direct communication with the Arbs? In fact, why was it brought up just now at all? Because that stinks of an implication that the removal of the CU was at least in part a retaliatory measure, because ArbCom was butthurt that their own poorly-considered communication and shaky awareness of CU procedures and policies was exposed to the larger community. Please clarify now why Bbb23's talkpage is being brought up in terms of what is supposed to be a decision based on CU behavior and ArbCom-directed communication. Because right now it stinks, and any ArbCom member who based even part of their decision on Bbb23's talkpage, should step down now. I'd like to believe, given the unanimous vote, that this isn't the case, but this is a pretty petty mention of a completely unrelated, unsanctionable action on Bbb23's part. Grandpallama (talk) 13:30, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Grandpallama, I think Xeno was just commenting on the reasons why meaningful dialogue between Bbb23 and the committee was difficult, not saying that Bbb23 making things public was part of the rationale for this decision. I would reject the idea that this was in any way retaliatory – it was based on a lengthy investigation that spanned at least two committees, and it was clear at this point that there was no further progress to be made. – bradv🍁13:39, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Bradv, why meaningful dialogue between Bbb23 and the committee was difficult is a problematic explanation. Because whether or not Bbb23 responded to ArbCom directly is allegedly the problem. Blaming that poor communication, in part, on his decision to share what was going on with the community is ugly and wrongheaded. Even though you put it in a clearer fashion here, the fact that Bbb23 did what he did on his talkpage should in no way have impacted ArbCom's attempts to contact him, and suggesting that its sharing impacted his attempts to communicate with ArbCom is pure speculation and, again, irrelevant to the decision. It has an absolute chilling effect on the idea that CUs or admins can be transparent with the community, because their actions might be held against them, whether directly or indirectly (as apparently is the case here). Do you understand why bringing this up as any part a contribution to ArbCom's thinking is not okay? Grandpallama (talk) 13:49, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Grandpallama We did contact Bbb23, again, privately. Bbb23 did not respond to the committee directlyprivately, instead choosing to reply viacc: CU-L. We also contact other checkusers privately from time-to-time, none of whom refuse to justify their checks upon request as required by policy. –xenotalk13:53, 18 June 2020 (UTC)14:12, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
First, it was clear that I was responding to the Committee as well as through CU-l. Second, I did address the latest three checks brought up by the Committee. I said that they were knowing "violations" of the restrictions that the Committee had imposed on me. I have not sought to expand CU policy. The Committee has narrowed it.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:01, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
The flip side, which the community really should scrutinise, is just how much ArbCom is at fault for the "communication breakdown" here. It is time we started to understand how good and how bad each of the individual arbitrators are in this respect. We're really rather limited in how we can decide on individual arbitrator performance, particularly away from case pages. Nick (talk) 13:55, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Grandpallama, I do understand and appreciate your concern, but Bbb23 bringing our email up onwiki did not weigh in on our decision. When he emailed us a few days ago to say that he would not comply with the restrictions, nor would he justify the checks we had questions about – that left us in a tough spot. – bradv🍁13:57, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Bradv, then it should never have been mentioned. Because what you've done is taken a potentially unpopular but understood decision, that I and most others probably would have accepted at face value, and introduced a cloud of doubt where none needed to be. I don't doubt at all that Bbb23 failed to respond to Arbcom, as Xeno repeats above, and if you'd all just left it there, fine. Bringing up unrelated stuff, frankly, convinces people that unrelated stuff was considered in addition to the relevant stuff. I'm now bothered by this decision in a way that I was not at first, and I suspect I'm not the only person. Grandpallama (talk) 14:03, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
And, for the record, there's a big difference between what the committee discussed and officially used to base its decision, and what individual arbitrators may have been thinking about; I now have an uncomfortable feeling that may have been at play here. Like I said, if any arbitrator was thinking about Bbb23's decision to discuss sanctions at his talkpage as part of their vote, whether they revealed it or not, they should step down. Grandpallama (talk) 14:07, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Grandpallama, It was a factor in my decision making. Not because I felt in any way aggrieved by his decision to reply on-wiki - I felt it it was his right to do so and stand by the email that was sent to him. The reason it was a factor is that it was clear to me that we would not be able to have an "unofficial" dialogue with Bbb23 - there would be no possibility of the "quiet word" style feedback. No opportunity for him to course correct. Even so, the committee still attempted to contact him privately, for the quiet word - I sent that email myself. Bbb23 responded in a similar manner to before, upping the ante. So, yes, his communication style has been a factor in my decision, responding on wiki exemplifying that. While I am unwilling to step down for that at the moment, I offer you a route to show me that I am wrong in that thought process WormTT(talk) 14:17, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
I am thoroughly disappointed to hear an arbitrator, particularly one that I respect, say that Bbb23's communication "style" was a factor, rather than simply focusing on the content (or lack thereof) in his communications about his use of the checkuser tool and in his use of the tool itself. Grandpallama (talk) 14:29, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Grandpallama, perhaps if I put it more simply - removal was my absolute last choice. But Bbb23's choices in communication closed all other doors to me. WormTT(talk) 14:41, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
I am, of course, unaware of anything that Bbb23 has posted to the private mailing list in question. As such, I took the arbs statement at face value when they said he had refused to explain his checks. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 12:56, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
You've been around long enough, why would you take anything the Arbitration Committee ever says at face value ? Nick (talk) 13:34, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Because I have no reason to believe they are lying. In this particular case, ArbCom extensively discussed this matter with the community when it first arose in April. Bbb23 didn't. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 14:04, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
I am a member of the cu-l list in question (as a Steward and CU on another project). I've no axe to grind. The arbs statement here is accurate. QuiteUnusual (talk) 13:47, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, but I don't quite understand this situation. I do appreciate ArbCom - they have made some very difficult decisions and I commend them for it. I'm just perplexed about the decision with Bbb23. He never doxxed anyone; rather, he simply did his job to stop disruption the best way he knew how, and was quite successful at it, which was a positive for the community. A quote by President Obama comes to mind and serves as a good analogy for how I view sockpuppetry: The only people who don’t want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide. Suspicion is as good as guilt in that the suspect is not trusted. Anonymity itself brings a level of distrust when there is disruption and obvious ill-will. Socks who are really good at hiding tend to create disruption in our community, and I can only imagine how difficult they are to track down. Did we not just desysop an admin for having multiple socks? I wonder if the type of anonymity that permits such protection for socks is truly a positive for the project? Bbb23 was one of our best sock hunters, and he will surely be missed. AtsmeTalk📧12:44, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Atsme: Editors are guaranteed a certain level of privacy, and assurances are made to editors of this project that those with access to advanced permissions will not access their personally identifying information without good and justifiable reasons. We asked Bbb23 to justify some of the checks he ran upon his return, and Bbb23 refused to explain those checks (instead pleading their case to CU-L as to why they intended to not comply with the Arbitration Committee's guidance on the subject). A checkuser who is unwilling to comply with the local and global policies for use as interpreted by the body responsible for the same, and unwilling to follow guidance from that overseeing body, is not one that can be sustained - no matter their popularity, efficacy, or volume of work. Some have expressed that they believe the criteria for checking users should be expanded, however the correct way to go about this is by a widely advertised and well-attended RfC (keeping in mind that the global checkuser policy will still reign), not by disregarding the policy as it exists today. –xenotalk13:11, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Xeno, yep, I created a second alt-account and posted on there and asked a question about how to get privileges setup from my main account, or if that's possible, etc. Bbb23 shows up and right away says that he already knows who I am and everything about me. The only way that's possible is if he ran a CU. I believe that running a CU in that case is against policy since I already declared that it's a valid alt-account and I wouldn't edit in areas I shouldn't and I was going to edit only for a specific reason, yet how did Bbb23 know who I was without running a CU? That was a violation of privacy and policy. Sir Joseph(talk)15:06, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Why or how that was problematic isn't clear to me. How would an admin grant the alt account the rights of the main account without first establishing the identity of the main account and confirming the connection between the two? Moreover, it seems to me that someone creating an alt account, declaring it's valid, and asking for a number of user rights to be granted is the sort of behavior that genuine socks or LTAs engage in. Unless I'm missing something, the scenario as described here seems like exactly the sort that would incline someone to run a CU. Grandpallama (talk) 15:40, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
We have had socks try to use the alt-account trick to gain permissions before. I would simply ask the main account to make a certain edit to prove that they are genuine, but if I was a checkuser I dare say I'd run a swift check to ensure validity, I don't see that would be a violation. Black Kite (talk)15:45, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Black Kite, except that is not how it went down. He apparently ran a CU already. All I did was ask on the talk page how to do it and go about the process. He then said, I already know who you are. There was no asking permission to run a CU. Sir Joseph(talk)17:57, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Ask permission of whom? And, presumably, the request on the talkpage generated the decision to run a CU in order to know how to respond to you. Again, it's unclear how this was inappropriate. Grandpallama (talk) 18:19, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Can anyone give a cogent explanation as to what is legitimate suspicion of sockpuppetry and what is "fishing"? And how do you draw the line? Bbb23 clearly believed he was acting within his discretion, and according to his talk page updates is angry and upset that the Committee have taken a different view. P-K3 (talk) 12:54, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Worm That Turned, the list that Brad gave is of things that are obviously fishing; I'm more intrigued by "The committee additionally imposed specific restrictions on Bbb23's use of the CheckUser tool in ambiguous cases otherwise considered to be within the discretion of individual CheckUsers", specifically (and considering WP:BEANS), what is an ambiguous case that isn't fishing? Are we talking about circumstantial evidence like interleaving editing patterns or use of language? Black Kite (talk)15:05, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Black Kite, these discretionary cases generally involve new accounts that may be a returning editor, but there is no evidence of disruption nor any idea who the related account might be. For a check to be valid there needs to be credible suspicion of abuse of multiple accounts, not just suspicion of the use of multiple accounts. So for example, a new account asking a question at the TEAHOUSE, voting on an RFA, editing a contentious topic, or asking for help from an administrator should not be checked simply because they might be a returning user – there must be evidence of some sort of disruption. These are the types of checks that we asked Bbb23 to avoid, which he declined to do. – bradv🍁16:44, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
As a Starter for 10 I'd like to ask Bbb23 to expand on why they used rollback here on what appears to be a good faith (if flowery and unsourced) edit per WP:ROLLBACKUSE. Of course, this is minor nit-picking and I have no opinion on the actual substance of the revert at all, except we might pillory an RfA candidate for doing this. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)13:25, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
(e/c) This isn't ANI; it has clerks. Surely one of them will try to prevent this from becoming a "list of things I don't like about Bbb23" thread. He's got a talk page, you know. You should remove it yourself before then, though. --Floquenbeam (talk) 13:32, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
He gave an explanation in the edit summary so complied with ROLLBACKUSE (whether or not you agree he was rolling back a "disruptive" edit). Quite what this has to do with the revoking of his CU permission I'm not sure.-- P-K3 (talk) 13:33, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
When are we going to be provided with the necessary supplementary statistics concerning Bbb23's CU tool usage, so we can see the total number of actions which fall outside of policy and which blocks have been made as a result of that tool usage outside of policy. We need to know how many of those blocks, if any, are erroneous and how many of those blocks, if any, are correct. We also need to know what does the committee propose to do in the case of sockpuppets which have been blocked as a result of tool misuse by Bbb23, will it be endorsing all of the CU blocks made by Bbb23 resulting from improper tool usage ? Nick (talk) 13:48, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
I don't agree that the supplementary statistics are necessary, the committee has made it clear that it has found a portion of Bbb23's checks to be "fishing", and Bbb23 unwilling to stop making those sorts of checks. As usual, CU blocks can be appealed to the committee, and if we find the block to be wanting, we will overturn it as we have done in the past. In an ideal world, every check would be reviewed proactively, however pragmatically, this is not possible. WormTT(talk) 14:05, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
I find this answer deeply unsatisfactory. Bbb23, as a checkuser, is answerable to the committee, acting on behalf of the community. That arrangement exists because checkusers cannot be directly answerable to the community. You, as an arbitrator, are acting as our proxy in this matter. The maximum amount of relevant information, including the statistics I've asked for, should be provided so the community can make an informed judgement about what has happened here and to possibly pursue further sanctions. I asked about and I'm specifically interested in the number of blocks (if any) which are a result of tool misuse but which have identified a user or users failing to abide by our policies here. Nick (talk) 14:19, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I don't see how statistical analysis is of any benefit, not after ArbCom "found a portion of Bbb23's checks to be "fishing", and Bbb23 unwilling to stop making those sorts of checks". You don't get off with refusing to follow the rules based on how many times you didn't break them in the past. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:30, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, I don't see any need for this, and I have absolutely no doubt that the series of events unfolded as they've been presented to us. Bbb23 hasn't really disputed anything other than some minor details. Grandpallama (talk) 14:34, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
If I read Nick right, he's also concerned that there may be some people who were blocked unfairly due to violations of the checkuser policy. This is not something I have an answer for, but it is something we will continue to evaluate when we hear appeals. – bradv🍁14:37, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
It might be tricky knowing how to deal with an appeal by a genuine sock who was uncovered the wrong way. But I doubt we'll see too many such appeals. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:50, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Yes, I didn't think that one through, did I . My apologies: the comment was not meant to be a comment on you, but to be more general to the question people were asking above about CU blocks of socks if ArbCom didn't think the check was within policy. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:14, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
That's absolutely one issue I'm interested in, Bradv. I'm not out to defend Bbb23. They're capable of defending themselves (or maybe not, as it turns out). I'm interested in those who can't defend themselves (the potentially unfair blocks). I'm interested in just where blame should be apportioned in this case (how much of the communication breakdown is Bbb23 and how much is ArbCom). I'm curious as to whether an RfC to marginally expand CU tool usage is worth further consideration, and I'm really, really, really interested in how the tool usage might be impacted by some of the proposed changes to privacy WMF are working through right now. Nick (talk) 14:53, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Nick, I don't see how it's possible to compile such statistics. Even if one of us had the time to comb through all of Bbb23's CU and block logs (I certainly don't), there is no objective way to determine whether his finding was correct. Nor could we accurately calculate the proportion of his checks that were unjustified without extensive manual investigation and Bbb23's cooperation in explaining his reasoning. More to the point, such statistics would not be relevant because the concern here isn't that Bbb23 has blocked people in error, it's that he has been unjustifiably invading the privacy of users who were never blocked and never knew about it.
Similarly, I don't think it would make sense to review Bbb23's blocks that haven't been appealed. Because we're not a court, we're not going to unblock people who were abusing multiple accounts just because the initial check was problematic, and we have no evidence that Bbb23's error rate with CU blocks is above average. – Joe (talk) 15:27, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
It sucks, Bbb was a great checkuser and IMHO we'll be worse off without him ... but on the other hand policies etc have to be respected, It's a shame it had to end this way, –Davey2010Talk14:13, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
One thing that's clear to me from all this is that no matter how carefully ArbCom might work to enforce policies, no matter how delicate they might try to be in addressing an issue like this, and no matter how much they might try to clarify what happened - they'll still always get shit thrown at them. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:26, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
As one of the likely shit-throwers you are referencing, I just wanted to clarify that while I saw this as an unhappy outcome, I wasn't at all bothered until a particular response to Berean Hunter's point raised a specific red flag. I think ArbCom has a tough job and a largely thankless series of tasks, and I appreciate that they take them on. Grandpallama (talk) 14:52, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Grandpallama, may I suggest that the suggestion that arbs need to resign if they thought a certain way is not appreciating that they take it on. It might not be unfair (spoiler: I think it is unfair in this instance but acknowledge it as something where reasonable minds might disagree) but it is certainly not a demonstration of appreciation. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:14, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
I don't want to derail things by starting up another version of this thread, but the underlying argument was that ArbCom members who vote a certain way as retaliation should resign. By analogy, my absolute belief that law enforcement needs to be purged of a large number of officers does not invalidate my ability to appreciate that law enforcement is a tough and often thankless job. One can appreciate the difficulties of a job and the willingness of people to do it while also expecting that those who demonstrate unfitness should step down; appreciation does not equate to unquestioning support of all individuals. As you say, though, it's an area where reasonable minds can disagree. Grandpallama (talk) 15:27, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Boing! said Zebedee, as stressful as it is at times, I really wouldn't have it any other way. This is a consensus-based project, and we all need to be accountable to someone. The people who volunteer to serve on ArbCom agree to be held accountable by the entire community, with all its various opinions and communication styles. I still consider that a feature. – bradv🍁14:56, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
I'm sorry to see this; any event of this sort is clearly sad. I don't want to pass judgement on the administrative work of Bbb23, because I'm neither extensively familiar with it, nor with his use of CU and the surrounding controversy here - so I'll state very clearly that the following is a question, and explicitly not a proposal. With that disclaimer out of the way, as Bbb23 has above stated that he "knowing"ly broke Arbcom restrictions, is it appropriate that he keep his status as a sysop? I genuinely don't know the answer to this; I wonder what those with far more tenure than I think on the matter. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 14:50, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Oh well, if he'd done what he was asked to do (which isn't unreasonable), and took onboard the constructive criticism a few months ago, we wouldn't be here now. LugnutsFire Walk with Me14:52, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
What a fucking mess. ArbCom needs to learn to communicate better, because it seems the community continues to be blindsided by these announcements. I get it - sometimes ArbCom has to do things that are unpopular. Bbb23 especially does a lot of great work in combating UPE socking / SEO socking. I'm pretty big on the rights of anonymous/IP editors on this project, having been one for a very, very long time before I created my account and I can understand the privacy concerns that come wiht potential 'fishing expeditions', but it's so obvious that Bbb23 does not understand/is not convinced by the reasons for these restrictions. This isn't some disruptive asshole, this is a user who's working in good faith to further the goals of the project, and who is in good standing with the community. ArbCom needs to make more of an effort to make sure their defence of decisions involving such users is rock fucking solid, or we're just going to further erode trust in what seems to be the least respected rendition of the Arbitration Committe in YEARS. I don't necessarily disagree with the decision, but I sure as hell disagree with how it's being fed to the community. -- a they/them | argue | contribs15:16, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Out of curiosity what committee is the most respected in years? I ask because I'm confident I will be able to find multiple respected editors saying something about how that committee has lost all respect and/or similarly comparing it unfavorably to other committees. I think you could fault ArbCom for a bunch of things but not for a failure to communicate where their line in the sand was with this issue. If anything when we were here last for Bbb there was some agreement, even among arbs, that the line in the sand was too harshly communicated in terms of the full context. So that point was communicated and heard. It might not have been the right line to draw but Bbb knew where it was and decided they would not abide by it. This then left ArbCom with a decision. This might have been a failure to draw the line in an appropriate place but it is not, as far as I can tell, a failure of communications. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:27, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
@Alfie: Do you have any specific examples of communication failures in this case? How could we have done better? – Joe (talk) 15:47, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
As a member of the community, I would have liked to see some statistics RE: Bbb23's overall CU rate and failure rate presented as part of the original announcement. I'm also not a fan of individual Arbs jumping into the discussion and defending their actions blow-by-blow; I would much prefer the Arbs treated this as a community consultation of sorts, and prepared a unified response. Finally, although I'm not privy to the complexities of this case (nor do I particularly want to be), it does seem that the CU team were also blindsided by this announcement. I feel like the CUs should have been much more involved in this discussion since they have a lot more experience with day-to-day use of the CU tools and the challenges that CUs face. Restricting a user who was acting in the interests of the project doesn't actually do anything to help the community and the project, and without any evidence that what Bbb23 was doing was harmful to members of the community or the project... I can't see why this restriction is the only option. -- a they/them | argue | contribs15:56, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Alfie, the checkuser team (global team, in fact) had a period of some days to digest and respond to Bbb23's response to our email to him. –xenotalk16:12, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
The checkuser team was not elected for the purpose of peer review, ArbCom was. Many checkusers were not elected at all but were rather selected for their technical skills. I would oppose efforts to amend WP:ARBPOL to include the CU as a formal consulting body (as that's essentially what this would take). Checkusers are not accountable to the community in the way that arbitrators are, in part because being a checkuser is an indefinite appointment where as being an arbitrator comes with a definite 1 or 2 year term. I think criticizing or giving difficult feedback to a peer is hard enough already and if we moved to a system of shared responsibility there would be less accountability and it would be done by people with no community mandate. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:08, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
I think, rather than Bbb23's use of rollback, what is more relevant to this discussion was their communication (or lack thereof). It is probably true that the committee needs to improve its communication (that goes, traditionally, for all committees!) but it goes both ways. And that Bbb23's on occasion could have been improved has been mentioned above. While I noticed it on and off many years ago (who hasn't?), one particular incident seemed to demonstrate their whole approach. On 26 February last year, DannyS217 requested consideration as an SPI clerk ([23]). Bbb23 removed the request a few hours later with the edit summary "no thank you"([24]). DannyS217 then requested an explanation for the removal on Bbb23's talk page ([25]); this request went unanswered for a week. I answered him a week later (a reasonable answer too, I thought, but hey ho [26]). This was undone by Bbb23 within the minute. ([27])The point here isn't the issue itself—which if it had been important would have been raised elsewhere—but that it's indicative of an approach. Even if ADMINACCT wasn't relevant to Bbb23's original removal of DannyS217's post (and I think it would be reaching, to say the least, to argue that a CU removing a post from an SPI page isn't an admin action), not providing a response to a polite and reasonable talkpage request is either poor or bizarre. (Or both—DS272 couldn't tell you to this day why he's not a clerk and that's for the simple reason that a) he wasn't told, and b) when he asked, he wasn't told). A heightened willingness to simply talk to others—and not just in edit-summaries—might, with hindsight, have gone some way towards avoiding the situation we find ourselves in today.)In other news, I assume they're having a party on WO... ——Serial#15:39, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
"A heightened willingness to simply talk to others—and not just in edit-summaries—might, with hindsight, have gone some way towards avoiding the situation we find ourselves in today.)" Exactly what I wanted to say, but better. Cheers. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)15:45, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Ah! Apologies DannyS712, how far did I mathematically downgrade you?! ;) btw, I deliberately used the noping template, as although your edits were central to the story, you were not, as they were of an illustrative nature. Hope all's well, ——Serial#18:35, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
I agree completely agree this is a sad moment for the English Wikipedia community and especially those of us who respect Bbb's contributons to that community. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:08, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
I was quite mad when this first became public. I respected Bbb23's decision to stop using the CU tools over disagreement in interpreting the guiding policies with the only body responsible for overseeing the use of it. But, then coming back to continue as before, I don't see how they could have expected any other outcome. Bbb23 may be right on the interpretation (IIRC at least some CUs share their position) especially considering CUs have experience while arbs automatically get handed the tools as a result of a popularity contest, but this is the system we have got, and one-person activism isn't how things get changed here. Seeing support from a great number and diverse group of arbs for the motion is good enough for me, considering those are the ones whom the community has trusted and entrusted the decision to and I have no way of having a full-picture of the evidence. Since Bbb23 disagreed with the interpretation of ArbCom, they should have tried to get the matter officially clarified through change in the relevant guidelines that were the source of the confusion. They ought not to have tried to force their interpretation over ArbCom's; ArbCom always supersedes individual editors, and therefore always wins. Huge huge loss to Wikipedia; going by how often we crossed paths despite not seeking out interaction in over a year, not a dozen CUs could take over for them. Thanks to Bbb23 for their invaluable service, and ArbCom for not shying away from what they obviously would have known would be a highly controversial decision at best. Usedtobecool☎️15:52, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
This is one of the more cogent summaries of what has occurred that I've read. There's no doubt that I pushed the envelope and left ArbCom no choice, from their perspective, to either completely back down (not gonna happen) or to revoke my privileges. I didn't seek to change policy because I don't think the current policy is wrong, just ArbCom's interpretation of it. I also didn't see the point of expending the effort (I'm not a quixotic person). One of the principal reasons I responded on CU-l was to hopefully trigger a discussion about ArbCom's actions by other CUs. Secondary motives were to correct the record and to respond to personal attacks. I'm not sure how much more I'm going to respond here. Some of this discussion is physically distressing to me (I realize that's my problem, no one else's).--Bbb23 (talk) 16:02, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Have more faith in your abilities to persuade ArbCom (and other CUs) to amend their interpretation of existing policy (which I think is the issue). Few people on the project know more about this subject than you, so perhaps if you discussed it more, and took people through your thinking, you might find you are more successful than you expected? You have put incredible time and effort into this area, why not take time (e.g. stop any other activity; you backed ArbCom into a corner by still doing CU's while starting that discussion, which is only going to have one outcome), to bring people through your understanding of how this should work? Everybody would benefit. Britishfinance (talk) 16:11, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
One part of Usedtobecool's comment isn't correct, and gives another option to Bbb23: ArbCom isn't the only body overseeing CU, there's also OmbCom. Their global authority supersedes our enwiki remit and indeed they're responsible for overseeing our use of nonpublic data. I don't think there's a formal route to appeal ArbCom permissions decisions to OmbCom; but if Bbb23 wanted to seek their opinion on his checks and interpretation of policy, I for one would be happy to be bound by it. – Joe (talk) 16:36, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Bbb23, I'm sorry that you are feeling really distressed. While I don't know enough about the innerworking behind the Committee's decision to comment on that further, I would still like to thank you for your tireless, voluminous contributions to the project as a CU. Best wishes, El_C01:08, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
@Bbb23: You once said to me something along the lines of "self care is more important than Wikipedia". If this site is causing you physical and mental distress, then it isn't worth your time. Take care. Sro23 (talk) 03:49, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Section break 1
I have read the decision and understand the circumstances that led to it. I have respect for the members of the Arbitration Committee and their views in this case. Notwithstanding this, I do find myself saddened to be seeing it here today. Throughout his tenure, Bbb23 was one of our most helpful checkusers—this is not an endorsement of any questionable checks that Bbb23 ran; it is merely a description of a situation, one that can be appreciated by anyone who has been active at WP:SPI in the last few years. Despite our disagreements on policy, I don't think anyone here has ever doubted Bbb23's good intentions—he has volunteered many hours of many days to protect the project from harm. For this reason, I am also adding my name to the list of users who are thanking Bbb23 for his long service. Mz7 (talk) 17:59, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
This is unfortunate to say the least, it's also difficult to be aware of the exact situation and know the "right" side when you aren't privy to almost all the information. I've voted for some of the elected arbs recognizing their knowledge of Wikipedian "jurisprudence" as well as had the privilege of working alongside Bbb23 for many years. I had hoped back in April that the situation wouldn't come down to losing a valuable CU but that seems to be the end result. For whatever it's worth, thank you for your service. --qedk (t愛c)18:22, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
I guess before pontificating I should first thank Bbb23 for his years of dedication, and thank ArbCom for making a hard decision. There are enough ArbCom members that I am familiar with and respect to know this decision wasn't out-and-out crazy; they would have said something, I think. It's just a shame. I wonder if anyone higher up the totem pole has ever considered hiring a couple of actual honest-to-God professional mediators. No proof, of course, but I still can't help but feel that what this really needed was the calm intervention of someone whose judgement both ArbCom and Bbb23 respect. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:31, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
For this reason, I am also adding my name to the list of users who are thanking Bbb23 for his long service. Ditto that. Bbb23 did so much good work here with his CU bit. It was very much appreciated. (Side note: I don't understand, in the world of decent AI and automated scripts, which we would have not have some part of the CU process done blindly by an automated process. There really isn't any reason for the SPIs that turn up a three or more socks via CU. Those should have been privately flagged to admins, or prevented automatically. Anyway, I digress.) Thanks Bbb23.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 18:39, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
I'm sad it came to this. Perhaps more than calling attention to individual editors and their willingness to color inside the lines, this should be an opportunity to consider loosening the rules on checkusers? Despite going beyond what was allowed, Bbb23 performed excellent service catching and disrupting sockpuppet pools, especially the ones associated with paid editing rings. With fewer checkusers and the remaining ones presumably behaving in a more circumscribed way, these problem users are likely to expand their activities. We should think about what more can be done to prevent that while continuing to protect the privacy of our legitimate editors. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:41, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
I've got to say that for all the stress and probably missteps made (perhaps by all sides), I'm pleased that Bbb23 and Arbcom are communicating clearly and without shouting or name calling. If only the US government could manage that. Seriously, though I suspect things could, and should, have come out better, I'm impressed with Bbb23 and those members of arbcom discussing things here. Thanks folks for being adults in the room. Hobit (talk) 21:53, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
ll I can do is repeat what I said recently on a case request: There is something very wrong going on at ArbCom. Without further information it's next to impossible to know what it is exactly, but from the outside, it appears to me that the current ArbCom is more concerned about looking strong to the WMF in regard to "harassment" complaints than it is with actually protecting English Wikipedia from the various forces that threaten it, such as rampant sockpuppetry, PoV editing, copyright violations, etc. This latest decision is one of a piece with the desysopping of Brown Haired Girl, the earlier warning to Bbb23, and other recent decisions. I would urge the Wikipedia community that if any of the current members of ArbCom plan to run for re-election this year, they should not be supported. I would also urge the current members of ArbCom whose terms are up this year not to run for re-election, and avoid what could be a serious dust up at ACE2020. I believe that the Wikipedia community deserves better from its Arbitration Committee than what it's currently getting. and I hope to do my part in correcting the situation at the appropriate time.In the meantime, thank you, Bbb23, for your many years of faithful service in protecting the community. I'm very grateful for your actions, as I'm sure many other Wikipedians are as well. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:56, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
There's really no point including a 'we can't know exactly what's going on' disclaimer if you're still going to call for a complete overhaul of ArbCom. Nobody, regardless of popularity or prolific use of the tools, is above policy and there is no justification for confusing ArbCom's enforcement of policy with some misguided desire to appease the WMF. While nobody expects you or anyone else to be happy when a wikifriend gets sanctioned, you seem to be alleging that there is something sinister about the arbs doing the job that they were elected to do. I agree that rampant sockpuppetry, PoV editing, copyright violations are all serious problems, but none of them justify misuse of the checkuser tool. You are entitled to your own views regarding the suitability of our arbs, but for my own part I urge those who are up for reelection to run again because I am impressed by their willingness to make tough, reasonable decisions. If we vote out a committee that's willing to do its job, we'll end up with a committee that isn't. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 10:30, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, you're right, as usual. The President just cruise missiled Luxembourg, but we can't possibly know all the information he was using to make his decision, so we should just accept it and not complain. In fact, let's give him a resounding three cheers for being willing to make the hard decisions.Pfffft. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:56, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Beyond My Ken, Lepricavark makes a well-reasoned argument. Even if you disagree, you should not dismiss it offhand. Hyperbole is also probably not helpful. El_C15:48, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Beyond My Ken, you didn't really address any of the components of his argument, which is why I got that impression. El_C15:58, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
I praised the arbs for being willing to make tough, reasonable decisions. Unless you think it would be reasonable for the president to attack Luxembourg, the parallel doesn't seem to fit. Or perhaps you were arguing that ArbCom sanctioning a CU for refusing to comply with a restriction is equivalent to one nation waging warfare against another nation. Neither interpretation of your analogy seems particularly promising. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 16:57, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
An unfortunate result but necessary given the circumstances. Thank you arbcom members for being able to make the tough decisions time after time. ZettaComposer (talk) 01:56, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Replied to a removed comment: Exactly, the whole story isn't knowable to us. So I agree that good faith should be extended to the Committee, as well as to Bbb23. I, not being familiar with this or the other cases mentioned, am at least inclined to do so. But opposing the Committee is also legitimate, if that opposition has basis. El_C03:00, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
A sad day for the English Wikipedia. I would like to thank the ArbCom for taking what has been a particularly difficult decision, and I would like to also thank Bbb23 for his long services as a CheckUser against sockpuppetry here. JavaHurricane02:47, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
The biggest thing that Bbb23 is guilty of is burnout. He's not the first long-term enwiki CU to do this, and I noticed his patience decreasing since I worked with him as a SPI clerk. I suspect the communication issues and questionable decisions stemmed from there. --Rschen775403:58, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
I can only imagine the sheer joy that is being felt by thousands of editors over this wrist slap Arbcom has administered to Bbb23 — or should I say would be felt if they were not effectively banned by some action of Bbb23’s. Does any other admin have more “wiki-blood” on their hands? Assuming that his blocks have been entirely correct (and I have little reason to suspect otherwise) is it healthy for Wikipedia, Bbb23, and the admin corps in general to have so few block so many? Perhaps that’s a discussion that should happen. That man from Nantucket (talk) 05:48, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
the fuckety fuck! Even though i dont know most of the "non public/hidden" communication, and other stuff; I am on bbb's side in this one. Also, soon the SPI will have a hit. —usernamekiran (talk)23:03, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
So ArbCom restricted Bbb23's checking to non-disrectionary cases. appreantly not easy to define. Maybe checking only when an SPI clerk endorses a request for check? I found 14 instances where Bbb23 presented CU results without SPI clerk endoresement, after the ArbCom warning.
This does not imply I am taking sides, and I'm not sure if this relates to what is going on. I won't comment any further, but it appears the 2020 ArbCom is a mess. What will happen in the next 6.5 months? {{reply to|Can I Log In}}'s talk page! 05:14, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
Unless logged on-wiki at someplace such as SPI, checks are not visible to non-checkusers. In other words, there is probably more going on than you or I can see. ♠PMC♠ (talk)05:52, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
diff Not sure is this is getting more serious or perhaps it is just venting but User:Bbb23 is now taking admin actions in regards to sock investtigations and starting his actions with , I shouldn't be helping out here, which seems not a good start when he then uses his admin tools. It is not hard, just agree with yourself and back away from this wiki work completely @Bbb23: Bit dissapointing also to see an admin Tony Ballioni encouraging use Bbb23 in this Govindaharihari (talk) 06:13, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
Why is it disappointing that I pointed out that he should talk to DoRD about whiskey and Ponyo about wine? If you’re saying it’s disappointing that RadiX is the only steward I know who can give good drink recommendations, I agree, but we unfortunately do not elect stewards on their taste in beverages. Bbb23 is a friend. Like many people here, I’m generally saddened by this whole situation and was trying to be kind to him, another human being. Kindness generally being something this project could use more of. TonyBallioni (talk) 06:54, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
ArbCom's decision here was (a) not a desysop, (b) not a prohibition on Bbb23 taking part at SPI, and (c) was not based on any blocks or (non-CU) admin actions that Bbb23 has taken. So, pray tell, why are you upset that one of our most experienced SPI administrators is contributing at SPI? Kevin (aka L235·t·c) 06:56, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
I don't care about any of that. "Ignore the barn star socks. Or just block them" this was what you posted that I am concerned about , your encouragement to Bbb23 to go ahead and abuse his admin tools to do what he was doing with his checkusers rights Govindaharihari (talk) 07:03, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
At least he can no longer abuse the editors rights to freedom without good reason to investigate them now his checkuser rights are revoked Govindaharihari (talk) 07:08, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
Like. Indeed, hopefully Bbb23 will continue his valuable work at SPI. El_C - you don't seem to be understanding that there has been a problem with Bbb23's contributions in this area. Govindaharihari (talk) 07:32, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
Govindaharihari, the Committee has the mandate to impose any conditions they see fit on Bbb23. Restricting him from continuing to act in an admin capacity at SPI was not one of them. El_C07:36, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
No you are right there, simple fact but is is clear also that with good faith it would be a great idea for the user as well to step away from spi issues right now, that is what I see clearly right now anyway. Go ahead and encourage him if you wantGovindaharihari (talk) 07:40, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
I really don't see why it would be in the interests of the project to have Bbb23 refrain from engaging at SPI. El_C07:44, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
It hard to bother with you, there is nothing wrong with clerking at all, but when you have been the most influential active checkuer and have had a battleish with arbcom and had your rights removed, the idea that you would then make a good clerk is worse than laughable . Govindaharihari (talk) 07:59, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
You're right, of course. Arbcom wouldn't have sanctioned the evil Bbb23 unless he was unquestionably guilty. For the rest of us to do anything except help shun him is wrongthink in the first degree, and we should feel very very bad about it.It's exactly this kind of reasoning that shows why the opinion "if we're wrong to desysop, the community can overrule us at RFA" expressed by several arbitrators earlier this year is so preposterous. —Cryptic08:06, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
Well, I am not laughing, Govindaharihari. Bbb223 should feel free to pursue any avenue of volunteering on the project he sees fit. We should not make assumptions about that, though, as these are plainly unhelpful and a distraction. El_C08:09, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
Govindaharihari, Bbb23 has been involved in being a CU for 4-5 years now. His experience is invaluable and his efforts to contribute in any way to helping deal with sockpuppetry and such problems is commendable and should be welcomed, in my opinion. It's certainly not bad faith, and it shows a great commitment to the work he was doing as a CU. I see nothing problematic about the diff you linked. And I see no benefit to this encyclopedia from attempting to suppress the judgement and expertise of a very experienced CU. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:04, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
I was referencing LTAs that had previously gloated on his talk path in April and had posted here as well. I’d certainly hope he or any admin would block them... TonyBallioni (talk) 07:10, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
Based on the comments here, I wanted to clarify what I'm doing at SPI. It is not my plan return to SPI as either a patrolling administrator or a clerk. My comment at the SPI where I recommended a check, "I shouldn't be helping out here", did not mean what Govindaharihari thought. It was a barbed personal comment that given the Committee's actions, why the hell should I be helping control socks? In addition, it was weakness on my part stemming from my long-term addiction to fighting socks on Wikipedia. Apart from anything else, I perceive the Committee's revocation of my privileges as a demotion from CU to "clerk". Many clerks do a tremendous job and, in my view, SPI can suffer just as much from the lack of good clerking as it can from the lack of good CU coverage. I was a clerk from 2013 to 2015. As a clerk, I was very active. I saw my appointment as a CU in 2015 as a promotion, and I continued to be just as, if not more active, as a CU as I had been as a clerk, and I also often did clerking tasks when I felt there was too much of a backlog. Finally, although I'm kind of waiting for the dust to settle, my plan is to retire from Wikipedia. I don't intend to resign my admin privileges at this time, but I intend to stop using those tools, or edit Wikipedia at all. Whether I'm capable of sticking to this plan only time will tell, but given what's happened, I think it's what's best for me, even though it will leave a huge hole in my life that will have to be filled with other things.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:52, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
Well, thanks for the details Bbb23, to be sure you should know, we all care about you and are grateful for all your contributions in good faith to the wiki, Govindaharihari (talk) 18:02, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
Out of curiosity, have you considered seeking a review from the Ombuds on the matter, as you said you disagree with arbcom's interpretation of the policy? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:18, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
I am deeply saddened to see this. Bbb23's service to the project, from stopping socking to mentoring trainees, has been enormous and will be sorely missed at SPI and elsewhere. GABgab18:06, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
Question from Sir Joseph
Just out of curiosity, since your vote is public, yet you discussed it in private, yet when I asked you to disclose my email correspondence decision to you, you told me that you can't tell me how ARBCOM voted. I didn't ask for the discussion, I just asked for the roll call, just like we have here, a roll call, without the public deliberation. Why won't ARBCOM publicly state how they voted for my request? Sir Joseph(talk)14:59, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Sir Joseph, this was a formal motion, meaning that there was a discussion, then one of the arbitrators drafted the above wording, and then the other arbs voted on it. In the case of informal requests such as yours, often no motion is proposed, meaning that there are no votes to report. – bradv🍁15:17, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Bradv, that's not what the email said. In the email, the final one said that you guys decided not to reveal the vote of "the committee" because the deliberations were private. All I asked was how the final outcome went. I assume there was a decision to deny my request, and I just want to know who voted in favor and who voted against. I really don't get the committee's need to not reveal how they decided on my email request and why you are all hiding behind some veil of secrecy. Sir Joseph(talk)16:35, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
@Sir Joseph: Motions with a public effect have to be posted on ACN unless there's a compelling reason not to, typically with the votes attached. There was no motion and no on-wiki effect in your case; we just declined your request. As I said in my email to you, we have no set procedure for dealing with your request to send you a list of arbs participating in that decision (it's the first such request we've got in my term at least) and, because ordinarily ARBPOL requires us to keep internal discussions confidential, we decided we would need to clarify the procedure with community input first. But I don't think that is really relevant to this discussion – if you want anything further clarification of our previous discussion, please feel free to send a follow-up email. – Joe (talk) 16:49, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Sounds like you guys are WIKILAWYERING. I sent an email. All you have to do is just tell me how you voted, simple as that. Sir Joseph(talk)23:10, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
Sir Joseph Not every issue that comes across the committee's table results in a formal vote. Some requests might attract a handful of comments that all agree that no action is warranted. If there is no one supporting an action, it will simply not move forward. No formal vote is taken if there is little or no support for the action. –xenotalk23:37, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
@Xeno:Except I haven't gotten a straight answer if that is what happened. So if that is what happened, then tell me and I can move on. But all I've gotten is just an email fro the committee and then a message saying they can't disclose further. I do not know why it is so hard to find out who participated in the discussion and if they decided or not for the outcome. Sir Joseph(talk)00:31, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
We already told you, we reached a unanimous consensus to decline your request. I think that is as straight an answer as we can give; there was no vote, there was a consensus to decline, and it was unanimous. The only extra information we could give you is which arbs participated in the discussion, which I've told you we'll get back to you on.
Some degree of wikilawyering is an unfortunate necessity on ArbCom, one of the only parts of Wikipedia bound by a prescriptive policy and subject to NDAs. For example, Preserve in appropriate confidence the contents of private correspondence sent to the Committee and the Committee's internal discussions and deliberations is not a rule we can bend without at least some forethought and community input. So please just be patient. – Joe (talk) 16:22, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
@Joe Roe, Bradv, and Xeno: without duplicating my viewpoint on this which I've done in an earlier discussion, could I clarify whether there is a discussion somewhere for the community input or you're figuring out how to go about doing that? It's a fairly distinct point from anything in WP:AHRFC and I've missed it if it's currently elsewhere, cheers. I am a little surprised that you've not come across the issue before - how often do "informal motions" involve decisions that get communicated to any user (as opposed to just deciding minor policy thoughts internally)? Nosebagbear (talk) 22:35, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
Hi Nbb: We're still working out some of the mechanics and then will bring something forward for discussion. One thing new committee members are often surprised about is the volume of matters handled privately. –xenotalk12:57, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
Fair enough, the arbs decided to give him a go, given the timescales involved. Best of luck in your editing in the area, KevinNosebagbear (talk) 17:06, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
Nosebagbear, if I'm the Kevin you're referring to (would guess so since my signature's on the announcement), I might ask that you re-read the announcement Kevin (aka L235·t·c) 23:03, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
@L235: Too long since I participated in the discussion on the motion! *Self-trout!* (Though, as always, best of luck in your editing, too) Nosebagbear (talk)
Bbb23 removal of CU rights and subsequent retirement
UNPRODUCTIVE
There has already been a discussion on this immediately after the event. The editor in question made themself available for that discussion and has since retired. Rehashing that discussion, part of which continues to include criticisms of the editor who is not now here to defend themself, is inappropriate, especially considering the discussion is not generating any further insights. Editors are free to start general discussions on issues surrounding the case (without making it about the editor) at appropriate venues. Editors interested in the specifics of this case itself are free to run for ArbCom themselves, win community approval, and examine the evidence to their satisfaction, or seek changes to policies (not happening) that prevent ArbCom from sharing further evidence. Usedtobecool☎️10:49, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I see this current Arbitration Committee has further flown in the face of the community's will and well-being by now removing Bbb23's CU rights and hounding him off Wikipedia. This is very clearly counter to the good of Wikipedia, and the Committee had been more than apprised of the community's feelings in its recent quarrel with Bbb23. I am in shock, and so very disappointed in the admins on ArbCom who I actually thought had the good of the community at heart. I was wrong, and this ArbCom is apparently mainly concerned that their will be done and that their power be upheld, and that our best adminstrators conform to their star-chamber version of justice. I will be voting against you all in the next ArbCom election. This is power gone mad. Softlavender (talk) 01:58, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
I mean, every single arbcom faces similar criticism, no matter who they are or what they do it's impossible to please everyone. That being said I'd point out the following:
"star chamber version of justice" I think, Softlavender, that you've been here more than long enough to know that the committee cannot publicly discuss individual checkuser actions. It's impossible to do so without violating the privacy of the accounts that were checked.
"mainly concerned that their will be done and that their power be upheld" Are you quite sure you are familiar with the timeline of these events? A brief-as-possible synopsis:
This started with last year's committee issuing a general notice to CUs about excessive or overly aggressive checking. This was at least partly in response to Bbb23 in particular, but they elected to make a general announcement rather than singling him out.
We did not go looking to re-open the issue, but after receiving specific, detailed complaints from members of the community we conducted our own partial audit of Bbb23's checks and found numerous glaring issues.
We spoke to Bbb23 about this, in the hopes of getting him to bring his actions back into line with well-established community and foundation-level policies, and instead he chose to drama quit and make the incident public.
A portion of the CU team was understandably concerned that this might indicate some sort of upcoming purge of CUs. In response to this we shared information with the team about the specific actions which had led to our concerns, and, while many CUs didn't approve of the exact language we used when talking to Bbb23, there was in fact a consensus amongst his peers that his checks were out of line.
Bbb23 did in fact return to CU activity, and continued making questionable checks of the same nature as those that both the committee and his other peers agreed were not appropriate.
The committee asked him to explain himself, and he told us and everyone else that he simply wasn't willing to do that and would continue making the same type of checks.
It was only at this point, when all other options had been exhausted, that we felt we had no choice but to remove him from the CU team.
He was and is still an administrator and unblocked, it is purely his own choice to have simply quit contributing as an admin an editor.
"This is power gone mad." No, if it was that we would've stripped his admin rights and blocked him as well, but there was no demonstrable need to do either of those things.
I'm sorry it angers you so much that we held a Checkuser accountable for their actions. We didn't find it fun either, but doing so is what we were elected to do. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:48, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
The devil's in the details. And in that sense, I think the story of the Arbitration Committee versus Bbb23 is a complex one — one in which, we, the observers, will never fully-understand because much of the facts remain outside public view. I would still advise not to descend to slogans and to project good faith toward all participants. El_C03:01, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
To those who did interact with Bbb and follow his career, indirectly as admins and/or directly as editors who had run-ins with him, no, the story is not so complex. Bbb has always been an overly-aggressive, authoritarian, rule-breaking, unaccountable, cruel CU, not just to socks, but to anyone who dared question his authority or decision making. He probably had to be in the top 1% of editors in terms of complaints about his behavior, but how can the community sanction an editor who can hide behind "confidentiality", even to the level of never responding to complaints? Nah. I liked and still like Bbb. I both defended him and criticized him at different times. But Arbcom auditing him and finding that he was a freewheeling, unaccountable, rule-breaking, abusive CU should not have come as a surprise to anybody, because it was common knowledge the whole time. In fact, Arbcom's warning in the first place was shockingly-lenient special treatment. Any criticism of Arbcom should not be about the de-CU, but about the special treatment that allowed Bbb to continue abusing the community with his extraordinary, Arbcom-granted, invasion-of-privacy tools. To think that this is the most minor gesture of Arbcom regaining the community's trust after Bbb's longterm abuse, and that, just because we can't review private data, we're going to side with the abuser, because he's popular, rather than the system that holds abusers acountable? What. A. Joke. ~Swarm~{sting}05:34, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
I don't think we need all that vitriol. I am holding on to my agnosticism, in any case, because that's the fair thing to do. El_C05:42, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
No vitriol do I speak. Only the truth. A truth which has been known to many, and has been called out by many, for a long, long time. Even known back when Bbb was held to be "pillar of the community", and defended in spite of his obvious misgivings. ~Swarm~{sting}05:51, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
Bbb has always been an overly-aggressive, authoritarian, rule-breaking, unaccountable, cruel CU, not just to socks, but to anyone who dared question his authority or decision making. is a very strong claim. And strong claims require strong evidence. I would ask Swarm to either provide diffs or to strike that. Really everything before "I liked and still like..." probably should be supported with diffs or struck. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:22, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
That is my honest assessment of Bbb's conduct as a CU, which has been cultivated by viewing years of incidents and complaints as an uninvolved admin. I'll not retract my honest criticisms nor apologize for them while leaving my praise. I'm not one to cast arbitrary hate at an editor whom I have and have never had any personal problem with. These criticisms are substantiated by the endless complaints at AN/I and on Bbb's talk page. The records speak for themselves. The fact that Bbb was de-CU'ed speaks for itself. However I must reject your demand that I spend hours of my time scouring archives so that I can provide diffs. If Arbcom feels my comments are out of line absent me doing so, I'd rather they simply retract them, because it would probably take me an entire day to go back through the history to compile the diffs. I make these criticisms without diffs because, to me, they're well-known and well-understood problems with a paper trail stretching back years, and they've finally been rectified by an understanding Arbcom. If I'm in the wrong for doing so, they can be struck here for the sake of "propriety", but that will not make them any less real. ~Swarm~{sting}02:14, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
There are multiple editors suggesting what's above went too far. I certainly don't expect hours to be spent digging up diffs. I did if not expect at least hope, given that the criticism was itself accusing someone of not listening to anyone, that the part of the remarks that were not personal opinion and were not clearly demonstrable as fact within the scope of these proceedings, to be struck. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:34, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
As with any "power user", there is always an endless wealth of editors defending and making excuses for them. I've never been particularly moved by editors saying a lenient sanction against a power user "goes too far". I do not know the scope of these procedings, nor do you, nor do any uninvolved observers. It's true, I'm assuming that the observations that I have made are within the scope of these proceedings. That's why I'm articulating them here, under the assumption that they are fair and justified commentary. Like I said, if that's wrong of me, and my observations go well beyond the observations of Arbcom, then so be it. They may strike any comments that they deem "out of line". From my point of view, I'm simply stating well-known observations that uninvolved admins, the community, and Arbcom are aware of. ~Swarm~{sting}03:02, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
I liked and still like Bbb...Yeah, sure you do. I can tell by all the nice things you have to say about his "longterm abuse". Sro23 (talk) 06:06, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
I don't follow your logic. I have always liked, respected, and looked up to Bbb. He has always been, an overwhelming net positive. Are you suggesting that we cannot criticize a user simply because they're a net positive and we generally like them? Are you suggesting that we must not call out abusive conduct when a user is a "net positive"? Surely not. But yet you imply I'm a liar in my appreciation for Bbb, simply because I called out his wrongdoings? Hmm... ~Swarm~{sting}01:31, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
flown in the face of the community's will - How do you think this to be the case? Banedon (talk) 04:06, 18 July 2020
There are difficult decisions that sometimes need to be made, based on confidential information that would constitute an abuse of privacy if disclosed. We explicitly vote for the Arbitration Committee to make those decisions and give them the authority to do so. And then, when they do what we have asked them to do, and use their judgment based on private information to make difficult decisions, it's almost guaranteeed that we'll get some people whining about "their star-chamber version of justice", "power gone mad", and all the rest. I've offered my praise, and my criticism, over the years regarding different ArbComs, when I think they've got decisions wrong - but they don't deserve the pathetic whiny attacks to which they are constantly subjected. Softlavender, *you* stand for ArbCom next time, see how you can handle the job in the face of the constant vitriol it will attract whatever decision you make. Come on, let's see you put your money where your mouth is. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 06:58, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
I'm not quite sure what this discussion will give us that the original and then the de-CU discussions didn't. The first was vastly more controversial, and then settled down as other CUs weighed in to only be "moderately controversial". The latter was less so since ARBCOM didn't really have any option in those circumstances. Several arbs suggested they'd be fine with an appeal to the ombudsmen over the CU policy interpretation, but since Bbb23 didn't make any movement that way, it remained the only viable outcome. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:30, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
I found that a very useful summary by Beeblebrox. I guess the crux is that Bbb23 was doing a type(s) of CU check that are prohibited, but that Bbb23 felt was needed to do the job? I got an impression from the last long thread that Bbb23 was still in discussion with ArbCom about this, however, it was not clear that those discussions had formally concluded, and/or whether Bbb23 was asking for something that ultimately that could never be given (i.e. a discussion that was only going end up as a no), or whether they had a point and amendments to CU policy should have been considered. What is ArbCom's view on this? Would it be appropriate for us to see the type(s) of contested CU checks (in generic/sanitised terms), so that we could gauge this? Britishfinance (talk) 18:47, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
Not an arb, but the question was essentially what constitutes a valid check on a new account under the policy. This is a grey area that requires judgement on the part of the individual CU in practice even when there’s agreement on the general conditions. As Beeblebrox mentioned, several of us (me probably the loudest, but there were others) took issue with some of the phrasing in initial letter they sent him based on our understanding of both the CU policy and the previous general reminder from last year.There was healthy discussion and a consensus was reached on the list as to the what the policy requirements are (reasonable suspicion that there are multiple accounts; and a reasonable belief that a violation of WP:SOCK would exist.) If I’m being honest, I think this incarnation of the committee likely has a more lenient view of the sock policy than many on the CU team, and probably the community, but that’s an area of fair disagreement where people of good will can disagree on how strictly we enforce something and both have the good of the project in mind.I’ve been fairly critical of this committee over the last 6 months, but I also don’t think another round of explanations and debates on this topic is going to do much good. If people are mad about it, convince people you think will do better to run in 3-4 months (or run yourself.) Basically relitigating this topic isn’t going to do any good at this juncture, regardless of your views or lack of views on it. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:02, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
Thanks TonyBallioni, and Beeblebrox (below). It seems that after an awkward start, there is now a consensus amongst ArbCom and the CU-community about what is NOFISHING, but that Bbb23 disagreed and was not willing to follow that consensus (and from other statements, was not happy to continue on the project with an inevitable CU-demotion). The fact that there have been no RfCs or more vocal disagreement by CU-members, implies that this consensus is not a weak one. I can't see any way to square this circle for Bbb23. It is a collaborative project, and we have all felt the sting of being on the wrong side of consensus. Some can dust themselves off after such disagreements, but others don't. thanks. Britishfinance (talk) 10:56, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
Two points:
I said it at the time and I'll say it again, I felt Bbb23 and ArbCom handled the parts I could see quite well. There was a disagreement, everyone did what they felt was right and they largely handled things in an adult way. One could fault Bbb23 for tilting at windmills and then leaving when he didn't win his fight (I don't know enough to know who is in the right here), but this is a volunteer project. If you get frustrated and feel doing stuff here is no longer worthwhile (and I'm close to that at the moment...) you leave. Hopefully you come back later (I've done that more than once and expect I will again). That's just healthy behavior IMO.
I agree with britishfinance: I'd like some generic idea of what was going on. Just basic examples, no names used.
The issue was with what we referred to as "discretionary" checks. Generally his checks as a result of SPI filings were fine, it was his activities outside of that area that were the problem. Basically we asked him to follow WP:NOTFISHING, and to use the CU mailing list to consult with his peers before making discretionary checks that did not originate at SPI. He was making checks and issung blocks without any behavioral evidence of actual abuse. His counterargument basically boiled down to "the ends justify the means" because he did sometimes find actual abuse this way. We did not find that a compelling rationale for invading the privacy of literally thousands of people. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:05, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
Softlavender's rant above completely ignores the problems with Bbb23's use of advanced tools and blames ArbCom for Bbb23's personal decision to stop editing. Sometimes the arbs have to make difficult decisions in order to uphold policy and it is ludicrous to miscast what happened as ArbCom hounding an editor off the site. It's unfortunate when an editor responds to sanctions by leaving, but that's life. If the editor in question had followed policy in the first place, none of this would have been necessary. But Bbb23 didn't follow the rules and that's their own fault. While Softlavender is free to completely misunderstand what happened and to allow their misinterpretation to influence their vote in the next election, I don't see why we need to hear about it. It doesn't seem very productive to open a noticeboard thread just to rant about something that happened a month ago, especially when that rant fails to accurately reflect reality. Move on. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 19:47, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
The problem with diffs in my case is that my issue with Bbb23 stems from observing them reverting or ignoring questions from other editors without commenting myself, which won't show up on my contributions list; however a five-minute look shows the following clashes with Bbb23 here, here and here. If necessary, I can dig out more things if necessary. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)09:21, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
All four of those people are valued members of the community for me and I want to thank them for they've done as CU/OS. Thank you. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:24, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
I'd like to extend my thanks to all the past and present Oversighters and Arbitrators. Since my appointment in August 2010, the Oversight team has spent a decade growing from a very small group with a mailing list and some unwritten practices to a full-fledged volunteer team with policies and processes in place, so much so that for about the past three years I've rarely run across an OS request to action on because they're handled so quickly. I'd like to extend a special call-out to Risker's help in bringing us all together oh-so-long-ago. My appreciation to you all, it's been quite a journey. Keegan (talk) 19:48, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
I noticed today that the Lightbreather unban motion discussion has been archived as of about a week ago, but no result appears to have been posted. The very top of the discussion reads something to the effect of "following a successful appeal, Lightbreather is unbanned", but that seems to have been the motion itself, which was evidently not successful. Did I just miss it? Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 16:51, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
@Both: fair enough. I thought that since you had announced that you were considering it that you would also announce your conclusion, or at least that the consideration had concluded. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 16:58, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
Ivanvector, we don't normally announce declined appeals onwiki. Even successful appeals are usually only announced if they are accompanied by a motion (for example, a one-account restriction). In this instance, the initial announcement was because we were looking for comments from the community, and if it had passed we would have made another announcement because of the amendments to the case. But with this result, we didn't see much point in bothering anyone with a notification that nothing at all has changed. – bradv🍁17:09, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
In the intervening time between Callanecc's return to Wikipedia and the reassignment of checkuser rights, Callanecc has almost quashed the WP:SPI backlog, reducing it by well over half of what it was. What remains are mostly the cases which need CU attention, to which I'm sure Callanecc will soon contribute. Welcome back indeed! Mz7 (talk) 20:27, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
. Welcome back. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 22:40, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Just curious...what does it hurt? It seems to me that the biggest risk is to the IPs who have something to hide. Are we at the point we can't trust our most trusted users in the effort to protect anonymity? Perhaps incidents such as this one will help make a case for registration where only a select few highly trusted CUs are allowed access to the info - maybe WMF could consider obtaining a surety bond to cover them as a precautionary measure. I have far more trust in our CUs than I do in, say, members of WP:COIN. Atsme Talk 📧 12:05, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Like. Indeed, hopefully Bbb23 will continue his valuable work at SPI. El_C 06:59, 20 June 2020 (UTC)