Appeal unsucessful--Cameron11598 (Talk) 06:26, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Initiated by Petrarchan47 at 07:21, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] Case or decision affected Genetically modified organisms arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t) List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request: Petrarchan47 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator) Drmies (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA ) Sandstein (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log ) Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request [1] [2] [3] [4] Statement by Petrarchan47 I am appealing this action by Drmies: [5]​ Background: KingofAces43 opened an WP:AE​ case against me. ​[6] ​ The majority of the community weighed in on my side​. [7] KingofAces43 contacted two administrators about this case: Seraphimblade ​[8]​ Drmies [9]​ who said, "Kingofaces, I am sure you want more, and I am sorry I have no more to offer at this time." ​[10]​ After ​Sandstein closed the case [11], Drmies reopened it. [12]​ Drmies had no authority to reopen the case according to policy​. violating WP:ADMINACCT Dismissing an enforcement request​ ​ In this 2015 case the Committee unanimously agreed "once a request has been dismissed by an uninvolved administrator, it may not be reopened". Dismissing an enforcement request (alternate)​ Drmies was informed of the violation and said, "There is nothing wrong with reopening a thread; if one admin can close it, surely another can reopen it, especially if a third admin thinks there's something to the request". [13] (The "third admin" was AGK who weighed in after the case was closed ​​​[14]​, and after Drmies reopened it, banned me indefinitely from all GMO-related pages. [15]) @ WP:ADMINACCT as unnecessary. petrarchan47คุก 17:56, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply ] @Worm That Turned: Yes I am appealing my topic ban, with a focus on the reopening of my AE case which violates this DS rule: Dismissed requests may not be reopened. However, any interested users may, after discussion with the administrator in question, appeal the dismissal to the Arbitration Committee This procedure was not followed. I am not precluding other issues being considered, such as the severity of AGK's determination. Note: There has been considerable activity in my case over the last 24 hours. I would appreciate if you wait to close this case until I have responded further. petrarchan47คุก 00:59, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] Statement by Drmies I managed to have completely missed the note on my talk page; my apologies. I really don't have much to say. This is an attempt to get something undone by way of a technicality, that some procedure was not followed or was broken--it seems to me that there is already broad agreement that this simply doesn't apply. For starters, there's Sandstein's "This does not prevent you from taking action if, unlike me, you believe it is warranted." More importantly, in my opinion, is the suggestion that everything is covered, or should be covered, by procedure. BTW, I think the community should be pleased that admins are willing to disagree and to consider and reconsider matters, and that more admins are willing to step up to the plate: all of us are making a small number of admins, including Sandstein, pull all the weight at AE. Drmies (talk) 18:07, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] @Petrarchan: it's funny, but years and years ago, before I was an admin myself, I'd watch these candidates get asked at RfA, "when would you invoke IAR"? And I literally had NO idea, thinking the rules captured most if not everything, and IAR was only used to keep stuff that was deleted at AfD or something. Silly, huh. Now, if it is the judgment of the committee that indeed this little bit of procedure, this complaint, is valid, and that that would vacate the topic ban, I'd think it would be a good candidate for IAR, but I also think that this entire matter will either be appealed or pop up again at AE, and that it will turn out that while you thought you were building something here, you were actually digging a hole. Drmies (talk) 01:24, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] Statement by AGK First, linking to instants in the discussion gives an incomplete picture. Here is the full enforcement thread. Appellant argues that per hat}}s it. Such a rule would be finicky, even for Wikipedia arbitration. Mercifully, decision principles are not binding. The actual rule is that requests are dismissed with a consensus of uninvolved administrators. When the request was first closed, 1 administrator supported acting and 1 did not. Consensus: absent. Once a consensus emerged, 2 administrators favoured action and 1 was ambivalent. Consensus: existed. I think what happened between times is irrelevant.  ■ 20:51, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply ] Statement by Sandstein I agree with Winged Blades of Godric below that the grounds given for this appeal are invalid. But I certainly don't join Winged Blades of Godric's personal attacks on the appellant, which, having been made in an arbitration forum, should result in appropriate action from arbitrators or clerks. Sandstein 12:24, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] Statement by Kingofaces43 I'm not really sure what's intended here. Petrachan47 was topic-banned from GMOs by AGK through discretionary sanctions. How the AE ended up being closed doesn't affect that topic ban or any sort of appeal. Topic-banned editors cannot bring up the subject material, admin board discussions, etc. of their ban unless it's directly relevant to an appeal, so I'm not sure why Petrarchan is trying to bring this up as opposed to someone else who isn't topic-banned if this is meant as a more meta-AE clarification rather than their own ban. I don't see any mention of a topic-ban appeal, and even if there was, none of what's posted here so far would address anything relevant towards an appeal, such as addressing the long-term behavior issues they were banned for in the first place we'd expect of an actual appeal. talk) 19:55, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply ] Statement by WBG He had raised the same point at Sandstein's t/p, a month back, where Sandstein pointed him to the same and he replied No worries, thanks for responding.∯WBGconverse 08:29, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] There would be some minimal merit, if he had chosen this venue to criticize AGK's final decision and/or the quantum of the sanction but here we have something about Drmies' actions as perceived violations of ADMINACCT and previous ArbCom decisions. FWIW, I pretty much concur with Tryptofish's comemnts at the original ARE-thread and think that the awarded sanction easily passes the rational basis review.∯WBGconverse 09:04, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] Statement by SN54129 I'd disagree with WP:CIR slightly more robustly (possibly, on refelection, slightly overly robustly, as although the question of competence is fundamental, it can also be an extremely sensitive one). @Petrarchan47: Wot's ADMINACCT got to do with it? ——SerialNumber54129 13:26, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] Statement by Tryptofish I've been mentioned, and I've been involved in this since the original case, so I will briefly say that there are insufficient grounds for any action here. The claim that the majority of the community were on her side is a stretch, and the rest sounds to me like wikilawyering about how an AE thread was closed. The bottom line is that the enactment of AE sanctions was in conformance with policy. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:37, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] Statement by Atsme Doug Weller, Newyorkbrad, Mkdw, Worm That Turned, Callanecc, PMC Herein the confusion lies, and I request that the arbs please explain how they or any other admin can overrule the following Arbitration decision: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arbitration enforcement#Dismissing an enforcement request (alternate)Dismissing an enforcement request (alternate) 6.1) Dismissing an enforcement request is an exercise of judgment and therefore constitutes an enforcement action. As such, once a request has been dismissed by an uninvolved administrator, it may not be reopened. In these cases, any interested users may, after discussion with the administrator in question, appeal the dismissal to the Arbitration Committee at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment, but care should be taken that this only be done when appropriate. Petitioners who forum shop by resubmitting denied enforcement requests without good reason may find themselves cautioned or sanctioned in return. Passed 9 to 0 at 8:25 pm, 23 August 2015, Sunday (3 years, 3 months, 3 days ago) (UTC−5) We are dealing with a rather important decision that was made by ArbCom and I see no justification for changing that decision. Are you now saying that Sandstein did not dismiss an enforcement request because what I read was that, technically, he did dismiss it when he specifically stated that he did not agree the evidence was convincing and closed the case which is an administrative action. He also stated that the "reported diffs are confrontative, but they are mostly about content, not other users. Because no admin has taken action so far, and the thread is being used for what look like pointless recriminations, which I do not intend to read, I'm closing the thread now." That action was technically an administrative action of closing the case. I am excluding the ping to Drmies because anything stated after the decision to close is in opposition to the ArbCom ruling. We cannot keep pulling these stunts - and yes, that's what I believe has happened here and it has a chilling effect. For one thing, it is not fair to the accused to be endlessly drug through the mud only to survive and have another admin with a different POV drop the blade on the guillotine​. That's as close to double indemnity jeopardy as it gets and it's just plain wrong. When an admin has used their discretionary judgment based on the merits of a case and what other admins apparently​ have agreed to by their silence, and the finding of fact is that no action should be taken - well, that is the close; i.e. the dismissal of the case and as such no other admin can reopen it regardless of what the closing admin stated after his closing argument. Where does it say that an admin may close a case but allow others to take whatever action they deem appropriate when it involves DS?? Such an action is completely opposite of the ArbCom decision. I'm asking the arbs I've pinged to please show me the exact ruling that allows such a close to be overturned once it has been formally closed as no action. This case was not heard at AN/I or AN - it was heard at AE which to me means the decisions made by ArbCom should prevail. Atsme✍🏻📧 01:19, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] PMK, please show me specifically where it states what you believe to be applicable in this case. I included the actual finding of fact decision by ArbCom and feel that if what you believe is true, it will be in writing somewhere. Atsme✍🏻📧 01:48, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] Further clarifying - where does it say an admin can overrule a decision by ArbCom? ArbCom stated unequivocally that Dismissing an enforcement request is an exercise of judgment and therefore constitutes an enforcement action. As such, once a request has been dismissed by an uninvolved administrator, it may not be reopened. It's black and white - no ifs, ands or buts - there is nothing in that decision that even suggests a case can be reopened and overturned...not even a hint...the admin executed an enforcement action and dismissed it. Period, the end. Whatever he says after that is not applicable because it would be a violation of the ruling. Had Sandstein said something along the line of I disagree with the arguments, the evidence is unconvincing...yada yada...and I hereby concede to let others make the final decision and close the case. That is not what happened - he closed the case - and Drmies reopened it despite ArbCom's clear decision that once a case is closed it may not be reopened. I am not aware of any amendments or changes to that decision. If there are, please show me. Atsme✍🏻📧 02:05, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] Statement by {other-editor} Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information. Genetically modified organisms: Clerk notes This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals). I've removed some statements made by WBG at the direction of a member of the arbitration committee. --Cameron11598 (Talk) 18:45, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] Genetically modified organisms: Arbitrator views and discussion Recuse. Opabinia regalis (talk) 19:29, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] Sandstein's comment closing the thread stated that another administrator could take action if he or she thought it was warranted. Given that statement, the usual rule against reopening a closed AE request would not apply in this instance. If Petrarchan wishes to appeal from his topic-ban or seek to end it, he should focus on the substantive reasons the topic-ban was imposed rather than procedural issues. @Winged Blades of Godric: It is a bit contradictory to accuse an editor of trolling and of incompetence for the same post, since they imply very different mind-sets. On the other hand, it is quite acceptable to respond to the post without alleging either of these things. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:20, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] There are several named parties to this ARCA that have yet to provide statement. I would like to hear from some of them before making a decision. Mkdw talk 17:14, 21 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] I've read this a few times now, and Petrarchan47, am I to understand that you're not appealing the GMO topic ban per se, but in fact appealing the "re-opening" of the thread? I assume, with the hope that if we confirm the thread should not have been re-opened, then the ban wouldn't have happened, and therefore can be dismissed. Well, no - I have no issue with the thread being re-opened, there had been little discussion and Sandstein closed as such, explicitly allowing for Drmies (or any other admin) to take action. If he'd closed as "clearly no violation", that might be different. WormTT(talk) 17:32, 21 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] I agree with my colleagues, Sandstein closed the thread specifically allowing other admins to modify the outcome at their discretion. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 00:14, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] As do I. I don't see grounds for granting the appeal. Doug Weller talk 17:30, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] Same; Sandstein explicitly closed the thread to allow for later modification, so it's not invalid. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 17:38, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] Atsme, I would argue that Sandstein used the discretion afforded to administrators in handling AE requests to specifically leave room for Drmies (or someone else) to reopen the thread. Just as we respect an admin's discretion in crafting situationally-specific sanctions, we should also respect an admin's decision to close with a situationally-specific caveat, as was done here. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 01:40, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] Dismissing an enforcement request is an exercise of judgment - Sandstein exercised his judgment to dismiss the thread while explicitly carving out an opening for Drmies to exercise his judgment if he disagreed with Sandstein's. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 01:54, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] That principle is obviously intended to prevent situations like the one that resulted in the case you're quoting, where one admin unilaterally (ie without the consent of the dismissing admin) overruled a dismissal and blocked someone for a month. It is clear in this case that Drmies did have the prior consent of the dismissing admin, so his action was hardly a unilateral reversal. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 02:16, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] Agree with my fellow admins. RickinBaltimore (talk) 01:35, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Initiated by Sandstein at 15:34, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Case or decision affected

The Rambling Man arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t)

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. The Rambling Man prohibited

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

• Sandstein (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• The Rambling Man (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Perhaps the many other participants to the
  WP:AE
  threads listed below could also be considered involved. I have not attempted to list them all here.

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• The Rambling Man notified

Information about amendment request

• The Rambling Man prohibited

• Lift the restriction and replace it with another sanction if deemed necessary.

Statement by Sandstein

In October 2016, ArbCom

, which was amended in September 2017.

This restriction has given rise to many

requests, including (I may have missed some):

1. 14 December 2016: Warned by The Wordsmith
2. 22 January 2017: No action as closed by me, Sandstein
3. 5 March 2017: Blocked by me for a month; upheld on appeal with a reduced duration
4. 10 April 2017: No action as closed by Harrias
5. 8 July 2017: No action as closed by Dennis Brown
6. 5 January 2018: No action as closed by Ritchie333
7. 25 January 2018: No action as closed by GoldenRing
8. 2 March 2018: No action as closed by GoldenRing
9. 31 May 2018: No action as closed by NeilN
10. 20 June 2018: No action as closed by Stephen
11. 23 November 2018 (permalink): Referred to this forum by me with the agreement of other participating admins

Links amended, thanks to Opabinia regalis Sandstein 09:47, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In many but not all of these cases, I was of the view that an actionable violation of the restriction had occurred, but other admins disagreed. Regardless of which side one may agree with, it is clear that the restriction has failed to quell the conduct by The Rambling Man that others object to. It should therefore be lifted as ineffective.

I recommend that ArbCom examine the conduct by The Rambling Man (and possibly others) at issue in the more recent AE requests, and determine whether any other sanctions less open to interpretation should be imposed.

Personally, I am appalled by many of the incivil statements by The Rambling Man cited in these AE requests, and believe that a suitably scoped topic or page ban might be an effective remedy (the disputes seem to center around issues related to

]

@Worm That Turned, Callanecc, and Opabinia regalis: Because you have asked for specific proposals, here's mine: Please don't replace the sanction with another that depends on the judgment of administrators, such as another kind of civility restriction. Instead, either forego any sanction, or impose a block or ban.

I agree with BU Rob13 that the social dynamics of this case are such that regular enforcement by individual administrators is very difficult. We are faced with a longterm vested contributor surrounded by what looks to me like a group of sympathetic administrators and other users who seem to be intent on protecting the user at issue from enforcement measures. We are also faced with a type of problem – notorious incivility combined with valuable content work – for which the community at large has long been notoriously incapable of coming up with broadly accepted enforcement standards. This means that any individual administrator undertaking or proposing enforcement action will face intense opposition, such as I am facing here: calls for recusals and threats of community sanctions, merely for expressing the view that the conduct at issue did in fact violate an ArbCom decision.

I've had experiences like these before, and I'm no longer willing to be the only admin to stick my head out in such cases. They need to be handled, decisively, by the people elected to do so: the Committee itself. The evidence in the AE requests should be sufficient for ArbCom to determine that either The Rambling Man's conduct is not a problem and lift the sanction, or that it is and impose a block or ban. Sandstein 16:56, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by The Rambling Man

Double jeopardy time by the looks of it. The list above is confirmation that there's a consensus that no infringement of the sanctions per their current wording has taken place since Sandstein blocked me (twice), the last time being something like 12 months ago (which he neglected to note). Since then a litany of "no action" cases. But now that's not enough, let's go back over all the previous cases and find a different angle so we can re-word the sanction so we can definitely block me, even retrospectively! Bravo. I think (in fact, I know) that the way in which this has been opened already attempts to strongly bias this hearing, and so there seems little purpose in me contributing to it further at this time. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:03, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Vanamonde's example is a perfect exemplar of the absurdity of the sanction. That I could make a completely generic statement about the state of generic individuals attempting to run for offices in a generic grouping of individuals working generically for a generic group of users sums up the futility of trying to discover gold examples of sanction infractions. It would be like sanctioning me for saying "I don't think Arbcom is working too well". The Rambling Man (talk) 00:13, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Vanamonde's latest example (of "casting aspersions") is a poor choice as everything in it is terribly accurate. Harsh perhaps, but fair (tinkering with approved hooks against consensus, introducing errors heading to the main page etc). If we are now looking to level sanctions when someone dares to confront an admin's erroneous behaviour, I suspect we're heading down the wrong path altogether. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:45, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oh I see, you get to choose the venue, of course. This is quite irrelevant. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:28, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oh and BU Rob13 makes a number of claims of communications from various "reluctant" admins, and a "groupies" list, this needs further investigation, with evidence presented here. As this list of "groupie" admins is fundamentally important to this case, we need to list them out and understand their involvement, as the Arb BU Rob13 has alluded. The Rambling Man (talk) 00:24, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

BU Rob13, you've cast aspersions about the behaviour of a number of unnamed admins (you referred to them as "groupies"), you need to explain that further, are those individuals abusing their position? If so, we should investigate each of them per

WP:ADMINACCT. If not, then why would you use such an abusive term which indicates some kind of nefarious behaviour from a group of long-standing editors? Or does this all boil down to the fact that a large number of individuals (some admins) happen to disagree with your position? The Rambling Man (talk) 08:05, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply

]

Alex Shih says there was a consensus among Main Page admins that the "errors" or matters TRM raised at ERRORS were not always exactly "errors"? as if that's somehow relevant to any of this. But just a quick glance at

WP:TRM will show that of the 879 reports I've raised there since mid-July, 815 of them have been resolved, i.e. a 90% hit rate. Now please show me any single other editor in the history of Wikipedia who has a better ratio. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:23, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply

]

General: by all means I will commit to reducing the harshness of my tone. However, there seems little purpose in doing that under the current botched sanctions, as evidenced above, it's clear there's far from a consensus that I've breached those sanctions for over a year, and going through this song-and-dance routine while Sandstein advocates a month-long block every single time and many, many other editors (Arbitrator BU Rob13 disingenuously refers to them as "groupies") disagree. Now there's a desire from those two heavily involved editors to silence the community and to allow that very group of individuals who crafted and voted on such a botched sanction to become judge, jury and executioner. Wow, only despots and Wikipedia could run things that way. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:58, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

General: Thanks to those Arbs who have recognised my current familial position. It will not be fully resolved for at least a month or more (complicated stuff) so I urge the community and Arbcom to press ahead. I'm sure I'll have time to contribute if required, and none of this is anywhere near as important as what I'm doing right now, and there appears to be an urgent need to look into some of the comments of Arbitrator BU Rob13 which should be prioritised, so go for it. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:04, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Mkdw, you make an offer, but you don't suggest the alternative, i.e. "I'd be interested..." but what if I'm not? It's clear there's no consensus that I've breached the sanction on numerous occasions, as noted above I do offer to attempt to reduce my tone to satisfy those who dislike it, but I'm more interested in whether or not this sanction still exists in reality. And if not, are Arbcom now threatening to conjure up some immediate punishment? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:16, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Mkdw, so can I just clarify, for you it's either "pledge to do better" or "face the uncertain fate of Arbcom's decision making process which will potentially ignore the double jeopardy of more than a year's worth of consensus against the sanction" and impost a retrospective block/ban? Either/or? It's not clear what you are suggesting, nor the involved Sandstein (whose continual threats against consensus remain unaddressed here) nor the involved Arbitrator BU Rob13 (whose aspersions against "groupies" remain unaddressed here). What are you trying to suggest? The Rambling Man (talk) 22:38, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Newyorkbrad, you mean address me like a human using communication rather than something which would fail the Turing test? Indeed, thanks for your comment, and yes, I agree. But before this is moved along, the ongoing behaviour of Sandstein, and the comments of Arbitrator BU Rob13, need closer inspection. The former has very much lost the faith of the community, and the latter has accused well-established admins of being "groupies" who (it appears) are abusing their positions. Either those admins are still to be trusted in their judgement (so BU Rob13's casting aspersions and should be de-Arbed) or those admins are abusing their positions (so BU Rob13 should be mandated to provide evidence of this "groupie"ism or else redact such aspersions with apologies to everyone concerned). These behavioural issues from a long-standing AE enforcer and new Arb need to be examined in more detail, not just swept under the carpet once this show is done. The Rambling Man (talk) 23:41, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Gatoclass, couple of points: I said the user page I host was less toxic when you weren't there because people were spending their efforts helping fix issues rather than simply defending them ad infinitum. As you are well aware, Crisco's DIVA quit and the subsequent assaults on me were completely unjustified, and many editors, including admins have stated as such. He quit incorrectly citing me as tinkering with "his" work. I actually hadn't tinkered with anything, an admin had moved a TFP hook which contained unverifiable material and Crisco DIVA'ed out. As for your other examples, well all the DYK regulars dislike me because I find so many issues with the work that the project ejects. Poor articles, poor reviews, poor ownership attitudes, there's a problem unique to DYK in that individuals get far too attached to "their" work (especially it would seem these regular contributors) so when someone comes in and (bluntly) tells them it's getting tedious to keep fixing up so many regular issues, they get bristled up and retaliate. It's clear and the stats speak for themselves, my aim is simply to maintain the integrity of the main page. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:19, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Amakuru as far as I can recall, I'd only ever had favourable conversations with Crisco around Indonesian FLCs etc. Nothing which I would have expected to precede such an unfair rant. Thanks for helping clear up the myth being perpetuated by some. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:53, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Cwmhiraeth, your continued run-ins with Fram on that very talk page have seen you both at ANI, have they not? It would seem that the DYK project is the root of the problematic issues, with those who dare to criticise the actions of the regulars (who I note have all clustered here in on fell swoop) as being cast as pantomime villains, "nit-pickers", "MOS mavens" etc. Of course such personal attacks are ignored by those of us who are dedicated to main page integrity, but the regulars take umbrage when "their own" work is criticised. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:04, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

But Cwmhiraeth, the point here really is that you have personally been involved in very heated and toxic discussions with an admin at DYK on numerous occasions. That underpins the point that the toxicity is around DYK and those regulars who seem to be denial that there are myriad problems there and those of us who clearly see these issues and refuse to be silenced by the regulars. That is the point here. I think my grandad referred to it as "people in glasshouses". The Rambling Man (talk) 12:02, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Since a considerable portion of the complaint appears to relate to my abrasive requests for quality and queue updates at WT:DYK, I will happily recuse myself from that page. I would still report the myriad DYK errors at TRM. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:05, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Amakuru no, that wouldn't be necessary. The treatment I've had from DYK admins and some of the regulars has pushed me away from donating any more of my valuable time trying to enhance their project's output. I'll just stick to trying to prevent the litany of errors from getting to the main page. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:34, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Softlavender, I'm not sure I understand how I would be able to conduct a multi-user discussion without mentioning users by name? Or how to refer one editor's edit to another editor? Unworkable. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:32, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's unworkable, and in many situations where I talk to the hundreds of editors who don't continually chase me to AE, I think being able to address them directly is not a problem and shouldn't be subject to an instant Arbcom block.

• sigh* no, it's not about that at all, and honestly, I don't have the energy here to combat your aggressive tone. It's very simple, if I mention Dweller or Howcheng or DGG or anyone else in any content-related capacity, Arbcom will block me? Not the point at all, not the point. Plus, as an FLC director and mutiple-GAN reviewer, I always need to discuss content with people, using their names. So no, that's a non-starter, but for practical reasons. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:52, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Vanamonde, perhaps you missed the bit where I said I'd be happy to not participate at DYK ever again and it would limit the inflamed discussions to all the other editors who are actively patrolling hooks such as Fram (who gets more than his fair share of flak from DYK regulars for simply trying to uphold standards). I would restrict my edits about DYK to the highly effective non-toxic

]

Vanamonde, you could have asked me to remove anything you didn't like. Did you do that? Or did you go all back-office and (a) make a "complaint" (not my words) about me to another admin or (b) wait until an Arbcom hearing before telling me "I'm not addressing these issues"? Feel free to delete anything you dislike about anything I edit. This is Wikipedia, that's just fine. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:26, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Vanamonde, also happy to implement a one-way IBAN as well, voluntary or otherwise, so I never ever have to interact with you, speak to or of you again. That would suit me perfectly. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:38, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

BU Rob13, perhaps now we have the superset of contributors to the various AE discussions, you can now mark out the "groupies" against whom you continuing to cast aspersions. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:15, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

DGG, I refute any claim that I'm "gaming" the system, I write things as I see them, which sometimes makes people sad. Gaming? I think The ed17 had a post removed for making precisely such a claim, just with an incredibly vulgar analogy. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:18, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Galobtter, there are many "real issues" here. (1) my abrasive comments unnecessarily upsetting people - I can moderate that by removing myself voluntarily from the main areas of concern (2) DYK as a whole - the project has a number of vocal critics, and several of those DYK regulars here calling me out have been called out by other people, other admins, and yet the problems from that "project" persist with no sign of improvement (3) we have an Arb here casting aspersions, implying that a number of admins are acting incorrectly - this needs direct attention, not sweeping under the carpet (4) we have an admin here who does not appear to be aware of community norms, despite many individuals noting it - this needs direct attention. I can certainly solve (1) but (2) to (4) must not go unaddressed now we're here, and the actions and behaviour of a large number of people related to this should be examined. Some of them are admins. One is an Arb. A serious state of affairs. Of course, while all this goes on, a few of us are still intent on keeping the encyclopedia's main page, with its 20 million visitors every day, free from issues and embarrassments, and sometimes that's a dirty job. I don't ask for thanks (indeed, I seldom get any, just jollies to ANI or AE) but I don't care, I just want Wikipedia to be something people are proud of, and not just littered with garbage. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:03, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

BU Rob13, it seems you're going to extreme lengths to attempt to justify your position of casting aspersions on other editors when the weight of evidence is completely against your position. I think we need further examination into your behaviour here, and even if this clarification doesn't do that, we'll need to start another case to do that. I don't think for a moment that those who voted for you to be an Arbitrator would expect you to make such subversive, divisive and unsubstantiated accusations against an (until now) unnamed group of admins about whom you have implied impropriety and failure to act in accordance with what we would expect from individuals in such a position. Doubly worse is to accuse such a group of behaviour without any tangible evidence and in a case which appears to have been initially posited on civility and good conduct. It would serve you well to remove yourself from any position of responsibility. The Rambling Man (talk) 00:22, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Also, BU Rob13, a complete inability to enforce a sanction that has been repeatedly violated, that's clearly incorrect, because if it had been violated, then sanctions would have been imposed. What you mean (and as an Arb, you should be precise here), "in my opinion a complete inability to enforce a sanction that has been repeatedly violated". Because numerous times there has been overwhelming consensus that I have not violated the sanction. You need to remove yourself as an involved commentator (and an Arb who has made numerous unfounded accusations) and start to look at this objectively, as many others here are doing. The Rambling Man (talk) 00:39, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Black Kite

I'll have more to say about this shortly (I'm away for a couple of days now), but I'd just like to point out that Sandstein has omitted that The Rambling Man was blocked for 2 weeks in November 2017 for a breach of this remedy [16]. I believe this was a unilateral act by the blocking admin, however, and did not make it to AE. Black Kite (talk) 16:12, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Ironic that on a thread about civility, @BU Rob13: thinks it's OK to say "...because doing so immediately results in them being harassed by the "groupies" that show up to every single thread related to TRM". The hypocrisy is startling, especially from an arbitrator. Do you really think it's OK to be saying that, Rob? Do you really think you can comment on someone else's civility if you can't do it yourself? Care to name these "groupies" (especially if they're admins)? Black Kite (talk) 21:50, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• I still don't see any evidence for the slurs mentioned above (actually I still don't see any comment at all on the subject by Rob), and that comment is still there, despite having been challenged by three people now. Not a great look, is it? Black Kite (talk) 23:06, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• And another comment on this page by @BU Rob13:, and still no response to myself, TRM or @Thryduulf:. It's almost as if he thinks it'll go away if he ignores it. Black Kite (talk) 13:59, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Excellent reply, @BU Rob13:. To sum it up, it turns out that no, you can't name those people, except one, and it turns out ... well, to save you the work, here's a list of admins that have expressed an opinion (violation/no violation) on the eleven AE requests named above (there are actually 12 - one link contains 2 requests - but I've excluded the one that everyone including Sandstein agreed was a vexatious request). I haven't included those who merely took part in a discussion without expressing an opinion.

• Sandstein 5
• Regents Park 4
• Black Kite 4
• NeilN 3
• Dennis Brown 2
• The Wordsmith 2
• Vanamonde 2
• Fish & Karate 2
• Thryduulf 2
• T Canens
• Floquenbeam
• Mike V
• Neutrality
• Peacemaker67
• Salvidrim
• Bishonen
• WJBScribe
• El C
• Harrias
• Coffee
• Iridescent
• Bagumba
• Ealgdyth
• 331dot
• Alex Shih
• wbm1058
• Ritchie333

• ... only one (and to be honest he only closed that), so I looked to see if Ritchie333 had commented as a regular editor on any of them. He has ... on three out of eleven (or, four out of twelve if you include an AE appeal). So, really, you've added to your statement casting aspersions against multiple un-named people, with another one casting incorrect aspersions against one person. Do you want to try again? Black Kite (talk) 17:13, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Fine, @BU Rob13:, let's look at the others that made comments at those thirteen AE filings (i.e. all 12 AE cases, and the appeal by TRM). Some were admins at the time but commented in the involved section (including Ritchie333 once - interesting), and some are admins now but weren't then.

• Vanamonde93 5
• Dweller 5
• BU Rob13 4
• Davey2010 4
• Softlavender 4
• WBG 4
• EEng 3
• 331dot 3
• Beyond My Ken 3
• Masem 3
• WJBScribe 2
• Fram 2
• Andrew D 2
• Banedon 2
• Tarage 2
• Serial Number 54129 2
• power~enwiki 2
• The ed17 2
• and 32 editors who only commented on one AE. You'll notice there's a mixture there of generally pro-TRM editors, generally anti-TRM editors, and some who have commented both ways. You'll notice you're right up there. So, again, name us the "groupies", Rob. Thanks, Black Kite (talk) 23:49, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, I haven't commented on the main issue; but I think that any point I would make has been covered pretty well by Thryduulf and Dweller (especially the latter's comment at 08:59 UTC today). I totally understand that people don't like being criticised for their work, but the Main Page is something of an exception to this, because it's the page that everyone sees if they log straight into Wikipedia. Yes, TRM's comments on DYK/ITN and other part of the MP are sometimes a little pedantic - but most of the time, they aren't. You only have to look back at the history of ERRORS2 to see the number of hooks and content that have had to be withdrawn, sometimes because the sources are poor, but often because they're simply incorrect. Indeed, it happened to one of my hooks recently - quite correctly (I only grumbled a bit because I wasn't pinged about it, but it was a correct decision, and that wasn't one of TRMs). You just have to live with it and say "I'll make sure it's right next time". Yes, TRM is often abrasive, but considering what we're discussing (i.e. the most visible page on en.wiki), I don't think that's entirely surprising. Black Kite (talk) 14:13, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by OID

Unless ArbCom do something to restrict Sandsteins interactions with TRM in any admin capacity (the latest bullshit AE filing laying out the problems as a number of other admins pointed out) at the conclusion of this process I will be opening a community discussion at AN to have Sandstein banned from anything to do with TRM.

Really this is arbcoms own fault for placing badly formed restrictions that are a license for editors to use to harass someone who is actually attempting to fix problems that ArbCom is unwilling to do anythint about - chiefly the repeat offenders who keep putting error-ridden crap on the main page. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:28, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ritchie333

I think the creation of

, and in particular I think he just needs to give Vanamonde93 a bit of a break, but by moving the complaints about the articles onto a dedicated page away from the general view, it means the issues get resolved without resorting to a huge post-mortem of who said what to whom and when. As I said on the other thread, if you gain TRM's respect and have a quiet off-wiki word, he is reasonable. If you charge in on horseback with Arbcom pro-forma templates, you'll get blown a raspberry.

To follow up on OID's point, there is precedent for sanctioning admins over-eager to block users without thinking of the full circumstances. AFAIK, Mike V is still community banned from taking any administrative action against TRM. [17] Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:30, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@BU Rob13: I closed the AE thread you started because it seemed that any administration action would cause more disruption that it solved (particularly as TRM had redacted the comment you were trying to sanction him for), and was specifically endorsing the emerging consensus of admins who had already expressed an opinion, particularly Vanamonde. Given the already publicised conflict between him and TRM, I take a "no action" request from him as more weight than from someone like me. When I spoke to you about it, I did mention that you had been accused of being a sockpuppet, though I also said I personally felt such claims were entirely without foundation and also said that you were helpful in other areas of the project. I was simply advising you on what a good course of action would be to sustain respect from the community and be able to do your job with the minimum of harassment. Given that it's fair comment to say that I haven't always seen eye-to-eye with NeilN on things, when I see he has also closed an AE report as "no action", it suggests a broad consensus across the administrative corps. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 19:17, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Pudeo

The wording of the amended prohibition is a failure. It's worth keeping in mind that the prohibition was a civility sanction, based on a finding on TRM being uncivil. It has also been noted that a lot of the incivility was about constantly being hostile and rude over a long period of time, but not going too much over the line with any individual comment (i.e. flying just under the radar). So obscuring the prohibition with the "speculation about the motivations of editors or reflections on their general competence" wording made it unenforceable.

You can read all the recent DYK threads with such behauvior: 1, 2, 3 & 4 but I will also point out the exact diffs in the most recent AE thread.

• I don't care what you think, your judgement is so flawed that I hope that I never see it exercised again [18]
• No thanks, better things to do to check "work in progress Phase I", and I'd suggest you leave them well alone with your recent track record!! [19]
• The problem with losing the prescription is that the level of competence of some reviewers is such that they will simply overlook fundamental issues. [20]

Yet many editors do not see these as being "reflections on general competence". What? Does he need to literally state "your general competence sucks" for the prohibition to kick in? Either improve it and start enforcing it or then just rid of it altogether. --Pudeo (talk) 17:34, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Spartaz

Unfortunately, we still haven't burned any witches. I hope that arbcom will remedy that.

]

Statement by BU Rob13

I urge the Committee to consider why AE routinely fails to enforce this remedy. I've repeatedly heard from administrators that they aren't willing to enforce this remedy, even in cases where the violation is fairly bright-line, because doing so immediately results in them being harassed confronted by the "groupies" that show up to every single thread related to TRM. When I last previously tried to take a violation to AE, it was swiftly closed by an administrator who frequently works with TRM and defends him. I then received a rather threatening note on my talk page from that administrator that further attempts to have the remedy enforced would (somehow?) prove I'm some type of malicious sockmaster. The bite was quick, severe, and led to me recusing from further TRM matters.

Given the failure of AE in this circumstance, the Committee should at least consider making enforcement actions related to this remedy appealable only to the Arbitration Committee at ARCA. That would greatly reduce the influence of the involved editors that make enforcing this remedy difficult. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 19:11, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No reasonable editor can look at the quotes Pudeo posted and say TRM isn't commenting on the general competence of editors or groups of editors. One of the quotes literally even uses the word "competence". Yet AE results in no action, despite the clear violations. Anything that involves punting this to the community to solve isn't going to work. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 21:55, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have clarified above that the incident I was referring to was not the last time I took TRM to AE, apparently. It was a time before that. Stephen is not involved, as best as I can tell, though I haven't exactly looked. Every time I've crossed paths with him (admittedly, very few times), he's handled himself superbly. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 05:25, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Non-escalating blocks would not be preventative, only punitive. The reason blocks usually escalate for repeated behavior is because a pattern of behavior indicates that it is likely the behavior will continue in the future. Because recidivism is likely, a longer block is warranted to continue preventing the disruptive behavior. Non-escalating blocks for identical behavioral issues would be a short-term punishment rather than an attempt to prevent disruption. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 21:58, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Usually, sanctions are removed after evidence that the sanctioned editor can avoid the behavior that led to sanctions, not before. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 04:28, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

For those asking about the "groupies" comment, are you really contending there isn't a tremendous pushback on anyone who even looks at TRM from an administrative perspective? No, I will not be naming some long list of names, because doing so would distract from the issue. I will soften my statement slightly: "harassed" should really be "confronted" or something similar, so I've changed it as such. If you want to identify people who seem unusually interested in preventing the enforcement of this remedy for yourself, look at the past 3-4 AE requests and spot the names of those who posted at all of them. Then check their contributions at AE. There are some who have shown up to nearly every TRM AE but rarely, if ever, edit AE otherwise. That's a pattern of people showing up specifically to defend TRM, not to offer unbiased administrative judgement. I'll provide one case study of someone who appears unambiguously involved here, since they've already self-identified as the person I was talking about above: Ritchie333. Since the beginning of 2017, he has posted in only five AE threads ([21]). Four of those have been about TRM. He's advocated against sanctions at each one of those. He's followed that up by repeatedly directly contacting admins who either place sanctions or request for sanctions, leaving chilling messages: [22] [23]. Now, I have a great respect for Ritchie333 and what he does for the project. I think he is a fantastic administrator and editor. We've even collaborated a couple times before. In this instance, I also think he has persistently shown up to make enforcing an arbitration remedy as hard as possible and closed one AE request in contravention of

WP:INVOLVED. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:58, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply

]

• I would be extremely supportive of Softlavender's idea. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 16:28, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• @
  WP:ASPERSIONS. All the motions ArbCom has passed regarding casting aspersions specify that unsubstantiated allegations may not be made against a specific editor to damage their reputations. I have not named any editors without substantiating my claims, and therefore I cannot be damaging reputations. Indeed, I haven't named other editors because I don't want to call into question anyone's reputation or distract from the actual issue – a complete inability to enforce a sanction that has been repeatedly violated. You seem to be determined to encourage me to do so, for some reason. I'm not quite sure why, but perhaps you will instead strike your aspersions against me. Further, I disagree with your metric of choice. If an editor shows up at few to no AE discussions other than TRM-related ones and yet quickly shows up at multiple TRM-related ones, even if they don't show up to every one, that still indicates it's TRM that's bringing them in. The relevant metric is proportion of AE appearances related to TRM as a proportion of total AE appearances, not total AE appearances related to TRM. You also apparently ignored any comments outside of the "uninvolved admin" zone, which makes your metric rather irrelevant to anything I said, since again, I never said admins. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 22:37, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply
  ]

Statement by 331dot

I find it interesting that the fact the lack of enforcement of the remedy under discussion here is somehow seen as a problem and not as the simple fact that the line has not been crossed. There seems to now be a desire to craft some sort of restriction for TRM to break, or to make it harder to defend him, and thus block him every time someone hauls him into AE. The remedy should either be left alone or removed. 331dot (talk) 20:22, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by AGK

The arbitration procedures are already clear:

Eleven enforcement requests later, this decision either isn't working or isn't needed. Please provide for its enforcement or vacate it.

]

Statement by Vanamonde93

If anyone actually reads through the AE discussions linked above, they will see that I have participated in a number of those discussions, and I have not yet advocated for a block against TRM. Despite stuff like this, I am not going to do so now. The ideal outcome here is for TRM to continue his content work without personalizing meta disputes the way he has been. As such that's what an ARBCOM restriction should achieve, by forbidding behavior that an individual editor is unwilling or unable to change of their own accord.

These AE discussions clearly include some filings that are frivolous, or include no clear violations (this, for instance). There are other discussions that clearly include violations of this editing restriction: this clearly speculates about the motivations of other editors; it was not sanctioned at least in part because TRM redacted the comment in question. That isn't a failure of the restriction; that's exactly what it's meant to achieve. Someone pointed out that TRM shouldn't have said what he said, and he retracted it.

Of late, though, we've had a somewhat different situation; the language TRM uses is again rather intemperate (links in the most recent AE filing). I am fine with people telling him to tone it down, instead of blocking him (indeed, that's likely to be more effective). Instead, most people in this discussion (with honorable exceptions) have refused to recognize that the comments like the following are indeed a problem:

"...anyone running this time would be doing it simply for hat collection purposes. But hey, let's see who "runs" (i.e. leaves it to the last minute to avoid scrutiny, then leap in with cabal backing!)." [24]

I would be hard put to come up with a clearer violation of this particular restriction; it's explicitly referring to the motivations of anyone who ran for ARBCOM this year. Yet we have multiple admins arguing there's no problem at all. Alex Shih I'm particularly bothered by your comment at AE, which came after the link I posted: and it bothers me because I know you to be an entirely reasonable person. Refusing to recognize these edits as violations of the restriction has the effect of undermining both AE as an institution and the expectation that experienced editors are expected to conduct themselves with some decorum. And that is a problem ARBCOM needs to fix.

The principle of this restriction is a good one, because TRM has been unwilling to moderate his language of his own accord. If admins are unable or unwilling to enforce it (through blocks or conversation, it doesn't matter; the point is whether, when a violation occurs, admins take action to discourage further violations), then ARBCOM needs to revise it so it's enforceable, enforce it themselves, or to scrap it altogether and more or less make it official that once you've done enough content work, you can behave more or less the way you want. Vanamonde (talk) 22:45, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Alex Shih: Thanks for the clarification. Could you refresh my memory as to where that comment was? @Euryalus: I agree with Alex's reply to you below: I want to add that I'm puzzled by your suggestion that we reach consensus at AE. AE does not require consensus; a single admin could, while acting within policy, implement a sanction that others disagreed with, but such a sanction would probably end up at ARCA. We're trying to shorten that process here. Also, I've been fairly active at AE, and no restriction that I know of has engendered as much disagreement about its enforcement as this one, hence the request that the restriction be made easier to interpret. Vanamonde (talk) 15:54, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• @Thryduulf: That's not an accurate characterization of those discussions. First, Dweller is not "unambiguously unbiased", and has admitted as much himself. Second, several admins (including myself, before my involvement), have made it quite clear that the diffs brought to AE were not acceptable; sanctions were avoided in one case via a warning, in another case because TRM redacted his statement, and in a third by coming here; there was also one AE block and one block invoking this sanction that wasn't from AE. The reports have been from a number of users, too. So the notion that this is all Sandstein isn't going to fly; I have no issues with anyone examining his behavior, but there's more going on. Also, if you can look at the quote I posted above and say that that isn't speculating about others editors' motivations, that bothers me; is there anything TRM could do that you would consider a violation? Vanamonde (talk) 17:46, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Aside from which there's the fact that most of the threads linked above have had multiple admins saying TRM's behavior was sub-par, even disruptive, but despite that, there's little to no recognition that there's a behavioral issue here from a worryingly large number of people. Vanamonde (talk) 18:01, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• @Thryduulf: Yes, I misunderstood the first part of what you wrote. I still disagree with the second part: TRM's restriction has nothing to say about whether the editors are individual editors or a group; in this case, the group isn't even a non-specific one; it referred to anyone running for ARBCOM this year. Vanamonde (talk) 18:06, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• @Opabinia regalis: how about a restriction on casting aspersions? Theoretically, that would require TRM to raise any personal issues with other editors in a civil manner, or to take them to the appropriate forum, or to drop the issues altogether; it would prevent this sort of thing, at least. A more practical but otherwise less attractive option might be a page-specific topic ban: or perhaps wording could be crafted preventing TRM from discussing general editor behavior except at user talk pages or dispute resolution fora. Vanamonde (talk) 18:35, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• The point, TRM, is not that you shouldn't challenge what I do, it's that you should do it (preferably politely) in an appropriate place; not at a completely unrelated discussion about a different nomination. I don't see why that's so difficult to understand. Vanamonde (talk) 19:18, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Re Amakuru's proposal: I'd love it if this could be solved by a voluntary commitment. I'm skeptical, though, because at the moment TRM has not even recognized that his behavior has been sub-optimal (and that's putting it mildly); and it hasn't helped that several others have not recognized this either. @Dweller and Black Kite: if there's anybody here who could actually persuade TRM to dial it back a little, it's you; but setting aside the specific sanction for the moment, I don't see anything in your statements suggesting that TRM is anything other than a victim here. Vanamonde (talk) 17:34, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• @Premeditated Chaos: I don't think you intended it that way, but your statement suggests that anyone making enough decent contributions can use those to hold ARBCOM hostage, in a sense, and force their restriction to be removed by ignoring it. Is that the message you're trying to send? @Gatoclass and Opabinia regalis: OR is exactly right in saying that TRM's behavior drives away those who have the same goals as he does (and Dweller is wrong; he has, like TRM, gone down the "if you don't agree with TRM you don't care about the main page" route). My suggestion about casting aspersions was intended to be a more nuanced view of what Gatoclass proposed; TRM should be prohibited from alleging misbehavior on the part of other editors excepted at fora intended for that purpose. A simultaneous ban from WT:DYK may not be a bad thing. Vanamonde (talk) 17:03, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• @The Rambling Man: (and really, anyone else who seems to be satisfied with the "voluntary recusal" business): I saw that proposal. I am skeptical of its effectiveness because several months after voluntarily stepping away from ERRORS, you returned simply to harangue another editor (me) without even doing me the courtesy of telling me what it was you disagreed with [25], [26], [27]. I am also skeptical because you continue to belittle other editors in your userspace and elsewhere, with cherry-picked quotations, laundry lists of supposed abuse that you never take any action on (even, in one case, a link to a blog written by one of our worst trolls). I don't see you addressing either of these issues. Vanamonde (talk) 17:24, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• @The Rambling Man: You plastered a "quote of the month" by me at the top of your user talk page, and the "Vanamonde93 clause" at your personal errors page. You knew damn well I wouldn't appreciate it, and went ahead and did it anyway. That's entirely on you: don't try the "I didn't know you didn't like it" approach. Nor have you addressed the fact that despite your "voluntary recusal" from ERRORS, you have made more than 50 edits [28] to that page in the last month, in addition to the unpleasant comments I linked immediately above. Vanamonde (talk) 17:43, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Strange as it may seem, I'm not terribly interested in a one-way interaction ban, because regardless of what you and Dweller think, I am interested in the integrity of the main page, we have worked together successfully before, and I (still) hope we can do so again. The personal commentary is what is at issue here; it's me today, it'll be someone else tomorrow. Vanamonde (talk) 17:47, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• @Premeditated Chaos: Okay, but the fact is TRM voluntarily "stepped away" from ERRORS, and yet has made over 50 edits there in the last month, including some rather unpleasant comments. Also, quite a while after suggesting that others could remove material in his userspace they did not like, has done nothing about removing material obviously placed there to disparage others (indeed, has added to it). A purely voluntary restriction isn't going to work. How about a combination; a restriction from ERRORS and WT:DYK, and a restriction preventing him from alleging editor misbehavior or competence except at fora designed for that (ie AN/ANI, user talk pages, DRN, etc)? Vanamonde (talk) 15:45, 29 November 2018 (UTC) Striking: some material was removed yesterday by WBG before I made this comment; I missed it. The rest was removed today by Dweller at TRM's request. Vanamonde (talk) 00:16, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Alex Shih

On mobile now so I'll have to substantiate with diffs later, but just wanted to quickly address Vanamonde93's ping: my comment at AE should not be read as an endorsement of "no violation"; my position is quite clear I believe in a previous long post I made about The Rambling Man and their civility at ERRORS. The purpose of my comment is to point out how the current wording of the restriction can be interpreted freely both ways, which is why we have found ourselves back at AE repeatedly without any results. The purpose of the remedy was certainly violated on more than one occasion, but the reality we have here is that the situation has been worked to a point that no administrator in their sane mind would enforce such remedy. In this situation, ArbCom needs to either take more responsibility or just declare the remedy as unenforceable. Alex Shih (talk) 23:54, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Euryalus: "the restriction is/was a mechanism to encourage The Rambling Man to be more civil in interaction with other editors" – Aren't ArbCom remedies meant to be binding, rather than serving the purpose of "to encourage" better editing behaviour? And this remedy is most certainly not about encouraging TRM to be more civil (because technically we should all be civil) when the wording is clearly written as "speculation about the motivations of editors". I also don't think it's true to say substantial portion of admins at AE "don't consider his comments over recent months to be uncivil"; there should be rough consensus that TRM has been uncivil in most of the instances, but no consensus on whether or not these incivility requires any action. And this no consensus mostly originates from the disagreement over the interpretation of the remedy as currently worded – what is the remedy trying to prevent? To ask AE to "get a consensus" over this basically proven unenforceable remedy is irresponsible on ArbCom's part. We can't get a consensus, and that's why we are here. If TRM can freely make insulting remarks, or make implications without making any direct reference, then this remedy is pointless and should be dropped so we don't find ourselves wasting time over this exercise in vain. Alex Shih (talk) 07:12, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@

AGK's words: Please provide for its enforcement or vacate it. Alex Shih (talk) 07:27, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply

]

On a side note,

involved". In the same AE request they also claimed that Fish and karate was involved. So we have a ArbCom member openly accusing two admins of violating policy as written, so I would like to ask the opinion of other committee members to clarify on whether or not this is a valid accusation. And while we are at it, for the sake of transparency please clarify on whether or not private discussions in regards to this ARCA request are held in a separate mailing list from this ArbCom member that is heavily invested in this matter. Thank you. Alex Shih (talk) 07:41, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply

]

@

WP:ERRORS, because there was a consensus among Main Page admins that the "errors" or matters TRM raised at ERRORS were not always exactly "errors"? Alex Shih (talk) 12:48, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply

]

Disturbing. @RickinBaltimore: with all due respect would you mind to spend a little more time looking at this request in depth if you are going to comment at all, rather than basically regurgitate the bureaucratic nonsense Mkdw just said? In what way would TRM moderate his tone and where would it be applied? What are you guys talking about? I really wish some of the ArbCom members can take note from civility notes like this one (credit RexxS; sorry for pinging). Newyorkbrad has this right: It should not be about the tone, but the "personally directed remarks" by TRM which does nothing but to stir bitterness for everyone. It doesn't have to be this way. And Mkdw, despite of this copyedit, you would still need to clarify what you meant by "severe option": are you trying to make an implicit threat here that if the enforcement request goes before ArbCom it would be a "severe option" which presumably means resulting in sanctions? Is this not a textbook example of prejudging without considering all of the discussions so far about the unsuitability of the wording of the remedy? Why do you think it is okay to ignore all of the discussions and arguments that have been presented so far, and may I ask why you are not recused from all matters involving The Rambling Man as your impartiality is in serious question here, when taken the past history into consideration? Alex Shih (talk) 08:34, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@

WP:ARBPOL is explicit about requiring all editors to "act reasonably, civilly, and with decorum" in arbitration pages, and here we are an arbitrator is openly accusing and labeling a group of editors/administrators as "groupies" in this arbitration page, while refusing to retract the claim by ignoring requests from a number of different editors on this very same page? What should we expect next, fanboys? One can only assume that the entire committee thinks this kind of vulgarity and accusation without evidence is perfectly acceptable and within reason, since none of you have called this committee member out for this very behaviour. And this is relevant because we are dealing with civility here; the committee cannot ask anyone to conduct themselves civilly when they do not call out uncivil behaviours. Alex Shih (talk) 08:26, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply

]

@Worm That Turned: I am not trying to change anything, nor am I trying to distract from the issue as you claim or start drama as you accuse, so please don't forget your good faith. The issue we have here is The Rambling Man is persistently uncivil, and the arbitration remedy is not working. Many editors here including members of the committee seems to have developed the opinion that the fact that the remedy is not being enforced is a reflection that the editing behaviour of TRM has changed for the better; is it? Why are there such diverging opinions? The fact that ArbCom is wildly inconsistent in their interpretation and enforcement of civility should be one main reason why we are still here disputing. Do you disagree? Alex Shih (talk) 10:56, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@The ed17: Why would you continue with the same silly analogy that is only slightly less inappropriate than the previous one? The "legal restrictions" here isn't working and has reached an stalemate having been rejected by a rough consensus. So the next step can only be 1) draft new amendment 2) vacate the restriction. Unfortunately that's how things is; TRM is well aware of his restriction and quite consciously avoids violating the letters of the restriction while continues with the same hostility that violates the spirits of the restriction. This is however not a permissible evidence of "gaming", unless if we are going to speculate on the motivations of TRM, which would be hypocritical as it is the same behaviour we restrict TRM from participating. Alex Shih (talk) 06:37, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@

in the context of Wikipedia this reasoning is flawed and unhelpful. Please stop. Alex Shih (talk) 06:54, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply

]

Statement by Johnuniq

Escalating sanctions are good when dealing with, say, a copyright violator or vandal, but not in difficult cases such as this. The automaton response to TRM's poking is to double the length of the last block but that inflames the situation because disinterested onlookers can see that a month-long block of the person who does most to keep errors off the main page is ridiculous. If necessary (that's if) block TRM for 48 hours. Do that on every occasion. Problem solved. Johnuniq (talk) 00:31, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Thryduulf

I may have more to add later, but for now I think is best to copy over a couple of comments I made in the most recent AE request, the first related to TRM's behaviour:

"I see nothing actionable here. I see frustration, exasperation and annoyance, and undoubtedly born out of that I see comments that are less than ideally phrased, but none of it is passing comment on the general competence of editors. If you wish to see TRM using less emotional language then the best way forward is probably to sort the problem at its root - i.e. either fix errors in DYK queues, demonstrate that the matters TRM is highlighting are not errors, and/or get consensus that errors in DYKs appearing on the main page is not a problem (this last will require a wider consensus than just the editors regularly involved with the DYK project, probably an RFC). Thryduulf (talk) 10:47, 22 November 2018 (UTC)"[reply]

The second related to Sandstein's interaction with enforcement requests against TRM:

A (possibly partial) list and summary of previous occasions where Sandstein has commented on AE requests involving TRM

• March 2017 Sandstein blocked TRM for 1 month 40 minutes after a report from a user with a known long history of antagonistic interaction with TRM. The only outside comment was "I think you can probably cut him [TRM] some slack for that [diff]."
  • See also Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/The Rambling Man
• March 2017 Appeal of previous block, length reduced to 1 week.
• July 2017 Sandstein agrees with the unanimous consensus that the overly long request is not actionable]]
• May 2018 Sandstein recommends a block of 1 month, six other admins and at least 12 other commenters said "not a violation", several also asking Sandstein to recuse.
• June 2018 Sandstein recommends a block of 1 month. Six other admins (including me) and at least four others see no violation. 1 admin sees a posisble violation but no need for a sanction given the context. Myself and Dweller at least call for Sandstein to recuse. Thryduulf (talk) 16:01, 22 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(Initial list compiled by Thryduulf. Others may expand it, but let's not go back too far.)

I posted this in a collapsed section at AE as it wasn't directly related to the filing. I'm posting it uncollapsed here as it is directly relevant. This was compiled based only on the first 1 (or possibly 2) pages of results when searching the AE archives for "The Rambling Man". They may be others as the results I did get were presented in a random order. Thryduulf (talk) 02:38, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I also endorse OID's comments regarding Sandstein. Before an ARCA was mentioned I was considering starting an AN thread regarding the matter myself. It is a fundamental principle of adminship that you recuse when you are not able to act neutrally and objectively regarding a matter so that it is dealt with fairly. It is an equally fundamental principle that such matters must be seen to be handled neutrally, and if you are repeatedly told by many different people that you appear to be biased in a particular matter then you should recuse, whether you think you are biased or not.
Unfortunately my memory fails me regarding the name of the person concerned, but one (former, I think) arbitrator published a list of topics (and users?) in their userspace where they would always recuse. One of these was Armenia-Azerbaijan, where they perceived they had no bias but others perceived they did. This is a model Sandstein should look to emulate rather than doubling down when presented with repeated instances when they have been diametrically opposed to pretty much every other contributor to the discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 02:38, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• @
  WP:ADMINACCT final bullet "Repeated or consistent poor judgment" and the general (but possibly unwritten) expectation that administrators will listen to an act on feedback given to them rather than doubling down. Thryduulf (talk) 12:22, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• @Vanamonde93: The disagreement is pretty simple to characterise in almost every report I've seen - with very few exceptions Sandstein and those who are unambiguously biased or involved regarding TRM see a violation, Dweller and those who are unambiguously unbiased and uninvolved see no violation. Sandstein sees every report as warranting a month long block, pretty much everyone else who sees a violation thinks that the appropriate response is a chastisement or short block. This is not evidence that TRM is not being blocked enough. Thryduulf (talk) 17:04, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Vanamonde93: You've misunderstood nearly everything I've written. I said "Dweller and those who are unambiguously unbiased" not that Dweller is one of those who are unambiguously unbiased. Likewise regarding Sandstein I'm not saying he is the only one who sees violations, simply that (a) he is the only one who is neither unambiguously involved nor unambiguously biased who sees them as such (you for example are very clearly involved) and (b) he is the only one of those who do see these as violations who thinks the most appropriate response is to block for a month. As for me, when I see TRM speculating about the general motivations of individual editors (rather than commenting about a non-specific group of editors in general or expressing exasperation about the actions (or lack of actions) of individual editors in a very specific context) then I will absolutely call him out on his breach of a topic ban. I will not vote to sanction him for things that do not violate his restrictions no matter how much people want them to be violations. As I said the best thing for everybody here to do is to actually fix the errors, that way there wont be anything for TRM to complain about. Thryduulf (talk) 17:55, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• @Alex Shih: Having reviewed that discussion I see that as a very good example, but not of your point. It shows TRM proposing a modification to a hook to (a) address an issue raised by someone else, and (b) correcting a simple factual error ("is" to "will become") this was then met with a string a ad hominem comments and personal attacks from other users against which TRM was defending himself, interspersed with comments about his opinion of the process - none of which is anything remotely approaching what his sanction covers. You apparently think that a "slightly misleading" blurb should not be regarded as an error, if so then that falls squarely under option 2 I proposed "get consensus that the matters TRM raises are not errors". Thryduulf (talk) 12:00, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• @
  Arkell v. Pressdram and the exchange is occurring between editors who are not engaged in a dispute). Similarly if two editors are engaged in an acrimonious dispute and one responds the other with "I refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram" that almost certainly would be uncivil but it is not something that could ever be codified. There also exist cases where cultural differences mean that one party sees something as entirely innocent while another takes great offence. Thryduulf (talk) 19:57, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  • @Shrike: Civility is objective any comment on editor(ad hominem) is a breach No, it's much more complicated than that - "Shrike's editing history indicates they are biased against <controversial politician>" is a comment on an editor that is perfectly civil. "This so-called discussion is a fucking heap of stinking biased horseshit that makes Wikipedia look like the product of a three year old's tantrum." is an uncivil comment that is not an ad hominem. Even "Shrike is almost always right about this sort of thing" would be uncivil by your proposed definition. Thryduulf (talk) 10:26, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• @New York Brad, Worm That Turned, Mkdw, Premeditated Chaos, and Doug Weller: Just a reminder that the issues around Sandstein and BU Rob 13 are still being overlooked but really do need addressing. The former has clearly lost the trust of the community that is able to be impartial regarding TRM but refuses to listen to feedback about his judgement (as is required of all admins) and the latter is casting aspersions without evidence (and not for the first time either) - behaviour that arbcom has sanctioned many times previously. Thryduulf (talk) 12:28, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• @DGG: Do you have any evidence to support your accusation that TRM is acting in bad faith? The ed17's comment presuming bad faith without evidence was correctly removed, would you please do TRM the courtesy of either removing the aspersions you are casting or providing evidence to support them? If you could encourage BU Rob 13 to either back up or remove his unsuppoorted aspersions against unspecified others as well that would be good. Thryduulf (talk) 13:42, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• @BU Rob13: a complete inability to enforce a sanction that has been repeatedly violated. Once again we meet the crux of the issue: there has been consensus after consensus from uninvolved users and administrators that the sanction has not been violated, and yet somehow those with an axe to grind cannot accept this and assume there must be some vast conspiracy to protect TRM rather than the more obvious explanation that the sanction wasn't violated. I mostly interact with TRM regarding ITN, where I agree and disagree with him in about equal measure. I pop in to AE sporadically but don't always comment - e.g. if there is an apparent consensus and I agree with it then I usually don't bother chiming in, or if informing myself fully would take more reading than I care to do at that point then I won't comment at all, and there are some dispiutes I'm just flat out not interested in getting involved in (most things related to Israel-Palestine and India-Pakistan for example). However when I see a consensus heading in a direction I disagree with then I'm going to express my opinion - especially if it seems facts are being pushed aside as often happens with TRM. Thryduulf (talk) 23:48, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by power~enwiki

Reading Euryalus's decline suggests an alternate wording to me: The Rambling Man is strongly encouraged to maintain decorum in discussions with other editors. He may be sanctioned by a consensus of admins at

]

Statement by Dweller

There's a recurrent cycle here. People drag TRM to AE, Sandstein says "block one month" and a variety of others point out there's been no breach of the sanction.

This recurs either because they don't understand the sanction or because they're gaming it. I'd AGF and go for the former.

The committee could opine that the fact that no action is taken is proof that the sanction and AE are working fine. I'd say that a) the recurrent no action is proof that TRM is no longer doing the things you didn't like (mostly, I suspect, because of

WP:TRM

) and b) things have got to a place where TRM feels harassed by this constant cycle, quite ironic really.

How about just removing this sanction? With past cases up your sleeve, you can always decide by motion to act if you think TRM has returned to behaviours you've deemed excessively objectionable in the past?

Sounds like everyone wins that way. --

]

@BU Rob. Three diffs presented. In turn they deal with 1) specific competence, not general 2) specific competence not general 3) not aimed at anyone in particular and also about the specific competence of reviewing. You are making a very good case for my comment above - this sanction is poorly worded and people don't understand it. --

old fashioned! 22:23, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply

]

I welcome Newyorkbrad's suggestion and the tone of his comments. --

]

The main problem here is that DYK (and to a lesser extent OTD and ITN) produce a lot of really poor substandard work that fails their own rules. It appears on Main page where it makes us look bad. TRM is one of very very few people that seems to care about this. We actually need to fundamentally decide what we do with those projects because you won't see TRM upset or upsetting others at FL (where he's been massively active) or FAC (ditto) because everyone in those places cares about the same things, quality output. If the community scrapped these awful projects or corralled them into only putting out quality material, you wouldn't be troubled by TRM. --

]

TRM's rather gracious proposal is a different way of skinning that cat. --

old fashioned! 15:19, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply

]

]

Statement by Shrike

I totally uninvolved in the dispute. The main problem that the one of the

]

@Thryduulf: Civility is objective any comment on editor(ad hominem) is a breach.In your second example there were no comment on editor so the bright line was not crossed.--Shrike (talk) 06:56, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Newyorkbrad

The Rambling Man's level of energy and dedication to the project are widely appreciated. More specifically, there is broad appreciation for his commitment to maintaining the quality of items linked from the main page, although there are often sharp disagreements as to how those standards should be applied in specific instances. (These arise on the ITN and OTD pages as well as on DYK as noted in the request). Any user-conduct issues arise not so much from what he says but how he says it.

A couple of years ago, The Rambling Man committed to be a bit less sharp-tongued on-wiki. For several months, he kept that commitment. He made exactly the same types of substantive comments that he made before that and has made since, but unaccompanied by personally directed remarks that stir bitterness and distract attention from the substance of what he has to say. I still did not always agree with his every !vote on ITN/C and the like, but the man was a pleasure to work with. I wonder whether, if asked politely, he would be willing to try that experiment again. He would be just as effective in what he is trying to accomplish, if not more so, but without the distractions that can't be fun for him and which I know are not fun for the rest of us. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:31, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Amakuru

As an admin who processes errors and main page updates, and sometimes opines at ITNC, I see TRM around quite a bit and agree that his commitment to the project and the value he provides are indisputable. I also think he is on the receiving end of some unfair treatment including the repeated efforts in some quarters to get

]

• Since Crisco 1492 has been brought into the conversation, it should be put on the record that his decision to leave was entirely of his own making. TRM raised legitimate issues with a POTD entry, so I pinged Crisco at the POTD page to bring his attention to it. When he hadn't replied around 10 hours later (presumably because he was off-wiki for the day) I went ahead and swapped it out with the following day to give time to sort the issues. When he came back online and saw what had happened he got angry and left the project. He returned briefly to resign his admin tools, taking the opportunity to launch a broadside at TRM, accusing him of "meddling in processes he has no idea about". TRM tried to defend himself but was silenced three times. Presumably Crisco had some history with TRM, so I can't comment on previous interactions between the two, but it is very clear that TRM cannot be blamed for the incident which drove him off.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:50, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  @The Rambling Man: right, so his actions at that time were not typical and perhaps there were other reasons why he was particularly stressed, who knows. Certainly I wish him no ill will, he's been a highly valuable Wikipedian over the years and I would welcome him back to the project if he chose to return. I just think it's fairly clear he was in the wrong in the incident mentioned.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:03, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• @BU Rob13: I too would like to know the identity of the "groupies" of which you make mention. Please either say who they are, and when they've grouped, or withdraw the accusation. As a sitting arb, you of all people should know that this isn't the forum for vague allusions. We need chapter, verse and diffs, so that the committee can evaluate the matter and decide if it is a justified comment.  — Amakuru (talk) 14:18, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• @
  WP:ERRORS seems to have removed some of the tension that had been evident there, so this would be in a similar vein. Would you still want the ability to nominate your own DYKs when you feel like it though? (And review others' per QPQ if that comes up). That should be possible without getting involved in the talk page for the DYK process itself.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:28, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  Re [29] - fair enough.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:41, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Desmay

BU Rob13 last tried in June 2018,[30][31] to get TRM blocked through WP:AE, not January 2018.[32] Though these repeated attempts by BU Rob13 to get TRM blocked are ironic because BU Rob13 himself topic bans an editor only for reporting a topic ban violation[33] and here he says that he dislikes when other admins avoid taking action against TRM when BU Rob13 sanctions people for reporting the violators. We should at least accept that unlike BU Rob13, these admins who acted on these TRM related AE reports were not sanctioning the reporting editor on spurious basis.

BU Rob13 should not be talking about AE, since he is himself biased in that regard. His clear assumption of bad faith here just proves it further. desmay (talk) 20:55, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Alanscottwalker

More of an observation: parsing the vague difference(?) between "specific" and "general" competence is either a game, or will tend to lead to madness for all involved. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:32, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Banedon

I think TRM is clearly violating the spirit of the sanction, even if he isn't violating the letter of it (which itself is debatable; as some have already noted they consider TRM to be doing so). Even neglecting everything in the AE request, the diff Vanamonde linked is the same kind of behaviour that led to the Arbcom case in the first place. This is why I wrote in the evidence phase that TRM reforming is the best-case scenario, but doesn't seem likely.

I think Arbcom should:

1. Award Sandstein a special "Arbcom barnstar" for attending to WP:AE and dealing with the inevitable flak that goes his way. AE admins deserve it - their tasks are especially thankless, as a look at the AE requests makes obvious. In this ARCA there are already editors questioning Sandstein's integrity even though, as OR notes, Sandstein attends to a lot of AE requests so the fact that he appears in a lot of the TRM-related requests doesn't seem particularly significant.
2. Block and warn. Say something like "Arbcom has decided that this kind of behaviour violates our 4th pillar and is not acceptable, therefore we are blocking under WP:CIVIL". Outright say that this decision isn't open to discussion. Make it obvious that because the carrot clearly isn't working, Arbcom is willing to wield the stick.

On a side note I'll point out that civility is a major theme this ACE. Arbcom is setting a precedent here; if the reaction is poor, the incoming members will have something to shoot at. Banedon (talk) 23:48, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Premeditated Chaos: I'm shocked you're seriously considering a voluntary agreement. A key reason we had an arbitration case in the first place was because TRM had been given so many warnings to stop behaving like this, so much WP:ROPE. He's said he will be civil before, countless times, and still never managed. We got out of the arbitration case with a pretty mild remedy, which is now proving not to work, and your solution is to remove the remedy in favour of a voluntary agreement? Like I said, I'm shocked. Banedon (talk) 08:23, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Winged Blades of Godric - it could be interpreted that way, but think positive! This is for all the admins who do the hard work at AE. Banedon (talk) 12:10, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Floating this idea. Retract the sanction and replace with a voluntary agreement, but only if Dweller is willing to act as a guarantor. Something like, if TRM winds up at Arbcom again then any sanction that applies to TRM also applies to Dweller; or alternatively desysop Dweller. I understand this plan is radical, but it might make all parties happy. If TRM and Dweller genuinely believe that TRM is capable of reform, then this arrangement has no drawback. If TRM does end up at Arbcom again though, I hate to be sanctioning Dweller, since Dweller hasn't done anything wrong. Banedon (talk) 12:10, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Thryduulf: even if we agree there was no violation (and I certainly would not agree), compare Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. If you just count all the people in the world who don't find Muhammad cartoons offensive vs. those who do, you'll probably find the former group to be larger. That's because there are more non-Muslims in the world than there are Muslims. This doesn't mean it should be OK to draw Muhammad cartoons en masse. The same thing applies here: if there's a substantial group of people who find TRM's behavior offensive, he should stop behaving like that even if he's not violating any sanctions. If he does not - I would tweak the sanctions until the group of people stop finding it offensive (or TRM gets blocked, whichever happens first). Banedon (talk) 01:29, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Gatoclass

Some weeks ago, after an exchange with TRM, I turned off my computer and didn't edit again for seven weeks. At the time, I had no intention of taking even so much as a short break, but in the days and weeks that followed, the thought of returning to the unceasing barrage of snark that DYK has become so revulsed me that I could only wonder how I'd ever managed to hang in there so long in the first place. Indeed, the sheer pettiness of so many of the disputes, by comparison with the disproportionate degree of hostility expressed over them, was enough to turn me off Wikipedia altogether, to the point that I wondered if I could ever be bothered editing here again.

But then, as it happened, a few days ago a flicker of interest unexpectedly returned. I uploaded some files, and then thought I'd just pop over to DYK to promote a set to the queue if needed, which I did. Shortly thereafter, TRM turned up to welcome me in his usual fashion, informing me that I'm a "toxic" user. A post or two later, apropos of nothing, he thought he'd gratuitously declare my DYK work (for the thousandth time) to be "shoddy". And a little later, after seeing me labour to fix a couple of DYK errors he had identified - presumably out of concern that I hadn't yet gotten the message clearly enough - responded with a gloating edit summary.

In short, nothing has changed. This is what it's like to work at DYK now - indeed how it's been for much of the last several years - pretty much every. single. fucking. day.

Meanwhile, TRM, who looks like possibly escaping meaningful sanction for his utterly uncollegiate and disrespectful conduct yet again, feels sufficiently emboldened at this point to magnanimously suggest desysopping and de-arbing a couple of his prominent critics. You can't make this stuff up.

Apart from myself and Vanamonde (who seems to have been promoted to "public enemy number one" in my absence), here are a few more users TRM has come into conflict with in just the last few days. There's Yoninah, who expressed a desire for stepping down from DYK and going back to content creation as she has had enough of the endless nitpicking.[34] Narutolovehinata5, who expressed exasperation with his uncooperative attitude.[35] Cwmhiraeth, currently in conflict with TRM about an alleged incident of lying.[36] David Eppstein, who in this thread pretty much nails it with this post. From a slightly longer time period, we should not forget Crisco, a highly valued contributor, who recently quit the project after copping the TRM treatment.[37]

If my point isn't yet clear, it's this: for all the good they may do, users like TRM are corrosive to the project. They sap the enthusiasm and commitment of multiple users around them. Apologists apparently see this as an acceptable price to pay, because TRM picks up an occasional worthwhile error at DYK (most of his "errors" are wording tweaks he could do himself without the fanfare). But nothing can excuse the barrage of hostility he daily inflicts on DYK contributors while doing so.

Now with regard to the existing remedy - clearly, when apologists can wikilawyer between "specific" and "general" competences, the remedy is useless. I said at the time that I doubted the remedy would be effective[38] and unfortunately, the no doubt well intentioned change weakened it pretty much beyond repair. So I will repeat what I said at the original case: why not adopt the remedy that's been tried successfully at AE a number of times, per the wording of the

policy, and simply prohibit him from commenting on contributor? That would at least be a start, and would constitute a clear bright line for action. And while that alone probably wouldn't prevent him from continuing to disparage users by blasting their individual edits or the DYK project itself, it should at least prevent the worst of his tirades, like the comments made to Vanamonde recently.

Other than that, I also like Opabinia's suggestion of limited non-escalating blocks for incivility and have suggested the same myself in the past, but quite frankly in TRM's case I don't think they would have much effect because he's generally too skilled at keeping his offensive remarks just under the radar. It's his chronic uncollegiality that's the problem, and one doesn't necessarily pick that up from individual diffs. Gatoclass (talk) 08:04, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I came here today with the intention of endorsing, as a possible remedy, a combination of a ban for TRM on commenting on contributor, per

WP:ERRORS suggested by Galobtter, but then I saw this. Regardless of any other consideration, would anyone care to explain why such a reckless repudiation of every previous warning, remedy or commitment given to or by TRM should not be met by an immediate and substantial sanction? Gatoclass (talk) 14:12, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply

]

Statement by Narutolovehinata5

As I have mentioned several times on DYK, I admire TRM's dedication to finding errors and he has done a lot of good work for the project. However, his attitude has become a general problem, and as elaborated above by Gatoclass, not a few editors have considered quitting DYK over this. Two weeks back, I proposed a topic ban for TRM at ANI, which was quickly snow-rejected (and in hindsight, I realize that it was probably not a good idea; I sincerely apologize to TRM for what happened). Nevertheless, I still believe that TRM's attitude needs to change for the current situation to defuse or at least to improve, and knowing his editing history, I know this is possible. I'm just not sure what suitable compromise could be made that could be a win for all sides.

]

After reading the discussion again and reflecting on previous events, this is what comes to mind. On one hand. TRM has a point that DYK's quality control has been subpar at times, and inadequate articles tend to push through often. On the other hand, the way he expresses these comments have been suboptimal at best, and good faith suggestions on changing his tone have tended either to fall on deaf ears or to be responded in a negative way. From what I have experienced, the situation might be circular: TRM does things the way he does because he is frustrated with the issues plaguing the Main Page processes, while the MP people (DYK included) tend to be fearful of TRM's comments and thus in some cases editors become disenchanted with the process altogether. In any case, the feeling is that, while people mostly believe TRM is acting in good faith and wishes for the improvement of the encyclopedia, the way he expresses his comments tends to lead to tension which, rather than solving the issues, only makes them worse. The way I see it, this situation may continue for the foreseeable future unless a suitable compromise that pleases both parties may be reached. But how such a compromise may be reached, I don't know: while I was formerly in favor of an editing restriction from WT:DYK and WP:ERRORS, I don't really believe it will solve things considering that the issue is more of TRM's attitude.

csdnew 23:07, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply

]

Statement by WBG

As one, who mentioned the last AE filing as a time-waste, (out of a near-certainty about it leading to damn nowhere); I believe that the current sanction is worthless (to put it mildly).

It's undoubtable that TRM's behavior with fellow-contributors is far from optimal and heavily unpleasant but week-long blocks, (in recent past) had not made TRM any collegial and it's pretty irrational to expect that a month-long block (as Sandstein seems to advocate, near-every time) will fare better in that regard.

As much as it is a mystery to me about TRM's continual inability to pay heed to any concern, (from multiple quarters), about his behavior , I personally deem his work to be highly valuable and thus, don't see any viable remedy other than his pledging to abide by minimum decorum levels with an understanding that his prestigious track-records as a content-builder does not auto-confer a right to treat others in an abominable fashion.

Alternatively, just ban him from the entire DYK topic-area and be done away with him but at the massive cost of the quality of the main-page.∯WBG^converse 11:09, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

And, Banedon, Arbcom Barnstar? This sort of behavior to indirectly bait TRM is something that can be quite looked-at......... ∯WBG^converse 11:09, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Softlavender

I think Pudeo's diffs demonstrate that there is still a problem. I think Sandstein is overenthusiastic in his response to the problem. Sandstein should not make unilateral decisions about TRM.

So far I agree with the proposals by (in no particular order):

.

-- Softlavender (talk) 11:23, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• What about a requirement that, in content-related discussions, TRM refrain from mentioning other editors (either indirectly or directly), and instead discuss only content and edits? That's fairly simply achieved, and a practice I find makes every interaction impersonal, civil, and much more effective. If content is factually incorrect, that's easy to demonstrate. If something violates policy, policy is easy to cite. If something could be better worded, specific better wording is easy to suggest. It's not necessary to mention or refer to any other editor(s) when discussing content.

  Of course, putting this into practice takes concentration at first and a change of habit, but once the new habit is formed it's easy to implement. Softlavender (talk) 15:18, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@TRM: Quote text, provide diffs, or specify what concept/text you agree or disagree with. There is never a need to mention other editors when discussing content, even in a multi-editor discussion. Content is content; who wrote or espouses it is immaterial. I've never had any problem confining myself to this modus operandi, no matter how many editors are involved, and it is especially useful in discussions that are contentious or potentially so. Softlavender (talk) 16:42, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Dweller: Neutrally and succinctly pinging people to review something is not a content discussion per se, and therefore is perfectly acceptable as long as it isn't non-neutral canvassing in any way. Discussions about behavioral situations and ArbCom sanctions are not content discussions. Softlavender (talk) 16:53, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@TRM: You declare it's unworkable because you don't want the restriction. Your dislike of the restriction does not preclude its workability, and no matter how many editors are involved in a content discussion, there is no need to mention any of them directly or indirectly, unless you need to ping an admin to take an administrative action, or neutrally ping someone to review something. Not only is content-not-editors eminently workable, it's an actual

]

Statement by Cwmhiraeth

As the recipient of much abuse from TRM, I would say the present sanctions are not moderating his behaviour, and belittling others seems to be his habit. Gatoclass has mentioned how he stopped editing altogether after a recent altercation with TRM. Who can say how many other editors have ceased to contribute to DYK because of the barrage of disparagement showered on them by TRM, and the general hostility he contributes to on the DYK discussion page. He has stated several times that he is not interested in the DYK project, only in the integrity of the main page [39]. Nevertheless, most of the incivility of which I am aware, has taken place on the DYK discussion page, which would be considerably more productive if he stopped contributing there altogether. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:56, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Rambling Man, you are mistaken, I have never been taken to AnI in connection with DYK. Your response entirely misses the point I am trying to make in my statement. It is your conduct and the results it has on others that I am concerned about. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:22, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Davey2010

We indef TRM and in doing so we have a ton of errors/issues on the Main Page, We don't indef him and he carries on doing valuable thankless work to the project and occasionally makes the odd funny comment, (I'd rather the latter!),

I honestly don't have a solution other than to simply suggest everyone stops these requests and let him carry on helping with the Main Page. –Davey2010^Talk 17:48, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Galobtter

I think a voluntary (but binding) page ban from

, where people who work well with him can address those issues, this would reduce friction. The other solution which does not involve blocking TRM, Newyorkbrad's suggestion that he voluntarily stop making those remarks, is not very concrete and not workable unless there's at the very least a recognition from TRM that there is a real issue.

In addition or otherwise, I'd suggest moving enforcement of the remedy to

; Arbcom is indeed tasked with dealing with these sort of long-running issues and in this case it may require a more hands-on approach rather than passing a remedy and leaving the work to AE admins.

(I do have to say, The Vanamonde93 clause: some admins get to junk anything they choose, with no consensus. present on the bottom of

]

Statement by The ed17

Dear Arbcom: Let's suppose that a company was gaming the law. In response, would you advocate for vacating the legal restrictions in favor of the company agreeing to an entirely voluntary commitment to change its behavior? (This statement is being re-posted in a modified form after consulting with a clerk.)

]

@

[majestic titan] 06:42, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply

]

Statement by The C of E

I also have been on the receiving end of a lot of comments from TRM in relation to DYK like @Cwmhiraeth: and @Vanamonde93:,. For me, I do DYK because I enjoy it but some of the comments I get from TRM about my work really stress me out and I have held back on DYK for the last few months as a result and only just started thinking about going back to it seriously.

I would also argue that the WP:TRM should not be used as a formal shadow WP:ERRORS page because it seems to me that if a hook were to get pulled based on something at WP:TRM rather than the official ERRORS page, that is not conducive to an open and accountable Wikipedia given most editors (and I count myself on this) do not watch WP:TRM and mostly would be unaware of a problem until the point at which it got pulled before they even had a chance to see what the complaint was.

I do think in light of the further and continuous comments I have been made aware of reading these, I would now think @Galobtter:'s proposal of a voluntary non-participation on DYK might be a good idea for all. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 13:39, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {other-editor}

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

The Rambling Man: Clerk notes

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

The Rambling Man: Arbitrator views and discussion

• Civility is one of the most difficult points of Wikipedia, I don't think anyone disagrees that instances of incivility are easy to point out and while I haven't yet reviewed the AE requests (which I'll do over the next few days) I am unsurprised that a "civility restriction" hasn't worked. They historically been unenforceable as incivility is a reaction to other frustrating behaviours. I'm not saying it's the right reaction, but it's hard to sanction someone for being rude, when the reason they were rude is apparent and often worse than the rudeness. I'll await statements from those involved and the rest of the community and reply further after the weekend. Worm^TT(talk) 15:53, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Noting that I'm happy for this request to remain longer than usual and thank TRM for agreeing to progress. Off wiki matters should always come first, this is just a website.
  Now, having looked at the remedy in question, especially the part about speculating regarding general competence, I can absolutely see why there have been so many AE requests. The diffs provided in those AE request include a fair amount of obvious (to me) speculation regarding general competence - though the word TRM uses liberally is "experience". Semantically different, yes, but the end result is the same. This begs the question - why hasn't the AE requests been acted upon. I don't agree with the idea of a small cadre of supporters, because there is a large variety of users who have pointed out that action need not been taken, including numerous ones I would not consider to just defend friends. I also don't buy the idea that people are scared to act - that's the point of AE and those who spend much time there act on very difficult cases all the time. Simply, I think it goes back to my post before the weekend, that when put in context, incivility often stems from frustration at behaviours which are worse than the incivility.
  That brings us back to what to do next. This current wording is clearly not working, so we should vacate that. That leaves us with a few options, a) put in nothing enforceable but get some agreement from TRM and hope for the best, b) throw our arms up and ban TRM (noting many of these issues are around the main page and therefore there is a possibility of a targetted ban - even with his 90% hit rate), or ... c) something else. As yet, I'm not seeing a lot of "something else" and I see benefits and down sides to both a) and b). I'll keep thinking and reading for the moment, but if anyone has a c), please do shout! Worm^TT(talk) 10:18, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Regarding the "casting aspersions", we do regularly let things slide on this and other arbcom pages because we know that by the time we get to here people are frustrated and have explanations. Whilst I don't agree with BU Rob13's explanation of why this has perpetuated (and have stated so above) I'm not seeing anything so egregious which needs to be dealt with here. Regarding Sandstein, I also don't see that he's lost faith of the community. He may be advocating for long blocks, but they do fall as an option within the scope of the remedy and like it or not, it would be a solution to the problem. Again, there are excellent editors on both sides of this issue, everyone is working towards improving the encyclopedia - our current remedy is failing and we're looking to move forward. Let's not call for heads, I don't think we have enough baskets. Worm^TT(talk) 12:50, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  @Alex Shih: You appear to be looking for drama to distract from the issue. I'm happy to say that I disagree with Rob's assessment, indeed I have done so. That's enough in my opinion. You know as well as I that I do not make public admonishments lightly - I don't like to make a public song and dance about things I feel to be an issue. I'm surprised that you are trying to change that. Worm^TT(talk) 10:38, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  I started my comments by pointing out why civility is so hard to manage on Wikipedia. TRM is not the first, nor will he be the last, editor who will exemplify the issues - a valuable contributor who is passionate about the content and can become frustrated by the what he sees. Is what he says problematic? Yes. When put in context, is it more problematic than the other behaviour? No. This is why "gotchas" don't work, and civility remedies are a gotcha. I do agree that there are diverse opinions on the committee and that's a GOOD THING^TM because there are diverse opinions in the community. If we can find a solution that the committee is happy with, in spite of the diverse opinions, then we have a good chance of finding something the community will be happy with. That's how Arbcom works. Worm^TT(talk) 11:08, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Recuse. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 19:03, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Recuse. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:44, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• I'll echo what Worm said, and I'd be especially interested in statements which suggest alternative options (different wordings, enforcement methods or otherwise). Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 00:27, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Decline - the restriction is/was a mechanism to encourage The Rambling Man to be more civil in interaction with other editors. The history of its enforcement at AE indicates a substantial proportion of participating editors and admins don't consider his comments over recent months to be uncivil, at least not to the point of requiring any action. Playing around with the remedy wording isn't going to change that; and repealing the remedy simply pushes this conversation from AE back to Case Requests. The best course, if anyone feels The Rambling Man is uncivil in communicating with others, is to get a consensus for this point of view at AE and enforce the remedy already in place. -- Euryalus (talk) 04:51, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The Rambling Man says on their userpage that they're attending to a family bereavement. Suggest we pause discussion of this ARCA for a little bit until they return. World won't end if it's delayed a few days. -- Euryalus (talk) 05:22, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Well, as I recall I'm the author of the current wording, so you can all aim your torches and pitchforks in my direction (orderly line, please). Thinking out loud for a bit:
  • The idea that everyone is too scared to enforce the restriction leads straight down the same path that led to the AE2 case, and we already know that goes nowhere good, so let's not do that. AE admins are sort of by definition not wimps.
  • 331dot has a good point that the underlying premise to a lot of these comments is that obviously TRM should have been blocked more, therefore his lack of blocks is evidence that the restriction is failing. Of course, an alternative explanation is that people didn't think he needed to be blocked. Still, there is clearly a problem somewhere - that's an awful lot of AE requests, and from enough different filers that it's hard to make a "they're all out to get me" case.
  • Sandstein comments on a lot of AE requests, so the fact that he appears in a lot of the TRM-related requests doesn't seem particularly significant.
  • "Arbcom is unwilling to do anything about errors on the main page" - arbcom is unable to do anything about errors on the main page. If there's a user-conduct issue related to main-page errors (or DYK, or whatever) and it goes beyond TRM, well, I hate to be all bureaucratic pettifogging but you're in the wrong place; down the hall, to the right, please file Form 2b sections 5-12 in triplicate here.
  • I've written a lot of tediously long posts about problems in how we define and manage "incivility", especially in the context of expressions of frustration by people working on content. Despite the bullet point above, it's pretty clear that a lot of this is coming from frustration over highly visible poor content. On the other hand, if I had to make a list of the most unpleasant behavior patterns on Wikipedia, this kind of self-righteous, me-against-the-world, everything-would-fall-apart-without-me, Defender of the Wiki business would be right up there. Last time around I called it "really goddamn annoying", and on review I think I understated the case. I think if
    WP:CIVIL had somewhere along the line been replaced with WP:HUMBLE
    , a lot of problematic social dynamics might have been mitigated. (Yes, I appreciate the irony of advocating for more humility while writing seven billion bytes of text about my obviously very important opinion ;)
  • Regardless of what else happens, I think Johnuniq's suggestion about non-"escalating" blocks has merit. I never liked that provision and actually thought it didn't apply in this case (but now that I look I was thinking of another case). I think it's a perverse incentive that prevents blocks from being used effectively, and I said the same about AE2, and probably AE1 before that, so it's hardly a TRM-specific view. I don't have a good feeling about power~enwiki's suggestion, because that turns the problem back into generic "incivility", and the whole point of the current wording (and indeed, the original wording from the case) was to be more specific about the nature of the problem. Any other ideas? Having been on the other side of this dynamic a few times, with people I enjoyed collaborating with, who were prickly on-wiki but reasonable in private, I would've thought I'd have a better idea of what to do about it, but it turns out that it's harder than it looks. "TRM is required to remove all adjectives and adverbs from his posts"? Opabinia regalis (talk) 11:03, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @
    arguably my opinion as the author is no more relevant than anyone's, but: I agree with Sandstein that the 5 March 2017 report was actionable (but think the reduced block length made more sense); frankly I think the 5 January 2018 report was actionable too (again, block for a few days); the 31 May 2018 report was borderline; and the first diff of the most recent report is a perfect bullseye on what TRM is not supposed to be doing.

    What's gone surprisingly underappreciated in all this is the fact that being acerbic to the point that people stop working on the project (and thus stop helping to fix errors) is obviously counterproductive to TRM's stated aims. I'm personally interested in that - TRM, you say your goal is to make the main page better; why do you keep doing things that directly undermine your own goals by making people less likely to work with you? Opabinia regalis (talk) 09:36, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply
    ]
• Real life and family must come first. I would rather have a thorough discussion about the issues and review potential changes than sweep this under the rug, so I am willing to keep this open for a bit longer than normal. If TRM is willing to make a commitment to "reducing the harshness of [their] tone" under certain conditions, I would be at least interest to hear what those would be and if they are compatible with the community's expectations on civility and conflict resolution. Mkdw ^talk 19:18, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• @The Rambling Man: In your offer to moderate your tone down, you also expressed there was "little purpose in doing" so under the current sanctions. I was responding to your point and asking you what might improve the situation. If you are willing to make a sustained commitment and proves to address the issue, then a civility sanction in any form may no longer be required. Mkdw ^talk 22:32, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Broadly, AE outcomes where there was a consensus are not the problem here; the problem is when there is no consensus at AE. A no consensus AE outcome for this sanction might not be suitable. In such a situation, it may need to go before ArbCom for a decision on whether the sanction was violated or not. I am not really seeing a lot of alternative wording that would definitively fix the core issue and if the community is having difficulty in deciding, then this is really a last resort option, but it does put the responsibility on ArbCom. Mkdw ^talk 22:32, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• @Alex Shih: No. I am simply saying requiring our involvement should only be reserved as a measure of last resort. My first preference would always be to find a way for the community to be able to resolve these issues first. Which is why I discussed the option about vacating the sanction. Not that any punishment would be severe. I copy edited it out for clarity because even though I said "severe option", meaning requiring ArbCom review and taking it out of the hands of the community, I was concerned it would be interpreted as "severe outcome". I have only interacted with TRM as an arbitrator with no prior interactions that I can recall. Mkdw ^talk 13:53, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Given TRM's current family situation I also would be fine with leaving this open longer if needed. Reading his comments above, if he is willing to moderate his tone, I would want to know in what way, and where this would be applied. RickinBaltimore (talk) 19:35, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm also not in a rush. I like Newyorkbrad's suggestion. Doug Weller talk 19:57, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Echoing everyone else that I am not in a rush here - real life trumps the internet every time. That being said, the current situation appears untenable to me. We can't keep changing the wording of the sanction hoping to arrive at something that will produce consensus every time, because unless we draw some absolutely draconian bright lines, there will always be problems with subjectivity leading to a lack of consensus over what constitutes a violation. I think we need a different approach, although I admit I don't have any incredibly radical ideas.
  If The Rambling Man is willing to voluntarily agree to moderate his tone again, I would be willing to look into suspending or even vacating the sanction. As NYB pointed out, a voluntary change was reasonably successful in the past, so I don't see what we have to lose by trying it again. As a distant second option, we could consider turning over decision-making about enforcing this sanction directly to ArbCom as Mkdw suggests, but I honestly think a voluntary change would be far more effective. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 11:11, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • BU Rob13, 99% of the time I would agree fully, but the situation is basically a stalemate and it seems like a voluntary agreement might be a viable option where a sanction clearly has not effected the desired change. If we have to suspend the sanction to get TRM to agree to stop being hostile when frustrated, and it effects the desired change in behavior, then I'm fine with that. And if it doesn't, then no one can say we didn't provide the opportunity. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 07:47, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Vanamonde93, see my comment to Rob, above: it's less about being held hostage and more about getting the behavior to stop. If TRM is willing to agree to conduct himself professionally and the change sticks, suspending or lifting the sanction is something I'm willing to look at. It's certainly not the only solution I will consider, but again, I don't see a lot of workable options for getting this to stop. A targeted TBAN for main page-related activities has been suggested, but I suspect that would result in the abrasiveness simply being moved to another area, rather than done away with entirely. Softlavender's proposal is interesting but has some issues with over-restriction of non-problematic behavior, which is something I'd prefer to avoid. Maybe it could be amended to say that TRM must refrain from mentioning editors when criticizing edits or content, but I feel like the definition of "criticizing" would be problematic to enforce in the same way that speculating on competence has been problematic to enforce. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 06:48, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• I rarely comment about AE, because I find the proces so often unsatisfactory. But I'm making an exception, because the history of this shows why. Talking only generally: It does work when there is general agreement among admins about what actions violate the remedy, and what level of sanction is appropriate. But when there is disagreement--even if that disagreement involves only one or two admins among those who concern themselves with the matter--there can be effective stalemate. Any one admin who refuses to enforce a sanction, or who does enforce one, can force the discussion to escalate. The challenge is to find sanctions that clever determined people cannot game, and considering the actual people involved, we have not always been able to do that. Sometimes, the only way is a topic ban or a ban, which can cause us to lose a critical individual--there are areas in WP where one person does seem irreplaceable. All we have is our threat of doing this regardless of the apparent damage to the content of the encyclopedia. DGG ( talk ) 18:56, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

---

Withdrawn by initiator
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Initiated by Hijiri88 at 12:38, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] Case or decision affected Catflap08 and Hijiri88 arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t) Clauses to which an amendment is requested Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Catflap08 and Hijiri88#TH1980 and Hijiri88 interaction banned List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request Hijiri88 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator) TH1980 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request diff of notification TH1980 Information about amendment request Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Catflap08 and Hijiri88#TH1980 and Hijiri88 interaction banned <Stricken on appeal> or <Suspended for six months, after which it will lapse> (see below) Statement by Hijiri88 (This is a drastically trimmed version, without extraneous diffs/permalinks/elaboration. I didn't think it was necessary to present multiple reasons other than "I don't want this anymore" when I first came here. Please see here for the earlier text, which including multiple replies to WTT went well over 1000 words.) I want this IBAN removed for the following reasons: It didn't properly serve its original intended purpose of protecting me from hounding. TH1980 continued going around reverting my edits (I was unable to report him without violating by separately but simultaneously imposed "Japanese culture" TBAN) for months until he was eventually TBANned himself. Since the community-imposed TBAN serves the function of preventing his hounding me more effectively than the original IBAN, the original IBAN is redundant. Even now TH1980 is still clearly stalking my edits, as the diffs he presented below come from multiple unrelated discussions spread out over the two years since he and I last interacted, including my conflict with a sockpuppeteer/troll on the Game of Thrones articles, an area of the project he has never shown any interest in, and that conflict ended with the editor's being blocked in August 2017, since which time I've made over 10,000 edits. There's no way he found these diffs by going back and reviewing my edit history in response to me filing this appeal, but rather he was clearly monitoring my edits closely, constantly, for the last two years, and keeping a record of the stuff that he could use to make it look like I was violating or skirting my other restrictions. (Which restrictions, by the way, are not related to this IBAN, so his talking about them, even here in response to an IBAN appeal, is almost certainly not covered under BANEX.) I have trouble talking about hounding/IBANs in general without running the risk of editors thinking I am skirting the boundaries of my IBAN. I do not want to be subject to any unnecessary editing restrictions. I do not want to have to think about TH1980 anymore, and his name appearing next to mine on WP:RESTRICT (a place a lot of editors seem to go to get information on editors they interact with on various noticeboards around the project; whether this is appropriate for them to be doing or not is irrelevant, as it is a simple fact that they do) forces me to from time to time. TH1980 (and some other stuff) made editing Wikipedia a fairly miserable experience for me in 2015, and being continuously subject to an editing restriction just because he wants me to be just doesn't seem healthy. I honestly don't think I can go on editing if I'm to be subjected to a permanent restriction because TH1980 hounded me, I requested an IBAN, and now he wants to keep the IBAN, apparently for no reason other than that I want it removed. (Note that TH1980 has never supported any proposal that I supported; this was the main form his original hounding took.[40] ) I want to be able to edit the articles TH1980 followed me to, without having to worry about accidentally undoing one of his edits. On one occasion earlier this year, I was working on Korean influence on Japanese culture, came across some questionable text and tagged it, but on suspicion it was added by TH1980 I had to email another editor to rewrite or remove it, as, suspecting it might be related to TH1980 I was reluctant to do it myself. (Yes, I recently confirmed it was added by him, with a misleading edit summary, and said addition being a deliberate re-addition of text I had previously removed was itself an IBAN-violation, so as a ban-violation itself it probably needed to be undone regardless, but I can't do it.) Multiple editors (one in particular, but he's not the only one) have brought up my IBAN with TH1980 in completely unrelated discussions on ANI and elsewhere, either when I was engaged in a conflict with another editor or when I simply commented on an ANI thread in which I was uninvolved (or reported a general problem on ANI, in which I had been previously uninvolved). They have done this in a manner that implies I was subjected to this IBAN because of my own disruptive behaviour, rather than because I made a specific request for an IBAN to protect me from harassment. I recognize that I was subject to other restrictions due to my own disruption, but those are not the ones under discussion. And even if I was still subject to those, I could respond by saying "Yeah, but..." with in however much detail as was necessary, but I can't say "That ban was put in place on my request because the other editor was hounding me", since mentioning the other editor in that fashion would generally be taken as an IBAN-violation in itself. (Diffs and quotes of some of this was sent by email to WTT.) For the above reasons, I would very much like this IBAN removed, or at least amended in such a manner as to address the above issues. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:33, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] <Cut for length> I have not been subject to any kind of 1RR restriction, even a suspended one, for months. I am a little concerned that TH1980 thinks the IBAN will allow him to get away with complaining about my supposed edit-warring with someone more than a year ago. This kind of comment is almost certainly not covered under BANEX, regardless of whether it is taking place on ARCA. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:25, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] Withdrawn Okay, I know when to admit defeat. Maybe I'll take the blatant IBAN violations in TH1980's statement below to AE (including a fairly explicit admission to having followed my edits quite closely for the two years since being told not to last time I took him to AE). Or maybe ANI, since the TBAN violations (which are almost as blatant) can't be handled on AE. I'm not sure if I'm allowed report TBAN violations in cases like this: I know if they weren't also IBAN violations I couldn't, but in this case I would be reporting them as IBAN violations first, and mentioning as an aside that they are also TBAN violations. I'm also not sure if it's technically acceptable to report ArbCom remedy violations on ANI rather than AE; Catflap's ;ast logged-in TBAN-violations were, but that might have been an anomaly. Anyway, I'll have to figure out these issues (someone explicitly telling me would be nice) before moving forward. But I really can't see anyone telling me I am required to continue to put up with this. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:35, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] Floq: What do you mean about criticizing the quality of the other person's edits? I was explaining how it came about that I reverted their edit back in 2015, before the IBAN was in place. I have not discussed the quality of any edits TH1980 has made since the IBAN was put in place (saying the edit summary was misleading is not an attack on the quality of the edit). Also, ANI is not my primary activity here, and I honestly have no idea where you would get that impression: my mainspace to WP: space edit ratio is roughly 3:1, and that includes a not-insignificant contribution to RSN and other content noticeboards, and AFD. I basically only hang around ANI when I am busy in real life and unable to do the research necessary to write good articles (or when I have a problem with a particular user, but I think my experience with both CurtisNaito in 2013-2015, and my experience with another editor earlier this year, should prove pretty handily that I only use ANI as an absolute last resort in those cases (CurtisNaito followed me around for over two years, and I never brought it to ANI, until he brought me to ANI, at which point I hadn't posted on ANI in so long that no one even knew who I was; this year I only brought another dispute to ANI after the other editor had repeatedly questioned my mental state). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:22, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] "came across some questionable text" is not a reference to any specific edit but merely to a sentence of the article as I found it live; I didn't find out that it was written by TH1980 until almost a year later (earlier this week, while filing this report); and again, the questionable text in question was written several months before the IBAN was put in place. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:49, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] Statement by TH1980 I'd prefer that my IBAN with Hijiri88 not be lifted. Just checking the diffs that were presented in the original Arbcom case, there are dozens of instances of Hijiri88 making false and harassing statements against me. (For example, [41]). There were also a lot of cases of Hijiri88 stalking me to articles that he had never edited before, just to revert reliably sourced and accurate information I had added. (For example, [42]). If Hijiri88 doesn't intend on continuing to engage in harassment or stalking, as he claims above, then there's really no reason to lift the IBAN. Even in the text above, Hijiri88 is engaging in mischaracterization. As he points out, I did accidentally mention his name once, but I deleted that post within minutes, well before the AE case even opened. Hijiri88 left out the fact that in the same AE case, he was discovered to have mentioned me by name as well, in clear violation of the IBAN, and, in contrast, he did not delete these posts until after the AE case. He also claims that he amended a passage in the article about Korean influence on Japanese culture to better reflect the source, but that isn't true, since my passage was a direct, word-for-word quote from the original source. When I later expanded the article, I merely incidentally changed the direct quote to a paraphrase of the original, and that, of course, related to an edit Hijiri88 made long before the IBAN was imposed. I suspect that lifting this IBAN could cause considerable disruption in the Wikipedia community. In the Arbcom case, Hijiri88 and Catflap08 received a mutual IBAN, which has now been lifted. However, if you look at Hijiri88's recent posts, he wastes an inordinate amount of Wikipedia community time calling Catflap08 "a NOTHERE troll, a tendentious POV-pusher, or too incompetent to read sources and accurately summarize what they say", posting a false claim on Catflap08's talk page that Catflap08 was blocked for harassing him (though a quick look at Catflap08's block record shows that that is clearly NOT the reason why he was blocked), ranting about Catflap08 at the administrator's noticeboard [43][44], and mentioning Catflap08 in other contexts.[45] In other words, lifting an IBAN between Hijiri88 and another user is something we can't do lightly, as Hijiri88 uses that as an excuse to engage in a really egregious level of grave dancing. It would save the Wikipedia community's time if he remained unable to make similar harassing statements against me. In general, I don't think Arbcom's enforcement of its decision has been very good. For example, Arbcom imposed a one-revert rule restriction on Hijiri88 as part of its original decision, but Hijiri88 doesn't appear to have ever truly abided by it. He simply asked other users to make the extra reverts for him.[46][47][48] I would like my IBAN to be preserved, and I hope that it will actually be enforced, unlike so much else of the original Arbcom case.TH1980 (talk) 23:23, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] @Worm That Turned: Hijiri88 said above "the text might have been added by TH1980, and when I checked the history to confirm I had to email Nishidani to deal with it." Was this a violation of the IBAN? Is it appropriate for Hijiri88 to be e-mailing other users to have them make edits that he himself is unable to make due to the IBAN? I wouldn't mind an official ruling on this, because I am concerned about Arbcom's enforcement of its decision, and Hijiri88 was found in the Arbcom case to have repeatedly violated a previous IBAN with Catflap08. As seen above, was Hijiri88 allowed, as he did many times, to ask other users to make reverts that he could not make himself due to the one-revert rule restriction? Likewise, is Hijiri88 allowed to ask other users to revert edits that he himself cannot due to an IBAN?TH1980 (talk) 23:30, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] Statement by Floq It would actually be useful if an Arb did answer Hijiri's revised question before this is closed. If they do, it might be useful to point out the hypocrisy of Hijiri's complaining the other editor has violated the i-ban in this request, when Hijiri has been doing the same thing (for one example, criticizing the quality of the other editor's edit). Hijiri should note that an admin might very well close such an AE request by unilaterally (no consensus required at AE) blocking him, so ANI (where consensus is required) would be safer for him. But at some point, I assume a critical mass of people are going to notice that Hijiri gets involved in conflict All. The. Time. It's his primary activity here. Who knows, perhaps the coming ANI thread will be the place where this happens. An Arb might be able to save him from himself by pointing this out here, before the thread is closed as withdrawn. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:12, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] Replying to @Hijiri88: (and pinging @TH1980: because it affects them too) "...came across some questionable text and tagged it, but on suspicion it was added by TH1980 I had to email another editor to rewrite or remove it..."; describing it that way strikes me as much a iban violation as TH1980's similar violations (with the added concern that asking someone else to make the edit for you was a violation of the iban as well). IMHO, you're both violating your iban here, and if it didn't look like this request was about to be archived, I would have suggested an arb or clerk warn you both to stop it. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:41, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] Statement by other editor Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the amendment request or provide additional information. Catflap08 and Hijiri88: Clerk notes This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals). Catflap08 and Hijiri88: Arbitrator views and discussion I'm generally unwilling to lift a 2-way IBAN when one party is against it and I'm not seeing a strong need for Hijiri88 to have it lifted, so I'm a decline WormTT(talk) 10:22, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] Not quite Hijiri88 - it was made to a two-way IBAN because 1-way IBANs do not work well. Simply, IBANs are useful when users don't get along for a long period, and that's what's happened here. As I say, if there is an IBAN in place, and one user wants it to stay - there needs to be a damn good reason for me to agree to its dismissal. There isn't one here. WormTT(talk) 13:13, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] The restriction you refer to is specifically leaving someone alone, someone who you believe has hounded you in the past. They are similarly restricted. This allows you to get on and edit, and him to get on and edit, and everyone else to... get on and edit. The rhetoric of having a "target painted on your head" doesn't help your cause - there's no target unless you can't leave the editor alone. WormTT(talk) 13:39, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] I too think it best to leave the ban in place. DGG ( talk ) 19:03, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] I'm not seeing a need to lift the ban at this time. RickinBaltimore (talk) 20:02, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply] Hijiri88 has withdrawn their ARCA request and so I think this can be closed. Mkdw talk 00:09, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]