Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Archive 13

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To allow the community to consider a discretionary sanction prior to an appeal directly to the Arbitration Committee, the discretionary sanctions procedures described at Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Procedures#Standard provision: appeals and modifications are modified as follows:

• In the section "Appeals by sanctioned editors", insert below the existing text:
• In the section "Important notes", remove the following text from the second bullet point: While asking the enforcing administrator and seeking reviews at AN or AE are not mandatory prior to seeking a decision from the committee,

Support

1. This is intended to reflect recent practice at WP:ARCA, where we've regularly expressed that we wish editors would go through AE/AN before coming to us. First, most legitimate problems that we would be able to solve are just as easily solved by the community, and they'll do it much faster. Second, in order to fully consider an appeal, it's extremely valuable to have community feedback solicited at a widely-viewed noticeboard. We do care a lot about what the community thinks about a sanction, so having the background of a full AE/AN discussion will allow us to make better decisions, even if it comes to us. The community can comment at ARCA, of course, but it's far less visible. The one counter-argument I foresee is that this may add the perception of bureaucracy, but really, it's far less bureaucratic than referring people back to AE/AN from ARCA, which is something we've either done or talked about doing multiple times recently. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 15:07, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

   I'm more than a little disappointed in the outcome here. Most (not all, but most) of the community comments made in opposition to the proposal seemed to oppose either without citing any examples of appeals that were correct to go straight to ARCA (if they don't exist, why are we worrying about them?) or based on a complete misunderstanding of what this proposal actually did. In particular, many editors opposed an existing point of policy even though this motion didn't modify it, which I don't find to be very helpful. In any event, I will be voting to decline all appeals at ARCA that weren't first taken to AE/AN unless the filer has a very good reason to skip that step, on the basis that we don't have enough information to act. Note that our policy does not allow sanctioned editors to return to AE/AN after coming to ARCA, so such a decline could result in the editor having to wait out their sanction (or wait a decent period before we'd be willing to hear the appeal again). ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 22:04, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Oppose

1. I understand why this change was proposed, but it looks like there's no consensus for it at this time. Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:54, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
2. On reviewing the comments, per NYB. That's not to say people shouldn't start with AE - and often I wish they would, because if nothing else, AE is generally faster - but I don't think it should be a requirement. Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:20, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

   Note that this comment comes after the "per OR" posts below. I didn't think I had strong feelings about this - just thought it was kind of unnecessary, rather than actively opposing - but on thinking it over as this comes to a close, I actually do have an opinion. I don't think that making arbcom less accessible to the community would be a good approach, whether implemented as a formal rule change or as an informal "I'll reject anything that comes without a preceding noticeboard thread" agreement. I know it kind of sounds like having an intermediate step first would be more "community-oriented", but that's only true if we think the subpopulation that makes a practice of commenting on noticeboards is representative of "the community" as a whole, which is a big stretch. (Yes, I realize it's also a stretch to think that of ARCA commenters, but at least the more structured format and fixed primary audience keeps things a little calmer compared to AN/ANI/AE.) That's not to say it's necessarily a good idea to go straight to ARCA (as Rob said, it's high-stakes, so be sure you have a real case to make). But even if there's not too many examples of things that should come directly to ARCA, I think there's a psychological value in not having institutionalized gatekeeping before you can officially ask arbcom about something. Opabinia regalis (talk) 04:20, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

3. Per OR. -- Euryalus (talk) 22:10, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
4. Per OR. I agree that the number of frivolous appeals we're getting is kind of ridiculous, but there's a whole lot of 'don't do this' going on down below that I'm inclined to heed. Katie^talk 00:19, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
5. Per OR. RickinBaltimore (talk) 02:12, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
6. Worm^TT(talk) 19:30, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
7. Alex Shih (talk) 19:37, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Abstain

Discussion by arbitrators

• Awaiting community comments before voting. In particular, I'd be interested in input from administrators active on AE and AN. My initial reaction is what where one administrator has imposed a discretionary sanction, it usually makes sense for any appeal to go to AE or AN before coming to the Committee. On the other hand, where a sanction is imposed after a full discussion on AE in which six or eight of the AE admins have already opined, taking an appeal back to AE may be less useful and in that case coming directly to ArbCom for any further review might make sense. There is also a difference between an appeal that raises a question of policy or interpretation of an ArbCom decision, as opposed to a garden-variety "I think my sanction was undeserved or too harsh" appeal. But trying to put in words which appeals should or shouldn't come straight to us will just add more words and instruction-creep to a process that is already sixfold more complicated than it probably ought to be. So I understand the merits of both BU Rob13's proposal and the concerns Sarek has expressed about it, and look forward to more input. Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:28, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
  • @Newyorkbrad: I toyed with the idea of adding “unless they receive prior approval from an arbitrator” so any arb could choose to allow a truly exceptional case to come straight to us. Would that address your concerns without adding too many exceptions (and exceptions to exceptions, etc)? I’m indifferent between the two versions. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 18:33, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
    • That might help, or else something like "unless there is good reason to do so, which must be explained in the appeal." Let's see what some others think. Newyorkbrad (talk) 18:35, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
• Awaiting for more comments also, but in principle I am leaning against enacting any barriers to the path for direct appeal. I understand the merits of this proposal, and I think #Important notes in particular #2 needs to be more streamlined (right now it allows several ambiguous readings I think), but I have reservations about the proposed addendum to #Appeals by sanctioned editors even with the hypothetical exemption. Alex Shih (talk) 03:51, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
• @BU Rob13: That section of the discretionary sanctions procedure is taken from the standard enforcement provisions. This should be an amendment of those rather than just discretionary sanctions (and so applying to all AE actions not just discretionary sanctions).
  • Fixed. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 12:06, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
    • Thanks. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 23:53, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
• I am inclined to agree with Kurtis, but welcome further comments from the community before voting. Mkdw ^talk 15:15, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
• I’ve adjusted the text of the proposal to reduce confusion over exactly what changes are being proposed. There are no new restrictions being placed on what can be done after appealing at ARCA under this motion. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 18:36, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Good idea. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 23:53, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
• @BU Rob13 and others: The main issue with this appears to be that there may be times when it'd be more appropriate for an editor to go to ARCA rather than AN/AE due to exigent circumstances which might exist. What about if we changed it to The editor must request review at AE or AN prior to appealing at ARCA. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 23:53, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
  • @Callanecc: I'd prefer that over no change, but I think we'll see a lot of people who think their case is somehow special when it really isn't. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 20:32, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
    • Hopefully it'll encourage people to go to AN/AE first. If not, it gives the committee more leeway to refer appeals back to AN/AE. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 06:53, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

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Community comments

• While this makes a lot of sense, I'm not sure I like the idea of locking it down like this. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:23, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
• It's up to ArbCom, of course, but the proposal makes sense to me. It would be even better, in my view, to have appeals heard neither by a community or admin forum, nor by the full ArbCom, but by a panel of e.g. three arbitrators. Such a dedicated panel would be more responsive than the full committee and less susceptible to wikipolitical influence than self-selected participants at AE or AN. Sandstein 20:50, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
  • In the past, panels have always had the disadvantage where every declined appeal would be appealed to the full ArbCom. In that sense, it just adds a bureaucratic step. Great in theory, but I think it hasn’t worked in practice (e.g. BASC). ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 21:27, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
    • This problem could be avoided if the Committee explicitly designated a strict standard of review for appeals from the "panels" to the full committee and penalized frivolous appeals. For example, the Committee could hold that appeals from the panels would not be granted unless the Committee felt no reasonable person, being fully appraised of the facts, would agree that the panel's decision was correct. This would discourage most appeals while retaining an important safety valve for these potent sanctions. This isn't without precedent – the current unwritten rule from several ARCAs (I don't have them on hand but I could find them if I had to) is that the Committee will only grant appeals if there was an abuse of discretion by the enforcing admin. That is, the Committee will be reluctant to set aside a judgement call, even if arbitrators would have personally decided otherwise. Panels could work very well if the Committee made it clear that appeals from the panels to the full Committee are disfavored and subject to a high standard. (Procedural note – in accordance with the precedent established on 2018-01-19 on clerks-l that clerks may opine on procedure without recusing, I am not recusing from this motion.) Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 23:58, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
      • Well, the fact that appeals from BASC to the full ArbCom rarely were accepted (I’m assuming, but seems likely) never stopped anyone. We get many appeals already that are frivolous, and we can do little to stop them. We can decline them, but there’s no penalty to appealing beyond remaining blocked, and they still take some of our time to review. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 01:19, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
        • Other idea: allow these appeals to be finally decided (without any opportunity for further appeal) by these panels if the panel unanimously determines that no reasonable person would disagree with the panel's decision? Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 02:27, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
          • • That puts one group of people in charge of reviewing their own actions. The whole idea behind an appeal is entertaining the possibility that a previous decision might have been wrong or is out of date. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:35, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
      • Kevin, this problem could also be avoided by modifying another stage in the process: Make the handing down of sanctions clearer and more dependent on diffs and evidence. Right now, no admin is required to state explicitly what a given editor was sanctioned for or provide diffs of them performing that action, not even if the sanctioned editor asks. This not only allows admins to act personal feelings ("I'm sanctioning you because you annoy me/because your accuser is my friend/because I disagree with you about content") but also gives the appearance that admins are doing that even when they didn't ("The admin didn't say why I was being sanctioned, so it must be because she/he finds me annoying/the accuser is their friend/because they disagree with me about content"). Remove impropriety and the appearance of impropriety. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:56, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
    • @BU Rob13: The issue of frivolous appeals to the full ArbCom could be addressed by simply forbidding them and summarily dismissing them when they are made, or by acting on them only on the application of an arbitrator who was in the minority on the panel. If all three panelists agree on how to resolve an issue, the prospect of the full ArbCom coming to a different conclusion appears remote. Sandstein 08:25, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
      • Maybe if there were a clear definition of frivolous that was established by someone other than the panel itself. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:35, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Agree with Sandstein, the proposal is clear enough and makes sense to me. On the "panel" idea, I'm not certain ArbCom needs to become even more like SCOTUS, but I do think the unsuggested option from BU Rob13 to allow approval from an active Arb to skip that step is a good one. I'd worry about forum-shopping ("Rlevse said no, I'll go ask Risker") but allowing for increased flexibility, quality control, and responsiveness seems like a win across the board. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 01:04, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
    • If we went that route, I see shopping as a feature, not a bug. Basically, we’d be saying “If you can’t find a single arb who thinks you should skip it, just go to AE/AN”. That seems very reasonable, because if no arbs think you should skip it, we’d just send you back there anyway. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 01:21, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
    • This is off-topic, but I have to say it – Rlevse? He hasn't been an administrator (let alone an arbitrator) in nearly eight years now, and his current username is PumpkinSky (which, as I've just found out, is actually indef-blocked for sockpuppetry as of February 2018). Man, and I thought I was behind the times... 😏 Kurtis ^(talk) 01:33, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
      • What can I say, I'm old school ~ Amory (u • t • c) 10:40, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
    • As a pedantic note to Amorymeltzer, the U.S. Supreme Court never sits in panels. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:47, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
      • Yes of course — I meant it to refer to the second half of my sentence, namely allowing an Arb to fasttrack something. That feels reminiscent of circuit assignments; I'm not suggesting there be a designated AE Arb, but for better or for worse it does seem a step in that direction. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 10:40, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
• I have mixed feelings about this proposal. On one hand, requiring an AE or AN/I review of a sanction prior to submitting a request at ARCA seems like a reasonable, common sense idea. If I'm not mistaken, that's already the standard practice, and I'm surprised it's not yet considered policy. On the other hand, I dislike the idea of giving an ARCA appeal such a sense of finality (or perhaps I've misread the second proposed clause). Will have to give this some more thought. Kurtis ^(talk) 01:38, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
  • @Kurtis: To be clear, that is existing policy. The second portion of this motion merely removes a clause (the struck portion) to reflect that editors now actually do have to appeal at AE/AN first. No additional restrictions on future appeals after ARCA are being added. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 03:15, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
    • Right, I've reread the proposed changes. I see no reason to oppose outright, although I'd like to keep avenues negotiable on a case-by-case basis. Kurtis ^(talk) 04:34, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. Similar to what NewYorkBrad is saying, remember that everyone here is human and everyone has an ego. If AE admins have just handed down a sanction, then no they're not going to turn around and say "Yes the action that we just now performed was wrong" no matter how well the case is presented. When are judges asked to review appeals of their own decisions? It's bad enough that the AE crowd contains former ARBCOM and the committee is often asked to review the actions of former colleagues. The appeal process could stand improvement but this isn't the solution. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:49, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
• Should the change proceed, I don't favour allowing an arbitrator to approve exceptions. My guess is that in practice, arbitrators would end up preferring to discuss potentially contentious appeals rather than act solely on their own initiative. Accordingly, it would be better to hold these discussions through the existing process, rather than having them occur in ad hoc manners. isaacl (talk) 03:20, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
• I'm still thinking this over, but I think I'm opposed to it. There is already a significant disincentive for editors to bring appeals directly to ARCA, because it is the final venue of appeal; if they want to forum shop to the maximum extent permissible under the rules, they will bring an appeal to AE, then to AN, then to ARCA. If they bring the appeal directly to ARCA then they are forfeiting the right to an appeal at AE and AN. They may be doing so because they aren't aware of the venues available for appeal and the rules of precedence of those venues, in which case the instructions on filing an appeal should be improved and perhaps the clerks should be more active in advising editors bringing appeals to ARCA of the options available to them before the appeal really gets underway. On the other hand, they may understand all that and simply feel that any appeal at AE or AN would have little prospect of success and would be wasting the community's time; in these cases they are likely correct (as most naturally overestimate their chances on appeal) and should be allowed to bring the appeal directly to ARCA. Requiring that they try one of the other venues first feels like it is adding bureaucracy which will be a significant time cost to the community for not a whole lot of gain.
  Others have commented on the difference between appeals that raise "a question of policy or interpretation of an ArbCom decision" (as Newyorkbrad puts it) and a "garden-variety" appeal; IMO the former are really requests for clarification, not appeals, though it is true that they are often presented as appeals. I think they should be dealt with by the committee without requiring an "appeal" elsewhere. Again, perhaps the clerks should be more active in shepherding these cases through the process.
  Others have also commented on the difference between appeals of sanctions placed by a single administrator and those placed after a quasi-consensus discussion (though formally the action remains unilateral). The pool of admins regularly working AE is so small that many requests are commented on by all of them; appeals of these to AE are then necessarily decided by the same "uninvolved" admins who commented the first time minus the one who actually took action. In this situation, it is hard to see any value in an appeal to AE. An appeal at AN is still an option in these cases (where the standard for overturning is a consensus of editors, rather than AE's standard of a consensus of admins) but the general wisdom seems to be that appealing AE sanctions to AN is a fool's game.
  As well as the different appeal standard between AE and AN, there is another difference between those venues and ARCA; ARCA can overturn a sanction for any reason, while appeals at AE and AN are decided on the question, Is the sanction within administrator discretion? As administrators have quite wide discretion in applying the sanctions, this naturally biases the system against granting appeals. Editors subject to sanctions that are near the edge of administrator discretion will therefore justifiably feel that an appeal to AE or AN is a waste of time. The request currently at ARCA is a good example of this; a number (including me) have opined that the sanction is not what they would have done, but if an appeal was brought to AE I would vote to decline because the sanction was (perhaps only just) within administrator discretion.
  Lastly, editors here are volunteers. If an editor has been unjustly sanctioned, we shouldn't set up lots of hoops for them to jump through. If we require an appeal to AE or AN first but admit that in many cases those venues are biased against granting the appeal, then some will inevitably give up simply because they don't have the time or the energy to prepare yet another appeal.
  I can't see a space here for clerk recusals, but in view of the above, I recuse and apologise for an enormous wall of text. GoldenRing (talk) 13:28, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
  • If the current standard at AE is "is this sanction within admin discretion", then something is wrong. The required consensus to overturn a sanction at AE is already harsh – a "clear and substantial consensus" must agree to overturn. If I understand you correctly, GoldenRing, under current practice, in neither of the following situations will a sanction be overturned:
    • A clear and substantial consensus believes that another sanction or no sanction would be more appropriate, but that the original sanction was within admin discretion
    • A majority of admins (but not a "clear and substantial consensus") believes the sanction was an abuse of admin discretion

  Only when a "clear and substantial consensus" of admins believes that a sanction was so far out of line to be outside admin discretion will it be reversed – it's a wonder any sanctions are ever reversed. In my view, the Committee should encourage reviewing admins to voice the sanction they would have given, even if they believe the original sanction was within the discretion of the admin. Then, if a clear and substantial consensus believes that a lower/no sanction is appropriate (again, even if the original sanction was within discretion), the appeal is successful and the lower/no sanction is imposed. Thanks, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 15:42, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

  @L235: I think there are arguments both ways on this. There needs to be some degree of respect for the discretion of the sanctioning admin, otherwise the wikilawyering will never end; every sanctioned editor will feel that it's worth appealing the details of lengths of blocks and bans, scope of bans and so on. Personally, in this type of appeal I tend to say, "I would have done X but I think what was done wasn't outside admin discretion. Would the sanctioning admin consider modifying the sanction?" If a couple of uninvolved admins opine in this way, most sanctioning admins will eat their pride and go along with the suggested modification. But possibly you are right and, in current practice, respect for the sanctioning admin's discretion has gone too far. GoldenRing (talk) 16:34, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

• I will also add that the main type of appeal that is regularly granted at AE is one where there is a defect of process: typically, a user was not formally aware (per WP:AC/DS#aware.aware) of DS they were sanctioned under. My impression is that it is indeed fairly unusual for an appeal to be granted on the merits at AE. GoldenRing (talk) 16:41, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

• OPPOSE, specifically this section
  Once the committee has reviewed a request, further substantive review at any forum is barred. The sole exception is editors under an active sanction who may still request an easing or removal of the sanction on the grounds that said sanction is no longer needed, but such requests may only be made once every six months, or whatever longer period the committee may specify.
  as overly harsh. As it stands, when a discretionary sanction set up on an article, an admin is allowed to use "their best judgement", using that judgement they can then block or ban a user even if their action doesn't violate any written policy, then appeal is allowable only via arbcom or ANI. Think about this for a second, if a user appeals at arbcom and is turned down, on paper they can appeal to ANI, but how likely is it for ANI to reverse a sanction that arbcom shot down, even if there's overwhelming consensus at ANI ? Very unlikely. I move that this section be opposed because Arbcom is one of only two areas an appeal can be heard against a DS.  ►К Ф Ƽ Ħ◄  R.I.P Tripp Halstead 13:30, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

1. @KoshVorlon: That is already current policy. Editors have never been able to appeal to ARCA then to the community. Once they come to ARCA, that's it. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:53, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

User:BU_Rob13, per WP:AC/DS, there are three possible stages of approval, and depending on your reading, it could be read that ANI would be before AE, however, there's nothing in that set of steps that prohibits an appeal of an AE decline. Further , under Modification by Administrators it does state that the request can be modified based on two conditions, again, nothing in there states that an decline by AE prevents an appeal to the community via ANI. That said, I already reaslize, such an appeal likely wouldn't work :)  ►К Ф Ƽ Ħ◄  R.I.P Tripp Halstead 16:01, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

@KoshVorlon: Neither existing policy nor this proposal restricts what can happen after an appeal at AE or AN. But see the existing bullet point 2 under important notes. This motion wouldn’t change anything other than requiring AE/AN go before ARCA. Editors have never been able to have an appeal declined at ARCA then go to AE. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 20:12, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

• Don't like it - The use of the word "must" instead of "should" in the first example, as well as Once the committee has reviewed a request, further substantive review at any forum is barred. I can envision (rare) circumstances when the community should be able to review at AN or AE even if an appeal was denied on appeal by Arb, say a year ago. There is no time limit, so if they ever appeal to Arb, their fate is tied to just a few people, forever. I just don't think that is a fair system. All of this is a bit too absolute and doesn't allow flexibility. I think it is better to offer guidance rather than to dictate inflexible rules when it comes to appeals. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 18:12, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
• @Dennis Brown: That second part - further review being barred - is already policy. It isn’t being added. We’re just removing the language about AN/AE not being a prerequisite. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 18:33, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - Not easy for other admins to overturn sanctions of other admin unless it was procedurally incorrect, but its easier for Arbitrators to overturn any. Even if an editor believes that their sanction was not justified and it involved a newbie admin, then they should try appealing on ARE and if the editor believes that their sanction was not justified and it involved an experienced admin then they should think about appealing at ARCA. I have seen this during ARE appeals that some admins don't read the appeal and make contrary statements, that's why ARCA should still remain a route for appeals and if the process is slow then the editor must tolerate that. Even if ARCA rejected appeal, the editor should be allowed to appeal somewhere else and it will be up to editor to prove if the sanction is justified or not. What if the editor has done some awesome work in Wikipedia after just 1 month of the sanction? They should not be sanctioned anymore and they can appeal the sanction somewhere else. Capitals00 (talk) 05:11, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose as unnecessary bureaucracy. Instead, I'd suggest a procedure wherby ARBCOM clerks can refer appeals to AN/AE first (of course, arbs should be able to overrule). ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 22:12, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
• Comment - I read the motion and the "discretionary sanctions" subpage it would modify; two things have drawn me to comment. 1) In my opinion, there seems to be a regrettable trend to use delimiting prose in describing matters. Transitioning from "the editor may" to "the editor must" is plainly the wrong direction as I see it. I understand that how I see things does not generally require the concern of others so that is the first. 2) The second is in regards to the "Important notes" section; where it says: "for a request to succeed, either (i) the clear and substantial consensus of (a) uninvolved administrators at AE or (b) uninvolved editors at AN or (ii) a passing motion of arbitrators at ARCA is required. Why is the enforcing administrator's unilateral power to resolve the matter omitted here? I don't see the reason. Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 13:57, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
• Support per Rob. Some of these appeals are very complex, and it is difficult for arbitrators to get a full 360 view of the topic without community input anyway. It is reasonable to ask for that community input ahead of time. It doesn't mean that it will be final, but it does meal that when the appeal then proceeds to the level of the arbitrators, the arbitrators will have more information to work from. --Elonka 16:50, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
• @BU Rob13: Would you consider instead adding this text to point 3 of 'Appeals by sanctioned editors': Where stage two has not been tried, any arbitrator may instruct the clerks to refer the appeal to AE or AN. This gives you a way to refuse to hear premature appeals without completely cutting off access to ARCA where there is genuinely no point in an appeal at AE/AN. GoldenRing (talk) 10:09, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
  • @GoldenRing: I maintain the belief that all appeals should go to AE/AN first, and I would instruct the clerks accordingly if that were policy. It would wind up being functionally similar to the proposal on the table, so I think if this one fails, that one shouldn't be proposed. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 22:05, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
• Comment Personally I'm reluctant to support making things bureaucratic in this way. For those that remember, there used to be RFC/U, which was made historical largely because it was a voluntary and non-binding process. However, it was often used as part of a multistage process, including trips to AN/ANI, before an editor could be brought to ArbCom. This turned what should have been a community driven review of editor behaviour into a mere box ticking exercise. IMO the wording should state that a sanctioned editor always has the option of going straight to ARCA, but should also go on to state that the Committee reserves the right to push it back to AN or AE before considering the request. Blackmane (talk) 03:02, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

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Corect me if I’m wrong, but normally pretty much everywhere on Wikipedia, if you wish to retract a statement that has been repeatedly replied to you strike it out as opposed to just re-writing it the next day. I would therefore ask that a clerk deal with this. Thank you. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:04, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Looks like they dealt with it themselves. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:39, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

I've never participated in Arbcom before, and I know there are some special rules involving statements as replies, word counts, etc. My intention was not to hide or bury the comment, which of course is in the history. I refactored my statement several times over the course of the case, and not because I want to obfuscate or muddy the waters. Andrevan@ 20:44, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Never said that’s what you did, but one doesn’t have to be familiar with arbcom to know that the way you did that is not the way it is generally done anywhere on Wikipedia. Frankly, this is reflective of what the whole case is about, you don’t seem to actually know a lot of really basic stuff you should have picked up on like a decade ago. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:53, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

I edit Wikipedia part-time, for fun, when life and time permit, nowhere near as much as you do, probably, though I don't really know. When I became an admin nobody expected a huge activity level or 50,000+ edits. Sure, I'm not exactly the same person I was when I became an admin, but that was 15 years ago. I know a lot about some things, and not as much about other things. Maybe I knew some things, but forgot them at other times. I believe most of the time, the little things I do as an admin here and there are supported by the community, make sense, are logical, and follow the 5 pillars and the crux of major policies and core concepts. More importantly they are good faith efforts to improve the encyclopedia, or to help people working on it. The exception being the week-long span of editing on a specific topic area where I lost my mind -- but I did not use admin tools.

Every once in a while, I get taken to task for having different interpretations of what the right thing is to do. Since my peak activity period for editing was in the past, I sometimes approach things in a way that seems different to current trends. However, I always discuss the issue extensively, because I believe good discussion and transparency are important. Because my tone is very frank, and I respond quickly, I sometimes seem combative or argumentative, but I don't mean to be offensive. As far as policy chops, I try to brush up on things if they come up. I don't believe my admin decisions have done any negative damage to the encyclopedia.

Yeah, I got "grandfathered" in to an adminship that is much harder to get now, but I also have been a careful custodian of that responsibility. I understand that my week of involved editing which led to the topic ban is a black mark on that reputation. You have to understand that when I say "temporary insanity," I really wasn't thinking about what I was writing. It was obviously bad to write. But it never occurred to me to use admin tools inappropriately. Andrevan@ 00:42, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

@Andrevan: You need to consider that while you state you will never use admin tools inappropriately (and I believe you are saying that with the best intentions), some editors are nervous about exactly what you consider as inappropriate. My go-to example is a legacy admin who managed to block two longstanding editors with clean block records for edit warring with a sock puppet, reverted to his preferred version of an article, and template-protected the article. He believed he was acting appropriately until rather forcefully disabused of that notion. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 00:54, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

That's a fair example Neil, but have I ever done that or anything close to it? Andrevan@ 00:56, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

---

The Arbitration Committee is aware of a discussion taking place at the Village Pump regarding issuing discretionary sanctions alerts via bot. As this discussion has a potentially large impact on how discretionary sanctions operate, the Arbitration Committee has decided to clarify existing procedures to note that alerts are expected to be manually given at this time. This is intended as a clarification of existing practices and expectations, not a change in current practice. The Arbitration Committee will fully review the advisory Village Pump discussion after completion and take community comments under consideration.

Enacted - GoldenRing (talk) 13:43, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

For this motion there are 12 active arbitrators, not counting 1 recused. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 7 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference

Abstentions	Support votes needed for majority
0	7
1–2	6
3–4	5

Support

1. Thanks to BU Rob13 for the text of this motion. Delivering DS notifications by bot has many logistical hurdles including but not limited to biting newbies, not being able to include every single page needed, and the personal reply to these alerts that can occur. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 19:24, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
2. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 19:32, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
3. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:26, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
4. Doug Weller talk 19:31, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
5. Per my comments below. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:41, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
6. Katie^talk 20:00, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
7. RickinBaltimore (talk) 21:43, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
8. Comments below. Mkdw ^talk 19:28, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Oppose

Abstain

1. Alex Shih (talk) 20:00, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
2. It's already passed and I think I might be a crazy person, so I'm not going to try to swim upstream. I don't think this is all that clear - there's always doubts about what exactly is "automated" versus permissibly only "semi-automated" - but I also don't think this is all that important to add to an already-bloated set of rules. I know there have been some concerns about "biting", but speaking for myself, if I am in the early stages of joining a new community and am still feeling things out, I would much rather get an automated notification than have someone specifically make the effort to come tell me about all the things I'm probably going to screw up. I know the response "but then you have someone to ask!" but if I'm new and just learning I'd much rather get feedback from a bot than have someone personally involved in my screwups. I realize I seem to be in the minority on that point, but since my baseline preference is very much for automated notifications and against the "but it's more personal!" argument, I think it's fair to put that on the record. (All that being said, in all the vast amounts of text I've seen on this subject, I've never seen anyone really put forth a convincing argument that automated notifications that aren't too big of a nuisance are actually doable. Take one topic area, write the prototype, put the output on a sandbox page indicating who would've gotten notifications and what prompted them, and then when there's a working proof-of-concept we can talk.) Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:29, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Comments by arbitrators

• I want to particularly emphasize that we will review the RfC in its entirety and take all comments on board. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 19:31, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
• Comments:

I support the motion, but I think it is important to remember how we got to this point.

The concept of "discretionary sanctions" (DS) grew out of what was once called "article probation." It recognizes that certain topic-areas are unusually controversial or suffer from a high level of editing disputes, which our usual dispute-resolution mechanisms are not resolving in a timely way. ArbCom therefore gives administrators greater discretion than usual to address problems in these areas, such as by disallowing specific editors from participating in those areas, or by modifying the ordinary policies and guidelines with respect to them (e.g. 1RR instead of 3RR).

The first time I voted as an arbitrator to authorize DS in a topic-area, I pointed out that it was only fair to provide editors with warnings before imposing sanctions on them. As I've reiterated many times in the ten years since then, this is based on ordinary concepts of fairness and common sense. For example, an editor who makes two reverts on a page will be confused if she is reprimanded or blocked for breaching 1RR, if she had no idea that the page was subject to 1RR, and the like.

I certainly did not intend, when I first suggested "where possible, please warn before blocking or topic-banning," for ten years of accumulated rules-creep—the inevitable result of ten years of wikilawyering in our most controversial subject-areas—to yield a complicated set of "awareness criteria" and frequent arguments about who is or isn't "officially aware" that a given topic or page is subject to DS, or what all the rules are. Not for the first time, I suggest that all concerned read this article, by a current member of the WMF Board of Trustees, on how the increasingly bureaucratic and quasi-legalistic aspect of how Wikipedia operates may be deterring new editors and be unsustainable.

Administrators (or experienced non-administrators) should make editors aware that discretionary sanctions apply to a page or a topic-area when an editor appears to be editing problematically, or more generally, when the editor needs to be aware that his or her editing on a particular topic is subject to special rules. Good judgment should be observed in deciding when such a notification is warranted, and I agree with my colleagues that at this stage it is better that the notification be given by an editing colleague and not automatically by a bot. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:57, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

This is a good clarification, but both the timing and the wording may be construed as discouraging the RfC, which really isn't the case. The RfC proposal isn't really concrete at the moment, so there's not much to comment about over there; but if we ever do automated notifications for DS, it would probably be done through centralised account; it makes no sense for individual editors to be issuing alerts through automated tools, so it would be another reason to justify this clarification. Alex Shih (talk) 20:00, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

User:Pbsouthwood, we had a discussion about edit boxes earlier this year and people pointed out that editors on mobile devices will not see the edit box notice. Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures#Page restrictions was then amended to add "Editors using mobile devices may not see edit notices. Administrators should consider whether an editor was aware of the page restriction before sanctioning them." Doug Weller talk 12:54, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

• I have read over the VP discussion and it is nearly evenly split between both sides. It is apparent to me that further discussion and exploration should take place to continuously improve the efficiency and stability of how discretionary sanctions work. It is an imperfect solution to an even more complex problem. I am supporting this motion as a point of clarity that discretionary sanction alerts are to be delivered by the direct and specific intent of another fellow editor. I have no intention of targeting or taking away tools and scripts that editors use to assist them when conducting these tasks, but fully-automated tools and bots are not appropriate here. I have serious concerns about having these alerts delivered en masse to editors without a guiding human hand behind each alert delivered. The implications greatly exceed the protections offered by disruptive alerting policies and would fail to address the principle issue here, that Wikipedia relies on collaboration and judgement by administrators and experienced editors when implementing and enforcing discretionary sanctions. Alerts are an important part of that process.

I would like to thank Newyorkbrad, NewsAndEventsGuy, and Boing! said Zebedee who I felt delivered some of the best comments and arguments in the discussion. Mkdw ^talk 19:28, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

• I do indeed hope that the Committee will carefully consider community input from the VP discussion. In particular, I want to draw to your attention one of the primary reasons for interest in such a bot: the very wide perception among editors receiving an alert that the language about not implying any wrongdoing is just boilerplate and should be disregarded, and that the real reason for the alert is that it is threat to start an AE complaint. Many times, I and other editors have made suggestions at ArbCom talk pages about revising the content of the alert templates, and each time, the discussion passes into archivehood without any explanation of why the Committee has not done anything. Maybe you are too close to one "side" of this process to see it, but it really is a significant problem that needs addressing. (Look at it this way: if you value the personal touch of an editor deliberately issuing the alert, then you should be interested in the feedback of those editors.) If not a bot, then how the alerts are formulated. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:44, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • For me, it’s stalled because nothing materially better has been proposed. I’ve seen a million copy edits that rearrange some of the words, but never while changing the tone or meaning. The authors usually think they’ve fundamentally altered the text, mostly because they ascribe the tone they were going for to their edit, but I’ve yet to be convinced anyone looking in from the outside would notice any difference. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 19:50, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
    • That surprises me, because there have been suggestions that would significantly alter the appearance of the alerts. And I don't think that I have ever seen a Committee member say what you just said, at the time of the discussions (although I could be mistaken). I have seen individual Arbs say that it was a very good idea, followed by no further response. It's hard for community members to come up with ideas to fix the things that the Committee see as needing fixing, if you don't share those thoughts with us. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:57, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
      • I admittedly stayed quiet in the latest round of discussions because I felt like I must be missing something. I’m having difficulty finding the last discussion to illustrate what I mean, since I’m currently on a plane. If you could link it here, I can go into more detail. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 20:07, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
        • I think the most recent (May 2018) mention of revising the alerts is at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 37#DS alerts again (again), which links back to Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 37#DS alerts again, which in turn links back to Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 37#Discretionary sanction notice, which in turn links back to Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Archive 19#Please fix the wording of Template:Ds/alert. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:47, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
      • I'll echo Tryptofish's sentiments. I understand if the arbitration committee doesn't feel any of the proposed wording changes is sufficiently better than the current wording. But at least some of the members did seem to feel that improvements can be made to the current template. I think it is reasonable for the committee to pursue this further and look for ways to improve the text of the alerts. isaacl (talk) 04:41, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
• @Brad: I read the article you linked to. And I can see the logic leading to preferring manual notification rather than a bot. But I think a further implication of wanting to make Wikipedia more inviting to new editors would be to make the alerts less nasty looking and more informative. That would not be adding more bureaucracy, but rather making the process easier to understand correctly. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:04, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • I agree. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:20, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
• Good motion, the ideal outcome. Pinging Bellezzasolo as this would seem to prohibit their DS tool. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 20:36, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) Hm, that tool simplifies the process by checking for previous alerts, but doesn't truly automate giving a DS alert (ie you can't set it to "alert everyone who edited in American Politics today"), so in my opinion it should be allowed. We might need to adjust the wording. BU Rob13, I know you're on a plane, but any thoughts? ♠PMC♠ (talk) 20:42, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
    • Just landed. That’s an example of a semi-automated tool, a tool where the script does the heavy lifting but an editor approves each edit. It is not automated (used on Wikipedia to mean “edits done by a program or script without direct editor supervision”) and isn’t covered by the motion. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 20:51, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) BU Rob13, does this cover twinkle extensions? I use User:Bellezzasolo/Scripts/arb.js, which still forces the edit filter warning, but is easier than having to look up the codes (it also generally can tell if someone has been alerted before.) Otherwise, I oppose the bot, so obviously I’m in favour of clarifying this for now, which would have the effect of any bot needing permission by the committee to operate. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:38, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • It seems to me that the proposed language of "automated tools or bot accounts" should probably have "automated tools" removed or clarified. The distinction between "automated" and "semi-automated" strikes me as not useful. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:52, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

    Especially since we don't actually make such a distinction in many places; it's not consistently recognized in guidelines, policies, ANI decisions, yadda yadda.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:36, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

• It's disappointing to see the burden of Arbcom's rickety alert process shifted onto the shoulders of editors, simply because a new editor might feel bitten. So, reword the alert—problem solved. The alert rules are unduly bureaucratic, confusing, contradictory, and hard to locate. I would like for Arbcom to reconcile these two seemingly contradictory rules from Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Discretionary_sanctions#Awareness_and_alerts
  1. No editor may be sanctioned unless they are aware that discretionary sanctions are in force for the area of conflict. An editor is aware if In the last twelve months, the editor has given and/or received an alert for the area of conflict.
  2. Editors issuing alerts are expected to ensure that no editor receives more than one alert per area of conflict per year. Any editor who issues alerts disruptively may be sanctioned.

As someone who has alerted quite a few editors, I am telling you that this process is fraught with problems and it's onerous. A bot would a step forward. Alternatively, revising the alert rules so that a notice on an article talk page is sufficient would address most of the concerns.- MrX 🖋 21:08, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

• Those two statements aren’t contradictory. After the year is up, you alert the editor again. I wouldn’t mind doing away with the “in the last twelve months” bit entirely, so long as we also indicate we expect enforcing admins to consider whether the editor was genuinely not aware of DS even though they technically received an alert ages ago. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 21:22, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

• For crying out loud, alert them once and be done with it!. All this alert renewal nonsense does is enable wikilawyers to game the system and prevents the average editor from availing themselves of the arbitration enforcement process. - MrX 🖋 01:42, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

• Absolutely. And the whole "awareness" thing is silly in the first place, since the affected pages already have (or, should have and really immediately need to have) the appropriate editnotices and talk page notices (and talk page editnotices), though perhaps less scary ones. No one can keep editing the same stuff seeing notices about DS and not be aware of DS. The user-talk-delivered alerts are superfluous. I don't buy the BITE arguments against the Ds/alert bot for a second, because the editnotices are an order of magnitude more menacing a present than the user-talk ones. I mean, seriously. Just go load Donald Trump in edit mode. It looks like you're in for a visit from an FBI SWAT team for daring to think about editing the page. I don't want to hear any patent nonsense about there being a marked difference between bot or hand delivery of the exact same shorter, blander Ds/alert. It's like trying to decide which whisker on your cat is longer, while your house is on fire. this is a ranging fire of "New editor: Run away as fast as possible."  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:04, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

It is quite common to edit an article without reading the talk page first. It is also quite difficult to prove that someone has read a talk page, so a warning on the talk page is worth very little as verifiable notification, unless the person edited the talk page too. A banner that displays in the edit box will be seen by everyone who edits, unless they are blind, in which case their text reader will read it out to them. Anyone intending to enforce DS can quite reasonably assume that in such a case, the person was notified, and as recently as is possible.· · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 11:37, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Doug Weller, Thanks for clarifying that important detail (that mobile users do not see the edit box notices) - I do not use mobile, so had not noticed. I guess that this is a thing that could be fixed by the developers if it was considered necessary or sufficiently useful. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:18, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Might even be fixable without them; depends on why mobile users aren't seeing it. Is it because the server is ignoring everything in editnotices for the mobile version, or is it because of how the edit notices are coded?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:50, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

• I don't really see the point of this motion. It's wikilawyerly nitpicking. No one suggested that at present it's okay for a bot to deliver this notice. The entire point of the WP:VPPRO proposal is to change that (or to have the community come to a consensus on some other-direction improvement to the current DS system). I mean, really. Given everything of substance actually being said in that RfC, the Arbs' only response is to say something tautological about the present? That's a really bad sign.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:29, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • I share that concern. It feels like ArbCom felt an urgent need to, in effect, shut down the VP discussion, as though things were about to get out of hand and there were an urgent need for getting it under control. I think that's part of what Alex Shih said above. There's no emergency here, and the Committee might want to carefully examine the wording of the motion before enacting it. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:48, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
• On this specific motion and its interpretation: Suppose I decide too many people are being asshats in articles covered by WP:ARBAP2 [which I think we all agree is true]. I use some analysis tools to ID everyone who's edited ARBAP2 articles or their talk pages more than X times in Y timespan, and then use AWB to deliver them all a {{Ds/alert|ap}} (which for each requires a manual save, and will pop up the are-you-sure editfilter box with the steps for checking that they don't already have one this year). Permissible?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:47, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
  • It doesn’t conflict with this particular clause but may be sanctionable under the sentence that prohibits disruptively delivering alerts if the community or the Arbitration Committee feels that editors are being bitten. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 01:54, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
    • That's just subjectively arbitrary (in the bad sense), though. Either it's okay to use a tool that requires manual examination and saving (i.e., no one even knows you're using the tool, unless they look through filters to find out), after you've complied with the instructions and made sure you're not leaving a duplicate notice within the year); or it's not. If it's not, on what basis? Who cares, and why? It would be easy enough to do exactly the same thing by manually going down the list. If the template is, in your view, intrinsically BITEy for new editors (the only ones to whom BITE pertains), then there's deeper problem here than using this tool or that or using no tool. I don't have any plans to do this, with or without a tool, of course. I'm just trying to get a straight answer. If there are rules surrounding these templates, and potential sanctions for not following them, they have to be clear, and they have to more clear the more we automate and semi-automate over time. That's a one-way trip; no one is using fewer tools and doing things the slower, harder, more human-error prone way after they've already discovered assisted ways to get the jobs done better.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:57, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
      • There will always be some judgement calls. If you notified every editor on the site about DS in a topic area with AWB, you’d be sanctioned. That’s because you notified all editors on the site, though, not because you used AWB. That’s all I’m saying. I’m not “coming for your tools”, and I fully agree with Mkdw on the topic of tools/scripts/etc. I would frown on large-scale indiscriminate notices, though, as they lose the human element (and human determination of cost/benefit to notifying). (WP:MEATBOT would also be relevant in the extreme case I mention above.) ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 20:48, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
• I believe that discretionary sanction notices should be given to users manually by other users and by using the templates provided in the procedure page, or with the guided assistance of a tool (like Twinkle) - one that requires the user to choose from a drop-down list of active discretionary sanctions, the article that the recipient is/was editing to warrant the notice, and guardrails to prevent and disallow common mistakes be made - so that an accurate and proper notice is correctly and appropriately left the first time, and every time.

No bots should be allowed to leave discretionary sanction notices, and no "one click and drop" (AKA "drive by shooting") automated processes should be allowed to be developed to carelessly shortcut this very sensitive, delicate, and serious procedure. The notice in itself is quite scary-looking, overwhelming to read, and (in my experience) will frequently startle, scare, and chase away new users who are simply not aware of what "ArbCom", "enforcement", or "discretionary sanctions" even are. To allow for automated tools to take place and simply allow for someone to plop an AC/DS warning without careful checks and requiring the user to fill in the specific options necessary would be a reckless decision to allow... and to allow the development of bots to do this automatically will result in this procedure becoming a careless, thoughtless, and routine event where editors "click and go" without giving a second thought, and bots "plop and drop" without any regard to the situation on a case-by-case bases. My experience as well as what's clearly stated on multiple policies and guideline pages within ArbCom - clearly show that this procedure is a very serious matter where very careful thoughts and consideration must be taken into account every time one is left... and allowing for careless automation and for bots to take this place would lead to this procedure being treated the opposite. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 03:33, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Why should you need to use a GUI drop-down if you already know the correct code? Not everyone favors mouse-based tools (and for some, they are an accessibility problem). If we all took this "Ds/alert is very very serious, and requires dreadful amounts of consideration" stuff to heart (which ArbCom never has to date, so far as I've seen), then they need to be redesigned and redocumented. We can't have it both ways. Either Ds/alert is a no-wrongdoing-implied notice that different rules apply to a topic, or it is a warning of potential sanctions just like a level-3 or higher WP:UWT template is.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:14, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

SMcCandlish - I wasn't trying to state that a drop-down menu and the use of the mouse was the actual and only solution that we should accept; I was merely trying to give an example as to how an automated tool could or should be designed when this process is in mind. Above all, all I wanted to emphasize is that the tool shouldn't be written to allow a careless "drive by click-and-run" or a "one click plop-and-drop" involving AC/DS warning templates, and instead should be formulated to accept and sanitize user input and care. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 10:07, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

• I've commented at the RFC, but my core objection to the suggestion that bots should deliver DS alerts to everyone editing related pages is simply that those editing well should not receive those alerts at all. Any alert, however well written, has the potential to be discouraging (especially to an inexperienced editor), and those who are not causing problems don't need to be told anything about DS. DS alerts should be only for those getting close to causing problems, which I believe was the original intention. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 04:45, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

  If this were true (or true enough that we care – do we care about, say, a 1% discouragement if it stops 5% of impending disruption?), then the editnotices at the articles would be where the concern is. This is another of the "can't have it both ways" things. If DS-related notices are inherently scary and discouraging, we're scaring off way more editors every day with the editnotices than we ever have with Ds/alerts the entire time Ds/alert has existed. Editors are hit in the face with the editnotices every single time they edit any of those pages.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:18, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

  I don't think you should be bandying about 1% or 5% figures when you don't actually know them - and how do you know that "we're scaring off way more editors every day with the editnotices than we ever have with Ds/alerts the entire time Ds/alert has existed"? And any valid comparison would be between the existing system and your bot-delivered notices to everyone - not between current edit notices and current manual DS alerts. You know there's a difference between a personal alert on a user talk page, a general alert on an article talk page, and an edit notice, and comparing them needs to be treated very cautiously at best. Finally, and I'm just being honest here so I hope you don't mind, your constant badgering is starting to make your obviously well-intentioned proposal look increasingly like a soapbox rant. That's all I'll say - please slow down the talking a bit, and listen to and think about other opinions too without going straight into argument mode every single time. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:04, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

  I'm not "bandying about" anything, I'm using obviously hypothetical numbers to suggest an analysis needs to be done to find out what the numbers really are and what they mean. Or, in the absence of analysis, that assertions that editors are being driven away by Ds/alert are baseless supposition. Especially since they get way harsher DS-related "scareboxes" far more frequently from another direction. I also don't need to have my posts here or at VPPOL mischaracterized by you. I'm not just telling people they're wrong, I'm asking questions, pointing out where the proposal has already answered theirs, agreeing with their concerns and clarifying the RfC wording to address them (still ongoing), and many other things. I'm managing the proposal, not WP:BLUDGEONing it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:58, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

• Posting here to solicit opinions from editors/arbitrators who have contributed to the relevant discussions. I am intending to remove one header from {{Ds/alert}}, see Template_talk:Ds#Template:Ds/alert. Would like to request some input to see if it's a good start to make the alert template looking more like a notice as intended, instead of a warning that alleges wrongdoing. Alex Shih (talk) 08:28, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose over-reaching knee-jerk response "automated tools" is extremely vague, what does this mean? If I wanted to send 2 people a notice, and used AWB to do it, but in semiautomated mode is this a "automated tool"? What about something like a browser script? How about copy-and-pasting? I don't have any major objection against using a "bot account" in principal though. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:47, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a fairly documented language about the difference between automated and semi-automated tools. Nearly all the examples you've provided are examples of semi-automated editing and would not be restricted by this motion. Mkdw ^talk 17:55, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

And edits are the responsibility of whomever makes them. Why the arbitration committee is interfering with the "method" of the edit, rather than the content is beyond me. We already have provisions for dealing with disruptive alerting in general. Especially in the case of newer editors avoiding "bot account" edits may be useful as the new editors may discount it due to the non-"person" nature of the edit. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:08, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Even if there is documented language about the difference between automated and semi-automated, it's still an ambiguous distinction. At a minimum, I strongly recommend blue-linking "automated" to something that defines the difference. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:30, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

For sure, a footnote or a link with further details would be appropriate. Mkdw ^talk 19:36, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

@BU Rob13: This has come up several times in this discussion, so something extra to clarify this point seems like a good idea. Mkdw ^talk 19:36, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes. My questions above at the "On this specific motion and its interpretation" comment block remain unaddressed. BU Rob13's conceptualization of this and yours, Mkdw, don't appear entirely compatible.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:05, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

The other issue is that this is making a rule that is hard to impossible to review violations of. If I write a utility that lets me target a username, then it "automatically" logs in as me, edits that user talk vs going to the webui and pasting in the ds alter template what is the issue? You can "manually" send a ton of these with tabbed browsing in short order with that exact same impact. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:13, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

@Mkdw: my whole point is that Editors may not use automated tools or bot accounts to issue alerts. is just making up a rule that isn't needed and can just be an avenue to future arguments. Isn't the point that the committee doesn't want these alerts coming from bots? e.g. "Editors may not use bot accounts to issue alerts." should suffice? — xaosflux ^Talk 20:24, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

• @Opabinia regalis: regarding "its already passed" what was the point of inviting community comments - to try to change the mind of all the committee members who voted prior to eliciting the community comments? — xaosflux ^Talk 13:05, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

As some of you will be aware, I've tried to address various issues with DS and Ds/alert at ArbCom talk, ARBPOL talk, AC/DS talk, even Ds/alert talk, over many years, and from many angles, and been stonewalled on virtually every single point, every time. Even, back when, getting the Ds/alerts revised to stop making bogus accusations of wrongdoing in them (that shamefully took multiple ARCAs, one of which had to be opened on my and someone else's behalf because ArbCom – a compositionally different ArbCom – just wouldn't listen otherwise). So, this RfC was not some off-the-cuff whim. It's been years coming, and there really was no other option to crack through the crust of ArbCom's bureaucracy bubble; cf. second comment here. (I am of course aware that ArbCom changes membership somewhat from year to year; this is an institutional problem, not a personalities one. I ran for ArbCom last term, with the primary goal of addressing this stuff hands-on. I received more support than several now-sitting Arbs, but I have some detractors from various content disputes, so I didn't quite make the cut due to opposes.)

• @Newyorkbrad: Thank you for the thoughtful comments. I think your summary leaves out some important things: DS was invented, out of thin air, by a single Arb. It was then just foisted off on the community, and we've never been all that comfortable with it, especially as its scope has crept multiple ways. It's also why WP:RFA turned from challenging into a hellhole: DS increased the trust level we have to have in an admin by an order of magnitude. There was a "review" of DS several years ago, but sculpted by another single Arb, who steered it very carefully to produce results that just reinforced that DS was here to stay, and to stay in pretty much exactly the same form with a few twiddly tweaks.

  DS has crept from encyclopedia content disputes into interfering with internal policy debate, a separation-of-powers problem. And it's gone from something to implement when really needed, for only as long as really needed, into something that never, ever goes away once authorized for that topic, as long as someone can show "a dispute" here or there, despite the fact that the disputes pointed to do not need DS to resolve them but could be handled at ANI, and despite attempts to use DS to do so turning into horrible messes that would not have happened at ANI (or NORN, ANEW, whatever). It's the classic non-fallacious slippery slope: once power is taken ("temporarily", "for an emergency") it will not be yielded. When a civil society collapses into despotism over time, this is almost always how it happens. Jemielniak's op-ed isn't spelling it out in the same terms, but these ideas are of a piece; coups happen more often by an privileged, insider bureaucracy working slowly than by a sudden violent upheaval.

  But let's suppose DS is just fine as-is. The current "awareness" cognitive dissonance stuff is not. I've delivered a lot of Ds/alerts. To date, only one single time has someone treated it as an awareness notice instead of an attack/threat to which they should respond with escalation or even public grandstanding in article talk about being "attacked". If we don't have a bot deliver them automatically, then we need a bot that does it by request. Or an admin board where admins go do it by request. Or a button we can click that does it by request. Without delivery being tied (at least without digging around) to someone specific. Otherwise, 99.5% (or so) of the time it's going to continue to escalate rather than reduce conflict. It's having the diametric opposite of the intended effect. Counterproductive. Failure. Whatever words you like for "not working".

  An even saner plan is to just put DS editnotices and talk-page banners on all affected pages, and treat these as "awareness". If you edit there, you get the notice, you are aware, the end. Or have some micro-bureaucratic rule, if you must, like there must be X edits to such pages in Y span of time to be aware; that could be reasonable. Or – this isn't crazy – forget the awareness stuff and just enforce the rules evenly, like we do with all other rules (and with leeway shown to new editors). None of this is innately hard. ArbCom has forced it to be hard against the community's expectations and collective will.
   — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:18, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

  PS: We "should make editors aware that discretionary sanctions apply to a page or a topic-area when ... the editor needs to be aware that his or her editing on a particular topic is subject to special rules." That's more tautology. Why would an editor need to have this fact hidden from them? Sounds like a great argument in support of my RfC proposal, frankly.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:20, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

• @Alex Shih: Thank you for weighing in as well. "The RfC proposal isn't really concrete at the moment" – Indeed. It's a first-draft approach (aside from minor textual twiddles). I expected this to to be 80% oppose right off the bat, but it actually has legs, probably for a second, refined RfC another time. If the literal idea of having a bot drop off the notices ... well, robotically is flat-out rejected, it's very clear that the community thinks some of problems inspiring the proposal need to be addressed. I don't really care how that happens. The bot idea is more of a kludge than anything, a "better than nothing" patch, but if talking about it gets a productive ball rolling, great.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:27, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
• @Mkdw: Also appreciate your thoughtful comments on this, especially "I have no intention of targeting or taking away tools and scripts that editors use to assist them when conducting these tasks". It's not clear if this squares with BU Rob13's view on it, which seems tied to WP:BITE and perhaps to an over-extension of BITE to non-new editors, though it's hard to tell from this. I've asked for some clarifications [4].  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:09, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
• @Doug Weller: Re, "Editors using mobile devices may not see edit notices. Administrators should consider whether an editor was aware of the page restriction before sanctioning them." – How does this square with the idea that the only recognized awareness comes from Ds/alert (or from direct involvement in "process" that makes the awareness certain)? If ArbCom and WP:AC/DS are maintaining the position that awareness only happens per WP:AC/DS#Awareness, then whether an editor had seen an editnotice or not would be just be irrelevant. It seems weird – rules-interpretation conflicted – for ArbCom to tell admins to "consider whether" editnotices constitute awareness for a particular user, while at another page disavowing them as awareness, ever, in the first place. I agree that the mobile problem right now makes it technically impractical to treat the editnotices as "awareness delivery" (something I and many others have proposed, in lieu of just dropping this "awareness" stuff); but for all we know, that might be something that could be fixed this very month. So, that's a separate matter from what really can constitute awareness at the moment.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:53, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
  • We require edit notices for page-level restrictions in addition to the alert. That’s what that sentence is referring to. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 23:58, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

---

Initiated by Crouch, Swale at 19:46, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Ban appeal restrictions

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 36#Community consultation: User:Crouch, Swale ban appeal
2. Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Archive 12#Crouch, Swale ban appeal (December 2017)

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request

• Crouch, Swale (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• Callanecc (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Euryalus (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Nilfanion (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Callanecc Euryalus Nilfanion

Information about amendment request

• Links at the top

• RM new page and moves/discussion editing restrictions (from myself)

• Link to the principle, finding, remedy, section, etc for which you are requesting amendment

• State the desired modification

Can I have my editing restriction of page creation and discussion of NC and moves please. I have waited 6 months and edited as instructed. I have not had any problems with my moves on Commons and know that I need to follow consensus and propose potentially controversial moves. With creations I have to some extent reached an agreement with Nilfanion. I will mainly be creating pages for missing civil parishes and I will likely discuss with Nilfanion if I intend to create a large number of other topics. Note that I might not be around much next week but I hope that doesn't cause too many problems with this. I have never been blocked on Commons or had editing restrictions there, however if there is concern about my contributions which shouldn't happen, I will voluntary agree to restrictions, for example I have to discuss all moves I make.

(reply to Beyond My Ken) - I haven't contributed over there for years, and they were only realy blocked because of the blocks here, I didn't get any behavioral blocks there. Crouch, Swale (talk) 08:27, 2 July 2018

• My appeal was nearly 2 hours late, I though you knew that I would want to appeal. I have tried to follow your requests and I did expand some articles. There are around 750 missing (current) civil parishes. Creating a B-Class for all of those would be extremely difficult. Creating things other than CPs could be discussed with Nilfanion later.
• In the case of Ireland I wanted to leave it open for longer and leave a message at WP but the restrictions wouldn't have allowed that. I had taken it to CFD and I only closed it then due to this comment in response to my comment here. It wasn't obvious that the other things like the link and subsequent moves should be carried out after the move. When the suggestions were made I did so. I would have proposed the move of Shetland first here but the restrictions wouldn't allow that. UKPLACE can apply to any place located in the UK, not just settlements, in fact it even gives Jura, Scotland as an example. The hyphens are not used in other sources. I haven't contributed to any RM discussions to simplify things as I would be quite easy to be considered to violate the restrictions if a RM affects geographical locations, say if some are listed on the DAB page. I am not formerly banned from the RM or NC in general, that's just something I voluntary suggested.
• I therefore think only removing the discussions is inappropriate as I have no restrictions on Commons and haven't had recent warnings there. I think a WP:1RR, applying in particular to moves would be more appropriate. I would also need to work out a consensus on topics that is not a CP. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:12, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
• (Beyond My Ken) And that was over the accounts here, not behavior there. My point was that Nilfanion didn't think that I would immediately appeal.
• (Rob) If I had have participated in RM discussions Nilfanion would probably have made a comment similar to this and threaten to add those discussions to the ban. I have waited and waited for change to finish creating articles and I think its inappropriate to still now allow it. How about using my contributions on Commons where I haven't been banned. Crouch, Swale (talk) 08:53, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
• 6 months is a very long time, it might have been a bit different if it had only been 1 month or so.
• You are often the only one who cares about conventions, I attempted to draw up guidelines and get the wider community involved on Commons.
• My main focus is often getting a specific category of topics but yes a topic might be deemed notable if it meets GNG.
• But at least I don't have any restrictions there and few of my creations have been deleted and few of my moves have been reverted.
• This, this, this and this don't involve geographical NC and the middle 2 are similar to AFD/merge discussions here. Crouch, Swale (talk) 09:59, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
• 6 months is a long time so why should I want to wait any longer? I have improved other articles as well, Revelstoke, Devon for example.
• I really don't think I should be expected to wait any longer. Haven't I had enough bans. Crouch, Swale (talk) 07:56, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
• It seems that I have been forced to make appeal after appeal, and still not succeeded, why am I expected to have restrictions which are similar to a site ban. I had waited precisely for the 1 of July (a whole 6 months) to be able to do the things I wanted to but it seems I have been let down yet again. Crouch, Swale (talk) 09:32, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
• I would also suggest that if this is declined which it looks like it will then I should not be expected to wait another 6 months but rather than when the disputes have been resolved. I think that this is otherwise like a prison sentence WP is not supposed to be so restrictive. Crouch, Swale (talk) 08:51, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
• If the time frame doesn't matter that much then can I appeal further anytime, as long as I have done what it needed, meaningful NC discussion and significant content creation, rather than having to wait until the 31st of December? Crouch, Swale (talk) 08:35, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Can I ask what this is about? Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:57, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

A sockpuppet block is a behavioral block. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:52, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

"My appeal was nearly 2 hours late" Do you say this because you believe it showed patience on your part, that you waited almost an entire 120 minutes (7,200 seconds) after the precise minute you were allowed to appeal? Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:45, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

• @BU Rob13: - If there's some question about whether CS's sanctions allow them to participate in RMs of articles, this appeal could return an explicit statement that they're allowed to do that, so that the Committee can get the information needed to evaluate whether to lift the sanction on page moves. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:09, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure I'm a party to this, but clearly I'm interested. I'd urge ArbCom to read this discussion on my talk page. I'm surprised that he immediately came here at the 6 month (though I shouldn't be). My intentions were (and still are) to try and support him over the coming weeks/months to prove he can write good articles, and demonstrate he now has the key skills he lacked in the past and would likely produce new articles in a non-disruptive manner. If he had done so, at that point I'd have been inclined to approach ArbCom on his behalf to urge the restrictions were withdrawn.

The behaviour that triggered his initial block was generated by the mass creation of stubs on minor geographic places (leading to work at AFD, effort in merging into sensible parent articles, pointless templates being created etc). When he didn't stop that quickly death spiralled into socking. His comments, both during the discussion on my talk page and in his statement here, trouble me:

1. I have urged him to aim to create articles which are much more substantial than minimal stubs, and his replies show he has no interest in doing so. By doing the research and creating longer articles, not only is the immediate reader experience better - but he would amply demonstrate each article meets the GNG by providing a good number of sources.
2. By creating very small cookie-cutter stubs - he gives himself the potential to create a lot of articles in a short space of time.
3. His understanding of notability guidance is questionable. Instead of properly assessing individual cases on their merits (ie by finding if there are enough suitable sources to meet GNG), he just looks at broad classes. One he has a decision on a broad class he will follow it. His immediate interest of Civil Parishes (Lowest tier of administrative areas in England) are highly likely to be notable, but his future endeavours are bound to result in stub creation on much minor places. Instead of expansion of a suitable parent article (ie likely to be the relevant parish).

All of these points suggest to me the potential for future disruption identical to what triggered the initial block.

Recent activity on Commons at CFD (the closest analog to WP:RM) may be of interest to ArbCom, as it shows other aspects of his behaviour: This show him closing a very high impact case, with minimal involvement from others. He did not initially care about fixing the consequences. He frets about "correctness" a lot, especially with following the one true source, and makes a lot of moves as a result. If he was allowed, he is bound to do the same on Wikipedia. His understanding definitely varies from Wikipedia norms. Some examples of moves: [14] is at variance with an old WP discussion. [15] quotes WP:UKPLACE incorrectly (it applies to settlements, not natural features). [16] to remove hyphens (not used by his preferred source, but used by other sources).

Based on the evidence above, at this time I oppose removal of the restrictions on article creation and removal of the restrictions on page moving. The other restrictions (no involvement in RM, or in discussions about naming conventions) could be removed - that would give Crouch, Swale to the ability to demonstrate on Wikipedia that the page move restrictions could be safely relaxed in future.

@BU Rob13: Crouch, Swale hasn't contributed to any requested moves since he was unblocked, because his current restrictions prevent him from doing so. See my comment above about Commons, for similar activity on that project.--Nilfanion (talk) 18:52, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Of course I expected an appeal, but not one instantaneously. You approached me on June 22 and asked me to review some stuff you had done, which was reasonable on your part. I then expected you to have worked with me over a period of time, and at the conclusion of that been you could have been in the place for a strong appeal leading to a full removal of your sanctions. Not basically tell me to go away, and immediately appeal when you hit the 6 month mark.

You need to be engaging with the community-at-large, not single editors. You do that via taking part in discussions on article talk pages, project pages (like those for naming conventions or WP:UKGEO) not an user's talk page. And if you stay on topic, instead of going on a tangent with a slew of new questions you might find your original question gets answered. Its not right that you discussion with me what classes of subject should have an article. You shouldn't even be thinking about classes of subject, but individual subjects.

I'm not necessarily expecting all new articles to be high standard. But I do want to see you are able and willing to create one reasonable quality article. If you can't do that even once, I have little confidence you will ever do anything other than create stubs. And you need to move past that if you ever want to create new articles on Wikipedia. Edits like the ones to Theydon Mount are an important step in the right direction, but it needs to be sustained and not a one-off. If you do what I suggested and work on a single subject building a high-standard article its much easier for me (or anyone else) to give you meaningful feedback and allow you to create future articles in confidence.

My point with respect to the Commons examples is that your decision-making in all of them is questionable, and not clearly in line with WP norms, I'm not going to debate them here. Therefore letting you loose on Wikipedia at this time is high risk.

@Euryalus: The restriction on RM stems from the topic ban on geographic naming conventions. You can't meaningfully participate in most RMs without relying on some aspect of the naming conventions, and he is clearly only interested in geography, that is a major limitation on such discussions. A bright line is easier to enforce instead of quibbling about whether a specific comment is about the NCs. @ArbCom generally: I'm think setting a date for a new appeal will get an immediate response, regardless of whether the circumstances justify a change. This editor will keep on pushing and pushing and it is time consuming for all involved (including him). It would be better for it to be come back "when you are ready" not "in at least x months" (which will be exactly x months). Perhaps a criteria that reads "when you can demonstrate positive involvement in several RMs over an period of time, then an appeal will be considered"?--Nilfanion (talk) 15:31, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

6 months is a substantial period of time, which means means the difference an extra day makes is minimal. You would be well advised to demonstrate solid evidence of improvement on the lines of "hey look at this article I improved, and this one, and this one" next time you come back here, not "its 6 months since last time, and I haven't been blocked". And finally, note this is Wikipedia, not Commons, different rules apply - for a start the community is more active.

@Euryalus: That makes sense to me. Maybe break it down into two parts to reflect the restrictions: Create dispute-free & meaningful content on notable subjects = remove creation ban. Meaningful involvement in RMs and related discussions without disruption = remove ban on moves.--Nilfanion (talk) 13:44, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Concur with Nilfanion. The very recent thread at [17] indicates insufficient cluefullness (still, somehow). Given the previous track-record of grossly disruptive socking and endless creation of pointless one-liners, a desire to keep creating micro-stubs after all this is a big red-flag. I agree with Nilfanion's WP:ROPE idea of easing some other restrictions, but there should be no hesitation in re-imposing the RM/move ban should more trouble arise in that area. We already have too high of a noise:signal and heat:light ratio in that sector.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:32, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Also concur with BU Rob13 here; it's not really possible to do much at RM without referring to the naming conventions and their applicability/non-applicability to the case at hand. If you can't do those things, you'd be reduced to WP:JUSTAVOTE in many cases, and that is discouraged.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:59, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

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

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

• Miniapolis isn't a party – she just did the paperwork. Thanks, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 20:04, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

• @Crouch, Swale: Have you taken any pages through the requested moves process since you were unblocked? If so, please link that. If not, why not? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:28, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • I’m open to rescinding one sanction on a probationary basis, but not multiple at once. If that goes well, you could come back to discuss others. My preferred one to rescind is the one on page moves, since I think it’s easiest to monitor. My problem there is the lack of RM activity. I don’t see requested moves of main space pages as being likely to violate your topic ban, which just forbids you discussing our meta naming conventions from my understanding. My initial thought would be to decline this appeal, allowing another appeal of only the moving restriction after one month of participation at RM. I would appreciate feedback on this both from Crouch and from the community. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 04:54, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
    • We could consider loosening the naming conventions restriction to exclude mention of naming conventions in RM discussions, specifically to allow participation in that area. That would quickly show us whether this is a productive exercise or not. While I respect the Commons contributions, they aren't a factor in my decision here. I care about the ability to interact on enwiki, not Commons, which is a very different project. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 20:46, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
• May as well start by actually thanking Crouch, Swale for their obvious interest in adding to Wikipedia, despite some fairly tough sanctions. Most people in similar circumstances would just give up and do something else with their time. So, congrats for that at least. I might be missing something, is the restriction in participation in RM a consequence of the restriction on taking part in discussions on geographic naming conventions? If so then I'd support a repeal of this specific restriction, with the qualifier that it can be reinstated in short order by the Committee if RM involvement becomes needlessly disruptive. After reviewing the edit history and the various talkpage conversations, I would oppose lifting the other restrictions for at least another six months. One aim of the restrictions was to encourage content contributions outside of single-paragraph stubs, but the contribution history hasn't moved that much beyond that, with the recent exception of Theydon Mount. A few more articles like this, and we would be in a better position to consider lifting the page creation ban. -- Euryalus (talk) 09:25, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

@Nilfanion: Thanks re the clarification on the RM ban. You also have a good point re times to next appeal, but I reckon there is still merit in it, otherwise (as a generic comment) we open the door to appeals seeking a date for appeals. Perhaps the answer is a combined wording: a minimum appeal date and advice that a successful appeal will require a record of dispute-free and meaningful content creation on notable subjects. In passing, thanks for your informal mentoring, as evidenced by the lengthy discussions on your talk page. —- Euryalus (talk) 20:09, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

• I would support removing the topic ban from discussions on geographic naming conventions to better allow Crouch, Swale to contribute to RMs in order to provide an opportunity for him to show that the prohibition on moving or renaming pages is no longer necessary. I also agree that giving Crouch, Swale a better idea of what he needs to show when appealing is a good idea, in additional to the usual time period. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:34, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
• I'm ok with removing the geographic naming conventions topic ban with the proviso we can reinstate it. Thus I believe I'm in agreement with Callanecc and Euryalus here. Doug Weller talk 14:05, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
• I agree with Nilfanion. Mkdw ^talk 20:50, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

For this motion there are 14 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 8 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference

Abstentions	Support votes needed for majority
0	8
1–2	7
3–4	6

Enacted --Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ ^(Talk) 05:15, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Support

1. Per the discussion above, dropping the topic ban is the next logical step in removing the unblock conditions. I'd also echo Nilfanion's comments above that appealing restrictions is more than just x time has passed, the appealing editor needs to show that the restriction is no longer needed because they won't repeat the conduct which lead to the restriction being imposed. In this case, Crouch needs to show that they can write meaningful and substantial content on notable topics without becoming involved in disputes and they they are able to be involved in RMs in a constructive and collegial way, with arguments based in policy. The other restrictions won't be lifted without clear and substantial evidence of this, regardless how long it takes to show. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 04:30, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
2. Echo Callanecc's comments. Crouch's emphasis on the exact timing of their appeal worries me, and he needs to keep in mind that it isn't the time passed that's important, it's the behavioral change. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 05:53, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
3. Per Callanecc and Nilfanion. Mkdw ^talk 06:01, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
4. As worded. Alex Shih (talk) 08:22, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
5. Also agreeing with Callanecc and Nilfanion about the circumstances needed for a further appeal. Doug Weller talk 09:48, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
6. Per below. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 17:04, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
7. Hesitant support. I’m not convinced this will end well, but I’d be very glad to be proved wrong. I’m okay with either version of the wording. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:54, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
8. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 05:16, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Oppose

Abstain

Arbitrator discussion

• @Callanecc: Can we tack on the probation language we’ve used recently? (Any admin can restore the sanction if disruption occurs, permanently lifted after six months if no new issues.) I think that’s rather important here. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 06:34, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
  • I was considering it, but comments above indicated more that they'd rather it be the Committee who reinstated it. Happy to add/for it to be added though. @Mkdw and Premeditated Chaos: Thoughts? Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 06:40, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
    • I'm fine with either wording. I suppose it has somewhat more "teeth" if we reinstate it, but letting any admin reinstate it makes it more expedient. Both have benefits. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 06:51, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
      • We could always let any admin restore the sanction but require they simultaneously file an ARCA for us to review the situation. I imagine in most cases that would end with us endorsing their restoration of the sanction, but we would still have our review on it. I think that would satisfy everyone? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 07:13, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
        • It does add bureaucracy though, they might as well just file an amendment request asking us to do it. If we're going to do it, we might as well just add the probation. @Alex Shih: Can I just clarify if you're opposing the probation we're discussing here? Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 09:14, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
          • Support probation on that the topic ban can be reinstated by any uninvolved administrator. Alex Shih (talk) 09:34, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
            • I've modified the motion. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 12:06, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
              • I still support with the changes. Thanks, Mkdw ^talk 01:16, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
• @Crouch, Swale: regarding your comment about time frames, you will need to wait until at least 6 months to show that you have meaningful, substantial and sustained participation and experience in these areas. An appeal from you won't succeed if it's merely one or two examples of good conduct in each area. You will need to show that you have evidence of this over a number of months; not just amount but also consistency. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 09:11, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

---

---

Initiated by Guy Macon at 02:44, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Scientology#Return of access levels

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

• Guy Macon (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

[18]

(Please let me know if I should post a notice on the talk pages of the participants at the noticeboard) --Guy Macon (talk) 02:52, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Per the discussions at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard#Clarifying policy and Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard#Why not just ask Arbcom?, I would like to request clarification/guidance concerning Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Scientology#Return of access levels? and Wikipedia:Bureaucrats#Restoration of permissions

In particular, some participants in the above-referenced discussions have focused upon...

"Check their talk page history and any pertinent discussions or noticeboards for indications that they may have resigned (or become inactive) for the purpose, or with the effect, of evading scrutiny of their actions that could have led to sanctions."

...from restoration of permissions, arguing that if at the time of the resignation there did not exist an active case at Arbcom or WP:AN that had a reasonable chance of leading to sanctions or desysopping, restoration should be automatic.

On the other hand some participants in the above-referenced discussions have focused upon...

"Users who give up their administrator (or other) privileges and later request the return of those privileges may have them restored upon request, provided they did not give them up under circumstances of controversy."

...from return of access levels, arguing that if there have been significant complaints that may have, if not for the discussion being shut down by the resignation, led to an active case at Arbcom or WP:AN that may have lead to sanctions or desysopping, an new RfA should be required.

The Bureaucrats were split 4 to 6 on this with one 'crat saying...

"So I'd err on resysopping someone who may or may not be or been have desysopping by arbcom and let arbcom deal with desysopping if they so choose."

...while another wrote...

"Obviously the community does not allow us to stand in for ArbCom and stand in judgment over resigned administrators. But I don't think that means our job is just to return the tools absent evidence of the worst kind of misconduct. The community has authorized us only to return the tools in uncontroversial circumstances. So I'd err the other way. If not relatively uncontroversial, I think RfA is the way to go."

Pretty much everyone, editors and 'crats, agreed with the opinion, expressed at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard#Clarifying policy, that "My honest and unprejudiced reading of the evidence presented is that it clearly does not cross a bright line. Yet I find many honest and unprejudiced Wikipedians who I respect disagree with me. I take from this that our policy isn't clear enough."

This may result in an RfC, but even if it does, I think that some clarification from Arbcom concerning the return of access levels section of the Scientology case would help to avoid the participants in the RfC simply repeating the same confusion regarding policy.

I will post a link to this on the Bureaucrats' noticeboard. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:44, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

I would suggest that the intent behind the policy is to prevent resignation being used to duck out of a behavioral inquiry and then being able to just pick up the tools again a couple of months later. I believe that would be captured by wording similar to:

An administrator who resigned at a time when there was either an ongoing formal process which was avoided, circumvented, or minimized as a result of their resignation ie actively avoiding scrutiny or in circumstances where such a process was reasonably likely to follow if the admin did not resign ie controversial circumstances may only regain the bit via a new RfA.

Although it may be more proper to suggest wording at an RfC rather than through an ARCA. I think the Arbs may be able to further clarify their interpretation by expanding on, in a more general manner, the example provided in the case. That may be reaching beyond the scope because I do not believe there was a need to make a more general interpretation to rule on the circumstances of the case. Jbh ^Talk 03:51, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

A concern some of us raised over at BN is that any active (or at least "enforcing") admin always has various people upset at them and convinced they're a "badmin". Judging whether someone resigned "under a cloud" needs to be tied to whether formal process against the admin (for admin actions, or actions that could have called into question admin suitability), was under way when they resigned. It's not sufficient that the admin was criticized or had "enemies". In the case that triggered this debate, the returning ex-admin had not been subject to formal scrutiny when resigning, but did have some other editors angry at them. Taking a long wikibreak in the face of drama, short of noticeboard or ArbCom scrutiny of one's admin or adminship-affecting activities, shouldn't force a re-RfA.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:20, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

PS: It's "interesting" (perhaps in the sense of the ancient Chinese curse) that the Arbs can see this so differently from each other, just like the Crats did. Plus here I am (notorious for being a critic of many admins and of our adminship system in general) leaping to the defense of admins perhaps "under a slight overcast" rather than a cloud. I think there may be a fundamental philosophical difference at work, about process, about where the dividing line is between WP:Process is important and WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY, or how wide and diffuse the field between them is. It's also noteworthy that some in the BN discussion were convinced that the rule was essentially invented by ArbCom and then codified in rather different language in the policy, but this may have happened the other way around (would have to dig in page histories to be sure, but I suspect that's the case).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:46, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

WP:Bureaucrats (including WP:RESYSOP) is not policy (or even "guideline") and never has been; the reason it has the cumbersome Wikipedia:Bureaucrats/Header at the top rather than the usual {{policy}} or {{guideline}} reflects the fact that no attempt to elevate it to anything more than an informal set of notes has ever been successful. As far as I'm aware, the resysop procedures never have been formally codified, other than in a few old arb cases like Scientology. The closest thing we have to a formal policy is the relevant part of the closure of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Bureaucrat removal of adminship policy, which is the rather unhelpful Administrators that did not resign in controversial circumstances and whose identity is not in question will be reinstated as per resysopping policy, which still punts it back to the 'crats to determine what constitutes "controversial circumstances". (There might be some RFCs regarding the limits of 'crat discretion from the time of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Elonka and associated recall petition or from Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Danny 2 but I'm no great desire to reopen those cans of worms, and in any case that was an eternity ago in Wikipedia years and the much more recent Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Bureaucrat removal of adminship policy would have superseded any decisions reached.)  ‑ Iridescent 10:44, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

I first want to echo everything Iridescent said above me. The Resysopping section was added in early 2010 (BN discussion) and has since been expanded to incorporate the inactive admin policy (BN discussion) and note the principle in question. While the procedures have existed in a largely similar form for years — I imagine NYB's history and institutional knowledge will be quite helpful! — to my knowledge Iri is correct that in large part they haven't been officially codified. I suppose it might be helpful for the Committee to clarify how broadly they think Scientology's circumstances of controversy should be interpreted by Bureaucrats (perhaps by noting they need not be "formal," whatever that means), but I think that's somewhat missing the point. It's not for the Committee to make policy, so if the community wishes to codify, clarify, or change policy as to how Bureaucrats interpret the proverbial cloud, we can (and should, as it seems Bureaucrats themselves would appreciate it).

To wit, I largely agree with Callanecc and Alex Shih that there isn't much for ArbCom to do here. To repeat and paraphrase my comments at BN, the process is working, even if some folks disagree with the latest outcome. That there is disagreement on a particular situation from different Bureaucrats is not prima facie evidence that the process is broken, just that Bureaucrats sometimes have hard jobs. The part that I see that could merit clarification from ArbCom is in the next line of that Principle: Determining whether an administrator resigned under controversial circumstances is, in most cases, in the discretion of the bureaucrats (emphasis added). I take that vagueness to refer to cases involving special authority — ArbCom, Jimbo, WMF, etc. — but if there is confusion as to what the Committee feels doesn't fall under 'crat purview, that could be worth clarifying. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 18:18, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information.

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

• I don't see much of a role for ArbCom here, it's up to the community to determine what a "controversial circumstance" is and hence develop a policy on that. If the community has done that at WP:RESYSOP ("purpose, or with the effect, of evading scrutiny of their actions that could have led to sanctions"), then that is the extant policy which should be followed. I haven't checked on the policy status of that sentence, although the notice at the top of WP:CRAT suggests it is a policy/guideline. On a procedural note, I don't think you need to notify each participant individually, the notice on BN is fine. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 04:46, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Regarding Amorymeltzer, point about "in most cases" I think that would only apply when a group with the authority to do so (eg ArbCom) says don't restore the tools, absent that it's currently completely up to the crat's discretion. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 00:20, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
• These cases will be infrequent enough and different enough that the crats can decide each time whether or not they think it appropriate to consult arb com, and whether to do it formally or informally,. DGG ( talk ) 05:05, 14 July 2018‎ (UTC)
• The bureaucrats have said they don’t consider it their role to determine whether cases like these warrant refusing to return the mop, in favor of ArbCom action. I think this is at odds with our desysopping policy, but if the bureaucrats aren’t taking on that role, we need to. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 06:32, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
  • I agree, and whose role it is is definitely something which needs to be part of the RfC. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 06:43, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
    • We need to decide what to do in this situation, however. We can't allow a resysop which may be against policy to occur merely because no-one thinks it's their responsibility to enforce the policy. Perhaps an injunction until the community clears up the resysopping policy? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 07:14, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
      • @BU Rob13: presuming this is about Ymblanter, the tools were restored 24 hours ago. Doug Weller talk 07:29, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
      • (edit conflict) I see Dweller has restored the mop to Ymblanter despite the controversy surrounding the request. For transparency, I want to make my position clear here. "Controversial circumstances" received no special definition in the Scientology case, so it holds its normal English meaning. If there is substantial controversy surrounding an administrator at the time of their resignation, they should have to go through an RfA prior to receiving the mop back. "Controversial circumstances" does not mean circumstances that would have led to desysopping. It is broader than that; it refers to any legitimate and substantial community inquiry into the actions or behavior of an administrator. It is important to note that intent does not matter here, nor do the words of the resigning administrator. The resignation need only have been under controversial circumstances in order for a new RfA to be required. Lastly, if there is no consensus among bureaucrats to restore the sysop flag due to a potential controversy, that itself is evidence of a controversy. Here, we had six bureaucrats supporting restoration and four opposing it. We had an additional bureaucrat (Xeno) who commented shortly before Dweller closed the discussion. He appeared to be taking a broad view of "controversial circumstances", which would have brought things to 6-5. We had at least one supporting bureaucrat explicitly uncomfortable with restoring if there wasn't a clear consensus for restoration among bureaucrats. This all paints an obvious "no consensus" result, which suggests there is controversy surrounding the resignation. While I have no doubt Dweller was acting in good faith, his restoration of the sysop flag was at best against policy. At worst, it was a bureaucratic supervote. I know I'll get flak for saying this, but I personally view it as the latter. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 07:44, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
        • If there's a significant enough issue here a case request can be filed, absent that this is outside our jurisdiction to make a judgement on (and I would have opposed a temporary injunction for that reason). The issue here is that it's not clear where the bar should be (for example, is the sentence in WP:CRAT binding on crats as policy or not) and that needs to be determined by the community in an RfC, not by the Committee. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 08:01, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
• I don't think there is any need for clarification over principle 15.1.9 of the Scientology case. As it stands, the determination of "controversial circumstances" is based on the discretion of the bureaucrats. In the relatively infrequent situation where an administrator did not relinquish their privileges in a completely uncontroversial manner, a bureaucrat discussion should take place to allow consensus among the bureaucrats to emerge, which is what happened with the Ymblanter case. Alex Shih (talk) 07:54, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
  • My opinion on the consensus of this particular bureaucrat discussion is slightly different from BU Rob13, although I will openly admit my bias as I was in support of Ymblanter's resysop due to my interpretation of "controversial circumstances" being different for this situation. I think it's incorrect to speculate what Xeno would have voted; they concluded their comment with were there controversial circumstances? and refrained from voting. The one bureaucrat in favour of support (Deskana) had their concerns addressed after additional comments by Xaosflux, Useight and SoWhy. In their response to Deskana, the bureaucrat voted oppose (Useight) expressed that they are "okay" with resysop. This leaves us with WJBscribe and Acalamari to be the two remaining votes strongly in oppose of resysop. But despite of voting strong oppose, WJBscribe did not contest Dweller's close even though they commented in their talk page afterwards. Therefore I disagree with the assessment that Dweller acted against policy and/or participated in bureaucrat supervote. Alex Shih (talk) 08:13, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
• Here's the history of ArbCom's thinking in this area as I understand it:
  • The first time this issue arose was in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Giano (2006). The principle adopted in that case read: Return of access levels. Users who give up their sysop (or other) powers and later return and request them back may have them back automatically, provided they did not leave under controversial circumstances. Users who do leave under controversial circumstances must go through the normal channels to get them back. Determining whether a user left under controversial circumstances is, in most cases, to be left up to bureaucrats' discretion.
    • The original proposal used the phrase "under a cloud" instead of "under controversial circumstances". I was not an arbitrator then but I commented at the time that the phrase "under a cloud" was undesirable as it might be read to suggest more serious problems than a dispute on a website, and the wording was changed. The phrase "under controversial circumstances" or "under circumstances of controversy" was just a placeholder I threw in until someone could think of something better, but it seems to have stuck.
    • To the best of my knowledge, there was not previously any policy or guideline on this subject until the ArbCom adopted this principle. As I have noted before, this is one of the clearest examples I can remember of ArbCom's making policy, which is something it's not ordinarily supposed to do. Yet I don't believe anyone objected in this instance, either at the time or at any time since—probably because the policy the arbitrators crafted was in accordance with what anyone who anticipated the issue might have suggested in any event.
  • The next case that came up was Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Philwelch. In this case an administrator resigned his adminship while a request for arbitration, based on a series of bad blocks, was pending against him and appeared likely to be accepted. The resignation mooted the dispute (as a non-admin Philwelch wasn't going to be blocking anyone anymore), but the arbitrators seemingly felt they had to accept the case anyway to decide what would happen if Philwelch requested the tools back later. I wasn't an arbitrator yet, but on the Workshop I suggested adding a sentence to the principle from Giano, which was adopted with some modification: An administrator who requests desysopping while an arbitration case or a request for arbitration is pending against him or her will be deemed to have left under circumstances of controversy, unless the Arbitration Committee deems otherwise, for purposes of applying this principle, whether or not the arbitration case is accepted.
  • ArbCom has repeated these principles in several cases in the ensuing decade and in some other cases has applied them implicitly (e.g. MZMcBride 2, Scientology, Macedonia 2, Fae, Media viewer RfC, Wifione, Andrevan). However, I can't recall a case in which an ArbCom decision has gone beyond them.
  • Based on these decisions (which are consistent with the current policy), ArbCom only has a potential role in this area if an administrator has resigned (1) while a case to which he or she is a party had already been accepted and was being considered, or (2) while a request for arbitration was pending. Ordinarily, an admin who resigns under either of these circumstances would need a new RfA to regain adminship. The "unless ArbCom decides otherwise" out was envisioned as a safety valve where the arbitrators found the RfAr request completely frivolous or there were other unusual circumstances, but I don't remember it ever being used.
  • Where the admin resigns while there is no arbitration case or request pending (even if there is a discussion underway at AN or elsewhere), under current practice and policy ArbCom has no role, and any decision on whether to grant a later request for the bit back is for the bureaucrats.
  • Whether "was this under controversial circumstances?" calls should be made when an admin resigns, or only later when the admin seeks resysopping, is a decision for the community, which as a practical matter is also delegated to the 'crats unless a policy is adopted. There are valid arguments for either practice (the best arguments for deciding at the time of resignation are that events will be fresh in everyone's mind and later disputes will be avoided; the best arguments for deciding later are to allow tensions and pressures to diffuse and to avoid debates are unnecessary because the editor will not be seeking adminship again). One data point that might be of interest is what percentage of admins who resign eventually seek readminship. If it's a relatively small percentage, which is my impression without having checked, that might weigh in favor of waiting.
  • Bottom line: I generally agree with the other arbs who have commented that under current practice this is not an ArbCom matter. Hope this helps. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:19, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
• I have nothing of value to say. I will just echo my colleges above that this is not a matter for us to handle. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 05:24, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
• What I could say has been very well laid out by NYB before me. I will agree that this is not a matter for Arbcom to handle. RickinBaltimore (talk) 12:26, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
• I'm in one of those unique positions, where I wear both hats, but I thought it best to not get involved on the bureaucrat noticeboard for this one, as I thought people would give my opinion more weight than it deserves. "Clouds" are often a grey area did you see what I did there? - and honestly, I believe that if there is no clear "cloud", then the bureaucrats shouldn't be second guessing themselves. I know this gives admins an escape plan if they see which way the wind is blowing (too many weather cliches), they can duck down until it's all clear again - but actually, that's not such a bad thing - if an admin is causing problems, then perhaps they should simply be taking a break. If they don't know when to take a break, then that's a big part of the problem.
  With that pre-amble, I will leave the final decision to the other bureaucrats, as this is not a matter for Arbcom, explained well by my colleagues. Worm^TT(talk) 19:18, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

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Initiated by Ivanvector at 16:00, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Nadirali unblocked

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

• Ivanvector (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)
• NadirAli (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• diff of notification NadirAli

I'm requesting clarification of NadirAli's unblock conditions, which included a topic ban which was later suspended and then presumably rescinded as part of the suspension motion. The first bullet of the unblock conditions describes the topic ban and also the remedies for enforcement of the topic ban. The second bullet specifies that NadirAli may not edit from an alternate account nor "anonymously" (which I have taken to mean editing while logged out) but does not separately specify enforcement remedies. I have two questions:

1. Are the enforcement provisions given with the first bullet meant to apply only to violations of the topic ban or to violations of the entire set of unblock conditions?
2. Is the suspension of the topic ban meant to apply specifically exclusively to the topic ban, or to all of the unblock conditions as a whole? i.e. do any of the unblock conditions remain in effect?

Thanks for your time. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:00, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

I appreciate that Ivanvector has brought this to Arbcom for clarification. As per the standards of blocking policy for sockpuppetry, the sockmaster with his socks is indeffed for repeated offences. An indefinite block is completely justified in this case since this is not the first time that NadirAli is guilty of sock puppetry, but many many times.[19]

Furthermore, we must not forget that NadirAli evaded his siteban, topic ban, one-account restriction and image upload ban throughout these 10 years. --RaviC (talk) 16:09, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

• @KrakatoaKatie, RickinBaltimore, BU Rob13, and Worm That Turned: Since we already came this far, I was hoping Arbcom would pass a motion to siteban NadirAli. Given that he was evading his siteban before he was unbanned,[20] then after getting unblocked he created Boxman88 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)[21] to evade the Arbcom topic ban, and since Arbcom removed the topic ban, he got himself indefinitely topic banned uploading any images,[22] which he violated by creating a new sock. [23]  He is indefinitely topic banned from India-Pakistan conflict,[24] and he already violated that topic ban this month.[25] A siteban is probably overdue for someone who is currently topic banned from several areas for an indefinite period and has been socking this rigorously. --RaviC (talk) 07:54, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information.

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

• I obviously wasn't on the committee then, but I read it as only the topic ban being lifted, not the single account restriction, and that he is specifically prohibited from editing while logged out. If he didn't violate the topic ban suspension conditions for that one-year period, then the topic ban is no longer in effect. If he's socking, he gets treated like we'd treat anyone else with a repeated history of sockpuppetry. Katie^talk 00:20, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
• Agree with Katie. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 00:26, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
• Katie summed it up perfectly. RickinBaltimore (talk) 00:52, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
• I was on the committee at the time, indeed I believe I enacted the unblock, and I too agree with Katie. The single account restriction is still in force, the topic ban is not. Worm^TT(talk) 09:01, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

  RaviC, you make a strong argument for a site ban, but I'm not comfortable with a siteban by motion as many of the members of the current committee were not on the committee for the original case. Were there a subsequent case, we may well agree with you, but there are places to deal with each of the behaviours, from AE to SPI to ANI. If you still strongly feel that the site ban should be put in place, why not suggest it at AN with your explanation. There's no reason that the community cannot pass a ban based on past behaviour. Worm^TT(talk) 08:42, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

• My esteemed colleagues are all correct. Including the suggestion that AN, not ArbCom, would be the appropriate place to ask for a site ban. Doug Weller talk 12:27, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
• I am comfortable with the advice given above. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:06, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

---

---

Initiated by Tryptofish at 20:47, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

• Tryptofish (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)

I would like to ask the Committee how one should understand the following question:

When Discretionary Sanctions are in effect, are editors expected to be on "good behavior" to a greater degree than is expected in general?

I'm asking this question based on several recent experiences at WP:AE (it doesn't matter which ones). It appears to me that enforcing administrators have become reluctant to get involved in some complaints, when the complaint is not a clear-cut and obvious one. In particular, I have been seeing administrator comments along the lines of "we expect a certain amount of nastiness in topic areas that are highly disputed, so we should just let that go." I realize of course that this is always a case-by-case sort of thing. I suspect that some of this grows out of a concern about backlash against an administrative decision, some out of the fact that there aren't very many admins working at AE, some out of the difficulty of working through tl;dr statements, and some out of the good-faith and very reasonable desire not to sanction someone for simply getting a little hot under the collar.

But I've also long believed (perhaps mistakenly) that part of the idea behind DS is that the Committee has determined that the topic area has become such a problem that there is a need to decisively clamp down on disruptive behavior, and that editors who are properly "aware" are expected not to test the boundaries of acceptable conduct. But I think I've been hearing from some AE admins that they regard conduct that has been chronic and disruptive, way beyond the typical hot under the collar situation, but that is the kind of thing that leads to a wall-of-text at WP:ANI, as suboptimal but acceptable when DS are in effect. So how should admins at AE understand the intention of DS in that regard? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:47, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Worm, thanks (I think!), but I'll leave that for another conversation.

Rob, to some degree, I think your answer (just keeping it real here) is a cop-out. OK, don't tell admins how to enforce it, but ArbCom can still say what DS means. How should enforcing admins understand it? Of course, my asking this is intended to put ArbCom on the record for whatever you collectively decide to say, even if you decide to say pretty much nothing. I actually do "patrol" (or, more accurately, watchlist) the topic areas that interest me (which would make me involved if I were an admin), and I do bring what I am sure are valid concerns to AE. If ArbCom just wants to say that it's entirely up to the enforcing admins, then so be it, but I don't think that's in the community's best interest. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:19, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Mkdw, thanks, that's very helpful. As a follow-up, I'm particularly interested in where you say This says to me that general community norms are meant to be preserved as much as possible, but when an editor departs from these norms to any degree, there is far less leniency granted. I see that sentence as being at the heart of what I am asking. It sounds to me like, as far as what I called "good behavior" goes, the basic concept of what that is, is the same with or without DS, but when DS are present, it is expected that there will be "far less leniency" for deviations from proper conduct. Is that correct? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:27, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Reading the new comments from Katie and Worm, I think it's a useful distinction that you both make: better-than-average is not required, but worse-than-average behavior is a problem. That makes sense to me, and also makes me see a way to make my original question more focused:

When Discretionary Sanctions are in effect, to what degree is worse-than-average conduct acceptable? Putting it another way, should AE admins expect aware editors in DS areas not to test the lower limits of what is regarded as acceptable conduct? Worse-than-average behavior is a problem – but does that mean that it is also sanctionable at AE, as opposed to being a problem that we just have to live with?

--Tryptofish (talk) 18:01, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

DGG, if I understand you correctly, you are saying that DS sanctions should only be applied for disruptive conduct that is worse than what leads to sanctions in the absence of DS. That does not sound to me like what the other Arbs have said, and it leaves me a bit confused. Do I misunderstand? --Tryptofish (talk) 00:47, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Rick and Doug, I agree with both of you, and if I'm understanding you correctly, you are saying that DS come into play when aware editors in a difficult topic area engage in "below-average" incivility, and the goal is to get that up to something near "average" or mainstream community norms, but not necessarily "above-average" as in a genteel tea party. If that's the take-home message from this discussion, then that's what I've been looking for. In other words, aware editors in DS areas should be expected at AE to be staying above the mere lower limits of acceptable behavior, even though they don't have to be paragons. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:30, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

• I've been giving thought to where Mkdw and Katie asked for pointers to where editors have expressed concern about whether AE is working well enough. I've been loath to use specific cases lest this become a relitigation of them. But I can point to a discussion at WT:AE that I started fairly recently, that is worth a look: [26]. It comes out of an AP2 case, but I suggest looking at it more broadly than that. You will see me and other editors expressing concerns that troublesome users are not getting sanctioned enough, and most interestingly AE admins talking about how difficult it is to work at AE: Acting decisively is one thing; going out on a limb and getting it cut from behind you is another. I think some reassurance that AE admins are supposed to get things up to "normal" – as opposed to just keeping them above rock-bottom – could be beneficial. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:47, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Editors can find the definition etc. of Discretionary Sanctions at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:01, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Do we know of any research that shows what effects the Arbcom authorization of Discretionary Sanctions has, if any, both positive and negative? Research of this nature could shed some light on whether modifications or clarifications, such as Tryptofish mentions, would be good. The scope of my question is broader than Tryptofish's question, but there is some overlap. I'm not proposing modifications or clarifications, or opposing modifications or clarifications, but I think that a review of research would be beneficial before deciding what next steps to take. --Pine^✉ 19:54, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

This is a good clarification question being posed. I have a bit of a followup related to the interplay of DS and ArbCom. When behavior X is a major disruptive issue in the topic, arbs can pass motions as a finding of fact saying it has caused disruption while allowing general DS in the topic or even passing principles or DS specifically saying such behavior is not appropriate instead.

Now when it comes to AE, editors can present such behavior and say ArbCom has said this isn't appropriate. Admins are free to say what degree of sanctions are needed or not, etc. However, when admins say they expect that level of behavior in DS topics or even say they don't think that behavior is a problem, isn't that contradicting ArbCom to a degree? Admins obviously have discretion with discretionary sanctions, but can that discretion contradict ArbCom findings that specific behavior is problem when it comes to these behavior issues Tryptofish is talking about? Kingofaces43 (talk) 00:55, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

This might be a dumb question (sorry) but can someone point me to a clear definition of exactly what "discretionary sanctions" is or are? This is a very good clarification, Tryptofish. Thank you. Minor4th 00:32, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

I still haven't figured out how/why ArbCom doesn't handle arbitration enforcement - I wonder if doing so would result in better remedies during arbitration. 😉 Gotta wonder why we have this venue for clarification. We elect administrators to use the mop to keep the peace and do necessary janitorial chores around the project, which means that with our admin shortage, they're already overworked and pressed for time. We elect ArbCom to resolve the complex issues that could not be remedied by the community or individual admins, so why is arb enforcement left to the discretion of a single admin? The words of Opabinia regalis still reverberate regarding an issue brought to this noticeboard because it was too complex for AE: ..."too complex for AE" means "too complex for self-selected volunteers who aren't actually obliged to do fuck all", whereas "too complex for ARCA" means "too complex for the people who specifically volunteered for and were elected to deal with complex problems and are as obliged to do things as anybody can be in an internet hobby". We can thank our lucky stars that we have a good share of excellent admins and arbitrators and that complex matters don't have to be judged by a single admin who serves as both our judge & jury. I think arb remedies/DS should always be handled by a minimum of three admins, and the three should rotate every quarter. My apologies for being so critical, but the entire process just doesn't seem to be very efficient, and we're losing good editors as a result. ^{Atsme✍🏻📧} 02:27, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information.

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

• I see discretionary sanctions as providing more tools to administrators, but I don't think the Committee intended to comment on how those tools should be deployed simply by making them available. It's ultimately up to enforcing administrators to decide how to use the tools we've given them to enforce policy. It's worth noting that any administrator can sanction an editor under discretionary sanctions, and it can only be overturned by consensus. If you think something has gone unenforced routinely at AE despite being a violation of policy, as long as that view isn't too outlandish, you're welcome to patrol the area yourself and enforce our community norms of behavior. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 03:46, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

  Except that Tryptofish doesn't actually hold the admin bit. Something he could always email me about ;) Worm^TT(talk) 10:13, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

• My interpretation is that the answer is no with an obvious caveat. In looking back at the history of discretionary sanctions, the wording on expectations and the role of administrators has changed very little:

"To this end, administrators are expected to use their experience and judgment to balance the need to assume good faith, to avoid biting genuine newcomers and to allow responsible contributors maximum editing freedom with the need to keep edit-warring, battleground conduct, and disruptive behaviour to a minimum."

This says to me that general community norms are meant to be preserved as much as possible, but when an editor depart from these norms to any degree, there is far less leniency granted. Standard discretionary sanctions rely on the judgement of administrators because they are expected to evaluate a situation and determine when an editor is engaging in battleground conduct and disruptive behaviour. Intent and impact are crucial determining factors when assessing if an editor's actions have inflamed a contentious area. I cannot say I envy the job administrators that regularly patrol these areas, but AE and community consensus are both a support resource, and a check and balance to the process. Arbitration being the last resort. The Committee then has to make further decisions as to whether appropriate civility restrictions are required, or whether broad civility probation conditions should be introduced. I would be curious to hear from others at AE and the community if they feel there should be more strict expectations on behaviour in topic areas covered by standard discretionary sanctions. Mkdw ^talk 20:16, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

I think there is a set tolerance for "bad" behaviour that defines community norms. Anything below those norms, or as you put it "worse than normal", the use of authorized discretionary sanctions should be considered to stabilize contentious topic areas. Mkdw ^talk 19:35, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

@Kingofaces43: On principle, our conduct policies are supposed to be universally applied across the entire project. There is a much stronger policy-based argument on that point than there is on the argument claiming editors working in contentious areas are entitled to an easement of these policies. We have serious problems on Wikipedia about consistency as evidently seen by the treatment of newcomers versus experienced editors. Following 'best practice' would be to not perpetuate these systemic problems further into contentious areas that would conversely more likely benefit from structure and clear expectations. Mkdw ^talk 20:34, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

• I don't think topic areas with discretionary sanctions necessarily require better than average behavior, if you will; it's more that worse than average behavior has been observed in those areas on a consistent basis in the past. Like Mkdw, I'd like to hear from others about the need and desire for higher behavioral expectations in these topic areas. Katie^talk 11:21, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
• In my mind, Discretionary Sanctions are an additional set of tools in an admins belt, to make things easier for the community, They're applied in contentious and evocative areas, where the norms of community behaviour can become forgotten - and rather than have escalating complaints over and over, a single uninvolved admin can use their judgement to do things that the community would normally have to do as a whole. Now, this is a very powerful set of tools, and shouldn't used without due consideration, so I understand that it may feel that behaviours get overlooked. So, no, I don't expect a higher standard in DS areas, but as Katie points out, there has been lower standards in the area in the past and so the area may need to be brought in line with the rest of the encyclopedia. Worm^TT(talk) 11:48, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
• The difference between DS and ordinary sanction sis the DSs require special procedures for their removal. To the extent that they require explicit consensus for removal, I think admins should be very cautious about using them. I suggest it would be counterproductive to apply them more freely than usual. I think this is essentially the same view my colleagues have given here DGG ( talk ) 00:42, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
• I would be in agreement with my colleagues here. DS are put in place to bring behavior in certain contentious areas to the norm of Wikipedia. Areas that have a DS have those to ensure that standard is even across the project. RickinBaltimore (talk) 12:07, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

• We place these in areas where, among other things, we think that uncivil behavior might be more of a problem than in other areas without sanctions. It's also my experience that in some of these areas we get new editors who come in very aggressively. We want to stop that - not of course turn them into polite tea parties, that's too much to expect, but at least to reach normal (for Wikipedia) levels of civility. These can and do help. Doug Weller talk 15:39, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
• Mkdw and Doug put it very well, in my opinion. Areas under DS areas have been observed to suffer from worse editor conduct than usual, so DS are introduced to provide tools to empower admins to stabilize them to get them to the same level of stability that the rest of the project has. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:42, 20 September 2018 (UTC)