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Any editor may add evidence to this page, irrespective of whether they are involved in the dispute. You must submit evidence in your own section. Editors who change other users' evidence may be blocked without warning; if you have a concern with or objection to another user's evidence, contact the committee by e-mail or on the talk page. The standard limits for all evidence submissions are: 1000 words and 100 diffs for users who are parties to this case; or about 500 words and 50 diffs for other users. Detailed but succinct submissions are more useful to the committee. This page is not designed for the submission of general reflections on the arbitration process, Wikipedia in general, or other irrelevant and broad issues; and if you submit such content to this page, please expect it to be ignored. General discussion of the case may be opened on the talk page. You must focus on the issues that are important to the dispute and submit diffs which illustrate the nature of the dispute or will be useful to the committee in its deliberations.

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Concern regarding Kafziel's previous history

1. Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Kafziel 3 In which in Question 4 raises concern regarding Kafziel's combativeness and civility prior to the 3nd Request for Adminship. Note how Kafziel does not directly address steps that they will take to reduce conflict. (Incorporated from comment by SilkTork)
2. July 2012 thread regarding block In which a block of a significant editor with additional removal of talk page privileges was called as being excessive, out of line with expectations for administrators, and not authorized by the community endorsed blocking policy.

Concerns raised on Kafziel's talk page.

1. User talk:Kafziel#Skimlinks: Kafziel deletes directly from AfC, refuses to restore it back to the AfC space at the request of the editor who was working on it. Expresses a explicitly hostile to AfC viewpoint while missing out on key principles;
2. User talk:Kafziel#Please use the proper procedure for aproving drafts at AfC: When approached collegially by a member of the Wikiproject Articles for Creation who is familiar with policy and procedures. Admin flatly says "No thanks" without explaining why they won't try to follow the community endorsed procedures.
3. User talk:Kafziel#Munjed Al Muderis article nominated for deletion: When approached by a editor at large who is affected by the cowboy admin actions, Kafziel elects to substitue their own opinion (and incorrect assumptions) for the request of an editor and the community consensus.
4. User talk:Kafziel#Submission: IgnitionDeck and User talk:Kafziel#Submission: OrderUp: Again, the admin elects to substitute a very wide interpertation of the CSD rationalle with respect to the Advertising/Copyright/Spam. This is against the stated purpose of the Articles for Creation process.
5. User talk:Kafziel#AfC reviews: User is asked to explain themselves by members of the Wikiproject Articles for Creation to try and come to a compromise. Kafziel declines to explain themselves (which is a violation of ADMINACT) and further asserts that they will continue to make more actions when the current ones have been challenged.
6. User talk:Kafziel#Working on backlogs: User is cautioned by a member of the Arbitration committee to not work on the AfC space. Kafziel declines and is Interested in helping users avoid abuse at the hands of AfC, and making sure that Wikipedia remains free and open.
7. User talk:Kafziel#Arbitration: User provoctatively suggests that one of the arbitrators should recuse due to a generally neutral suggestion over 7 months ago that was in the same "Conduct unbecomming an administrator" cause of concern (User_talk:Kafziel/archive8#ColonelHenry)

Escalated concerns to AN/I

1. Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive821#User:Kafziel_abusing_admin_tools_and_overriding_long_established_consensus: Thread opened on AN/I per the procedures established procedure at ADMINABUSE. Several editors and Administrators in good standing express concern with the actions and the reactions to being questioned about the acts. Thread was closed down (and edit warred over) with respect to the issue being over. Several assertions were made about the thread being a witch hunt by supporters and opposes of the discussion.

Misconceptions regarding Articles for Creation

1. Articles for Creation is a process by which new or unregistered editors can submit draft articles for review by experienced editors. The process was created as a response to the Wikipedia biography controversy. Editors that are confirmed or autoconfirmed can bypass this process, but that is their choice.
   1. Some editors have explicitly created their draft in AfC space so that they get a second opinion on the article and they do not feel comfortable with the creation.
2. The number 40,000 and tens of thousands of drafts have been thrown around multiple times in the statements and various locations. This is a ill informed statement.
   1. There are approximately 2000 pending AfC submissions (Category:AfC pending submissions by age). While we would like to have a backlog of zero, there are only so many reviewers that can help out and pages that they can give time for.
   2. There are approximately 24,000 stale AfC submissions where the draft has not been edited in more than 6 months (Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as abandoned AfC submissions). Approximately 3 months ago there were 80,000 stale AfC submissions. The submissions were stale because the community had endorsed the CSD:G13 rationale as a way to clean out the old drafts that are not having progress being made.
   3. There is a procedural cleaning of the stale drafts by a bot (User:HasteurBot) that goes through all the old AfC drafts to look for drafts that have just become eligible for G13. Once the page is eligible for G13, the bot gives the page creator a notice that the submission is in danger of being deleted by G13 rule. 30 days after the notice, the page becomes eligible for the bot to nominate the page for deletion via G13. There is a great deal more of rules and side processes that are tied up with the bot, but for the most part, we will eventually stabilize at a reasonable amount of stale drafts.

"Under a Cloud" "retirement" by Kafziel

Per their "evidence" below and this posting on their talk page it should be clear that Kafziel is more interested in laying blame anywhere but at their own feet, therefore I propose that this case be dispensed with by motion to desysop Kafziel under the "Under a Cloud" principle as they still indicate that they feel their actions and judgement as an administrator are more important than established policy and consensus by the subject matter expertes for the field of Articles for Creation submissions.

Speedy deletion of Damaris Richardson

• 01:19 22 October 2013 - Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Damaris Richardson is created ([1])
• 17:10 22 November 2013 - Kafziel accepts the submission ([2])
• 17:12 22 November 2013 - Kafziel speedy deletes the draft (now in mainspace) per WP:CSD#A7 ([3])
• 17:26 22 November 2013 - Kafziel leaves a reasonable and civil note on the creator's talk page that he has deleted the submission ([4])
• 18:05 22 November 2013 - Article's creator leaves a blunt and impolite note in response ([5]) and has not edited Wikipedia since

I feel that while Kafziel's actions are somewhat unorthodox, his attempt to engage with the article's creator was reasonable and that the submission (which has since been restored) has been declined as non-notable by another editor since then.

Edit warring on WP:ANI

• 17:05 10 December 2013 - Rationale for closing an ANI thread changed by Floquenbeam with an edit summary of "more neutral close" ([6])
• 17:06 10 December 2013 - Revert by Kafziel ([7])
• 17:10 10 December 2013 - Revert by Floquenbeam ([8])
• 17:12 10 December 2013 - Revert by Kafziel ([9])
• 17:14 10 December 2013 - Kafziel opens a discussion on Floquenbeam's talk page ([10]) ([11])

Articles for Creation process

• The instructions for reviewing AfC submissions are at Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Reviewing instructions
• An automatic script is available to make the process of reviewing articles easier. The use of the script is described as highly recommended but it is not mandatory. The principal advantage of the script is described as "editors are notified and templates are removed from articles once they have been created"
• The bulk of the reviewing instructions are concerned with notability, verifiability and suitability. There are also a set of quick-fail criteria, including cases where speedy deletion of drafts / submissions is appropriate. For example :
  • "If a submission is clearly an attack page ... you should immediately tag the page for speedy deletion with ((db-g10))"
  • "If the entire page is an unambiguous copyright violation, you should also tag the page for speedy deletion with ((db-g12))"
  • "where a submission is a blatant advertisement and the subject is clearly non-notable or otherwise unsuitable for Wikipedia, it may be appropriate to tag the submission for speedy deletion using ((db-g11))"

Opinions of quality criteria

• Kafziel believes that submissions sit in AfC space for too long and should be accepted provided they pass the CSD (but not necessarily PROD or AfD) criteria ([12]).
• Kafziel has created a flowchart at File:Kafziel flowchart AfC.jpg, described as a "Flowchart for Cutting Through the AfC Bullshit", as an expression of this view.
• Hasteur has taken exception to this view ([13])
• I cannot find a reference to policy that states which view is correct.

Refusal to explain deletion of Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/EXNESS

• 22:28, 21 November 2013 Kafziel deletes Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/EXNESS per WP:CSD#G11 ([14])
• 04:50, 27 November 2013 Article's creator asks why it was deleted ([15])
• 15:04, 27 November 2013 Kafziel refuses to suggest a reason other than it is "spam" and will not email the text ([16])

While I don't believe any admin is obliged to email the text of deleted articles, convention I have seen elsewhere is that unless there are legal problems (eg: G10s, G12s), other admins will send the text with a warning not to resubmit until someone with no COI has checked it.

No thanks

By this point, after all this discussion, if nobody has been able to point to a specific policy that says I'm wrong (while I've pointed to several which say I'm right) then there isn't one. So this is just going to end up a more formal version of the AN/I discussion, with Hasteur foaming at the mouth and getting nowhere, and me responding to his threats and demands with much the same results. But there's nothing anyone here can say or do to make me apologize for anything I did, or agree to do anything differently, and there's nothing short of that that will please people like him. So I don't guess there's any point in my sticking around to listen to any more of it.

AGK is right, in a way. At some point over the last several years, it was decided that Wikipedia administrators should act like a bunch of navel-gazing, mewling little bitches. I don't know if it was a gradual thing, or a sudden change and I just missed the memo. So he may be wrong about the reason—I've never deleted anything simply for being "not encyclopedic"—but he's right about my failure to adapt to this new Wikipedia culture. I never agreed to help spammers game the system, that's for damn sure.

I truly appreciate the widespread support I've received over this, both on and off site, but I'm the first to tell people that no individual editor is actually important to the project, so it would be hypocritical of me not to take my own advice and show myself out. I don't make any claim that Wikipedia will be worse off without me, and I'm still very proud of what we built here over the last decade. Despite its many flaws, Wikipedia is still the best damn thing on the Internet. But I don't need it, and it doesn't need me.

I'm not saying this to try to end this ArbCom discussion. By all means, please see it through, because these issues—in particular, whether the demands of a Wikiproject can trump the core policy of IAR—is in dire need of attention from the wider community. I just won't be watching or participating. The question is not whether I'm an asshole. The question is whether a badly mismanaged project has the right to force its guidelines on other users who are following policy (even if making occasional mistakes) and trying to improve the encyclopedia. I'm glad I stood my ground at AN/I, even though it means I'm now leaving Wikipedia, because if AfC is allowed to tell editors who can edit what, and when, and how, and which articles are "ready" for the main namespace, and which are immune from deletion, all according to their own private set of rules, then this has become The Encyclopedia Some People Can Edit. And I hate to think we've worked all these years just to end up with that. Kafziel ^{Complaint Department: Please take a number} 15:13, 16 December 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Search indexing

Kafziel writes

"I admit I don't know an awful lot about technical things like indexing or whatnot, but I know if you Google a company, its spammy AfC page will be among the results. So, yes, I do think not letting spammers squat at AfC improves the encyclopedia."[17]

I tried Googling several snippets from AfC pages (example from this) and didn't find any AfC submissions in the results. Using "view source" on the submitted drafts shows the tag

<meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow" />

near the top of the HTML sources. This is a robot exclusion meta tag requesting search engines to not index the page, and Google appears to respect it. Could Kafziel's whole rampage have been over a misunderstanding? 50.0.121.102 (talk) 02:24, 17 December 2013 (UTC) Update: a request on 17 December to Kafziel for clarification in this matter has gone (so far) unanswered.[18] 50.0.121.102 (talk) 23:06, 20 December 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]

"A" criteria deletions (A10, A7) in the WT namespace

1. Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Daniel Ninivaggi
2. Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/The Osseointegration Group of Australia
3. Damaris Richardson (attempted to hide it by moving then immediately deleting)
4. Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS) (tried to hide this as well)
5. Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/University of California, Irvine School of Education
6. Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Gender Paradox (sociolinguistics)
7. Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Balkan Egyptians (Jevgs, Egjiptjant,Jevgjit,magjypë)
8. Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Forensic Oratory

Misguided "promotional" definition

He has too many G11 deletions of AfC submissions for me to list, but if you see User_talk:Kafziel#Submission:_IgnitionDeck and User_talk:Kafziel#Submission:_OrderUp, you'll see he just deletes anything at all that someone with a self-declared COI, who is trying to follow the policies, has edited, and responds uncivilly when they inquire about his actions. For just one example, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Skimlinks. Kafziel deleted this as G11 in the WT namespace and it was not only closed as speedy keep at AfD, but it was moved to the mainspace as an article. For the rest, see Special:Log/Kafziel.

First we have to admit...WP:AN/I is more often the last resort course someone chooses when they're on the losing side of a spat. What we have in this WP:AN/I is someone complained because they still disagreed and would have continued disagreeing even after someone explained themselves no matter what the facts. Hey, Wikipedia editors in the wild tend to be rather territorial. WP:AN/I tends to be the extension of that.

Second. AfC has problems that have been complained of for a long time. When you ask why those problems don't get addressed, you can point back to the same editors who have been at AfC for a long time and see how "they" do it. When you ask why new AfC editors don't stay around for a while, or end up at WP:AN/I, it's because "they" chase them off. Sounds like a personal fiefdom.

• Hasteur seems to be proud that he has been "drug to the Administration Noticeboards 7 times", as a userbox on his page attests.[19]. That sort of userbox usage implies for me a sort of George W. Bush-esque "Bring it on" rhetoric, and by extension a pattern of past disagreements and spats. I haven't counted how many times he's brought matters to WP:AN/I...but from experience, after being dragged there a few times by others there's an irresistible urge to rush to WP:AN/I to seek vindicationfor a minor spat. Then WP:BOOMERANG comes into play.
• Hasteur seems to accuse Kafziel for exercising his judgment in deleting AfC candidates with an abuse of power, but states that "Much like Justice Potter Stewart in the landmark case "I know it when I see it" is how I look at articles. Either they belong, deserve the benefit of the doubt or are so beyond hope that deletion is the best remedy for them."[20] I guess some people never take the beam out of their eye first and transgression, much like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder...despite WP:NPOV.
• The WP:AN/I matter was closed by Coffee who stated, as did many other admins, that "Absolutely zero evidence has been produced during this unnecessarily long discussion to show that Kafziel has in any way abused his admin tools, nor has any evidence been produced that what he's done in the realms of AFC is against policy" The accusing editor, Hasteur, and his companions have provided "zero evidence". It is a petty disagreement over process--and the stakes are so low. There still isn't any evidence that Kafziel violated any policies...just some bruised ego.
• If there's no evidence beyond "we disagree with his process" when their process accomplishes the same thing (but takes longer and is more needlessly bureaucratic), it's not a matter of "abuse." It's a matter of editors defending an obsolete or ineffective process and engaging in trench warfare.
• Comparatively, despite the AfC project's "unwritten rules" of how "they" do things, Kafziel's behavior was transparent and by the book...and to an uninvolved observer are logical, rule-based, and quickly understood. Just happened to be different from how "they" do it. Two days before complaining of Kafziel, on the AfC talk page, there's another discussion where long-time AfC editors (Hasteur and Kudpung) complain because a human editor is addressing the backlog and an editors is being told (in rather unfriendly terms) to defer to Hasteur's bot. See: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation#Slow down the G13 bot please. Evinces a pattern of behaviour among AfC's insiders.
• In almost all of Kafziel's AfC deletions (q.v. logs), there is valid CSD reasoning and none of them appear to be "arbitrary" or "automatic" and evinces that Kafziel exercises his judgment on a case-by-case basis. He has been rather effective at fighting promotional articles, spam, BLP and copyright violations in AfC, and he stated during the WP:AN/I: "I'm as uninvolved and unbiased as anyone else. I've moved far more articles into the article space than I've deleted." We don't get it right all the time, sometimes we take shortcuts, but looking at Kafziel's work at AfC, he gets it right more often than most. Again...what's wrong with exercising a little good judgment and clearing a backlog too quickly? Apparently too much if it's a more effective process than the one "they" prefer.

Because Kafziel asked Newyorkbrad to recuse himself over a discussion he's had regarding me, I should probably preface with my comments with this: I've known Kafziel for several years. I've always respected his judgment, opinion, and reliability, and above all his integrity. He has been one of the project's best contributors and has a significant body of high quality work as a contributor and as one of the better admins that I, and many others I work with, have encountered. Coincidentally, he was one of the major reasons that convinced me to come back to Wikipedia after a long hiatus. He blocked me once (something that is the root of his request for Newyorkbrad's recusal). I was blocked for 24 hours while engaging in edit-warring/reverting while protecting an article I worked up to TFA--I disagreed with the block and said a few hostile things, but I saw and still see the reasoning for it, and he was "by the book". Kafziel even stated that he gave me sufficient warning (a few of them), and exhibited considerably patience...and stupid me did it once again and deserved it. But he's always been "by the book"--something that the parties complaining likely can't deal with. Sometimes it's hard to like when someone acts "by the book" when we disagree with them. Anger blinds us from reason.

To see Kafziel put up a "retired" banner on his user talk page is a sign that something is horribly wrong, and I having known him for years, I'm rather sure his behavior isn't the root of the problem. Just the battle of two alpha males--one defending the status quo, problems and all, the other with a way of effectively addressing some of the problems and workload but it wasn't the status quo.

Respectfully submitted,--ColonelHenry (talk) 17:12, 17 December 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]

User:Kafziel commented that AfC isn't working. I took a look at some of the backlog, [21].

1. [22] Editor appears to have given up [23]
2. [24] Editor appears to have given up [25]
3. [26] Editor appears to have given up [27]

If you look at the backlog, it is indeed discouraging editors. If AfC is supposed to be helping new editors, its failing and is actually deterring them. None of his actions have violated policy, instead we have a group of editors displaying WP:OWN complaining loudly that he isn't doing it their way. Stampeding straight from ANI to Arbcom shows a distinct WP:BATTLE mentality. In truth, I think it was a mistake to open this case, Arbcom is the last resort in dispute resolution. Instead, it has been the first resort; there has been no RFC and no RFC/U. Wee Curry Monster talk 10:22, 18 December 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Evidence

In the already-described ANI thread, I became particularly concerned following:

[28]

The back and forth that followed:

TLDR - Turn Back, Dude... GWH

Kafziel

GWH

Kafziel

GWH

...after which I stepped back, judging that I was making it worse not better.

Analysis / Opinion

In retrospect, I believe this was an administrator who was entering the terminal phase of burnout. Essentially nobody effectively engaged to try and help with that, due to the way it came up / was presented as an ANI incident.

Regarding administrator behavior, no affirmative actions of Kafziel's seem to have broken policy in a significant way. Two minor mistakes (as everyone seems to have concluded) don't create a pattern, don't call judgement into question, etc. The issue revolves around communications, nearly all on ANI.

In my opinion -

• It is an inviolable rule of Administrative actions that administrators must be prepared to explain and defend administrative actions they take. It's a given that many, perhaps most complaints about administrative actions are frivolous or poorly founded. But even they need explanations and defense.
• It's also an extremely good idea that Admins aren't above the editors, in the sense of being able to ignore the community writ large, even if backed by extant policy. Policy comes from *all* the editors, over time, and needs to reflect consensus on what we all want. Treating it as some written in stone constant is improper and unwise, much less unsupported by history.
• It's an extremely good idea for admins to be collegial and collaborative, and to work to defuse situations rather than exacerbate them.

Any admin who is calling their ability to work under those three rules into question, no matter how good their judgement has been with actual administrative actions, is damaging to the encyclopedia, no matter how good their intentions are.

It would be wise for the community to work to identify ways to defuse situations with admins like this; however, I have been saying that and trying to effect change on that for ... (since 2009?...), and no magic bullet has presented itself.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 21:58, 29 December 2013 (UTC)Reply[reply]