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Behaviour on this page: Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at a fair, well-informed decision. You are required to act with appropriate decorum during this case. While grievances must often be aired during a case, you are expected to air them without being rude or hostile, and to respond calmly to allegations against you. Accusations of misbehaviour posted in this case must be proven with clear evidence (and otherwise not made at all). Editors who conduct themselves inappropriately during a case may be sanctioned by an arbitrator, clerk, or functionary, without further warning, by being banned from further participation in the case, or being blocked altogether. Personal attacks against other users, including arbitrators or the clerks, will be met with sanctions. Behavior during a case may also be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision.

I don't know what the outcome of this Arbitration case will be, but it might be the 'first time' ever, one gets elected an Arbitrator while facing a possible ban from Wikipedia by Arbcom. GoodDay (talk) 00:22, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This came up in the past when someone ran while under discussion at AE for a possible block. He was allowed to run. He ended up blocked for a week, so may have been blocked during part of the time the election was in progress. He wasn't elected and I felt it wasn't a big deal.

On another occasion, a banned editor wanted to run, but wasn't allowed. I thought that prohibition was pointless: if the person got elected, that would have shown pretty clearly that the community wanted to overturn the ban. If they didn't get elected then no problem. This was someone who would have gotten significant support. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 05:06, 1 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing stopping Arbcom appropriately blocking someone, even if they're an election candidate. I'd expect any Arb who was also a candidate in the same election to recuse from discussion or voting. -- Euryalus (talk) 01:51, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Theoretically, the Arbitration Committee could use the provision to remove an arbitrator to remove someone before they took their seat, I believe, if something extraordinary came up. I doubt this will be an issue. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 02:16, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This is of course only an issue in the incredibly unlikely circumstance that Fred actually does get elected. All the handicappers seem to agree he had very little chance even before this incident. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:17, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@GoodDay: As an observer of the situation, I'd say that it's very unlikely that Bauder will be elected to ArbCom. It also appears to me unlikely that he will be banned from Wikipedia, if by that you mean a site ban. There may be other sanctions (besides the desysop, which seems to be a foregone conclusion) in the offing. No guarantees, of course: I called the last U.S. Presidential election totally wrong (but did very well in the recent mid-terms).

In any case, I know of absolutely nothing that would prevent any editor -- rank-and-file, admin, bureaucrat or arbitrator -- from being subjected to sanctions by ArbCom. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:51, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, on talkpages of Arbcom cases, you can respond to posts in this manner :) GoodDay (talk) 01:24, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Many times ArbCom will specify that each editor has to remain in their own section on the talk pages, so I started to think that was the norm, but I see that there is no such notice here. Thanks for pointing that out. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:06, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Pointless bureaucratic addition - it's generally up to the drafters if they want to enforce sectioned comments. Agree with BMK that there's no advice either way on sections for this page yet, so I reckon unless/until that happens feel free post in threads or sections as you prefer. -- Euryalus (talk) 23:31, 1 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think sectioned discussion is necessary on this page right now. If it gets that way, we'll start enforcing it. Katie^talk 01:22, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. This isn't so contentious a case that sectioned discussion should be necessary. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 02:15, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It would like to ask whether or not the committee intends to clarify exactly what they consider to be an emergency for the purposes of an emergency desysop, particularly if they choose to endorse any of the findings of fact and decisions which state the circumstances did not constitute an emergency. I personally don't believe being explicit about what constitutes an emergency will genuinely be useful, I'd rather that each incident is judged on its own merits and that the committee assesses whether the actions taken by any party (typically going to be a crat or steward) can be considered 'reasonable' even if they're ultimately determined to have been unnecessary or unwanted, should we be unfortunate enough to have a similar situation in future where an administrator requires some form of emergency desysop (observing that with the application of T150826 this particular set of circumstances won't be repeated in any case). Nick (talk) 23:08, 1 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe it came up, and like you, I don't believe it's useful. Ideally, what should happen imo is what's been happening lately, that the stewards should globally lock the account. In this case, we as drafters felt that the passage of almost 3.5 hours was not an emergency by pretty much any definition. We included the statement about unblocking yourself because it's always possible, though unlikely, that that switch might be flipped back sometime in the future, and the self-unblock certainly did happen here. Katie^talk 01:31, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wheel warring is not grounds for a global lock. Misusing the tools on one wiki should not result in a global lock which prevents any contribution to Wikimedia (especially because global locks are hard to appeal). I maintain that stewards could still have performed an emergency desysop in this situation if they had been contacted as the wheel warring was occurring. --Rschen7754 01:45, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That's very possible. It would have been up to a steward to determine if that was within their remit, but I would consider it a reasonable interpretation of their role in desysopping on this project. I think it obvious no steward would have pulled the sysop flag 3.5 hours later, however. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 02:14, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This is such an exceedingly rare set of circumstances that I don't belive the committtee needs to bother clarifying anything, and it certainly should not de-crat Maxim. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:19, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

well: we don't lock for local issue — (probably only) exception being compromised account — and 3.5hrs after the fact is (IMO personally) too late for an emergency if it were before us. — regards, Revi 23:32, 4 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Noting that remedy #8 says "Editors eminded". Probably needs an "r" before "eminded. Risker (talk) 00:17, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Done, thanks. -- Euryalus (talk) 00:34, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The WP:ADMIN policy makes it quite clear that the Arbitration Committee can remove administrator tools from users, but I'm not seeing the same in WP:CRAT (unless the "removal of permissions" section is meant to refer to both the crats' ability to remove permissions and removal of crat permissions, but it doesn't read like that to me). The same is true of the WP:ARBPOL; "removal of administrative tools" and "approv[al] and remov[al] of access to CheckUser and Oversight tools" are mentioned explicitly, but there is no mention of bureaucrats.

I guess I'm not sure who would handle issues regarding bureaucrats if not the Committee (stewards, maybe..?) but it might be worth addressing this lack of clarity in policy (unless, of course, I've missed it in policy somewhere). GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:53, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I won’t be supporting such a remedy in this case, but the Committee has “de-cratted” bureaucrats several times in the past and there has been no dispute over its authority to do so. Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:01, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ah okay, perhaps it should be worked into policy retroactively then if that's the case. GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:25, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm aware of at least one case in which ArbCom removed the bureaucrat tools. See here. The most important question here is what we should call removing the bureaucrat tools. Decratted? Decratified? (This was an actual topic of discussion while the PD was being written, although that may be because we were on hour three by that point, I believe.) ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 04:04, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps "de-bureaucratationalized" ("de-burred" for short). Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:13, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Disbaurred, perhaps? GorillaWarfare (talk) 05:32, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I’m going with “decratted”. — pythoncoder  (talk | contribs) 01:02, 5 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is important for this finding to specify that although ArbCom was discussing the matter, the committee had not made any public comment about their doing so, so Maxim could not have known about the discussion. The way it is currently written, "though a discussion was underway on the arbcom-en list" seems to imply that Maxim should have been aware of that Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:24, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks BMK, it's been modified to avoid this issue. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 08:37, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What a ridiculous remedy that only goes on to illustrate how disconnected and out of touch some members of ArbCom could be. Proposed remedies needs to be based on relevant community discussions immediately related to the case, evidence submitted and workshop discussions. What was this remedy based on, the opinion of individual arbitrator whose opinion should be thoroughly scrutinised considering the current mess situation in which they are involved in? Or basing on narrow interpretations of 2011 RfC while ignoring all of the relevant community discussions and the emerging community consensus preceding to and during this case?

Fred Bauder's actions were clearly seen as needing immediate intervention by many members of the community; for ArbCom to be tone deaf to these discussions is not acceptable. To enact this kind of punitive remedy when it was ArbCom that failed to be transparent and communicate in a timely manner with the community is also not acceptable. For an arbitrator to accuse Maxim of "extremely poor judgement" unilaterally against an overwhelming consensus that Maxim made a reasonable and (arguably) good IAR judgement call should be clearly out of line. I sincerely hope the rest of the committee can consider the consequence of this kind of reckless proposal. Alex Shih (talk) 07:27, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Alex, you'll see that I disagree with the remedy, but that certainly doesn't mean it's ridiculous or out of touch. Maxim's desysop was out of procedure and there was no emergency, so this does need to be looked at. These questions were raised at the case request page, and have formed part of discussion. We shouldn't be pushing options off the table because we disagree with them. I'll also point out that we don't want to be submitting to mob rule, and whiles many members of the community wanted Fred immediately desysopped, many also supported a ban in those initial hours - and I've seen more than one person expressing regret at supporting that. There's a difference between submitting to the crowd and making the best decision, and we're trying to do the latter. Worm^TT(talk) 10:25, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

And Dave, I'll just say one thing: There is a difference between presenting all options on the table and having someone passionately advocating for an option that is blatantly not found in evidence and against clear community consensus. I am basically saying the same thing: We shouldn't be presenting these kind of options that are based on our opinions or disagreements (about community and members of functionaries team's interpretation of policy) only, which is what this is as it has been made apparent, and this is certainly not the kind of remedy in my mind that helps the committee to be "making the best decision" and should never have passed preliminary draft prior to posting. Alex Shih (talk) 11:03, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I also oppose this. The intervention/IAR was perfectly fine, supported by consensus of tons of commenters on the case request, and the whole level1/level2/emergency desysop stuff seems ridiculously overengineered anyway. I'd say get rid of it all and rename "emergency desysop" to "precautionary desysop" so there's more discretion about when to do it if something comes up. As long as the person automatically gets the bit back in 3 days (or maybe 7 days) unless arbcom extends the removal, it should be considered no big deal to have it temporarily shut off on rare occasions. Bureaucrats are supposed to have particularly good judgment so mistakes should be pretty rare. IMHO this particular instance was not a mistake. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 03:50, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note that while the policy for administrators does counsel holding a discussion before reversing another administrator's action, it does not define this as wheel warring. Wheel warring is described as when an administrator's action is reversed by another administrator, but rather than discussing the disagreement, administrator tools are then used in a combative fashion to undo or redo the action. This is in accordance with the principle of allowing the status quo to be restored while the original action is discussed. I urge the arbitration committee to avoid passing a principle that implicitly provides another definition for wheel warring. isaacl (talk) 09:11, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi isaacl , I can see two references to wheel warring, so I'm not sure which one you mean (though as you say "principle" I presume you mean the first one)...

• Wheel warring

  5) In a non-emergency situation, administrators are expected to refrain from undoing each others' administrative actions without first attempting to resolve the dispute by means of discussion

  In this instance I agree, that "refrain from undoing each others' administrative actions" does not describe wheel warring.

• Fred Bauder desysopped

  2) For multiple self-unblocks, wheel-warring, and abuse of rollback, Fred Bauder is desysopped.

  In this case, Fred unblocked himself twice, reverting other admin actions twice, and that does seem to fit the definition of wheel warring.

Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:25, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As I alluded to, I am referring to the principle titled "Wheel warring", which implicitly defines wheel warring in a manner that differs from the administrators' policy. Technically, only the second unblock can be described as wheel warring, as it came after the original administrator's action was reversed. This doesn't really matter with respect to the outcome of this case, but to avoid future confusion regarding the term, I feel it is better not to pass a principle with a different definition than in the administrators' policy. isaacl (talk) 09:33, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, just wanted to be certain. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:39, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've proposed a solution. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 09:37, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this Isaacl, and Callanecc Worm^TT(talk) 10:26, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As remedy 5.1 "Maxim Admonished" might well not pass, I think it should be augmented and/or replaced by a reminder directed at all bureaucrats. Something like (borrowing, for the second sentence, a quote from Callanecc's comment on remedy 7 in the proposed decision page):

• Bureaucrats reminded. Bureaucrats are reminded that the current policy does not allow for a bureaucrat to remove an editor's administrative privileges without being explicitly authorized to do so by the Arbitration Committee. Until and unless the policy is changed, emergencies that can't wait for ArbCom to pull a permission should be referred to stewards.

Unless either something like 5.1 or 5.2 passes (which seems unlikely), an explicit message of this kind needs to be included as a remedy, to warn other bureaucrats against doing what Maxim did here in the future. Nsk92 (talk) 10:59, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@BU Rob13 and KrakatoaKatie: Something like this sounds like a good idea to me. Thoughts? Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 11:01, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That would need explicit confirmation that the Stewards are willing to desysop (or globally lock) an administrator account that is doing something sufficiently serious that prompt action by the first available Steward is needed. What I wouldn't want to see happening is for the Stewards when contacted to refer the case back to the our en.wp local bureaucrats because those bureaucrats can desysop. There's concern expressed by @Rschen7754: that Stewards may be reluctant to globally lock a user based on their behaviour on just one project, so it would be useful to get some firm clarification on what the Stewards will and will not do (and probably, what sort of standing request from ArbCom they will want to see before undertaking any one course of action, and whether we end up back with the problem of having to define what constitutes an emergency). Nick (talk) 11:39, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Our global rights policy already allows them act (that is, pull the right) as local crats are unable to do it themselves (due to policy). Of course, they may determine that the situation isn't an emergency and refer it back to ArbCom just as ArbCom may determine that a situation isn't an emergency (as we did with Fred) and use the more deliberative Level 2 procedures (rather than Level 1). Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 11:49, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)Do we really need this? No. If warning to the direct party failed to pass why should warning go to innocent/non-party bureaucrats who did no such action? I believe this case itself suffices as a reminder to all, it's unlikely for something like this to ever happen again more so that the immediate cause of this whole case is now technically prohibited. –Ammarpad (talk) 11:53, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Nick. Stewards or Bureaucrats would not be needed to stop admin-account disruption now. Once you block it, that's the end of the story, until ArbCom decides whatever. –Ammarpad (talk) 11:56, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm aware of the application of T150826. There are other circumstances (not relevant to the case, but to the technical functionality changes relevant to this case) where blocking may not entirely resolve the issue and there needs to be some certainty that an emergency request is going to be acted upon and not passed around. Nick (talk) 12:41, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In your first comment you said: "...an administrator account that is doing something sufficiently serious that prompt action...". Before T150826 the only way to stop that is by desysopping whether by bureaucrat or steward. Now it can be stopped by any admin. I am interested to see an example of where you think only immediate desysopping would solve the problem and not blocking–Ammarpad (talk) 13:04, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There's one significant current issue (which I'm reluctant to raise publicly, but have confirmed myself) and a couple of potential but unlikely issues which could occur. I don't want to see T150826 being used as an excuse by anybody to avoid desysopping. Nick (talk) 13:22, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That's precisely the problem - a refusal to take action because of a lack of specific instruction, and an issue being passed back and forward between various parties. Nick (talk) 12:41, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think the instruction at WP:Bureaucrats is very specific as to when bureaucrats may desysop. I would personally oppose a remedy targeted at all bureaucrats, as nothing has been submitted at any stage of this case that demonstrates a widespread misunderstanding of current policy among the bureaucrats. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 15:39, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think a lot of factors go into whether a steward would choose to intervene in an emergency: the size of the wiki (and whether it allows global sysops to act), whether they have an ArbCom, how bad the action was, whether local processes can handle it in a timely manner, which steward you get to respond, etc. I can think of one steward who would act on almost anything, and some others who would reject most requests. I mentioned one case during evidence on en.wikiversity from 2014, but some others: ([1] (enwiki - account not compromised but admin did bizarre things), [2] (testwikidata - where local processes probably could not handle a desysop especially given the tampering with logs), [3] (mrwiki - bureaucrat tampering with sitenotice and consensus would likely be ignored). --Rschen7754 18:32, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If an account is obviously compromised, and there is not a steward available to respond at the moment, I shudder to think of what would happen if that remedy passes. I think it would have a chilling effect on any bureaucrat available to respond at that moment. Sure, the account can be blocked, but that won't solve all of the problems (again, not going into specifics per BEANS). --Rschen7754 18:05, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Grabbing a steward on IRC takes about 15 seconds at any time of day or night. I have never not seen one available to take care of an emergency in there. The stewards are generally much more available than our own bureaucrats, especially at low coverage times on enwiki, since they are far more international. In every recent case of a compromised account, the account has been locked before a bureaucrat could be flagged down to remove the sysop flag. More to the point, though, it is up to the community to decide whether bureaucrats should be allowed to remove the sysop flag from a compromised administrator account, not ArbCom. We cannot create such policy by fiat. The past RfC did not find consensus for that, but I would certainly support the change at a new RfC. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 18:13, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

At least when I was more active on IRC, there were times when it was harder to get a steward to respond. What is not clear though, is this: suppose a bureaucrat does desysop a compromised account who has already blocked 50 admins. Should they remain a bureaucrat, or should they be removed for "saving the day" just because they broke policy? --Rschen7754 18:19, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Also, there is a desysop in this exact scenario by WJBScribe from 2015: [4] (I do not know if stewards were consulted beforehand though, since this was before more accounts were being compromised). --Rschen7754 18:39, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, don't pass any warnings or instructions to 'crats. If what Maxim did in this exceedingly rare (now impossible) circumstance doesn't merit it, then a broader statement is pointless. The committee is not actually in charge of either the 'crats or the policy governing them. Any individual Arb who feels like this needs more attention is free to open a seperate discussion as an individual member of the community. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:39, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree wholeheartedly with the note that the Arbitration Committee does not "control" the bureaucrats. My position may seem odd, but I believe it to be applying the community's instructions and expectations for bureaucrats. I am trying to be very cognizant that ArbCom should not, even by inaction, create policy by fiat. If no-one else does, I likely will start an RfC to give bureaucrats the authority to act in emergencies going forward. It would be a net positive for them to have it. (On the other hand, I must reiterate that this was not an emergency. I would not be voting for 5.2 if it were.) ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 20:18, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt I'd support either admonishment or removal of Maxim, but I do want to say that I think Rob's position is fairly defensible. It's not wrong — as noted in the unanimous support of FoF 3.2.12 — but the difference seems to be how much each Arb thinks either of the two remedies matter. By means of a poor analogy, someone speeding and running red lights to get to the hospital may be both breaking the law and doing the right thing. It's fine if we're all okay with it, but it's not incorrect for them to get a ticket or two. It's also okay for the judge to toss out those tickets. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 22:10, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, but then we don't go and suspend their license and impound their car. I think a "reminder" might be appropriate (and I am surprised that it was not proposed). --Rschen7754 23:25, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I should also note that I think different arbs are applying different standards to what they would de-crat over. Many opposes of that motion seem to use language that would be used in opposing desysopping, which seems to suggest a similar standard is being applied. No such standard exists as precedent yet for bureaucrats, and I actually think it should be much lower, to correspond with the fact that bureaucrat candidates require nearly double the support-to-oppose ratio as do admin candidates to be outside the discretionary zone at RfX. Since the community has determined they want bureaucrats to have an extraordinarily high level of support from the community, I personally believe a lower standard should be used when revoking bureaucratship vs. adminship. If we demand a higher level of trust and judgement, it becomes easier to fall below the expected threshold. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 00:08, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I believe you're overlooking another possible reason why other Arbs are opposing de-cratting Maxim. From reading their comments, it appears to me that they don't see his actions as reaching whatever threshold they might believe is appropriate. They may even agree with your personal threshold, but not see his action as crossing it. If that's the case, then the cause is not that they're applying different standards, it's that they see Maxim's action as being less egregious than you do. I believe -- I'm supposin' here, since I have no direct insight into the beliefs of the other Arbs -- that this may have something to do with WP:IAR, which is a core policy, and cannot simply be hand-waved away because it is inconvenient. This could easily account for what appears to me to be the prevailing opinion that, at most, a slap on the knuckles is appropriate, and de-cratting is completely inappropriate. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:02, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Just noting that in a geniune emergency (which we've had), I would not have any issue with a bureaucrat making a technical move and so I would absolutely not support that suggestion Worm^TT(talk) 10:27, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As I see it, Maxim’s actions were justified and probably correct to do in this situation. ArbCom has its merits but sometimes it’s too bureaucratic for situations that need to be dealt with in a speedy manner. Times like this that warrant an emergency desysop outside of any process are rare enough that no policy change/clarification is necessary and that our ’crats can be trusted to use their best judgment in the interest of resolving urgent problems quickly so as to prevent further disruption/escalation. This was a proper application of WP:IAR and Maxim shouldn't be trouted, admonished or decratted (especially not the last one) because of this. If anything, he deserves a barnstar. — pythoncoder  (talk | contribs) 01:15, 5 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a little disappointed that there is no proposed finding of fact along the lines of "ArbCom did not communicate to the community that it was deliberating on the desysop request", as I think that lack of feedback is likely to have contributed to the escalation - and there has been informal acknowledgment that it was a failing. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:25, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've never seen arbcom admonish itself but I think it would be appropriate here. Poor communication is a known, long-term and ongoing problem with the committee. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:40, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The committee has once reminded itself as a remedy Dax Bane 19:50, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Aww, I was just about to post that! I think this is a fair point - though I'm not sure to what extent it would have mattered in this particular case, given the timing. As I said somewhere else on the case pages, my "I don't think we need level 1" post on the mailing list was three minutes before Maxim's desysop. By that point the ANI thread was in full swing.

(As for communication problems: I kept wondering about that before I was on the committee myself. "How can so many people be so bad at such a simple task?" Then I showed up and it all makes sense now. Keeping track of who said what to whom and where for 15 people is a pain.) Opabinia regalis (talk) 20:30, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) "Deliberating" is a bit of a strong word. I think the community sometimes gets the impression we're all sitting around a table in the Fortress of Solitude, talking about the issues that come to us in real-time. We only do that every seventh Tuesday. Instead, the first email about the self unblock hit our inboxes out of list moderation about two-and-a-half hours after the last self-unblock. Around ~40 minutes after receiving that email, while most arbs were still unaware it was even going on, Fred was desysopped. No-one attempted to reach out to any of the arbitrators who were present on IRC, as far as I'm aware, which contributed to how long it took for most of us to notice the issue. I was on IRC and had no clue it was going on until I stumbled upon the email ten minutes after the desysop occurred. Saying a discussion was ongoing may have mistakenly given the community the impression that we were all aware and involved in some intense deliberation. That's very far from what happened; only three arbs had even had the chance to comment before the desysop occurred. I hope this clears things up a bit, Boing! said Zebedee. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 20:42, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

↑ Yeah. That too. Can't speak for IRC but can definitely confirm that a common assumption on-wiki is that arbs are way more available in real-time than they really are in practice. By the way, the next Tuesday meeting is the holiday party, so, nobody get into any dramaz... :) Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:14, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't there a bit of a disparity between the position that Maxim should have attempted to contact ArbCom before acting -- which I take to be the purpose of the re-written FOF 9 -- and the reality that at the time he actually acted, ArbCom had hardly even begun their discussion, and, in fact "most arbs were still unaware it was even going on"? Wouldn't it really have been better in hindsight if the very first arbitrator who became aware of the public or private requests for action had posted to the ANI discussion that ArbCom was at least starting to consider the situation? Such a notice would have put things on hold, presumably including Maxim's de-sysop of Bauder (since I don't believe anyone has expressed the opinion that his action was taken other than in good faith). Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:27, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It would certainly have helped if all parties had communicated a bit more - Arbcom, Maxim, Fred Bauder - before we ended up with the IAR desysop. That's probably the only useful lesson from the case. -- Euryalus (talk) 00:53, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't want to point any fingers as this is hardly a new issue, but each committee pledges to do better and then... doesn't, and I'm not excluding when I was on the committee myself. It's an institutional problem that's been around as long as I can recall. It could possibly be mitigated by having one or more arbs be designated spokespersons or liaisons for just this purpose. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:31, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• I didn't mean anything particular by the word "Deliberating", nor do I imply that "arbs are way more available in real-time than they really are in practice". I simply mean that you (by which I mean at least some of you) *knew* you had been asked for an emergency desysop and you *did not* acknowledge that you were aware of it - the first Arb should have acknowledged it on becoming aware of it (as BMK says above), whoever that was failed to do so, and I see that as a material fact. I mean, I didn't even get a reply to my emergency email (other than way after the event, after I had complained). Even if the timing meant that it would have made no difference to the events, you should have at least told us *that* at the time. I must point out that OR has accepted that your communication could have been better, and I remain disappointed by the fact that that has not been properly acknowledged - you appear happy to analyze the failures of others (which is fine, it's what you're there for) while being above criticism yourselves (which is not fine - you need to be *seen to be* communicative and even-handed). Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:26, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and no Rob, we can not be expected to contact you on an unofficial channel like IRC to see if you got our messages which we sent via the official emergency channels. (Would you call 911 and expect to then have to check on Twitter to see if there are any cops around when nobody answers the phone?). I have never used IRC in my life, have no idea how to, had no idea that's where Arbs hang out, and I have no intention of ever using it - as it is not a part of Wikipedia's official processes (whereas official email lists are). Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:48, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean by the "official emergency channels"? Do you mean WP:EMERGENCY? I suspect not, given the matter at hand, but I'll clarify that ArbCom has no knowledge of any messages sent their way. If you mean messages sent to the ArbCom list, I will say that when I was a member, there was often an introduced delay because only a few of us manned the mailman queue where we could allow actual complaints or decline messages if they were spam—this introduced quite a delay in the process given timezones and availability. Perhaps a member of the current ArbCom could clarify if the same issue exists with their new Google Groups setup? Note this is assuming they were not aware of the issue beforehand, I'm aware Alex Shih below believes the ArbCom was aware of the issue already (and I haven't dug into it). GorillaWarfare (talk) 09:25, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I meant using the ArbCom mail list address to request consideration of an emergency desysop. I also accept that there can be delays in email systems. However, OR (I think) did acknowledge that one person's email did get a reply (though not mine), and at that point a public confirmation should have been made that ArbCom was aware of the situation. I'd like to see some clarification of the timing - What time did the first Arb receive one of the emails we sent? What time did they respond to one of the emails? I started this at 15:16, 11 November 2018, and emailed ArbCom shortly after (I used the email form, so I don't have a record of the exact time, but it was shortly before 15:32, 11 November 2018). Maxim desysopped Fred at 19:08, 11 November, reported it to the ANI discussion at 19:11, 11 November 2018 and launched an ArbCom request at 19:20, 11 November 2018. In the approx 3.5 hours between my email to ArbCom and the desysop, I see no communication from anyone at ArbCom. I'm quite sure Maxim would not have done the desysop had there been such a communication, and it's fair to assume he didn't think anyone at ArbCom was available and/or listening at the time - so criticising him for not checking with ArbCom when he knew such a communication had already been made is unfair. So I'd like to know the timing of what ArbCom was doing in those 3.5 hours. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:05, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Opabinia regalis did explicitly acknowledge in the case request that another e-mail, presumably about the same issue, arrived at the same time and was acknowledged, but Boing!'s e-mail was not. This implies that both of these e-mails have already went through list admins (which are all members of the committee). So the mailing list was certainly not the reason for the delay. There is simply no excuse, and it needs to be admitted as such through FoF. Alex Shih (talk) 10:29, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That acknowledgment actually says nothing about the timing of the arrivals of the emails, and is not evidence that there was no email-related delay. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:43, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Euryalus, when you say "It would certainly have helped if all parties had communicated a bit more - Arbcom, Maxim, Fred Bauder" you appear to miss my point. We have findings of fact relating to failures by Maxim, Fred, me, all of which I think are perfectly fair. But there's no mention of poor communication by ArbCom. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:36, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• And this brings back to the point I have raised earlier in the workshop; 1 minute after Maxim's desysop post, someone from the committee finally made the public post that initiated the desysop procedure - this is a clear sign that members of the committee were clearly active and knew what was going on but decided to be silent and do nothing. Speaking from experience, this was probably due to the idea that any response or involvement from ArbCom member in their capacity should be agreed by a consensus of committee members prior to responding/taking action. None of this should excuse that Boing! did not get his response for his e-mail initially, nor the fact that no apparent effort was made to communicate with the community. There is nothing confidential about discussion regarding to the desysopping, and there needs to be a FoF about ArbCom's clear failings in this debacle. Alex Shih (talk) 08:48, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Alex, I don't think it is fair to conclude that the arbs had "decided to be silent and do nothing" (my emphasis), just that at that point they had been silent and had not done anything in public - we can see their public actions (or lack of them) but we can not see their thinking or their decisions. You do, I think, make a good point about committee inertia. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:56, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No one "decided to be silent and do nothing," though there's certainly a requirement that proposed Arbcom actions wait for a minimum level of input from other committee members before proceeding. That delay is inherent in a committee structure.

I'd be happy to support a finding that Arbcom did not communicate that it was considering the issue, or words to that effect. I'll discuss this with the drafters now. -- Euryalus (talk) 09:10, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There is certainly a culture that if something is likely to end up in a case request, that people will try to avoid to get involved or comment on whatever that is happening so that when it does become a case request, they can be seem as impartial. To me, the notion of "let's wait and see" is effectively the same as making a decision to not act; "committee inertia" may be a more diplomatic way of describing this. Alex Shih (talk) 10:01, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Euryalus, I think such a finding would help. Knowledge of the timing of events is important, though, as the time between ArbCom first becoming aware of the situation and the desysop is the essence of it. If they genuinely were not aware and really did not have enough time to respond in the "missing" 3.5 hours, then it's only fair to make that clear too. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:16, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• I've also made a suggestion on how genuine emergencies can get through to arbcom a little faster on list. We are aware we have an issue here, whether a finding is needed, I don't know, but it's definitely an area that needs improvement Worm^TT(talk) 10:29, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Whether a finding of fact is needed, I think, hinges on whether there was a failure by ArbCom to communicate timely and which contributed to Maxim being dragged through the mud. I think you need to examine (and reveal) the timing, and if there was any significant delay then I'd say that would definitely have contributed to the facts of the case. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:38, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  @Boing! said Zebedee: As discussed I've asked the committee what they think of a FoF re Arbcom not communicating that it was looking into the issue prior to the IAR desysop. Wil pass on the response. In answer to questions of "what were you all doing during these hours," I was offline - I live in an unpopular timezone which seems to have fewer of these wiki dramas in prime time. Somewhat mildly, I don't think Maxim is being dragged through the mud - the IAR desysop was good-faith but a bit unnecessary; it's about to be upheld by the Committee, and per my PD comments the correct response is to note the flow of events, nod wisely and move on. -- Euryalus (talk) 11:04, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  My point is that, had communication worked as it should, Maxim would not have made the desysop and wouldn't even be a party to the case. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:11, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Your email was moderated through at 18:28 - Another was also moderated through at 18:28. That one received a response at 18:49, unfortunately yours did not at the same time. At 19:26, Rob confirmed to the list that he'd sent the talk page message - by which point Maxim had desysopped. We were looking at the option of a Level 2 (non emergency loss of trust), not a Level 1 (emergency). Level 2 can generally take a little while, as we should be allowing the individual to have their say. Even so, there was always the option to raise a public Arbcom case for a desysop, which no-one did before Maxim - there we could have put in a temporary desysop motion publicly. All sorts of other options. Worm^TT(talk) 10:50, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Thanks for that. It seems to me, then, that a public acknowledgment of receipt (at the ANI discussion) should have been made no later than shortly after the email was acknowledged, at 18:49. That does, admittedly, narrow the time window considerably, so I'm now happy that there was nowhere near the delay that there first appeared - but had I received a reply to my email, I would have notified the ANI discussion. The suggestion that "there was always the option to raise a public ArbCom case for a desysop, which no-one did before Maxim" seems just a little disingenuous, Dave, as we were already aware that an email to ArbCom had been sent and we were awaiting a response - you don't have to "put in a motion" in order to communicate. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:59, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Just one other point. Maxim has been criticized for not contacting ArbCom and waiting for a response (in what he saw as an emergency/IAR situation). The emergency judgment aside (which is a separate issue), that also seems like unfair criticism now that you have told us it can take three hours for you to even receive an email. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:07, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  I understand why no one did raise a case, but the fact is, a case is where it would end up and trying to short circuit our procedures part of the problem. Level 2 desysop effectively means the committee is acting as judge, jury and executioner - we're raising the case ourselves, and enacting the outcome - That's why if the subject objects, they instantly get a case. There are situations where it needs to happen like that, but in general, English Wikipedia's desysop procedures for cause need an Arbitration case to go with them. You know that I don't agree with that and I've spent years trying to create alternatives (WP:BARC being the most recent, or Wikipedia:Requests for Comment/Community de-adminship proof of concept before it) but the community has time and again stated Arbcom cases are good enough. Maxim stopped the escalation desysopping and raising a case. I think he could have done so by simply raising a case, as could anyone else. Worm^TT(talk) 11:28, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Are you saying that a case would have received a quicker response than an email? I really don't think anyone would have expected that. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:40, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  No, I'm saying that raising a case request would have had a quicker effect. Raising an email lead to moderation, discussion, level 2, case (best case scenario). Raising a case skips 3 of those steps. Arbs would have responded at the same pace, but it could be made clear that the glacier had started and things could have calmed down. Worm^TT(talk) 11:49, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  I think you've just said "No" and then "Yes" (at least to the question I was trying to ask), which makes me think I've worded it badly. I'm not asking if it would have had a different effect on the mph of an Arb in response to stimulus, but on whether a case would have resulted in some kind of public response happening sooner overall. I think you're saying Yes to that? I also dispute that a case would remove 3 of the steps, as email response should not be "moderation, discussion, level 2, case", it should be "moderation, acknowledgment of receipt..." (so a case would only have avoided the moderation step) And I still think the idea is hugely counter-intuitive, and it seems absurd that the rigmarole of raising a case request is the most effective method of making urgent contact with ArbCom and having that contact acknowledged. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:10, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  If you're saying Arbcom bureaucracy is stupid, you're preaching to the choir. :) You're right, we should have acknowledged your email, and if we had, things may have been different. I expect that the length of time from bright line violation to desysop through Arbcom would have been about 24 hours, no matter which route we took, as it's set up to allow Fred a right of reply. It also allows cooler heads to make the decision. Worm^TT(talk) 13:41, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Well, I'm saying that an acknowledgement should have been made at the ANI discussion too, as it was for the community and not just me. As for bureaucracy and all that, I'm disappointed by the frequency with which we elect arbs who say they agree about the bureaucracy but who never manage to do anything about it. Whatever the cause, my big disappointment is that a poor communication system led to Maxim taking stick for stepping into the breach when ArbCom wasn't responding - and it's especially galling to see one of your number still recommending his removal as a crat. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:22, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Changing Arbcom bureaucracy is an extremely labour intensive process, by design. Most of what Arbcom does needs that bureaucracy to slow things down and get the right result, ensuring participation. Desysopping sometimes doesn't need that - but I have to ask, what do you think should happen? If someone should be desysopped for violating a bright line, do they deserve to be able to defend themselves? How long is reasonable to allow that to happen? What elevates it to an emergency - as in, when should you desysop first and ask questions later? These are not easy questions, and I think you'll find a lot of disagreement in the community when discussing that. I know I did. As for the recommendation of removal, I don't agree with it, but I do see the point of view - a rule based approach with 'crats as the most "dull" rule followers. 'Crats need 85%+ support at RfB an higher threshold for addition, so in theory it should require a lower threshold for removal. I get it, I really do, but I don't agree with it. Worm^TT(talk) 15:30, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm absolutely not asking for a quick desysop without the admin having chance to offer a defence - I have never suggested anything remotely like that, and I am surprised how spectacularly you seem to be missing my point. My point is *solely* about the feedback that I think the community should get, just feedback to say you're on the case - *that* should be prompt and should not be held up by bureaucracy, and you should have communications systems that work fast enough for it to be prompt. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:42, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  I apologise, I appear to be conflating your point with other peoples (who have been asking for an increased speed of desysop). Level 2 desysops are designed to be held behind the scenes - there should be no public spectacle. The only thing that happens publicly before the motion is posted is a request for the administrator to contact the committee. This allows for a complete lack of tarring and feathering, in cases where sensitive information is being handled. As such, your email should have been acknowledged, but with a "thank you, we are aware", but we wouldn't be telling you if we're proceeding with a Level 2. If it should be happening publicly - it should be at WP:A/R/C. Worm^TT(talk) 16:55, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm relieved to learn that our thoughts are closely aligned after all ;-) Absolutely, yes, a "We are aware of the situation" acknowledgement is precisely what I mean, and I agree it would not have been right for you to say any more at that stage. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:06, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Oh, and a tip of the hat for this, Dave - what a very pleasant contrast to User:BU Rob13's support for having Maxim's crat bit removed! Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:19, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  I agree, this should be the kind of gestures expected from members of the committee, instead of sitting back and criticise others without substantive reflection. Pleasant indeed and I will tip my hat as well. Alex Shih (talk) 11:25, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Worm That Turned, there is a critical point that you have raised here which requires clarification. Rob confirmed to the list that he'd sent the talk page message - by which point Maxim had desysopped: It's important to distinguish on whether or not the talk page message for initiating Level 2 was sent after knowing Maxim desysopped. You seem to imply that BU Rob13 sent the talk page message without knowing Maxim did the desysop already - Please clarify. Alex Shih (talk) 11:20, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  The email Rob sent to confirm he posted to Fred's page happened before any email mentioning Maxim's desysop. Worm^TT(talk) 11:28, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  That's strange, because BU Rob13's talk page message happened after Maxim's desysop, and after Maxim's case request. So are you saying that during this entire time, ArbCom did not talk about, and was unaware of neither desysop nor the active case request that was filed before BU Rob13's e-mail confirmation on that he posted to Fred's talk page? Alex Shih (talk) 11:38, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes Alex. That's how I read the emails. And given that there was 1 minute between BU Rob13's post to Fred and Maxim's post on Freds page, and less than 5 minutes between him posting to ARC and BU Rob's post, I don't see how that's hard to believe. Worm^TT(talk) 11:44, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  This is correct. I noticed the email thread after the desysop occurred and was rapidly reading through the underlying events on-wiki. Given Maxim had not yet posted on Fred's talk page at the time and I had no reason to suspect a desysop could have happened – the criteria for one to occur hadn't been met – I did not notice the desysop until slightly after I had sent a message to Fred to contact the Committee as part of the Level II process. This isn't really a mistake; I would have sent the same message even had I noticed the desysop, because we did need to speak to Fred regardless. And Boing!, there were many things that would have been faster – messaging on a talk page, emailing individual arbs, IRC, possibly a case, etc. The arb list is not (and really cannot be) a method to communicate with us in real-time. Moderation takes time, and even if it didn't exist, email is a slower method of communication than several other possible methods. If you personally prefer only to use email, that's fine, but I don't think volunteers can be reasonably expected to be refreshing their emails continuously every couple minutes. There will be some delays. True emergency situations should go to the stewards, who can act individually to desysop. (That would not have applied here, though, when the wheel war was inactive.) ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 13:20, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Rob, no, I did not say I prefer to use only email, my meaning was that the officially documented communications methods should work effectively. If the Arb email list is not a method to communicate with you over anything that warrants better than an hours-long response time, then that should be made clear at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee#Contacting the Committee. And while I know moderated email can't be real-time, I really am genuinely surprised that it takes as long as 3 hours to get through. Also, I never suggested you should be expected to be refreshing your emails continuously every couple of minutes! I am surprised, though, that are you using an email system that requires manual refreshing! Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:08, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Part of this is that we've not been able to port our "white list" of trusted users when we transferred to Google Groups at the end of October. We are aware of that issue, and are looking to get it fixed. Worm^TT(talk) 15:30, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm not sure I've been clear on how the moderation works. A list admin has to manually go in and approve every single email that hits arbcom-en, unless the sender's email has previously been set as a pre-approved one (which we do for trusted users to quicken our response time). There are a handful of active list admins, and each probably checks the moderated messages 1-2 times per day (at least, that's my practice). Because of our differing schedules, that means most messages will be let through within a couple hours. If we wanted all emails to get through moderation within 30 minutes, for instance, we would need to have a list admin manually looking to let emails through every 30 minutes at any time of day or night. That seems unrealistic for a volunteer role.

  Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee#Contacting the Committee already states "Messages are normally acknowledged by an arbitrator within 48 hours", which I would take to indicate this is not the appropriate avenue for emergencies. Frankly, the Committee is generally not the best venue to respond to emergencies at all, in my opinion. Our quickest avenue to desysopping still requires three of thirteen arbitrators (Ks0stm is long-term inactive and so not counted) to agree. That's going to be slower than contacting a single steward for a desysop. We do our best, and I think our best is pretty good, but every Level I desysop in response to a compromised account over the past couple weeks has come after the account was already globally locked by a steward. Even when we received the email indicating Orangemike had been compromised, my first action was to seek out a steward because I knew it would be faster than waiting for Level I. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 17:30, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Thank you for the further explanation, though I just want to point out one more time that I'm not looking for a faster route to desysop. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:37, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I am troubled by the proposed conclusion that Iridescent was involved with respect to Fred Bauder. Elections invite the community to question candidates about their opinion, judgment, and record. In the case mentioned at the finding, Iridescent submitted links about the candidate's real-life retirement as a comment underneath a question discussing that very issue. This is what happens at elections. And this is not involvement.

Suppose that this case concerned a candidate for adminship who removed questions from their RFA. If an editor had voted against the candidate, are they involved and unable to ever block or warn that candidate? This finding misunderstands our community's expectations of what circumstances create involvement or a conflict of interest. AGK ■ 17:45, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly disagree that posting off-wiki information about an editor that had not previously been posted on-wiki is just "what happens at elections". It's opposition research disallowed by policy, and it's crossing that line that turned this into involvement. An oppose for adminship or as an arbitration candidate would not create involvement, obviously. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 18:07, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, posting off-wiki information about an editor that had not previously been posted on-wiki isn't just untrue, it's a flat-out lie. As per my initial statement, the case has been discussed on-wiki since 2004, and there has been a specific link to it on-wiki since 2006—how do you think Eric Corbett (not myself) knew about the case when he raised it in the first place? (The link at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections January 2006/Candidate statements/Fred Bauder#Questions by Ted Wilkes is now broken, but pointed to the same case; note that Fred Bauder hasn't objected to that—or to the 2004 discussion—in the over-a-decade he's had to do so.) ‑ Iridescent 18:31, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Rob, I gotta say your reply makes it look as though you have only a passing familiarity with the actual evidence. Which is odd considering that not only is it plainly posted in Iri's openng statement, and again on the evidence page, it was also very thoroughly discussed by the functionaries team as well. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:45, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This is a misunderstanding from me omitting a phrase when I was typing – I meant to say it had not previously been posted on-wiki by Fred, which is relevant to applying WP:Harassment. Fred's invitation to search his name off-wiki makes this more borderline, which I acknowledge, but I still do not think it allows a court record or specific accusation of off-wiki wrongdoing to be posted on-wiki. Past prohibited behavior does not influence my views on whether identical behavior should be prohibited in the future, even if the original behavior went unaddressed. This is a point on which I respectfully disagree with some of our functionaries. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 21:04, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I would say that Bauder's invitation doesn't make this "borderline", I would say that it invalidates it entirely. There is no effective difference between an editor posting information on-Wiki themselves and their telling other editors to go ahead and look for information off-Wiki, which opens the door for its discussion here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:01, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Leaving the current case to the side, I don't agree in the general case that there is no effective difference between editors posting information about themselves and inviting other editors to look for information (though the editors would have only have themselves to blame for any information that is posted). Discretion is still expected of the editing community; just because personal contact information, for example, can be found through searches doesn't make it acceptable to be posted even if a blanket invitation is made. isaacl (talk) 22:12, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that discretion is expected, but only in the situation where the information is found without the invitation of the subject editor to find it. If I were to search the Internet look for dirt, or just juicy information, about you, and I posted it here, that would be outing and grounds for an indef block or site ban, depending on circumstances, but if you say "Go ahead, do your best, look me up", then you've opened the door, and there's no reason I can't post and discuss that information on-site.

In other words, the default condition is that every editor does not consent to such a search and posting, but if they say it's OK to do the search, they cannot expect the information to be sat on; they can't consent to the search and then complain about the posting. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:42, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Rob for clarifying your position. I don't agree 100% but it at least makes sense now. I think BMK makes a very valid point in the above reply. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:25, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree that editors who have invited others to look for information has waived their rights to reasonable privacy. In particular, for matters unrelated to the specific topic at hand, privacy restrictions should still hold. (Contact information is an obvious area; in most cases, information about the person's family would be another.) I do agree, though, that such editors are courting the possibility of this type of disclosure, and ought to be extremely careful with any open invitation. isaacl (talk) 02:10, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Isaaci - I agree with you that personal contact information is beyond the pale, and should never be posted on-Wiki except by the editor. That's a matter not only of personal privacy, but also personal safety. 03:01, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

• @BU Rob13: I think my section title made clear I was not disputing what should be the threshold for outing. Rather I was saying election participation does not confer involvement, and finding otherwise was in error. The new proposed finding troubles me in a whole new way; it takes the misunderstanding and runs with it. Before (with 7.1a), we could infer that questioning an election candidate creates involvement. Now (with 7.1b), we see also that Iridescent has outed because they questioned a candidate about something the candidate themselves talked about a dozen elections ago. For some editors, such a time ago is not ancient history.
  Suppose in this year's election that a candidate linked to their off-wiki employer. Is it outing to ask more about that employer when they run for election in 2019? In 2021? I cannot see where we draw the line, nor why Iridescent crossed it here. And, had Iridescent not blocked then someone else plainly would. I think focus has slipped off the problem we require the committee to resolve. AGK ■ 23:03, 4 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You're desysopping Fred Bauder partially for "wheel warring", but I don't see any "finding of fact" specifically stating that he wheel warred, and what specific action(s) constituted such wheel warring. wbm1058 (talk) 20:49, 2 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

While it doesn't use the phrase "wheel warring" the finding that Fred unblocked himself twice certainly points at wheel warring activity, but I have to agree it would be tidier to specifically say so. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:27, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This was also discussed above: § Reversing an administrative action. Again quoting the policy: Wheel warring is when an administrator's action is reversed by another administrator, but rather than discussing the disagreement, administrator tools are then used in a combative fashion to undo or redo the action. With very few exceptions, once an administrative action has been reverted, it should not be restored without consensus.

Do not repeat a reversed administrative action when you know that another administrator opposes it. Do not continue a chain of administrative reversals without discussion. Resolve administrative disputes by discussion.

When Fred Bauder unblocked himself the first time, he reversed an administrative action, restoring the status quo so that the action could be discussed. Rather than discuss the block, Iridescent re-blocked Fred Bauder, knowing that Fred Bauder opposed the block. Thus, Iridescent was the first to wheel war. When Bauder undid Iridescent's block, he perhaps, became the second to wheel war, but really this was necessary to restore the status quo so that the matter could be discussed. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:05, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Iridescent enforced what amounts to the closest thing Wikipedia had to holy writ for admin behavior: never unblock yourself. There is no maybe as to whether or not Fred wheel warred: he undid a block on himself twice. The WP:WHEELWAR policy states With very few exceptions, once an administrative action has been reverted, it should not be restored without consensus. There might be one or two others, but enforcing the never unblock yourself rule is the only exception I can think of off the top of my head where the community and arbcom wouldn't demand a desysop, especially given that he did not place the original block. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:14, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Please change the desysopping rationale to reflect the actual findings of fact. Insert "edit warring" which was omitted, and remove "wheel-warring". Leaving the latter in strikes me as problematic, given how lightly the first admin to do this here is being sanctioned:

For edit warring, multiple self-unblocks, wheel-warring, and abuse of rollback, Fred Bauder is desysopped.

I also observe that, now that self-unblock is being made technically impossible, essentially the primary reason for desysopping is edit warring. When his removal of questions to the talk page was reversed, he should have discussed the matter rather than edit war over it. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:21, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

And in any event, "wheel warring", to the extent it occurred here, is redundant to "multiple self-unblocks". Stating each separately misleadingly implies that these are separate and distinct infractions. The self-unblocks are the only administrative actions in play here. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:33, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Sanctions against editors should not be punitive is just an essay, but given the removal of self-unblocking privileges in the software, desysopping for self-unblocking becomes punitive rather than preventative, as there is no longer any need to use sanctions for prevention. Whereas, there is a need for sanctions to prevent further edit-warring while serving in an administrative capacity. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:53, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

An administrator who unblocks themselves is performing an administrative action during a conflict of interest situation in an egregious manner that I believe can be fairly assessed as breaking trust with the community. Accordingly I think it is still appropriate to cite this as a cause for removing administrative privileges, even if this specific reason will no longer be an issue in future. isaacl (talk) 21:24, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Fred and Boing both screwed up with Fred's being arguably worse, but it seems like an isolated incident surrounded by way too much wikilawyering. I'm generally in favor of letting even very bad mistakes slide with a suitable sized wp:trout as long as the mistakes aren't repeated or part of a pattern of bad judgment. So I'd be fine closing this case with no significant action.

I'd say the same thing of the Jytdog phone call and oppose opening an arbitration over it if it was just that one incident, but it does seem to be part of a pattern of general aggression in addition to whatever happened in those non-public episodes that led to some past blocks. The phone call itself was poor judgment but there is too much pearl-clutching than the call itself justifies, given how and where the phone number was published. The case should be about the wider direction of Jytdog's editing.

I sympathize with Fred about the link Iridescent posted and I can see how Fred might have interpreted it as malicious. Posting it was not nice and it would have been revdel'd almost instantly in the Philip Cross arbitration, as an example. Though the Cross arbitration probably revdel'd a little too enthusiastically. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 04:00, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The link about the court case was not what Fred was complaining about or removing from the questions page. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:23, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I know, I'm referencing Fred's reaction here ("extreme animus"). 173.228.123.166 (talk) 15:32, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi arbs,

At Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fred Bauder/Proposed_decision#Fred_Bauder_desysopped, Doug Weller appears to have accidentally voted twice. I'm sure this would have been caught but I thought I'd bring it up regardless. Cheers, ProgrammingGeek ^talktome 14:45, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for pointing this out. It would have been caught by a clerk, but this was helpful nonetheless. It's been fixed. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:56, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@ProgrammingGeek: oops, maybe that was when I copied a cornbread recipe in by mistake, I might have messed up correcting that. :-) Doug Weller talk 15:55, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Newyorkbrad, would you mind explaining just what "we can agree that Iridescent had publicly established himself as in firm opposition to Fred's candidacy" is supposed to mean?. To the best of my knowledge, prior to my posting the link to the case Eric had raised with Fred, I've never once interacted with or commented on Fred Bauder in any way whatsoever in the past 13 years. If you have any diff to the contrary feel free to share it, but the singular lack of evidence presented in this case doesn't mean the arbs get to just make it up, and this is now the second time in as many days that an arb has apparently tried to smear me without providing any evidence. (The only thing I can think of that could even conceivably be considered my ever expressing an opinion on Fred Bauder was If I were intentionally trying to assemble a Hasten the Day slate, I'm not sure I could have come up with a better selection of names, but that's fairly clearly an opinion on every candidate and on the election in general, not any specific candidate, and certainly not "establishing myself in firm opposition". Myself and he have no interests in common whatsoever so have never had cause to interact.) ‑ Iridescent 16:20, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, nothing until the electioneering. ——SerialNumber54129 16:55, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Serial Number 54129, you're getting no hits because you misspelled his username. We've edited quite a few of the same pages, but most of them are years if not decades apart and AFAICS we've never even participated in the same discussion at any point prior to this (our closest talkpage edits are separated by a 28-day period). ‑ Iridescent 21:51, 3 December 2018 (UTC) [reply]

@Iridescent: That comment was not intended to be controversial in any way. When you posted this on Fred's candidate questions page, I inferred that you were not likely to be voting for him. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:30, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That's something of a stretch; all the people citing that diff leave out the context which was that Eric had raised the issue of the same case which had been raised at Fred's previous candidacy; Fred (who didn't make any kind of "I find this question inappropriate" complaint with regards to Eric's question, and as we have well established he wasn't shy in pointing out those questions he did find inappropriate) claimed not to remember the case; I posted the (publicly available, not some kind of cloak-and-dagger opposition research) links to the case. Would it have been somehow more acceptable had I just posted a link to the 2006 discussion on-wiki, which also included a link to the case? (FWIW, I don't actually consider the 1996 case particularly relevant—people change a lot in 20 years—although I can certainly see why some would consider it as raising valid concerns and I don't feel it was at all inappropriate of Eric to want to discuss it.) ‑ Iridescent 16:49, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, I also don't see the posting of that link as Iridescent "publicly establish[ing] himself as in firm opposition to Fred's candidacy". I might have suspected he wasn't going to vote for him, but that's a very different thing. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:55, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As I understand it (I haven't read the thing) the link contained ugly allegations about stuff in Fred's personal life at the time. That made it inappropriate imho, regardless of whether it was easy or difficult to find. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 17:02, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

So you haven't read it, but you're going to make up what you think it said? The entire point is that the links demonstrate that the claim Eric was making was a repetition of the findings of the Supreme Court and not just something he'd made up to discredit Fred Bauder's election campaign. ‑ Iridescent 17:54, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Iridescent: This morning as I was voting I had written a couple of long, discursive paragraphs addressing the proposed findings about you. The paragraphs provided the full context for what you posted on Fred's page and discussed some policy issues raised by those comments. I read over what I had written, and I decided that it was too long, raised too many side points, and that posting it would probably delay getting this case finished. Hence I deleted it and replaced it with the much shorter comments that you object to because they don't provide enough context. Over the years I've been told many times that my comments on-wiki are too long, so I try to shorten them. The inevitable result of shortening things is leaving out background that could provide context, especially where the points have already been referenced by others—including in your own statement which I cited and credited. If the meaning wasn't as clear as it should have been, call it a Bradspeak-fail. Even Homer nodded, and I am no Homer, even if my epics seem as long as his sometimes. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:04, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest that the title of the finding be changed; providing context for someone else's comments shouldn't be construed as being in conflict with the subject of the comments. Lots of times I will post links to previous discussions, not because I endorse any particular view, but to allow conversation to pick up where it left off. isaacl (talk) 04:48, 4 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• All sarcasm aside, I'm quite concerned that there seems to be such strong support on the part of the committee for the notion that there was an actual conflict between Fred and Iridescent. Iridescent simply posted an information link to a candidate page. There was no editorialization that accompanied the link. The candidate, who went to such extreme lengths to remove other commentary he did not like that you're now voting on a case, does not appear to have interpreted it as a conflict. So if Arbcom thinks this constitutes "conflict", I think it's very much out of step with the perceptions of the parties and the community. I am really not sure this is the precedent you want to set with this case. It sets an absurdly low bar for the definition of "conflict" that it could be applied to almost every multi-party exchange on the project. Just about every posting made throughout this case would meet that bar, and that would mean everyone who's participated is in conflict with Arbcom. That...is problematic. Risker (talk) 20:08, 4 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think this PD needs some redrafting, including the following (adding signatures after each part to allow threaded comments):

• Principle 3 – Administrator conduct begins Administrators are expected to lead by example and to behave in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others. Administrators are expected to follow Wikipedia policies and to perform their duties to the best of their abilities.

This wording indicates that administrators are the leaders of Wikipedia and lead fellow Wikipedians (presumably those of us who only edit are their followers...) I know that some admins do believe or see themselves as leaders, but this is inconsistent with the notion of administrators as regular editors with a few extra tools. Certainly, there are admins who are influential and highly respected, but that is an earned and informal status that arises from their actions and not their access to the admin tools. An alternative formulation might be something like:

Administrators are Wikipedia editors who have requested permission to undertake encyclopedia-related maintenance tasks that includes implementing the blocking and page protection policies. In entrusting administrators with additional tools and responsibilities, the Wikipedia community expects that they will follow Wikipedia policies, perform their duties impartially and to the best of their abilities, and will conduct themselves in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others.

I'd keep the rest the same. EdChem (talk) 01:57, 4 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Principle 4 – Administrator involvement

Newyorkbrad is right that the formulation is overstated, in that it links to WP:INVOLVED despite implying a breadth that is not generally followed. You have right now at WP:ARCA (the TRM discussion) an admin who not only could reasonably but does appear involved (in the ordinary meaning of the term) to several neutral observers (as commented their an elsewhere), and who some would suggest appears biased. Yet, ArbCom seems unconcerned. That behaviour and this principle seem inconsistent. Further, given that some arbitrators see no involvement or problem with rejecting a case request in which s/he is named as a party, should there be an addition noting that "involvement" is construed very narrowly by some arbitrators in relation to their own conduct? EdChem (talk) 01:57, 4 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Principle 5 – Reversing actions by other administrators

This is reasonable in isolation, but it is not clear how it relates to this case. It begins In a non-emergency situation, which presupposes that there was no emergency at any point here. It can't relate to the edit war as that did not involve administrative acts. The blocks / unblocks did have edit summary "discussion" and such a clear bright-line violation that the need for discussion might not have seemed necessary. ArbCom seem to see the desysop as not reflecting an emergency, but that belongs to a finding of fact, and in any case is debatable. Fred Bauder had indicated he may unblock again, the on-wiki discussion was heated, ArbCom was silent – and yet there was at no point an emergency? There is a difference between there was no emergency and the emergency had passed by the time the desysop occurred. Anyway, that wasn't reversed, so this has to be about the blocking, doesn't it? EdChem (talk) 01:57, 4 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Principle 6 – Responding to harassment begins An editor who is harassed and attacked by others – or who genuinely perceives themselves to be harassed or attacked – whether on Wikipedia or off, should not see that harassment as an excuse for fighting back and attacking those who are criticising them.

Firstly, this sentence begins with harassment and a link to WP:HARASSMENT and ends with criticism... since when is criticising someone a form of harassment? Secondly, do you mean to tell someone who is harassed not to fight back? I am assuming that you mean that fighting back should be done in appropriate ways (asking to stop making comments, asking for a retraction, requesting intervention from others, etc) rather than by meeting fire with fire – but that's not what this says. Thirdly, is this here to say that FB was harassed, and if so, by what? The materials he sought to remove? The link to a case that he has discussed on wiki? The only place that harassment comes up in the rest of the decision is in a finding on Iridescent (7.1b) that has only one support, yet 10 arbitrators endorse this principle as accurate and relevant to this case. EdChem (talk) 01:57, 4 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Finding of Fact 1 – Locus of dispute I'm wondering why there is no link to the relevant page, Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2018/Candidates/Fred_Bauder/Questions? EdChem (talk) 01:57, 4 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Finding of Fact 3 – Edit warring begins that On November 11, Fred Bauder moved several questions from the candidate questions page ...

There were several questions, but all were asked by Winged Blades of Godric and Boing! said Zebedee. (I think the Softlavender removal was an error.) Noting this fact would make the view on Boing being involved and Iridescent not much clearer. I suggest adding an extra sentence like All of the questions that Fred Bauder removed were asked by WBG and BsZ.

Or (better), incorporate at the start, and cover all the events, and in so doing remove FoF 4 (which is incorrect as FB used rollback 4 times) and 5 and 6, such as:

3.   Edit warring and blocks

On November 11, Fred Bauder moved several questions asked by Winged Blades of Godric and Boing! said Zebedee from the candidate questions page to the candidate questions talk page. In each case, he left in their place a note reading "Extensive repetitive comments moved to Talk". A 40 minute edit war followed, in which the sequence of events was:

• 14:53 (UTC) Fred Bauder removed questions from BsZ
• 14:54 (UTC) Fred Bauder removed questions from WBG
• 14:59 (UTC) WBG used rollback to revert these removals
• 15:00 (UTC) Fred Bauder removed questions from Softlavender
• 15:02 (UTC) Fred Bauder restored the questions from Softlavender and removed the questions from BsZ and WBG a second time (leaving no edit summary)
• 15:03 (UTC) WBG used rollback for a second time to restore the questions
• 15:04 (UTC) Fred Bauder used rollback to revert WBG's change, removing the questions from BsZ and WBG for a third time
• 15:05 (UTC) BsZ undid Fred Bauder's change using twinkle
• 15:07 (UTC) Fred Bauder used rollback for a second time to revert BsZ's change and removing the questions from BsZ and WBG for a fourth time
• 15:07 (UTC) BsZ posts to Fred Bauder's user talk page, stating that People are allowed to ask you questions at your ArbCom question page and that is the place others will expect to find them. You do not own that page and you do not get to decide what is posted there and what is not. Please stop removing them or moving them elsewhere, or you will be at WP:ANI again.
• 15:07 (UTC) WBG used rollback for a third time to restore the questions
• 15:07 (UTC) Fred Bauder used rollback for a third time to revert WBG's change and removing the questions from BsZ and WBG for a fifth time
• 15:09 (UTC) WBG makes a report to the edit warring notice board and then posts to Fred Bauder's user talk page to inform Fred of the report
• 15:09 (UTC) BsZ undid Fred Bauder's change using twinkle
• 15:10 (UTC) BsZ blocked Fred Bauder for 24 hours citing "Edit Warring" (block log)
• 15:16 (UTC) BsZ initiated a discussion at ANI titled Fred Bauder moving questions in which he noted: After edit warring by Fred and after his ignoring a warning I gave him, I have blocked him for 24 hours for edit warring. I appreciate that, as some of the questions he moved were mine, I was possibly not the best admin to do this. So there's an element of WP:IAR in this, but I'll hand it over to others for judgment.
• 15:18 (UTC) BsZ posts to Fred Bauder's user talk page to inform him of the ANI discussion
• 15:22 (UTC) Fred Bauder unblocked himself, giving as the reason "Blocked by participant in edit war"
• 15:22 (UTC) Fred Bauder used rollback for the fourth time to revert BsZ's change and removing the questions from BsZ and WBG for a sixth time
• 15:28 (UTC) Fred Bauder posted to the ANI discussion: No material has been removed. Lengthy repetitive comments and campaigning by users opposed my candidacy have been moved to the talk page where further comments can be made, and anyone can view them.
• 15:30 (UTC) Fred Bauder further commented at ANI: The block was made by a participant in an edit war. I have the right to have a page to respond to questions that is not cluttered up by campaigning against me.
• 15:31 (UTC) Iridescent, after an edit conflict, posts to ANI reminding Fred Bauder of WP:NEVERUNBLOCK
• 15:32 (UTC) BsZ states on the ANI thread that I have emailed Arbcom to request temp desysop.
• 15:34 (UTC) Iridescent reblocked Fred Bauder for 24 hours, stating: "Reblocking; unblocking yourself is clear admin abuse per WP:NEVERUNBLOCK"
• 15:36 (UTC) Iridescent reports the reblock to ANI, stating As someone not involved in the edit-war, I've reinstated the 24 hour block. If he unblocks himself again, I'll set the wheels in motion for a full community ban. Fred, do you really want this to be what you're remembered for?
• 15:37 (UTC) Fred Bauder unblocked himself for a second time, giving as the reason "Need to participate in discussion"
• 15:38 (UTC) Fred Bauder posts to the ANI discussion, stating I need to be able to participate in this discussion, at least.
• 15:39 (UTC) Future Perfect at Sunrise restored the removed questions for a final time, leaving an edit summary of "restore legitimate content"
• 15:41 (UTC) Community Ban proposal posted at ANI by Iridescent and supported by BsZ at 15:43
• 15:47 (UTC) Future Perfect at Sunrise reblocked Fred Bauder, this time for an indefinite period, recording in the block log: "edit-warring and wheel-warring gone wild"
• 16:11 (UTC) FPaS notes his re-block at ANI

4.   Use of rollback

The rollback tool is designated for use in dealing with vandalism and in other defined circumstances. Its use in this case by both Fred Bauder and WBG was outside of the permitted boundaries and was clearly inappropriate.

5.   Involved block by BsZ

A candidate standing for election to the Arbitration Committee does not own their candidate questions page and should only curate its content in uncontroversial ways. Once it was clear that removing questions was contested, Fred Bauder should not have repeated his action but instead approached the Electoral Commission. As the content being removed and restored included questions from BsZ, there was a clear basis for him to consider himself an involved administrator. In blocking Fred Bauder, BsZ's intent was to end disruption at the page and to prevent further unjustified removals of content, and viewed his actions as so uncontroversial as to fall under the exceptions included in the relevant policy. However, the Arbitration Committee views that BsZ's block of Fred Bauder was an involved block as it occurred in the context of an active edit war.

6.   Fred Bauder unblocks

In unblocking himself, Fred Bauder violated the blocking policy and particularly the restrictions at WP:NEVERUNBLOCK. His actions in unblocking himself and then repeating the rollback before engaging with the ANI thread, about which he had been notified, demonstrates a choice to prioritise continuing an edit war over discussion. His second self-unblocked, despite reminders about this being prohibited on his user talk page, at ANI, and in the block log, reflects an attitude of being above the rules.

This is a collective set of proposals with a more detailed timeline that means following findings (including 8, which is redundant) are changed, so I've grouped them. EdChem (talk) 01:57, 4 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Finding of Fact 7.1a – Iridescent in recent conflict with Fred Bauder (I)

This really needs context added, such as that the case has been discussed elsewhere on wiki, a link provided before, and that this is not what FB was removing. Probably also note that the link was removed by GreenMeansGo. 7.1b is the only reason for the harassment principle, and that should go too as 7.1b is not going to pass. EdChem (talk) 01:57, 4 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• I do have more to add but need to take a break. EdChem (talk) 01:57, 4 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• If this was on Commons it would have been resolved two weeks ago. GMG^talk 02:00, 4 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@EdChem: Thanks fort eh detail suggestions. A passing comment on principle 3: Agree that being an admin doesn't make you a "leader," especially in a volunteer community; it just makes you a moderately trustworthy janitor. However the wording of the Principle, the wording isn't specifically Arbcom's - it's taken from the first two lines of WP:ADMINCOND and can be changed there by community consensus if there's a view that that's required. -- Euryalus (talk) 00:02, 5 December 2018 (UTC).[reply]

@Cameron11598: If this is closed (see [5], [6]), how come only five arbs voted, and indeed, another just has?! ——SerialNumber54129 13:33, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Serial Number 54129, only net 4 arbitrators are needed to close a case, and since we were at a point where everything was passing or could not pass, that's the right point to end things. Worm^TT(talk) 14:29, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

But <24 hours later? Thanks WtT. ——SerialNumber54129 14:31, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it does look like Cameron11598 jumped the gun by a couple of hours, it shouldn't have been closed until 8:50am, 24 hours after the net 4. I don't believe there's any harm done though. Worm^TT(talk) 15:02, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I closed the case about 1 hour and 30 minutes early. I did clear this with an arbitrator before hand as I'm traveling today for work and wouldn't have access to a computer. @Serial Number 54129: @Worm That Turned: --Cameron11598(alt account) ^(Talk) 15:10, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds fine to me :) Worm^TT(talk) 15:52, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As long as it does stop RickinBaltimore voting, that's all that matters :p  ;) ——SerialNumber54129 16:02, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You. I'll just pretend I didn't hear a thing. 16:05, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

(ec) ArbCom has a written policy that sets out when and how a closure can be fast-tracked; neither condition seems to apply: Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures#Motions to close. One arbitrator shouldn't be telling you (or giving you permission) to close a case outside ArbCom's established process and policy. You could have asked one of the other clerks to close the case for you at the appropriate time. The Arb who told you to close the case prematurely could and should have done the same. Or let you close the case tomorrow. Or let an Arb close the case. Or let the Arbs vote on a "fast-track" closure motion, as specified in the policy, which specifically contemplates cases requiring urgent or immediate closure.

I mean, a big part of this case was about how much of mess it makes when people with the best of intentions reach for IAR as a shortcut to the "right" outcome, where Wikipedians who are a bit too close to a situation overestimate the urgency of that situation and take action without going through established processes. Obviously the case involved bigger errors in judgement with bigger consequences, but come on—this whole case was about editors who took matters into their own hands instead of following long-established rules and procedures. Why jump the gun when there wasn't a pressing need? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:08, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Every proposed decision with a chance of passing had reached enough support to pass, and the rest had already failed. What would be the point of delaying 90 minutes to close just for procedure's sake - would the final decision be any different? That said, the entire case was on a fast track (maybe all future cases could stick to a similar timeline in future?) Dax Bane 17:52, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrators are allowed to change their minds on any of their votes (including on the motion to close itself) or offer additional findings or remedies. The 24-hour period is to, among other things, allow all the Arbs an opportunity to examine and reflect on the final product of their deliberations and confirm that it hangs together as a cohesive whole without any awkward gaps or avoidable rough edges. While Arbitration cases are seldom modified after the motion to close is at the four-net-positive stage, it does happen from time to time. (Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Lightbreather/Proposed_decision#Vote was a real nail-biter, where it looks like the motion to close was at net-five to close at 23:34 on 14 July 2015, with all of the proposed remedies passing; the oppose vote bringing it back to net-three was cast at 22:51 on 15 July, to allow the consideration of a new remedy.) It is not the role of the clerks or any individual Arbitrator to decide that the Committee as a whole should have less time to do so than is called for in their own policies and procedures.

The remedies in this case require no positive steps to implement and have no concrete effect on Wikipedia's functioning—Fred was already desysopped, and it makes no practical difference whether the other parties feel cautioned, admonished, or reminded of various things today or tomorrow. What was the urgent deadline that demanded an early closure? What should ArbCom change its policy to, and why? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:28, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Based on my read of the above conversation, it should not change anything and this is fine. This extremely minor bending of the rules is not a big deal and there is no reason to belive anything of substance was changed by it. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:48, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The outcome of this case wasn't changed by Maxim desysopping Fred on his own initiative rather than waiting for (or seeking) word from ArbCom to proceed. Maxim wasn't de-cratted for his action. Nevertheless, Maxim was admonished for shortcutting established policy in a situation that wasn't really an emergency, and (corrected; I goofed there TenOfAllTrades(talk) 04:15, 7 December 2018 (UTC)) it is hoped that he (and others) will recognize that they have other, better options for handling similar cases in the future.[reply]

I'm not asking for (or expecting, or wishing for) a change in the outcome of this case. I am hoping that both Committee and clerks reflect on the mixed message they send by cutting policy corners unnecessarily. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:14, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Maxim was not, in fact, “admonished”; such a remedy was opposed by the majority of the arbs. — pythoncoder  (talk | contribs) 21:40, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I was the Arb that authorized Cam's request to close the case early. There was nothing on the arb list that indicated no one was going to go anywhere in the next 1.5 hours, plus the only two remedies that could have been close to a change were an admonishment and a caution. That and Cameron is the only active clerk right now. I'm surprised to see complaints about a case being closed early given our very shitty record for taking 5 months to close cases. If you wish to trout me for applying IAR to ArbPol, go ahead, I'll consider myself touted. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 22:00, 6 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Long version: All of the following are true:

• The case was closed slightly before the statutory 24 waiting period;
• The clerk who closed it is blameless: they sought advice from an arbitrator and were given the ok to proceed;
• There is certainly a vague irony in jumping the gun in an Arbcom forum in a case partly about jumping the gun in an Arbcom forum;
• There's also a vague irony in raising concerns about early Arbcom action when the more usual concerns are about late Arbcom action;
• Despite the slightly early closure there was nothing left to be voted on, no remedy left unclear, no late suggestions and no active discussion, so the close itself had no impact;
• Also despite the above, it's good that the issue was raised as an equivalent close in some future circumstance might negatively affect a result.

Short version: Thanks for raising this. I don't think in mattered in this instance but agree we shouldn't make a habit of it. -- Euryalus (talk) 05:00, 7 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]