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Behaviour on this page: This page is for discussing announcements relating to the Arbitration Committee. Editors commenting here are required to act with appropriate decorum. While grievances, complaints, or criticism of arbitration decisions are frequently posted here, you are expected to present them without being rude or hostile. Comments that are uncivil may be removed without warning. Personal attacks against other users, including arbitrators or the clerks, will be met with sanctions.

Original announcement

• It's a shame this isn't just a late April Fools' joke. Thanks for your service. 2604:3D08:4F83:4500:F092:6272:7C20:7D6D (talk) 12:08, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• It's a pity, since you are someone I trust a lot for this position. Thanks for your service! MarioGom (talk) 12:38, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• GN, you rock for putting yourself forward and serving. Dylan620 (he/him • talk • edits) 13:07, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Really gutted to see this. Thank you very much for your service, GN. Giraffer (talk) 15:04, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Rip to a real one, sorry to see you out. jp×g🗯️ 15:48, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Sorry to hear this, but it's more important to do what one needs to, than to do volunteer work that feels uncomfortable. Best wishes. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:02, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Sorry to hear about the rough week and I hope things get better, GN. FWIW, you were the arb I hoped you'd be when I voted for you and I'd vote for you again. Levivich (talk) 20:39, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• i mostly know GN from his thankless work as a moderator on the discord, but i quietly keep up with arbcom as well & i concur with the above comments - thanks for your presence and take care of yourself. ... sawyer * he/they * talk 00:46, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• This is a net loss for a committee that just keeps taking Ls. Same as Levivich, GN: you were the arb I hoped you'd be when I voted for you and I'd vote for you again. I said as much recently (hope-wise) — Excerpting: But I seem to find myself increasingly dissapointed with my picks for hope at ARBCOM (perhaps it goes to show that my intuition is for shit, which, fair). Still, more rarely, like with Moneytrees and GN, my pick seems good. I stand by that and hope my message of support works to strengthens you. Because it's well-earned. Yours very truly, El_C 13:52, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• I don't know of any recent circumstances that may have precipitated this, but you had my !vote, and you have my support still. Thanks for your service. Vanamonde93 (talk) 14:49, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• You were much better than you're giving yourself credit for. Thank you for all that you've done, you've been a very positive force in this community and you've done so much good. Hey man im josh (talk) 12:03, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Thanks for your service. – DreamRimmer (talk) 12:21, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Thank you for serving, and best wishes.
  I just misclicked and archived the (next) notice (now undone) while trying to ascertain who had resigned, based on the vague section headings on my watchlist; could someone rectify the section headings to be more specific? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:09, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• This job is hard. I appreciate anyone who volunteers to do it in good faith. I also appreciate those who are willing to acknowledge it isn't working out for them and resign. Your inbox is going to look so different now.... Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 22:38, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Original announcement

• Difficult matter given the users involved, so thanks for settling it. Although not really impacting the the final outcome, it's important to stress that a reason we have COI disclosure is for readers (including editors) sake, so that they may find out if articles are autobiography, views of family, or statements of owners or financial beneficiaries, etc: Wikipedia is a publisher, and responsible writers and publications disclose COI. Wikipedia is providing the type of writing -- general interest encyclopedia -- that is meant to be, and thus presented as "independent[] of the subject" in the words of the guideline. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:35, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• I have started a related discussion at WT:COI#Should we upgrade this to policy? RoySmith (talk) 16:27, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• I'm glad that Arbcom is taking action on how these cases should be handled in the future. Twice in the past two years, I have reported a COI case to paid-en-wiki via email that I felt was clear as day, but both times it has been ignored or closed without action, with no reason given. The editor continues to contribute and make non-neutral edits. This specific issue has been my biggest disappointment with Wikipedia and I hope that a new VRT queue will allow for better processing of complaints like this. —Ganesha811 (talk) 16:47, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Note sure that the interpretation at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#Resurgence of banned paid editing business is totally what ArbCom meant... 1.141.198.161 (talk) 04:38, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• (VRT admin hat on) At this juncture, I'm not even sure that a queue like that is possible - the VRT admins have several questions to that effect. It would have been very nice to have a discussion about this before a formal announcement came. Arbcom, are you planning on reaching out to the VRT admins about the new queue? If so, when? It's been two days... ~ Matthewrb ^{Talk to me · Changes I've made} 15:20, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  @Matthewrb thanks for reaching out. Please note I am speaking only for myself and have not consulted with other members of the committee here. We had just begun figure out what our next steps were going to be in regards to making this request and your posting here clarifies at least that point. How is it best for us to communicate with each other? arbcom-enwikimedia.org is an obvious option but if something else work better for the VRT admins I would hope the committee would be flexible. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:24, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Thank you. volunteers-vrtwikimedia.org is our queue, if you send emails from arbcom-en to that will work best for us. ~ Matthewrb ^{Talk to me · Changes I've made} 16:47, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  @Barkeep49: suggest removing COI/PAID from the current VRT mailing list, etc., and repointing the focus back at Arbom, who have been elected by the community precisely because they deemed both trustworthy enough and competent enough not to require another level of bureaucracy to assist them. ——Serial Number 54129 17:00, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  How frequently was info-paid-en used? My read of the relevant remedy is that the goal is to get more competent eyes on COI matters (remember, the old queue was CU-only) and to allow for quicker responce to credible claims of mercenary editing. Kicking it to ArbCom would likely defeat that entire purpose; there're more CUs than there are sitting Arbitrators at any given point in time, and even more still CUs, OSes, and willing admins combined. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{Source assessment notes} 17:07, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  None of us, as far as I know, was elected for our expertise or interest in rooting out COIs and handling things like this by committee is a terrible idea. It's too easy as it is for things to slip through the cracks or for them to gather dust because we couldn't get a majority of arbs to agree on a course of action. Much better to handle it like CU and OS—trustworthy editors take decisive action without having to jostle a committee but with ArbCom review and supervision when necessary. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:19, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  This does kind of beg the question of who the committee thinks will actually be manning this queue. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 20:12, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Just curious if the arbs could articulate what effect they hope this VRT queue will have.
  The stated reason is to accept reports of undisclosed conflict-of-interest or paid editing, where reporting such editing on-wiki is in conflict with WP:OUTING. - What reason does anyone have to use this?
  To put a finer point on it, why would anyone use this VRT queue when Kashmiri's approach seems to have been endorsed by arbcom? If you want to out someone, why not just do it directly, have nothing happen other than suppression, add google maps links to a wikipedian's place of work, and then start a thread that includes some of that personally identifying information and telling everyone that more personal information about a user exists and that they should go look for it? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:36, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  If Kashmiri were to repeat 100% what they did in this case - in particular at AfD - I'd anticipate they would be blocked identically to how Fram was blocked. So I am not sure your premise is correct. Barkeep49 (talk) 17:41, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I would agree with Barkeep entirely here. firefly ( t · c ) 17:42, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Kashmiri's behavior didn't even rise to the level of a reminder in your decision and my reading of the sole FoF about him and the surrounding commentary is that Sdqraz is the only one who didn't find Kashmiri's ANI thread a fine and dandy approach to outing, so pardon my skepticism that anything would be different next time. To the extent you sent a signal, it's that doxing is a misdemeanor at worst compared to COI.
  Fram isn't a great example because (a) Fram just said indelicately what Kashmiri already said in a mix of direct and indirect comments (but to no different effect), so didn't make a good block case to begin with, and (b) if that's supposed to be a real consequence, he was blocked for all of 48 hours. For everyone who thinks COI makes doxing "worth it", a 48 hour block (or a look-the-other-way in Kashmiri's case) isn't discouraging anything. Adding a new, cumbersome process to the equation doesn't seem like it's going to make doing the right thing any more appealing. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:52, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  There are already multiple competing processes. Some of these are onwiki and we're obviously not going to touch. The idea here is to take what is currently multiple blackhole processes that aren't working and unify them in a way that adds enough capacity that they will work. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:14, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  And, to add, if it turns out that this unified process also doesn't work, then that's obviously something we'd want to re-assess and iterate on. firefly ( t · c ) 18:17, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  What we need are two things: a process that works, and an understanding that failing to go through that process has serious consequences. The current case doesn't provide evidence that the current processes don't work; it provides evidence of current processes/policy being completely disregarded. It's not like Kashmiri contacted ArbCom, waited for you to do something, and then outed Joe. It's a squarely behavioral, not procedural problem. Yet the only remedy you've offered is the opposite: not to do anything at all about behavior, but to create a new process. When people see this case and realize they can just disregard proper process (VRT now), going about outing just like Kashmiri did (with maybe a temporary block for the direct link at AfD but not so much as a finger wag for the ANI thread), is that evidence of the process not working and the need for yet another one?
  Let me take a step back and ensure an assumption I'm making is sound (I feel quite alone in belaboring this point, so maybe attitudes have changed and I'm out of touch): does the committee view Kashmiri's ANI thread as fine and good with regard to our current policies and guidelines on outing and its relationship to COI? If so, I'll go away to recalibrate how I understand ArbCom. If not, I go back to what I wrote above. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:48, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Speaking only for myself: Everything I saw that Kashmiri wrote at AN was supported by onwiki diffs of unsuppressed information. The diffs which provoked some of those edits were suppressed which is why I noted that if Kashmiri were to act like he did at AfD again he could find himself blocked. Kashmiri not repeating that mistake at AN is in no small part why I felt nothing beyond the FoF was appropriate. Barkeep49 (talk) 19:02, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I have to admit that FoF jumped out at me because normally they are expected to lead into a remedy. You have elected to make it part of the committee's permanent record that something happened, but you didn't feel compelled to do anything about it, not even a "reminder". So, what, exactly, was the purpose of the FoF? It just seems odd to me. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 20:15, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  For me it's about establishing what the Arbitration Committee feels was the factual record. As we see here it's serving a purpose as people are noting what was found. Barkeep49 (talk) 20:20, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I am concerned, the whole case only made things less clear, not more. My remedy is "For posting non-public information about another editor", but when I pointed out that ArbCom posted that Nihonjoe has a COI with Hemelein Publications, which is non-pubic information according to their own rules, they made up all kinds of excuses why that was acceptable, but my posts about the same weren't. The final conclusion I get from all this is that apparently COI is the only part of Wikipedia where you are required to make accusations without providing the necessary evidence, unless you are an ArbCom member of course. Never mind that the basic major crime I committed has been posted (not by me) on Wikidata since February without any issues at all apparently. Fram (talk) 07:53, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please tell me, if during the case I had posted that Nihonjoe has a COI with [insert their real name here], how long would it have taken for this to be oversighted and I blocked indefinitely again? No one would be impressed by a defense that stated "but I posted no links and didn't actually state that they are that person, only that they have a COI with them", and rightly so, as it would be hypocritical. Fram (talk) 07:57, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]