This page is for statements regarding the proposed decision, not discussion. Therefore, with the exception of arbitrators and clerks, all editors must create a section for their statement and comment only in their own section. |
This case is now closed and pages relating to it may no longer be watched
|
Case clerks: SQL (Talk) & Dreamy Jazz (Talk) Drafting arbitrators: CaptainEek (Talk) & David Fuchs (Talk) & SoWhy (Talk)
Wikipedia Arbitration |
---|
|
Track related changes |
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.
...it was always the source of the issue, everything else was going through RexxS's edits to dig up Stuff That Looked Bad.That happens on every arbcom case of this kind. It generally comes not necessarily only from the plaintiff(s) and/or request proposer, but also from totally uninvolved participants. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:20, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
@Jytdog: Perhaps you can see that I don't share your perspective on "He should not have removed it there". James's reply to the COI editor was not "a discussion on the article's talk page to explain what is non-neutral about the article." Read his words and try to imagine what an uninvolved editor would be able to work out from those. Nothing. That's why Andy was completely in the right to remove the tag. I agree about the edit-warring, of course, but James was edit-warring as well. Ironically, I've give both of them bollockings in the past for edit-warring, but I value both of them as friends (and vice-versa) and that's probably why I can sometimes be more useful to them. --RexxS (talk) 19:14, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
This is a stated position when two "friends" have fallen out of line. In the hours that I randomly searched through RexxS Archives, I saw very little if any abrasive language with anyone.
I'll add, Rexx has recently admitted to some abrasive language. I'll repeat that the areas he is editing in can be beyond frustrating. I've found myself ready to tear my hair out, since I edit sporadically in some of those areas, too. I'll add that this is a person who had Covid and who suffered fatigue long after that. I don't have the diff where he says this, but remember it. None of us knows the long term effects of Covid in any way and especially in long term fatigue. Rexx began this Request for Arbitration by saying he would take on board the concerns with his behaviour. I would hate to see a long term remedy for a short term situation. Littleolive oil (talk) 15:53, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
@Colin: Sorry Colin. You selectively leave out part of my comment to make a point, that with your tone consistent with other discussions leaves me not wanting to interact here. My statement stands. Littleolive oil (talk) 17:37, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
@Bradv: Habitual incivility? Really? Have you looked through his archives? And he wasn't the only one who disagreed with you, in one case that I know of at least-the Ayurveda case-with your position. Should an editor agree with you even when three other admins disagree with you? He several times went to NB to ask for input, a clear indication of looking for outside input. Littleolive oil (talk) 18:12, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
@Bradv: Apologies for mess with user name. Littleolive oil (talk) 20:41, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
@Beeblebrox:. You had, in your collective hands, the means to both test a way of dealing with cases like this and preventing the heat that ensued. You had in your hands the means to prevent the loss of one of our finest editors with a years long record of service. You had an arb talk to the editor and received a reply that indicated he would deal with criticisms of his recent work. You could have easily given him a month to work through this stuff and if he couldn't then an arbitration. But you didn't. You took him to arbitration and without naming the other editor involved, an insult to any editor. It's not about whether the arbs wanted deal with one issue rather than many it's about dealing humanely with people. Retention is not only about holding on to new editors, it's about dealing with long terms editors who are perhaps tired or frustrated as if they matter especially when they have been so integral to Wikipedia's development. I'm seldom this blunt, but you messed up to put it mildly. And you've lost an editor Wikipedia needs. Littleolive oil (talk) 22:39, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
@Kudpung: Arbs have commented multiple time recently that they are even busier than usual, and comments to the Functionaries (about an issue completely unrelated to this case) a couple of days ago strongly suggested that this was still the case. If you have ever been involved with committees outside Wikipedia you should realise that the more people needed to make a decision the harder it gets to make the decision - and that's with everybody in the same room. If emails from my time on the committee were ever leaked people would see that a good proportion of them was someone (often me*) chasing others about something that needed doing (although that sort of boring email is rarely the sort that get leaked!) and it would not surprise me if the same was true today. (* things idling out without conclusion is one of my pet hates!). Thryduulf (talk) 04:03, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
Concerning the remedy "Community reminded" and its alt - what I am always missing in this and similar arbitration (and even pre0arbitration) proceedings is that communication with the user always must start with the user's talk page. The exceptions are really outrageous things like rapid vandalism, and even in this case the blocking admin is required to leave a block message on the user's talk page (though many unfortunately do not). The first communication point is the user's talk page, not ANI, not edit summaries during the revert, and certainly not the ArbCom. The community must be reminded of this.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:00, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
FOF3, which currently passes unanimously, starts with RexxS has repeatedly threatened or engaged in the use of his administrator tools in topics where he has made substantial contributions or where he has had significant disputes with editors, in violation of WP:INVOLVED. However, WP:INVOLVED does not stay that administrator tools can not be used in the area the administrator has made substantial contributions. It only says In general, editors should not act as administrators in disputes in which they have been involved. Whereas, in principle, one can argue that if one has edited a lot in some area, they experience strong feeling towards this area, and therefore they are INVOLVED. However, first, this reasoning is flawed - for example, a significant part of my own contrubution was cleaning up some stubs about obscure female cyclists created by Sander v Ginkel, but I do not experience any feelings at all towards these, without any doubts, respectable ladies, second, I am not sure this is how the community considers involved. Having conflicts is of course a different business, and one has to be very careful, but as of now, this FoF reads "do not act an administrator in the area you are editing", which, I believe, is not supported by our policies. Certainly if this passes as is, I will immediately stop any admin activity in Eastern Europe area, my main editing area.--Ymblanter (talk) 22:17, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
Though it probably does not matter at this stage, let me state that I fully agree with HJ Mitchell. I have been on that side on the arbitration, a case was once submitted with me as the principal named party, which I believed (and still believe) had zero substance, and it was rejected, but came dangerously close to acceptance, and the whole deliberation took a lot of time. I tried to explain that there is no substance, but there were a lot of editors who had unrelated issues with me, and all these issues were brought there, and there were some other editors who did not have issues with me but felt strong about the topic, and I did not get an impression that the arbs were listening to what I was saying. The general attitude was indeed "no smoke without fire", and I do not feel it would have gone well if the case were accepted. Whatever positive I learned from the case, could have easily been achieved by a polite message on my talk page - but nobody cared to leave this polite message.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:41, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
repeatedly threatened or engaged in the use of his administrator toolswhen WP:INVOLVED, 2.
displayed unnecessary hostility during discussionsand
displayed a battleground mentality, 3.
reacted poorly to evidence that he has not followed policiesand
has not participated during the Case after it was opened, but indicated that you will not support a desysop. Given that these findings almost exactly mirror passages in the administrators policy describing conduct that is grounds for a desysop (namely 1.
serious or repeated lapses, or lapses involving breaches of 'involved' administrator conduct may not always be [accepted], 2.
behavior such as incivility or bad faith editing is incompatible with the expectations and responsibilities of administrators, and 3.
administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrative actions, especially during community discussions on noticeboards or during Arbitration Committee proceedings– emphasis added), I wonder if you could explain how your vote on the remedies follows from your votes on the findings? Are there mitigating factors that are not mentioned in the PD? (In which case perhaps they should be added?) – Joe (talk) 08:43, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
I have enough evidence to support the idea that the mistakes that have been made around INVOLVED won't happen again. What is this evidence? I spent quite some time reviewing the multiple discussions of RexxS' involved actions, by my count at least four, and not once did I see RexxS clearly admit fault or commit to a change in approach, nor did any of the other evidence provide any instances of this. On the contrary, I presented evidence of him continuing to threaten use of admin tools in areas where he had been explicitly told by the community that he was involved. And of course, RexxS has not participated in this case, apart from in the request phase where he again denied any fault and dismissed the request as frivolous. Since both you and NYB allude to mitigating factors that aren't present in the PD, it makes me wonder if RexxS has been in contact with the committee off-wiki to promise change? If so this should at least be mentioned in a finding. Otherwise it feels like we are right back where we were after RexxS' RfA, with trusted functionaries assuming that he will change his behaviour, absent any statement from the man himself that he will follow through, or even sees the need to. – Joe (talk) 18:03, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
been explicitly told by the communityI think the problem here is that he hasn't been told explicitly. He's been told with enough ambiguity that he's read into those conversations what he wants them to say rather than what they do say (though as in the Ayurveda I think he did read the discussion correctly and it was the discussion that was incorrect). Everyone is at risk for motivated reasoning and so I have touch of patience for that. Hope that helps clarify. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:43, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
the mistakes that have been made around INVOLVED won't happen again? If there's been no contact from RexxS, where is the empirical basis for that assertion in the case pages? Sorry to harp on, but given this is at least the third time RexxS has been directly involved in an ArbCom case, and many editors have invested time in arguing this case that he has chosen not to participate in, it would be extremely unfortunate to end up back here again, with another set of editors bullied and wrongly blocked, just because this committee decided to give him the benefit of the doubt (again). – Joe (talk) 19:56, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrative actions, especially during community discussions on noticeboards or during Arbitration Committee proceedings. So it's not the case that the committee has to decide whether participation in a case is expected (cf. Maxim), it's already in policy. – Joe (talk) 09:36, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
There doesn't seem to be anything here about User:ProcrastinatingReader's role in this whole incident, which led to this arbitration case. That is very disappointing. Has the template that was the source of the issue even been fixed yet? Mike Peel (talk) 11:00, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
@David Fuchs: "I'm not seeing any reason those require administrator tools" - bear in mind that some of the modules he has worked on, e.g., Module:EditAtWikidata, are admin protected. (Many more are template editor protected, like Module:WikidataIB, although that's now so much used that it may well be fully protected in the future.) Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 16:18, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
@Primefac: "2/3 of the statements and 6/7 diffs are unrelated to PR" - I can't understand how you are calculating those ratios, can you explain please? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:58, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
RexxS has repeatedly threatened ... [1], [2], [3] He has also confused ... [4] [5] [6] and threatened to use ...[7]Those three statements have seven diffs attached to them. Only the last statement and diff deal with ProcrastinatingReader, the editor from which I had agreed to recuse w.r.t. their evidence and interaction as it related to RexxS. That puts the majority of that FoF in territory on which I can comment. Primefac (talk) 23:20, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
@David Fuchs: "RexxS has demonstrably led to editors retiring." - which editors, please? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk)
Seen. So far the thing that stands out in this case is the stark contrast in reaction between Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rama/Evidence (and other cases) and this. Generally RexxS has labelled criticism of his actions as "personal attacks" or "mud-slinging".[1] In this case, he labelled it a "vexatious filing" and "slinging mud", and stated his block of AMWNP was "fully vindicated". He has now disappeared, allegedly retired. Though, I acknowledge he did eventually apologise to valereee after requests. Still, lack of acknowledgement does not really inspire confidence that something will change. I would appreciate if arbs (like Newyorkbrad) could expand on their thinking when voting so folks can follow along. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:18, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Also, I question the relevance of 5 and 5.1. Although I did not personally file an ANI on RexxS, there are past ANIs on his conduct and past UTPs. And we know how all those turned out. The evidence is also clear in line with past cases. The Arbitration Committee's own procedures are also clear. AN literally cannot do anything to an admin, particularly not about patterns in behaviour, but it can rectify single instances of miscalculated admin actions (eg bad block). Does anyone have a single instance of when an admin was blocked, in the past five years, following an AN discussion? A noticeboard that cannot do anything to an admin, much less a popular one, is functionally useless. Same issue with principle 7: do you believe that a topic ban from medicine, bots, etc., is an appropriate remedy to the evidence? (or possibly an interaction ban with a dozen editors?) I feel like these further cement a catch-22 of dealing with problematic admins, and as such are actively harmful. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:29, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
posting to the administrator's talkpageby valereee, Zero0000, bradv and others (ironically, all three were attacked by TPWs for their comments).
or a noticeboardincluding the various discussions RexxS said everyone was misunderstanding policy until eventually dismissing it as "mudslinging" once a strong enough consensus built up. The remedy is (likely unintentionally) an insult to all those editors who participated in those discussions to no avail. IMO: no variant of remedy 5 should be passed. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:35, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
4.1 seems to be taken from Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GiantSnowman but has not been adjusted for relevance to this case. RexxS does not have a problem with consecutively blocking editors, or with misusing warning templates. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:45, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
There's a big difference between making a mistake (or several) vs misconduct. Usually that difference, amongst other factors, includes a willingness to engage, admit that one perhaps could've done better, and take on board feedback for future actions. Humility, contrition, and acknowledgement of the fact we're all human; imperfect and (hopefully) improving each day. It’s telling that he still refuses to show up on PD talk and, in his own words, provide some acknowledgement and an assurance to do better. It isn't difficult. I’m not sure how arbs can expect a change without that. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:44, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
I know this is a minor detail, but it's bugging me. Remedy 1 isn't grammatically correct ("RexxS administrative privileges are revoked"). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:47, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
I'm disappointed that repeated talking points of demonstrable falsehoods and, at times, blatant personal attacks (eg intentionally lying by omission
) are allowed here. It's gotten to the point where folks don't even bother expand on their rationale, they just repeat RexxS's case statement without even bothering to explain the logic of how they came to the conclusion (which is, again, demonstrably not true). Not a single person has decided to either (a) file an AN with their 'evidence' or (b) provide any rationale of their own, much less address the analysis or rationale I gave. Why are unsubstantiated remarks allowed here, as they were in evidence and evidence talk (although, there they were mainly directed at valereee and Joe, but equally problematic)? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:28, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
I must register my strong objection to the proposed remedy 3.3.5 "Community reminded" (and its variant, 3.3.5.1). This remedy is inappropriate on general grounds and it definitely has no business being a part of the final decision in this arbitration case. The kind of sentiment expressed in this remedy is entirely wrongheaded in general. Administrators are currently appointed for life, and ArbCom is the only venue for desysopping them. Admin cronyism is a serious and well-known problem. Sending the community the signal that they should jump through fifty five different hoops before bringing a possible desysop case to ArbCom is a terrible message, and you should not send it. In this specific case including a remedy like this one in the final decision just looks like a hypocritical case of buyer's remorse. The appropriate place for the ArbCom to express this type of sentiment, if at all, was at the RFAR stage. But you have voted to accept the case. Don't try to blame the community for bringing it to you now. Nsk92 (talk) 14:27, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Are you comfortable with the idea of doing the job you were elected to do? Because if not, you should resign right now... an abrogation of your responsibilities... Well, good for you then.I'm hoping that this is me reading something that isn't really there which is why I note it here. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:28, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Regarding remedy 5.2 "General observation", what exactly is the purpose of including this condescending lecture to the community in the final decision? Are you being inundated with frivolous desysop requests? With admin conduct cases that have not been to AN/ANI quite a few times and do not already involve several contentious discussion threads at the user talk page of the admin in question? When was the last RFAR request you dealt with where these conditions have not been satisfied? Certainly in the present case all of these conditions have been met, and then some, including a unanimously overturned block and multiple prior discussions (and even a clarification given by the arbcom itself) regarding the meaning of WP:INVOLVED. You could not possibly ask for more, short of a formal sanction against an admin at AN/ANI, which as we all know never happens. So what is this remedy doing here? Nsk92 (talk) 22:16, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
If violating WP:INVOLVED and contradicting WP:ADMINACCT by not participating in this case do not merit a desysopping, what does? -- Calidum 15:43, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Remedies 5 and 1.5 are insults to the Wikipedia community and an incredible show of the distain you all have for the core work of the committee: arbitrating. Discussions about ADMINCONDUCT at ANI are a waste of time for the community and the admin involved because ANI can not desysop a user. If an admin is making involved blocks to the level that we get an arbcom FOF, then you all need to do your jobs and look into it. If you are too busy with the smoke-filled backroom work, then use the functionaries or set up a subcommittee. You only sit through less than 10 cases a year. It is not in the project's best interest to reduce that number to 2 because you all decided that you do not want to do less than the most egregious ADMINCONDUCT cases anymore. --In actu (Guerillero) Parlez Moi 16:05, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
@SoWhy: By tradition, at ArbCom the sliding scale of remedies goes
The warnings and admonishments are a way of documenting the "frequent flyer" problem that is sometimes seen at arbcom --In actu (Guerillero) Parlez Moi 16:09, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
I would just note that as of right now literally nobody has voted in support of either of those remedies, so "an incredible show of the distain you all have" is possibly a bit much. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:06, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
I vowed to stay out of this arbitration because a) three medicine arbitrations in one year is a bad look, b) and those editors who do participate in arbcases are routinely shot at with arbs/clerks doing little about that. But there are several factors about this case which I don't understand.
I hope it is now apparent (after three cases in one year) that a good deal of the evidence at WP:ARBMED was either not read, or overlooked, by the Committee then, and, had they dealt with all of the issues raised explicitly then, they likely could have avoided the next two cases. I warned you in advance of my evidence that there were considerable festering problems and that evidence would be lengthy; the need for my length was overlooked, the extent of problems was not fully accounted for in findings and remedies, and we ended up with three med cases in one year. The opportunity to deal with the whole shebang was missed, and you ended up shooting yourselves in the feet by having to spend even more time. By sending conflicting messages and not dealing with everything raised in ARBMED, issues were allowed to continue. So, y'all complained about the length of my evidence (albeit unspoken, but it was clear), but had you engaged ALL of it THEN, you could have ended up saving all of us a lot of ongoing problems and agida, and probably the problems we saw in the next two cases would have been nipped in the bud and we would not have needed additional cases. And the subsequent solution was to curtail evidence. How are three short cases, consuming a year of editor time, better than one long case that gets it over with? I seriously doubt that some of the issues in the two subsequent cases would have continued had the Committee taken stronger stances at ARBMED re editwarring, coordinated editing, and everything else in evidence.
One of the issues in observing this case which is most confusing to me revolves around edit warring.
So, the take away for me is that when arbs don't deal with, or even read, full evidence in cases, we are left with simmering problems. I am pleased to see, though, that the attempt to drag "Medical editors" through this affair (which began over something entirely unrelated to Medicine) was unsuccessful up to now. But please get the message straight, as I see nothing but contradiction here. Arbs, you have missed now TWO opportunities to stem problems plaguing medical editing, all of which were laid out in gory and excruciating and verbose (me) lengthy detail at WP:ARBMED. Please be consistent and thorough this time, so we won't have to be back here a fourth time. Three shorter cases is not better than one long case; the failure to deal comprehensively with everything presented at ARBMED, and what were the driving factors, continues to leave WP:MED dealing with festering issues. Do we or don't we care about admin editwarring, and do we or don't we need to repeat evidence from case to case? The arbs already had evidence of a three-way admin edit war; no wonder similar repeated, since lines were not clearly drawn, and attacks made during that edit war were overlooked (along with other evidence in the Medicine case). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:51, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Re: SandyGeorgia's comments about me on this talk page, if the Arbs have any questions for me, please let me know. Otherwise, I greatly appreciated the lovely interaction that I had recently with Sandy at Talk:Sissinghurst Castle Garden, and had very much hoped that the unpleasantness was behind us. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:03, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Re: the PD, I agree very much with what Levivich said about it being better to use Principles than to use Remedies for that purpose. I also think that it would be best not to, in effect, scold the community over filing a case that you accepted, as seems to me to be implied in all three of the alternatives in the "Community reminded" remedies. Also, since you explicitly decided that ProcrastinatingReader would not be a named party, it is unfair to appear to find fault with the filing of the case request.
By the way, you did a nice job of pruning down my Workshop proposal for a Principle about INVOLVED. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:47, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
I don't think Tryptofish would be a good administrator.": [2] What purpose did that serve? For context, here is what I posted on the Evidence page: [3]. There is nothing proportional about the present remark about me. This makes the second time that editors have used this talk page to take shots at me, in ways that are unrelated to improving the PD. I've been trying to be tolerant, but at this point, enough is enough. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:19, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
In Bradv's section, he discusses with Barkeep49 some diffs that I presented in evidence, and expresses the view that those diffs dealt with ADMINCOND, but not with INVOLVED. I will repeat here three of those diffs, that in fact show otherwise: [4], [5], [6]. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:23, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
As I watch the discussions on the PD page, I want to suggest that an Arb, anyone of you, should add another proposed FoF, as per this. (Go ahead. Do it. Cash up front!) However each Arb decides on the Remedies, it would be useful to decide how you would vote on that. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:29, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
I think what is trying to be said in Remedies 5 ("Community reminded") and its alternates 5.1 and 5.2 is already said in Principle 7 ("Community handling of administrator misconduct"). There's a world of difference between calling it a "principle" and calling it a "remedy". "Remedy" suggests arbcom is remediating something done by the community, which isn't the case here (as there is no relating finding). Levivich harass/hound 22:03, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Regarding the idea that "an administrator that needs to be restricted by arbcom is not fit to retain administrative rights"... "incompatible with being a "trusted member of the community" – why is this editor who was restricted by arbcom still trusted to retain administrative rights? wbm1058 (talk) 23:01, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
For those Committee members who aren't comfortable with the idea that the sole remedy for administrator misconduct is to desysop and those who may be comfortable with the idea but find yourself struggling over that decision, I point out that the Committee has found creative solutions in the past, for example, the creation of the WP:Extended confirmed user access level. You could create a new user group "Block-restricted administrators" and assign all the administrator privileges to that group except the "Block a user from sending email" (blockemail)
and "Block other users from editing" (block)
rights and move block-sanctioned administrators into this group, for some specified duration. Noting that (I believe) there has been no evidence of violations of deletion or protection policies, this would allow these admins to retain rights they have not abused. – wbm1058 (talk) 20:10, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
As some will know, I didn't discover this case until it was closed, hence my lack of participation. Firstly, let's get the squabbling over "multiple" vs "two" edit wars done: Beeblebrox and Casliber, there is serious edit warring documented on the medical arbcom, so that makes three at least. That arbcom was started because of James's edit warring over drug prices post an RFC that didn't go his way, and RexxS's warring was notable for occurring during arbcom, and with a former arb. So it should have been memorable, but clearly wasn't. I do encourage you to read what RexxS wrote while warring, as it has similarities with his language used to valeree, and his claim justifying his own warring has similarities to his confusion over INVOLVED.
I don't think Barkeep49's oppose vote at the "RexxS has edit warred" FoF will make a lot of sense to most people. This isn't some judgement call about whether someone misused tools in a complex situation or has a battleground mentality, where one might judge the evidence too slight to use such strong language as "misused" or "mentality". Edit warring is wrong. With only a few clear and obvious exceptions (vandal/sock fighting, etc). There's no "but I have policy on my side" or "but they don't understand the RFC conclusion" get-out-clause. It is doubly wrong for admins, who we expect to have a very clear idea about it and therefore to be trusted to wave the block stick appropriately at others. By all means consider whether edit warring is frequent enough to warrant a desysop, but three documented cases of edit warring by an admin should be a FoF.
I've been wondering about the mix of opinions over RexxS. My theory is that RexxS is fine with those he has met in real life, and those he has established a rapport with online. But if your first encounter with RexxS online is to be in disagreement with him, then you get put in the "Assume bad faith" box, never to escape. The reason for disagreeing with RexxS isn't that some rational people have different opinions, but its that you are here to personally undermine him and to destroy Wikipedia. The reason why edits might be imperfect or not MEDRS-compliant isn't that the person is a newbie (either to Wikipedia, or to medical or Covid articles) but that you are here to harm Wikipedia with nonsense and woo. I don't have to try to read RexxS's mind to guess this: he openly and explicitly states these things and is very clear that he is assuming bad faith with you. RexxS might be wonderful with peers and newbies at a Wiki event, but my experience of him as an admin dealing with online strangers is different. This is an attitude problem that is incompatible with adminship, which should be finding resolution and consensus, and helping stumbling mistaken newbies.
I see some arbs are agonising over desysop. Nobody is suggesting one has to be "perfect to be an administrator". But don't make it such a huge deal to not (any longer) be an administrator. Let's be clear, I don't think I'd be a good administrator, and plenty others I don't think would be good administrators. There are qualities we want/need from administrators and not everyone has them. RexxS doesn't. His RFA and subsequent 'Crat chat was an exercise in optimism over experience. It was a frankly naive hope for personal improvement in a job that places one under pressures that brings out the worst in some. It was made very clear then to RexxS that his hostility and anger management was in the "needs work" department. What makes you think that a "Reminder" or "Admonished" warning to improve is going to work this time? -- Colin°Talk 09:24, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
...if your first encounter with RexxS online is to be in disagreement with him, then you get put in the "Assume bad faith" box, never to escape.This is a really interesting comment that I've been thinking about since I first read this comment a few hours ago. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:38, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
I would like to see the evidence for Barkeep49's assertion: "I have enough evidence to support the idea that the mistakes that have been made around INVOLVED won't happen again."
The only statements that RexxS made about this case concerned his habitual incivility, and made no mention of the repeated violations of INVOLVED. On the several occasions I have had to remind RexxS of his obligations under the administrator policy, I never got the impression that he acknowledged his mistakes. In fact, at this point I have seen absolutely no indication that these mistakes won't be repeated, other than that he appears to have departed the project. – bradv🍁 17:01, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
Newyorkbrad: All of the steps you mention in remedy 5.2 have been done repeatedly, with the exception of overturning the actions themselves. Are you suggesting that I should have simply reversed the bad blocks when I didn't get a positive reception on RexxS' talk page? Would that be the point at which you would vote to accept a case involving administrator misconduct? – bradv🍁 20:42, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
A desysop would be incorrect for the reasons already given, especially by Barkeep. While remedy 4.1 is unlikely to pass, I want to echo Cas Liber in thanking the drafting arbs for developing it as it may be a useful starting point for future cases where it might be useful. With that in mind, I want to push back on the spirit of remedy 5 and its revisions.
I stated in the request (and still believe) that ArbCom should take any good faith request of administrator misconduct, and strongly oppose remedy 5 and revisions. The community is able to handle administrator misconduct itself, but our options are limited and the costs are high. The community's most powerful meatball:TechnologySolution is the block. This is ham-fisted in many situations, but blocked administrators are still able to use some tools despite the block (c.f. the Fram desysop). If any community restriction on an administrator were violated, we would struggle to adequately enforce them ("yeah badmin violated their TBAN, but I'd have to block them from everything which is a net negative so let me just give another warning"). This brings me to the next point: the costs of enacting a community solution are high. Sanctioning an administrator requires significant social capital in order to marshal community membors to take on the risk of publicly criticizing a prominent community member. Consider the David Gerard incident brought up by PR above; how many people do we think could get away with an expletive-laden tirade? I publicly confronted oppose !voters, and called them out on their bullshit rationalizations. I behaved like a teenager on an internet forum because reasoned argument had gotten us nowhere. The pathos was intentional: I knew sufficient will resided in the community, but it needed to be roused. It is disappointing (but not surprising) that the facts I merely summarized were not sufficient to convince the community, and dangerous that our primary method for dealing with misconduct is so susceptible to passion. We knew what needed to be done, clearly, but the risk of publicly stating it is, in many cases, higher than not doing anything. By nature, I'm contrarian, and am willing to take flak for others if it gets us to the right solution. We should not ask others to take on that same risk, let alone design a performance-review system around it. But functionally that is what remedies 5.X recommend.
Just because the community can deal with administrator issues does not mean that it should. Having two independent processes for dealing with administrator misconduct is a feature, not a bug. It provides reporters with multiple options that they can choose from based on their particular situation and fears. To some degree, this is what remedy 5.2 gets closest to, but it loses touch with reality. RexxS had been given feedback on this---the crux of his RfA was civility concerns, and the promoting crats assumed (given the margin) he would take them on board. Editors had been in touch with him about his conduct, and the evidence page has examples of this. Of note is when valereee and Zero0000 raised concerns about Rexx's conduct on his talk page; not only was it removed without comment the reporters were berated by a third party and accused of raising the concerns in bad faith. Prior to reporting their concerns at ANI, the now-vanished editor had discussed their concerns with Rexx on a talk page where another administrator also raised concerns.
Looking at the evidence, are we to believe that prior resolution methods had not been tried? Was RexxS was unaware of concerns? Would further talk page discussions or AN(I) threads likely result in anything? On what grounds would the answer to any of those questions be yes? Remedy 5.2 writes against a reality that did not happen and advises the community to do things it already did. It resolves nothing, because the fundamental premise behind remedy 5 and revisions is flawed. They are correct in stating that arbitration is in addition to, not instead of, community solutions, but in what realistic circumstances has someone's venue of first resort been WP:RFARB instead of a talk page or noticeboard? None. Because the situation remedies 5.X write against is unrealistic, these remedies function largely as a recommendation that we waste our time, emotional energy, and camaraderie on repeated discussions that historically have gotten us nowhere. Imbalances in power and social capital make sanctioning an administrator by community consensus outrageously difficult and opens the reporter up to further harassment. Sometimes it works fine, and the community is working to improve our success rate. But we should not pretend that our best developed structure for limiting power imbalances in reporting misconduct is off-limits to most situations. It is acceptable to take no action after accepting a case, but remedy 5.0 in particular suggests accepting a case is tantamount to a presumption of guilt and establishes an undefined threshold of "desysop-worthy". I have said, and I maintain that the committee should take all good faith administrator conduct cases, because doing otherwise harms our community by disincentivizing reporting and prolonging conflicts creating a toxic environment. The committee rightly acknowledges that it should not take every case that it can; now extend that same wisdom to the community. 19:58, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
we should not pretend that our best developed structure for limiting power imbalances in reporting misconduct is off-limits to most situations. By lowering the barrier to entry, we decrease the chance that misconduct goes unaddressed for long periods of time.Harry is further correct that investigations take time and energy, and in fact this is the crux of my social capital analysis. Social capital is not only getting people to agree with you, and it is not knowing the right places and norms (that is cultural capital). Like economic capital, social capital is used to do things. If I want to start a podcast, I can use economic capital to buy equipment, hire audio engineers, and pay for advertising. Alternatively, I can use social capital to borrow equipment from my musician friends, have them put me in touch with their mixers, and tell all my friends about it. Depending on whether I have more money or more friends, one of these strategies will be more effective. Harry is correct that ANI does a bad job of investigating patterns of misconduct, and this is because mobilizing volunteers to comb through thousands of edits is hard; go look at the WP:CCI backlog. Investigative departments pay people to do that; they use financial capital to mobilize human resources to spend time and effort on a particular task. We do not pay people. We use social capital to mobilize our human resources, and we pay people in prestige, trust, and owed favors.So to bring this back to ANI and ArbCom: social capital is not just about swaying people to your side. It is used from the beginning to get people to spend time considering your post and to get people to investigate the situation at all. If a new editor showed up at AN(I) claiming that an admin was misusing their tools, how deep would we investigate? We see so many frivolous complaints, many would just brush it off and not waste our time. Eventually it will get archived with maybe a few comments. In fact, social capital can be used to prevent mobilization of resources. If the reported admin quickly responds with a particular interpretation of events, they invest accumulated social capital to dissuade further investigation. In fact, look at the recent case of Tenebrae who hid their own COI by accusing others of COI editing and getting them blocked. The social capital they accumulated from generally positive editing was used to buy deference, prevent investigation, and silence critics by mobilizing human resources in their defense until it ultimately brought the project into disrepute.Peer review is important and viable, I'm not saying it isn't, but it is not infallible or immune to the forces of capital. In fact, social capital as a sociological theory was developed to understand how organizations protect their members from outside attacks, create advantages for insiders, and ultimately (re)produce inequality; it was literally developed as a theory to understand how "old boys clubs" operate. Social capital as a theoretical framework is useful here because we are an old boys club. Our decline in active editors stopped around 2014-15 and has been increasing since 2019 (chart), but of our 1,109 current admins, 92% got the bit prior to 2015. Our processes don't work because they were designed to protect the privileges of early Wikipedians (Fernandez 2019); that is one of the privileges social capital works to produce and protect. Most of the people tasked with enforcing our norms have a vested interest in not doing so. I am not even trying to shift blame, as I said in the David Gerard ANI complaint I was aware of that problem for months before it got brought to ANI. I did nothing, because I didn't want to deal with the potential backlash at the time. Investigating the problem and getting others to look into it or take me seriously would require more effort than it was worth, and likely would have opened me up to the same kinds of harassment. Why would I volunteer for that when I could go deal with the RfPP backlog?Why I push for a lower bar for accepting admin cases (and why I oppose remedies 5.X) is because it can help counteract these forces. Our time, as volunteers, is limited. Claims are unlikely to be investigated without some form of capital. At present, I have little incentive to publicly criticize my colleagues and the documented cases of retaliatory harassment give plenty of reasons not to do so. By contrast, ArbCom is quite literally tasked with compiling evidence and coming to conclusions and solutions based on that evidence. It has an explicit structure for inexperienced editors to follow, and a group of volunteers whose literal job is to fix formatting and inform them about the norms. ArbCom's mandate is the very thing Harry and I agree ANI is bad at: investigating patterns of behavior. But we seem to come to different conclusions. Instead of hoping someone will care enough to go through thousands of edits to establish a pattern of abuse, I believe we should use the existing committee for the job it already does using the structures it already has in place to limit the identified inequalities. By making it easier to report, we decrease the chance that problems go unaddressed for years because the newbies/victims got run off or blocked.It is a structural problem, not an individual problem, which is why I am advocating for a structural solution. The solution--I think--is clear, and I have said it repeatedly: ArbCom should take all good faith admin conduct complaints they receive. If we do not find a way to balance the inequalities in social and cultural capital that influence our admin conduct dispute resolution process, the WMF has made explicitly clear that it will use its economic capital to pay Trust & Safety to do so. 20:43, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
By contrast, ArbCom is quite literally tasked with compiling evidencewhich is quite literally wrong. ArbCom does no compiling of evidence ourselves. In fact the community, to a degree I find unreasonable but which I live as an arb because it's the expectation, dislikes Arbs finding their own evidence. We can see that dislike on display in this very talk page even. So ArbCom relies on social capital to investigate just as much (or even more) than AN/ANI. Now, the committee could expend some of our social capital and change that norm. But why would we? I'd much rather use our social capital in things like Tenebrae where we need the community to trust us that there was evidence (there was) and we discussed thoroughly (we did) and we came to a conclusion. When the community softens on something, as they have recently about the usefulness of proposed decisions, there is a window for ArbCom to make a change if we wish. But if you want ArbCom to be willing to investigate and not just accept what others put forward, I think you'll need the community to change its general message to Arbs first. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:10, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
Regarding proposed remedy 5.2: the first two sentences sound defensive. I suggest wording them as assertions, such as the following: The Arbitration Committee has the sole authority for revoking administrator privileges (desysopping) on this project, and it takes this into account when deciding whether or not to accept a request for arbitration.
Note I am not arguing in favour of or against adopting the remedy. isaacl (talk) 20:17, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
Newyorkbrad: there's no need for the user links in the remedy. They are already present in the "Involved parties" subsection of the "Case information" section of the case page (where the final decision will be placed). isaacl (talk) 21:50, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
I'll have more to say but I'll start off with how Wugapodes is correct in that the 5.X remedies just don't make any sense. Moneytrees🏝️Talk/CCI guide 20:34, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
I have a quick question about the principle relating to ARBCOM not overturning RFA decisions. If, for a hypothetical, a single crat closed an RFA which had 56% as promote and the other crats affirmed that decision would Arbcom take any action in that case of an egregious violation of standards for assessing consensus; or would that fall out of their purview under this principle. ( A real similar example happened in 2006; where an RFA was closed as successful with 61% when the discretionary range was 70-80%, and Arbcom ended up reviewing the matter; although the RFA result was not overturned. ) Basically, I am asking if Arbcom would review a future case of a bureaucrat promoting an admin despite the result being significantly below the discretionary range, or if they would not review it under the aforementioned principle. Arbcom reviewed it back in 2006 but they did not review it much more recently in REXXS' RFA.Jackattack1597 (talk) 22:52, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
@SoWhy: Why do you support both remedy 3.1 and remedy 3.4? I don't understand why you both support restrictions on sysop powers as well as removing sysop powers completely. ( I thought that in these cases restrictions usually took the place of a Desysop.)Jackattack1597 (talk) 18:02, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
By my calculations, this is where the case currently stands as far as remedy are concerned: Remedy 1, which would Desysop RexxS, is currently passing, and in order for it to fail at least one supporter would have to switch their vote to oppose. This means that the only realistic way a Desysop could be avoided ( aside from an Arbitrator changing their mind at the last minute) would be if a compromise was made to implement remedy #4 or a more tailored variation of it instead. It would take all of the current supporters of remedy #4 voting against remedy #1 in addition to all of the opposers of remedy #1 supporting remedy #4, combined with one current arb who supports remedy #1 and opposes remedy #4 abstaining or voting support on remedy #4 in order for remedy #4 to replace remedy 1, in case any arbs were seeking a lesser remedy. Alternatively, one of the arbs could draft a different option altogether, such as a suspended Desysop that would take effect if he didn't make the necessary changes while giving him a last chance to show that he can make changes in his behavior, avoiding the need for another full case in the future ( I think there is a template for that in the Kudpung case). Pinging Primefac in case he might be interested in drafting a suspended Desysop motion in lieu of a full dysop. If the status quo remains, this case will end with RexxS being desysopped, as well as a community reminder about steps before Arbcom.Jackattack1597 (talk) 15:51, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
Pinging Leaky_caldron Could you please stop assuming bad faith about my comments? The public wasn't permitted to propose remedies until the proposed decision phase as far as I know, and the proposed decision has only been posted for a few days. I do not appreciate your comment that "something is not quite right" Jackattack1597 (talk) 18:42, 25 March 2021 (UTC) Were_Spiel_Chequers Sorry if I didn't explain myself well in my question, I wasn't asking if Arbcom should review every time there is a close outside the discretionary range, I was just trying to ask if they would consider reviewing if there was a close egregiously outside the discretionary range by at least 5% with no good reason. ( IE: If a crat closed an RFA at 58% as successful with no crat chat, or if a crat chat closed an RFA at 56% as successful ( A similar scenario happened in 2006, and ARBCOM said the close was wrong, but they didn't reverse the close. )Jackattack1597 (talk) 15:21, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
CaptainEek Are you planning on voting on the Desysop? The case is closing in about an hour, and the Desysop remedy has passed, but it'd still be good to see how all the arbs feel on that remedy. ( Obviously you don't have to vote on it, though) Jackattack1597 (talk) 16:53, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
re: The (overused) RexxS didn't participate claims.1 When I think back to the beginning, PR started with the request with the RexxS' RfA link; with commentary2, and dropped a bunch of 'short-sharp' or salty diffs. RexxS countered with the diffs of the faulty edit notice template (along with links to a couple discussions where many agree that there was a problem). Most of the Arbs comments were of the "we'll look at admin faults" variety, and mentioned little to nothing of the template issues. So I'm not really sure what you were expecting him (RexxS) to "participate" with. Any "but he was wrong" rebuttals from RexxS wouldn't be well received (and likely turned into "see he's argumentative" comments from some). I know everyone needs to something to hang their hat on, but the participation issue is pretty weak IMO.
I understand the past year of our liberties taken from us, being locked-down, isolated, forced to wear masks, and forbidden to take part in many of life's little pleasure's has caused many/most folks to feel upset, frustrated, and in some cases angry. It would be only natural to lash out. You can't really fight back against a virus, and I hope folks aren't taking out their frustrations on others.
— Ched (talk) 23:08, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
I've seen a few motions being passed by the arbitrators recently - yet not one examining the person who filed this case. It was a clear abuse of template editor rights, and given that RexxS' threat (not involved, given the only involvement was in the administrative function of evaluating the use of advanced permissions by the other editor) was included in evidence, it seems odd that the person filing the case is being allowed to not only get an admin desysopped for it, but get off and keep their advanced permissions after an exceedingly clear abuse thereof in not only going against consensus but intentionally lying by omission to mislead the community into accepting their changes. Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, this was always a witch-hunt - and became even more so the second the arbitrators agreed to accept this case focused only on one editor when the conflict leading to the case involved multiple. When one only looks at the prosecution's side of the evidence, of course the defendant looks guilty. And that's exactly what happened here - people with unclean hands themselves are getting a good admin desysopped for technicalities and borderlines, whereas they're getting off without so much as a slap on the wrist because of careful crafting of the case to eliminate the chance of evaluating others' conduct too. So, it's a witch-hunt with the expected result. And people wonder why more medical editors, who have to put up with shit (I considered, at great lengths, a lesser word here) day in and day out, and with very little help from admins not interested in medical articles, don't run for adminship. One arbitrator brought up (without evidence) that editors "left" because of RexxS - maybe it should've been considered both how many will leave because of this result, and how many stayed in the first place because RexxS reached out to them at an early stage. Appalling. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 01:08, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
To those suggesting that not responding to an arbitration case should violate ADMINCOND, why should someone respond when the case was opened basically ignoring the entirety of their original response, and when the person who started the witch hunt gets off without even mention in the end result? I dare any administrator to say that they wouldn't be absolutely fuming if their conduct was being examined based on a report of someone with very unclean hands and they were ignored at the start - it makes complete sense RexxS left and if he did so to avoid being uncivil/digging deeper, that should be commended, not faulted. Was RexxS contacted by email and explicitly refused to participate, or has he been AWOL from the project completely - because being AWOL completely in the face of such a drastic "fuck you" witch hunt is very understandable and I suspect would likely be the human reaction of any administrator in the same position. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 01:35, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
@Berchanhimez:, I notice you didn't provide a diff when you say someone lied by omission. Now I, having read all the evidence carefully, understand what evidence applies to that statement such that it's not just an unfounded personal attack (even if I don't think it's true). In the same way another arbitrator referenced something else in evidence which you seem to have not noticed (just as you hadn't noticed the several explanations given by multiple arbs throughout this case about why PR is not a party to the case). Of course it's not your responsibility to follow as closely as the arbs and it's totally fair for you to disagree with the decisions we're making (I know I don't agree with all of them). However, I hope you can join me in believing that the arbs who've reached different decisions about some FoF and remedies from me and from you have done so in good faith and with the project's best interests in mind. Barkeep49 (talk) 02:01, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
Given that no arbitrator has yet taken issue with the one-sided witch hunt driving away a good editor (not that I expected them to), maybe they should reconsider their votes on finding 2. Multiple arbitrators have stated either explicitly or implicitly, or through not denying, that RexxS' lack of participation in the case was a factor in their decisionmaking - thus it deserves a principle stating whether arbitrators should be doing so, based on policy, and if they are to be doing so (or are not, or there is no basis in policy either way), it needs the finding of fact to support such. Otherwise, it is arbitrators "legislating from the bench" and reading into ADMINCOND what is not there. RexxS responded to the case and was basically told to "piss off" by framing the case only about him - the least the arbitrators can do is have the decency to formalize their decision making process and to explicitly state as a principle/finding whether not participating in the case can be, and was, used as part of the reason for the desysop. Regardless of individual arbitrators taking it into account or not, allowing a desysop to pass with multiple arbitrators relying heavily on something that is not in a principle or a finding would be... weird to say the least, and yet another disservice to RexxS at most. Not to mention that at least one arbitrator (David Fuchs) is, based on his own vote, relying on quite a bit of evidence that I can't find anywhere in the evidence page, nor has been presented (ex: causing editors to leave) - which hasn't drawn any comment by anyone else from what I can see.
I'll furthermore add that in reply to User:Maxim in User:L235's section: If the majority of "administrator" cases are framed like this, where case requests that center on one conflict with other editors involved are turned into witch hunts (either by intentional design or unintentional crafting), then of course they will mostly result in de-adminning. A witch hunt allows for cherry-picking of negativity without considering the circumstances around this case - as has been done here - and if this is common in other adminship cases, in that they're turned into a witch hunt under the guise of "examining one administrator", then it only makes sense that this is the typical outcome. Nothing happens in a vacuum here - except apparently bad conduct by other users when they can get an administrator to take the fall and thus distract the arbitrators and community from the larger problems at play.
The reluctance to press on with FoF 2 is understandable (though I'm not sure I would oppose it personally). However, for the arbs who are opposing or abstaining, you run the risk of implicitly encouraging non-participation in further cases. An acknowledgement that refusing to participate is, as a practical matter, not in the best interests of the editor is both justified and supported by policy (see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy § Participation). If I were active on this case I would propose a principle along the lines of this: "Editors are expected to respond to statements about themselves in arbitration proceedings. Failure to do so may result in decisions being made without their participation." (Paraphrasing of arbitration policy.)
Further, if you don't buy the ADMINACCT argument on the grounds that RexxS was not specifically asked to respond, an additional principle you could adopt would be along the lines of: "Administrators are accountable for their actions involving administrative tools. As such, they are expected to respond appropriately to queries about their administrative actions and to justify their actions where needed. This expectation extends to queries raised in arbitration proceedings if the administrator is specifically asked to respond." Adopting a principle like this would clarify the Committee's view of ADMINACCT as regards arbitration proceedings. (The first two sentences of this principle are taken verbatim from Principle 4 of the Kafziel case.) Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 01:28, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
Including this as a principle does not automatically mean that the principle has been violated. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 01:39, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
Absent significant changes to the arbitration process, there's no benefit or drawback to sitting the case out, after having given preliminary statements. There's probably more benefit to sitting out: it may avoid some of the stress of this process. As for drawbacks... I don't think there are any; what is a committee going to do for non-participation, desysop the admin twice? Rarely do the issues present in such cases merit bans.
While my intent is not to imply that the outcome of such a case is fixed, the history of such cases speaks for itself, and so does the fact that a majority or net 4 of arbitrators (the tendency seems to be to accept cases, in general, with a significant majority) decides there are serious enough issues with conduct or tool use to merit a case. Despite the talk of a "lower bar for ADMINCOND cases because only arbcom can desysop", there is no substantive history of "letting off" administrators in such cases with a warning, because the bar was too low. We go through a case because there's a certain due diligence that should be done (this is synonymous with taking time for sober second thought) and to have have some sense of justice and protection from arbitrary decisions (the latter is important for community health; in fairness, complaints the arbcom has failed on those points are not uncommon, any dinosaurs remember "Arbitrary Committee"?). Yet, when arbitrators have voted 8/2 to open a case, despite assurances from the central party to take the concerns on board, I'm not sure what else the central party of the case could do. Maxim(talk) 02:55, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
@ArbCom Clerks: Given that the motion to close is about to pass, could someone update the implementation notes to reflect changes in votes on R5.2, before the motion to close passes? Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 21:35, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
In responce to Jackattack1597 and Barkeep49 and their comments in Jacattack's section about crats closing an RFA outside the normal discretionary zone. My RFB was pretty soon after the RexxS crat chat and there was more than one question about the discretionary range. I gave hypothetical examples of where a crat or more likely a cratchat should close an RFA in ways that go beyond the usual discretionary zone. To be honest I would hope and expect that if I'd said that RFA is an election and we can only close in accordance with a strict interpretation of the discretionary zone my RFB would have failed. Whatever you think of the RexxS cratchat, if you think Crats should stick precisely to the discretionary zone I'd suggest reading that RFB and if you still think the same way starting a thread on the crats noticeboard. ϢereSpielChequers 11:54, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
I have two thoughts to share, one specific to this case and one on the general principle:
Specific:
Looking at the evidence and all the diffs presented, this case seems remarkably thin. Far from an editor or admin who has had wide-ranging conduct issues going back years (most of whom have been desysopped by now, or have left after it's been made clear that their action are not in line with the community's expectations), I see an admin who is an asset to Wikipedia but who has occasionally crossed the line, made an error in judgement, or lost his temper. How many admins who do the grunt work on this project, never mind those trying to keep a lid on difficult topic areas, can say they've never done any of those things? That's not to say that we should be condoning bad judgement calls or losses of temper. What concerns me is that this would not rise to the level of arbitration remedies had it not been for a dispute over a template that was brought here prematurely and with unclean hands, accompanied by some hand-waving along the lines of "noticeboards can't sanction admins". If it did, that could have been handled by motion at the request stage given that—for all the words expended on these pages—only one new diff has been presented.
Which leads me to my more general point:
ArbCom should not get into the business of being the "admin review board". Individual admin actions are subject to review or appeal at the relevant noticeboard and peer review of admin actions should be encouraged and welcomed. The community is perfectly capable of censuring admins and imposing restrictions (which could start as mild as a finding that a given admin is involved with respect to an editor or topic). The arguments that it takes a lot of social capital seem to ignore the fact that it takes at least as much, if not more (and probably considerably greater knowledge of the inner workings of Wikipedia), to file a request for arbitration that is likely to be accepted and result in any tangible action. It is difficult to establish a pattern of behaviour by any prolific editor going back years. It's a big haystack, and it takes a lot of time and energy to put the diffs together, present the pattern, and see a thread through to its conclusion but only by investing the time will we get anywhere (see Wifione for an example of a pattern that only became clear once the time was put in to presenting the case). That, in my opinion, is why ANI does a poor job of resolving complaints about patterns of behaviour. ArbCom rarely does a better job, and it gets months to scrutinise one editor's record.
And another general thought:
The interpretation of "involved" being used here is the one that most experienced admins agree with and abide by, ie that you should not be adminning in controversial topic areas if you're also actively editing (for example, I used to be one of the more active editors in the Israel-Palestine topic area, so I made a point of not making substantive edits in the area or expressing opinions on content matters; I've written articles articles within the scope of the Troubles discretionary sanctions so I don't enforce sanctions in that area). I would say that interpretation is widely enough accepted that we could call it a community norm. However this norm is not actually documented at WP:INVOLVED and, as Barkeep points out, is not universal practice even among very experienced admins and editors.
Apologies for length. For full disclosure, RexxS and I are friends in real life but our editing interests don't often overlap. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:07, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
The committee is painfully aware that being the subject of a case sucks pretty bad. The structure used here was a test case aimed at improving the heat/light ratio, but it doesn't seem to have been particularly effective at doing so. Future cases like this, where the focus is a single user, may not employ a workshop at all. We really do have a crop of reform-minded individuals on the committee right now, and we've barely scratched the surface of how we might restructure the process of full cases, hopefully we'll come back to the subject, but a comprehensive review of discretionary sanctions has just begun and that looks like it will be a fair bit of work. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:33, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
Pinging Primefac AC members are currently voting on closure. Rather than permit this decision to be hijacked and delayed by last-minute plea-bargaining on behalf a non-participating colleague, can I suggest that process is allowed to play out? There should be no consideration to a sword of Damocles style, deferred Desysop. The person involved here is entitled to certainty, as is the community. FWIW, I have taken no part in this case since it was agreed to proceed with it. Leaky caldron (talk) 17:38, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
This may be a comment about terminology for a future case, since it appears that the distinction between "warning" and "admonishment" is not relevant. However, it is my opinion, as a literate American, that a "warning" is stronger than an "admonition" or "admonishment". The arbitrators should only "admonish" an editor if they want to pull their punches. If you really mean that the subject just barely avoided a stronger sanction, that should be a formal warning. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:36, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
I find it highly distasteful that two members of ArbCom found support for a FoF that "RexxS did not participate after the Case was opened". Furthermore one redefined WP:ADMINACCT in his/her own words to suit a particular point of view: "participating in cases is something WP:ADMINACCT expects from admins"
In fact, WP:ADMINACCT states:
RexxS stated his side in the initial Case request along with multiple WP:A actions. Further discussion was not needed nor was it requested. If someone wanted to ask him a question that hadn't already been answered, then they might have a point. If ArbCom wants new policies or to update them, they should propose such changes for the community, not attempt to lynch someone over declining to participate in what very much seems to be a kangaroo court. While Admins should explain their actions, they are not required to REPEATEDLY explain them. Buffs (talk) 21:10, 25 March 2021 (UTC)