Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Michael Hardy/Evidence

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The Evidence phase for this case has closed. Any further edits to this page may be reverted by an arbitrator or arbitration clerk without further reason. If you need to make further edits to the page please make a request on the talk page.

If you wish to submit evidence, please do so in a new section (or in your own section, if you have already have one). Do not edit anyone else's section. If you made a statement in the case request the clerks will have copied it here for you, please do not modify it. Your initial statement does not count in the word and diff limits for this page. Please keep your evidence concise, and within the prescribed limits. If you wish to exceed the prescribed limits on evidence length, you must obtain the written consent of an arbitrator before doing so; you may ask for this on the Evidence talk page. Evidence that exceeds the prescribed limits without permission, or that contains inappropriate material or diffs, may be refactored, redacted or removed by a clerk or arbitrator without warning.

Any editor may add evidence to this page, irrespective of whether they are involved in the dispute. You must submit evidence in your own section. Editors who change other users' evidence may be sanctioned; if you have a concern with or objection to another user's evidence, contact the committee by e-mail or on the talk page. The standard limits for all evidence submissions are: 1000 words and 100

. You must focus on the issues that are important to the dispute and submit diffs which illustrate the nature of the dispute or will be useful to the committee in its deliberations.

You must use the prescribed format in your evidence. Evidence should include a link to the actual page diff in question, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are inadequate. Never link to a

if you are not sure how to create a page diff.

The Arbitration Committee expects you to make rebuttals of other evidence submissions in your own section, and for such rebuttals to explain how or why the evidence in question is incorrect; do not engage in tit-for-tat on this page. Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop, which is open for comment by parties, Arbitrators, and others. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact, or remedies, Arbitrators vote at /Proposed decision. Only arbitrators and clerks may edit the proposed decision page.

Preliminary statement by Boing! said Zebedee

Nothing more to add

I don't anticipate offering any further evidence, as it all seems to have been presented already. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 22:16, 11 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Preliminary statement by Michael Hardy

There is no reason for all this.

There is no reason for de-sysop-ing since I have in no way abused administrative tools. The closest I've seen anyone come to a reason is that an administrator should know the various rules applicable to matters raised at ANI. That is an error: There are _other_ uses of administrative tools than those. I have no intention of participating in ANI-type things; I dislike acrimony and I have no stomach for that. (Is there really any administrator who is well versed in ALL things done with administrative tools?) In particular, one thing I have done with administrative tools is looking at deleted articles in order to participate in discussions with people who read them, including their authors (sometimes done via email), and forming an opinion on the merits of the deletion (which potentially could affect the fate of the article). Other things I have done include merging of edit histories and moving pages over redirects that were not always redirects (that requires deletion of the redirect, and sometimes I restore the edit history after that). I have also sometimes edited the main page. None of that involves abuse of administrative tools. The fact that I responded to bullying, gratuitous disrespect, and dishonesty by making accusations of bullying, accusations of gratuitous disrespect, and accusations of dishonesty does not constitute abuse of administrative tools. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:36, 11 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

diffs . . .

Tarage bemoans a dismaying "level of competence being displayed". I daresay with matters to which I devote effort, Tarage would be found wanting in level of professional competence compared to me, but this whole process leaves me with progressively less motivation to treat it with respect and I haven't paid all that much attention to it. There are worthwhile things to do. My use of admin tools has never been involved with dispute resolution, a process for which I have no stomach. I accused Tarage of extraordinarily disrespectful messages to me, and I'll post the diff soon if I'm not too busy, and I guess that makes it worthwhile for Tarage to post things like that. Do I have any "level of competence" beyond that of a rock in using the dispute-resolution aspects of an admin's tools? I hope not.

"clerks"

I find a user bemoaning the fact that I don't even understand what a "clerk" does. All I can say about that is that life is too short to waste on understanding something like that, and I use the word "waste" advisedly.

Guy Macon's anger

• I responded politely and respectfully to Guy Macon's question here.
• Guy Macon responded to that with anger here. He says I ignored the fact that he had asked me a question, by asking one of my own, but my own question was for the purpose of deciding whether or how to respond to his question; it was the opposite of ignoring his question. His anger continues to be expressed frequently. I have no idea what motivates it.
• If a random Wikipedia administrator is asked by a random stranger whether he wants to be de-sysopped, does anyone expect him not to ask why that is proposed? (Besides Guy Macon, who called that "unmitigated gall" (in the second diff above).)

Comments by MRD2014 and Callmemirela

An editor ordered me not to dispute anything he said and not to ask him questions. That is the worst behavior of a Wikipedia editor that I have ever seen. @MRD2014: and @Callmemirela: accuse me of ordering another user not to disagree with me and not to ask me questions. That is nothing but out-of-context quoting. I was the one who was objecting to such behavior, not the one who was committing it.

MjolnirPants's statements in context

This behavior of MjolnirPants needs to be understood in its proper context, but some people are describing it by saying "he got a bit impatient". Some account of the context is needed to prevent such misunderstanding. MjolnirPant posted two comments about an article I had created when I disputed one and asked a question about the other, MjolnirPants informed me that he was my benefactor and that my engaging in discussion rather than remaining silent was something I was doing INSTEAD OF working further on the article. In fact I was the one who wanted to work further on the article and MjolnirPants was clear that he did not; this was not instead of anything unless I was obligate to limit my activities on Wikipedia to what he told me to do.

Adding another item to the incomplete list

As I said, I really don't keep track of which of my activities depend on administrator's tools, but here's another item I remembered as a result of using it in recent hours: occasional edits to material transcluded into the main page. (I'll add other examples as they arise....)

Double standard

Someone can accuse me of incivility by quoting out of context to make it appear that I forbade another user to disagree with me, when in fact a user forbidding another user to disagree is exactly what I objected to. That is not considered a personal attack, but an accusation, and so it is, although erroneous. But when I said another user addressed me in language suitable only to an overseer addressing a plantation slave, I am told that is a personal attack. So instead I will rephrase my earlier statement and instead say this: (1) Another user ordered me not to express disagreement with him (I've posted the diff here three times), and (2) That is the principal thing I objected to in that user's behavior, and (3) in my opinion, ordering another user not to express disagreement with one's views is behavior suitable only to a master addressing a slave.

Editing while not logged in

Softlavender states at length that administrators are forbidden to edit Wikipedia articles while not logged in. None of the policies he links to backs that up. Could we get an explicit ruling on that point?

PS: Softlavender says my statement above misrepresents what he said. That's just splitting hairs. I've never used more than one account on Wikipedia nor attempted to avoid scrutiny nor to deceive anyone.

Softlavender asks me to provide an IP number for my logged-out editing. I cannot, because when I edit from a home computer my ISP changes those numbers every day or two, and when I edit from machines in libraries, university campuses, and other places, I keep no record of the edit. Soflavender says I run afoul of

]

Grossly out-of-context quoting from M. A. Bruhn

M. A. Bruhn quotes edit summaries that could be read by those unfamiliar with the context as instances of my calling someone "psychotic". I told people they shouldn't use software packages that generate LaTeX code for use in Wikipedia articles because those packages generate code that has purposeless complications making editing difficult and such code looks as if it was written by a psychotic. @M. A. Bruhn: Could you revise those so as not to create a misleading appearance?

Preliminary statement by MjolnirPants

Michael Hardy

Michael has lately been arguing primarily that Guy Macon ([1], [2] & [3]) has done something wrong, which I find greatly troubling, as Guy's 'offense' was to demonstrate some empathy for Michael ([4] look at the edit summary: Guy's clearly making an effort to be congenial here). He's completely avoided addressing his own behavior, except to blame others ([5]), cast accusations against anyone who disagrees with him ([6] and the diffs about Guy, above), demonstrated a profound disconnect between the way he sees his actions and the way others see them ([7]), failed to cooperate with these proceedings, or even to understand how they work ([8]) and even denigrated them ([9]).

One can argue that he's never abused his tool: This is false, as has been adequately documented by others. It also ignores the fact that

was the one who turned this into a big stink. but none of those arguments addresses the fact that Michael got into a minor argument, blew it out of proportion, refused to drop the stick even after being told by numerous people and has demonstrated a profound lack of understanding or respect for the policies and processes of Wikipedia.

Finally, regarding that last argument I mentioned in the previous paragraph, here are all of Michael's edits concerning this issue, prior to the ArbCom request. If you click through those, you'll find no lack of hyperbole, accusations, aspersion and sarcasm. There are even some bald-faced lies in there. It seems to me like Michael was doing more than his fair share to call attention to this and feed the drama, as it were. I counted the edits made by Boing, as well. He had 5 fewer edits. I suppose one could argue that he contributed as much as Michael by overreacting. But here's the thing: Maybe his reaction was based on the completely understandable shock at seeing an admin act like a brand new editor with a persecution complex. (For the record, that "maybe" was sarcastic.) I'd be shocked, too. Perhaps I would overreact, and perhaps Boing's initial block was an overreaction. (I doubt anyone would suggest that if Michael were, in fact, a new editor.) But Boing demonstrated the ability to listen to others. I want anyone who disagrees to note the timestamp on that diff. This was very early in the drama. Boing didn't even participate in the subsequent thread Michael opened about me at ANI. So I think it's fair to say that blaming Boing is just wrong. That just leaves one person responsible for this drama, and it ain't Jimbo. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 17:56, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Michael Hardy's statement in the section titled after me

I just read it. Every statement of fact within it is either a distortion or flatly untrue. This is, I suspect, why he has thus far chosen not to back his accusations up with diffs. I never told him I was his "benefactor" (nor used any equivalent language), I never told him I was unwilling to help work on the article (I've since implied that I would have been willing, intentionally), I never told him I'd hat the page if he made any Wikipedia edits other than to edit the article (I told him I would hat it if he kept responding on my page without making changes to his article), I never 'ordered' him to do anything, I never told him what his place was in anything... Absolutely nothing in that statement is true. The more he speaks, the more I start to question when his claims pass from accusations into personal attacks. After this last one, I certainly feel personally attacked.(struck portions referred to portions of Michael's post which have since been removed) MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 19:21, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Preliminary statement by NeilN

Michael Hardy falls below the standards outlined in

WP:ADMINCOND

Beyond my statement above, please look at the following: [13] Now, arbs, who among you would respond this way? [14] The response indicates a blatant disingenuous or a lack of competence to parse a simple English sentence. Hardy follows up his attempt at deflection with this entirely wrong assertion. [15] Editors often use "we" as a matter of necessity. "We don't accept unsourced contentious statements in BLPs." "We decided to do x." (after an RFC is closed) Yes, this is a trivial bit of evidence. But add that to what Hardy has said above: "Out of the blue he asked whether I would want to be de-sysop-ed when I had no idea such a thing was being considered by anyone". [16] Guy's question [17] came hours after the block and these posts. [18] If Hardy truly thinks the question was "out of the blue" his judgment is once again seriously lacking. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 03:32, 13 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Almost two weeks after the situation that triggered this case we have this. One would think Michael Hardy would have the sense and judgment to drop the accusation he has repeatedly provided no diff for. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 06:43, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.

Preliminary statement by M. A. Bruhn

MH posts bitey message to Mim.cis's talkpage, Mim.cis ceases editing

Mim.cis (contributions) is apparently an expert on computational anatomy associated with John Hopkins. They started editing in November and maintained over 241 edits a month until May (link to edit count). In the time they were here they created the following articles:

.

On May 5th MH posts a message on Mim.cis's talkpage titled "TOO MANY CAPITAL LETTERS" which scolds Mim.cis for creating problems for others to fix. Mim.cis posts to MH's talkpage stating they didn't realize there were issues with their capitalization and asks MH to explain more, and MH responds explaining to only capitalize the first word at the start of sections/articles unless there's a reason to do so otherwise. After posting to MH's talkpage, Mim.cis only makes four more additional edits, all within a month. Since then their account has made no further edits.

Statperson123 stops editing after interaction with MH

User Statperson123 (contributions) made their first edit on 17 January by creating the article Vector generalized linear model. Between then and 25 January they make over 200 additional edits to the article. On 26 January MH makes three edits in a row to that page, the first one with the edit summary "a vast amount of formatting cleanup". After this he posts to their talkpage. There's no more activity from Statperson123 since.

Before forming a judgement I would recommend looking at these two articles versions, and trying to find any differences:

• Version last edited by Statperson123
• Version after MH's edits

The bulk of MH's admin actions could still be performed by granting Page Mover Status

I defined "In the last year" to mean from the start of August 2015.

• Blocks: he hasn't performed a block/unblock in 4 years (31 August 2012).
• Total deletions and Deletions from last year: in the last year he has made 14 deletions and 4 restorations. 12 of those 14 deletions contain the edit summary "G6: Deleted to make way for move".
• Moves from last year: he has made 166 moves.
• Page protections: one from over ten years ago

The rest appear empty to me, but I may have missed some...

MH exhibits consistent problematic behavior unbefitting an admin

I don't know how to best illustrate long-term problematic behavior that just barely glides under the radar. I've gone ahead and just posted one example per month this year of such behavior which I feel highlights incivility, lack of familiarity with policy, biteyness towards new users, and condescension when discussing minor MOS/MATHMOS corrections.

• January: “I think the "essay-like" tag not only has no merit but is probably the work of a crack-pot, and the "technical" tag is unreasonable.”

• February: “The TeX code in this article was written by a psychotic. This cleans it up somewhat.”

• March: Deletes speedy deletion template on article he created.

• April: “Unilateral page moves without engaging in discussion”

• May: How they tell a new user not to capitalize the first letter of each word in article titles/section headings.

• June: “Obviously \setminus has the spacing appropriate to binary operation symbols and \backslash does not.”

• July: How they notify a 4-day old account of their article being proposed for deletion

I can understand letting an admin slide here and there, but is this really appropriate for an administrator?

@Michael Harvey: Per his statements I will mention that his comment about a psychotic is not personally directed at a specific editor, and that Harvey intended his comment to be directed at a computer program which he presumes an editor used to generate the LaTeX that they posted rather than at the editor themselves. M. A. Bruhn (talk) 05:36, 29 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Michael Hardy has been Uncivil

Evidence of incivility by admin Michael Hardy: [19][20]. Also, when Guy Macon politely told him to not post on his talk page for any longer, he didn't honor that request, he just criticized him. More: failure to AGF, failure to drop the stick, [21], [22]. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 17:34, 11 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.

Hardy did not abuse his tools

Self-evident, but apparently this needs to be said because everyone seems to have lost their mind. Please don't try to dig up dirt from 2012.

Nothing egregious happened

The "disruption" is a grand total of two ANI cases over two days, both dismissed very quickly. The second one probably never would have happened without the ill-considered block by Boing! said Zebedee, which they, to their credit, reversed quickly. All other drama is people poking Hardy (mostly on Hardy's talkpage) and Hardy replying to them, mostly but not always civilly. No less than 15(!) distinct people (many multiple times) posted on Hardy's talkpage, mostly unsolicited, about this matter. List of people: MjolnirPants, Dane2007, Cullen328, Tarage, NeilN, BSZ, SPhilbrick, Guy Macon, Orange Mike, Callmemirela, Omni Flames, Trovatore, Linguist111, Miniapolis, Opabinia Regalis. Many of them were well-intentioned, but many were aggressive, offering unsolicited opinions about how Hardy is not fit to be an admin any more. It's easy to fix this: stop posting on Hardy's talkpage (or anywhere else) about this matter.

The dispute had already cooled down by the time this ArbCom case was opened

The article at the center of the dispute is now at AfD where it is being handled appropriately. Since the 2nd ANI case was closed, there has been basically no drama whatsoever.

Also please see the timeline in my original statement and GoldenRing's timeline, which is more detailed but covers a smaller time period. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 19:54, 11 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Background: When I noticed this case at ANI, as far as I could tell, nobody had ever asked Michael Hardy whether he actually wants to be a Wikipedia administrator. So I asked.[23]

Note that I was very careful to not express any opinion about the behavior of Michael Hardy or the person he accused when he posted to ANI. I was not just following

; at the time I really had no opinion about Michael Hardy's repeated claims of being bullied.

All I wanted to do was to save everybody time and effort. Before starting a time-consuming arbcom case that may have the result of removing the admin bit, shouldn't we at least ask him whether he wants to be an admin?

My post to his talk page was a good-faith attempt at kindness; I figured that there was at least a 25% chance that he never wanted the tools in the first place and would have no problem asking that they be removed. I figured that If I was right, it would have avoided a lot of unpleasantness, and if I was wrong, he would simply say he wants to keep the tools and that would be the end of it. I certainly would welcome a concerned editor having a word with me on my talk page if it looked like I was headed for arbcom.

Regarding Michael Hardy's repeated (and, as usual, diif-free) claims that I posted my question without explaining why I was asking,[24][25][26][27][28] My reason for asking was contained in the words "considering the discussion at [ link to ANI thread ],...".`

Here is the ANI thread as it looked when I asked my question:[29] Here is the archived version: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive930#This is an admin!

Here are some quotes that MH would have seen if he had clicked on that link:

• "Do we really have to put up with admins like this who give us all a bad name?"[30]

• "I'm saying that he isn't using the tools, hasn't used them for quite a while, and is probably "badly out of touch with current admin expectations"."[31]

• " [ Michael Hardy is ] one of the early Admins who was simply granted the tools - so far as I can see without requesting them. He got them Dec 2003, and his last use was to unblock someone about 4 years ago, and before then in 2010. I'd like to see him resign the tools."[32](emphasis added.)

• "Yes, I completely agree that old-days admins who haven't used admin tools in years and who are badly out of touch with current admin expectations should lose them, ideally by resigning."[33] (emphasis added.)

Linking to the ANI thread instead of copying all of those negative comments to his talk page was a kindness. I was trying to avoid humiliating him any further.

An admin should have the basic competence to understand that when someone starts a paragraph with the words "considering the discussion at [ link to ANI thread ]" the reasons why they wrote the paragraph can be found by clicking on that link.

Michael Hardy lacks the temperament required of a Wikipedia administrator

I have certain expectations when I ask a Wikipedia administrator a reasonable question. I pretty much always get a clear answer, or perhaps a followup question if my question was unclear. You don't realize how easy it is to collaborate with the average admin until you run into one who acts the way this one acts. Instead of simply answering my question, Michael Hardy evaded the question and tried to get me to help him fight MjolnirPants.[34] (The "I need to know the purpose of your question before I answer" song and dance came later.)

Michael Hardy has a battleground mentality

At this point I disengaged and unwatched his talk page, because it became clear that Michael Hardy was far more interested in sucking me into his fight with MjolnirPants than he was in answering a good-faith question about whether we really need to invest the time and effort of an arbcom case. I disengaged, stopped responding, and unwatched his talk page. That should have been the end of it.

Then he tried to restart the fight on my talk page.[35] and when I asked him to not post to my talk page,[36] he did it again,[37][38] violating the law of holes, This shows a battleground mentality and is, in my opinion, conduct unbecoming of an administrator. I could ask a thousand admins if they were willing to voluntarily resign, and not a single one of them would refuse to answer or accuse me of "posting a personal question on a stranger's talk page." That's simply not how admins behave when someone questions their behavior.

Links:

• User talk:Michael Hardy#Would you be willing to request a voluntary desysop?
• User talk:Guy Macon#Demanding answers to questions
• User talk:Guy Macon#Personal questions to strangers

Michael Hardy makes dubious statements about misbehavior of other editors, refuses to provide diffs

Michael Hardy keeps posting descriptions of his interactions with other users with no diffs.[39][40][41][42] Multiple people have told him his description of events is not what happened[43] and have asked him to supply diffs,[44][45] but I have yet to see him do so. That's another thing that is pretty much normal behavior when conversing with admins; if you ask for a diff to a claim about what someone said, they simply provide the diff with no drama or accusations of bad faith. You don't miss that kind of behavior until you run into an administrator who doesn't behave that way.

Michael Hardy excuses his behavior by referring to what other editors did.

Even after this case was filed and he should have been his best behavior, Michael Hardy has shown no understanding of why so many people are reacting in a negative way, and has doubled down with a series of

Two wrongs do not make a right.

There once was a drunk driver who was driving the wrong way on the freeway. Upon hearing on the radio (over the honking horns) that there was a drunk driver who was driving the wrong way on the freeway, he peered through his windshield, noticed all of the headlights heading toward him, and exclaimed "My God! There are DOZENS of them!!"

Evidence presented by MRD2014

Incivility, refusing to drop the stick, but no abuse of tools

Michael Hardy has not been civil, like on Tarage's talk page saying he forbid Tarage to disagree with him, which he also did on ANI and gave the section the title of "I forbid anyone to disagree with me!!". He also would not drop the stick. M. A. Bruhn looked through the ANI archives and brought up these. Patient Zero was appalled that Michael Hardy is still an admin. I also want to say that he has not abused the admin tools: only one protection (eleven years ago), deletions were mainly for pages blocking page moves, and the last block came six years ago. Michael Hardy also clarified that another Wikipedian ordered MH to not disagree with him. Retracted first part of statement because I misunderstood what happened. —MRD2014 T C 14:35, 12 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing to see here as far as abuse of admin buttons is concerned

I hope the Committee will try to keep in mind that in the "old days" it really wasn't a big deal to give a person access to buttons as long as it was pretty obvious that the person in question wouldn't abuse them. 100,000 admins using the buttons once in a while would comport to the "old school wiki way" much more than 30 or 40 super-active admins doing all the work and getting upset at any all-caps ADMIN that dared to question them.

A few questions about his use of the tools from 2008 and earlier have been brought to light, but these were not recent, and MH currently uses the tools in a helpful but often unlogged manner [49], avoiding conflict and conflict resolution.

The origin of the hooplah

This all seems to have started with Micheal Hardy writing a short new article that falls within the wheelhouse of the

ran across the article while patrolling for fringiness, and left a perhaps a bit too imperative message on Michael's page about it. Michael then tried to engage MjolnirPants in argumentation about the validity and policies involved. MjolnirPants mistook Michael's argumentation for being argumentative (and perhaps TL;DR), and gave an even more imperative reply. Micheal then mistook MjolnirPants's imperative stance for imperiousness, and brought it to AN/I hoping for outsiders to resolve the dispute. AN/I closed the discussion without resolution to his complaint (instead -- bizarrely -- blocking him and then reversing the block), and he started a new thread (he clearly doesn't understand the culture of AN/I, which is enviable), then was accused of being a "bad admin".

To be clear: MjolnirPants's comment here was dismissive to the point of being insulting. Why he and a number of others are not parties to the case when Micheal Hardy is a party is mysterious.

How the hooplah became this mess

User:Guy Macon was apparently offended by Mr. Hardy's behavior at AN/I, and took it upon himself to speak for the community and demand that Michael resign as an admin. Micheal, apparently unaware of the way the culture has shifted lately, was surprised and offended by this. One or two other people who really have nothing to do with all of this got involved and supported bringing this case. Micheal is clearly really unhappy about being dragged into a process that he has apparently never paid attention to, and has typed some things that are certainly impolitic.

I'm pretty sure that sums this up in its entirety.

Word count: 462 words. Diff count: 22

Lack of civility

Michael has been uncivil on occasions: [50], [51].

Disruptive/Battleground mentality

After Michael filed their initial ANI thread and it was closed [52], he opened another thread regarding the same topic [53]. No admin should act this way.

Michael goes by his rules. When Guy Macon asked him to not post on his talk page [54], he ignored the message and went on to post another message [55] [56].

Refusal to drop the stick

Michael is adamant that pursuing the issue at hand and the same argument is going to solve everything. He refused to drop the stick during this whole chaos. He was told by more than one editor and two admins that Mjoir (sp?) was not bullying or personally attacking Michael. He didn't listen. [57], [58], [59], [60], [61], [62], [63].

I then posted on his talk page [64]. That didn't improve the situation. As per the section above (Disruptive/Battleground mentality), he opened another ANI thread copied from his reply to my message on his talk page [65].

I had refrained from commenting further and just watch the drama unfold when Michael, again refusing to drop the stick, by posting on my talk page on August 19 [66]. This user refuses to let it go.

Makes false accusations

Michael has made false and absurd accusations against me. He accuses me of accusing him of a behvior explained in his message on my talk page: [67] (also this edit). I have never said such. If I have, someone please direct me to a diff.

After he posted on my talk page, I requested that he not post on my talk page as he was refusing to let it go, had a battleground mentality and was making false accusations against me: [68]. Now he claims that I am harassing him without providing any evidence and I have not done so: [69]. I have only posted on his talk page three times (not including fixes to indentation; can be confirmed here). I have never interacted with him beyond the ANI report and here. Yet he accuses me of harassment.

Conclusion

All in all, Michael is unfit to be an admin. It's as if a teengager took over the keyboard and when things didn't go their way, hell breaks loose. He is not up-to-date with current policies and guidelines. He pursues the same argument and worsens the situation. You would not expect this from an admin; I certainly don't. I was appalled. An admin would look at the situation at hand, act civilly and try to fix the mess that was caused. No, Michael ran to ANI, claiming it's the other user's fault. And when NeilN close his thread, he got mad and opened another thread. He is in no position to be an admin based on his behavior lately. No admin should act this way. Plain and simple. Had he gone through the current RfA, he would not had made it. I am more and more against Michael keeping his admin rights.

Michael Hardy refuses to accept any error on his part

It's not hard to find diffs for this, but here's a handful from this very case[70][71]. There are far too many to list because you can see it from every statement he has made. Michael refuses to accept that he has erred at all. From the beginning, he has been running under the mistaken assumption that MjolnirPants was demanding that he not disagree with him. This was never the case, and multiple editors have tried and failed to explain this to him. The issue at hand is that instead of trying to work with MjolnirPants, he went on the attack, giving no indication that he had any desire to make improvements to his article or to work collaboratively. Far more disturbing though is that because he got such backlash from his outburst, he decided it was appropriate to plaster the same sort of "Listen to me or else" argument he thought MjolnirPants was presenting on other's talk pages, mine included. I honestly don't know if this was out of sarcasm or intended to be taken at face value, but either is behavior unbecoming of an administrator. It's petty, uncivil, and uncollaborative.

Michael Hardy has no desire to use his administrator tools to be an administrator

From his own talk page[72]: "One thing I do moderately frequently that a non-administrator cannot do is moving pages over redirects, so your statement about 2012 is not correct. However, I've never attempted to keep up with policies not related to my regular activities." The only thing he uses his tools for is to move pages over redirects. He refuses to keep up to date with current policies, refuses to use his tools for the betterment of Wikipedia, and takes offense when asked if he would be willing to give them up. Michael is a valuable editor, and has contributed much to Wikipedia, but as an administrator he has contributed nothing. The fact remains that even if he never uses his tools, the fact that he has them, and because he does not keep up with policies could use them against said policies, creates a direct chilling effect on anyone who tries to work with him. If he does not use them, does not need them, and refuses to relinquish them, they should be removed from him. --Tarage (talk) 05:08, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Michael Hardy doesn't even understand what a clerk is/does

Again, the diff comes from this very case page[73]: "I now find it explicitly admitted that others have edited this section.", even though the clerk in question left a message on his talk page explicitly explaining why it was edited and even gave him 24 hours notice before doing so. This is an administrator on Wikipedia. This is the level of competence being displayed. --Tarage (talk) 09:03, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I could never understand how events like the

, which then led to drama seekers joining in once they learned MH was an administrator grandfathered in by the previous “RFA.”

Guy Macon then posts a ridiculous question on MH’s talk page [75], akin to walking around your neighborhood asking your neighbors if they would consider moving out. See KingsIndian’s section for more evidence of sniping posts on MH’s page. If the bad block and talk page harassment didn’t occur, we wouldn’t be here. Arbs, please consider this when reviewing MH’s later behavior, as I believe it was provoked by the needless ANI drama and editor’s needlessly chiming in with their opinions on his talk page.

I link to SB_Johnny’s evidence section of MH’s abuse of administrator tools.

MH was mildly uncivil in his later behavior, but measured against the block, talk page harassment, and needless escalation to arbcom this behavior does not warrant a desysop, or further continuation of this charade. The community is more than capable to handle this issue without Arbcom's help. Mr Ernie (talk) 15:23, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is more in the way of a preliminary statement than actual evidence, but too slow to prevent the juggernaut started by the ANI thread.

As background: Michael Hardy is one of the most active and valuable members of

pointers to pages in need of attention or to relevant discussions. An attack on him is an attack on mathematics content in Wikipedia.

Second, it is clear that the locus of the recent dispute did not involve any improper use of admin tools. So to use this dispute as a pretext for removing those tools seems ridiculous.

On to my actual point: if there is a long-term pattern of activity here, it is one that does not involve Michael Hardy specifically. Instead, it is a problematic pattern I have seen with some other admins (not Hardy!) and with the witch-hunt mentality at

:

• A long-term constructive editor happens to fall into a disagreement over something minor with an in-crowd admin. In this case the editor, Hardy, happens to be an admin himself, but that's not important for what happens next.
• The editor tries to discuss the matter with the admin, rather than just immediately agreeing to the admin's side of the dispute. This is misinterpreted as defiance.
• The mob at
  WP:ANI
  , getting wind of the dispute, takes the position that the editor in question failed to bow down before the almighty power of the admin.
• The editor, still seeing no evidence of having done anything wrong, refuses to grovel for forgiveness.
• The
  WP:ANI
  mob sees the refusal to grovel as "not dropping the stick" and "not being here" and demands permabanning, desysopping, etc
• The community trawls through the editor's past history for past disputes to fuel the case. Because the history is long, there is always something to be found, and now there's a "long-term pattern of problematic behavior".
• ARBCOM tries to find a decision that will give both sides part of what they want and ends up handing out a punishment that is not quite as severe as the mob demands.
• Wikipedia loses yet another editor who was making valuable contributions (if the punishment is a ban or the editor is chastened enough to quit) or at least dampens the editor's enthusiasm for the project (if the editor has thick skin).

So if ARBCOM is to take up this request, I would much rather they look at how to prevent this bad dynamic than at who deserves what kind of punishment. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:50, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We've been here before

This ArbCom case is almost identical to this previous ArbCom case. The question asked then is the same as the question asked now, i.e. does behavior that is not so ideal disqualify one from being in a leadership position when that behavior was not relevant to exercising the leadership role? Given that in the previous case the decision came down to not removing the Admin, this case should be decided in the same way. Count Iblis (talk) 06:35, 19 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Michael Hardy has edited mostly anonymously for approximately five years

Michael Hardy stated on 6 August that he has done most of his editing anonymously in recent years [76]. Since he's been here more than 14 years, "in recent years" could mean five years, and in fact his edits from this account dropped off significantly exactly five years ago: [77]. If he kept the same editing pace but mainly anonymously, this means five years of up to 1,000 anonymous edits a month.

Since there's no declaration on his userpage of an alternate account or that he mostly edits logged out, this appears to me to fall afoul of various policies such as

in my mind, which is especially important for an admin.

I think the fact that the majority of an administrator's editing is done anonymously is highly problematic, and I think it is a violation of

). I think the community, and ArbCom, need to investigate this. If articles or pages are repeatedly being edited both logged out and logged in, that definitely violates the policies. Furthermore, I'd like for there to be some explanation given, either to the community or privately to ArbCom via email, of why most of this very prolific and very longterm user's/administrator's edits are being done anonymously.

I'd like to formally request that either Michael Hardy declare his anonymous editing (accounts or IP or whatnot) to ArbCom via email (per the policies, and to ascertain whether articles/pages are being edited both logged out and logged in [or with two different accounts]), or that a CheckUser be run by ArbCom or at its behest, or that some other way of investigating, dealing with, and/or stopping this is enacted. Softlavender (talk) 02:11, 23 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Michael Hardy

Michael Hardy just wrote that "Softlavender states at length that administrators are forbidden to edit Wikipedia articles while not logged in", which is clearly not what I stated or requested above. This pattern of misrepresenting what other people say or even intend, while evading the issue and request at hand, is becoming universal, and in my opinion is yet another reason this editor should not be an administrator. Softlavender (talk) 04:31, 24 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Additional comments

I have been uninvolved in the events in this case, and did not make a statement in the case request or investigate to unearth evidence beyond the glaring admission noted above (which was a diff someone provided during the case request). However, having read the statements and evidence of those who have provided evidence, I'd like to state that I hope that ArbCom takes the evidence provided by others very seriously, especially since we've got well-considered and very specific evidence from two of the very best and most respected, circumspect and rational administrators on Wikipedia (and therefore I hope their evidence is given appropriate weight). Softlavender (talk) 02:23, 23 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Michael Hardy has apparently refused scrutiny of his logged-out editing

Above I linked to a statement that reveals Michael Hardy has done most of his editing logged out in the past five years, probably at a rate of up to 1,000 logged-out edits per month. I requested that at the very least this mass logged-out editing be revealed anonymously to ArbCom via email. Since he has seemingly in effect refused [78], and since this mass logged-out editing appears to me to violate

]

Evidence presented by Salix alba

I would first like to support David Eppstein's view that Michael Hardy has been a very valuable member of wiki project mathematics.

Admin actions

It is worth examining Michael's admin actions.

) He has deleted 13 pages this year[79] mainly to make way for moves. He has not blocked/unblocked anyone since 2012, he not change page protection since 2005. I can't see any other admin actions.

From the point of view of wiki project mathematics. Michael Hardy admin actions are a net positive. --Salix alba (talk): 08:02, 24 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User:Mim.cis

I'm not quite sure why Hardy's interaction with Mim.cis (talk · contribs) is being brought up. If you look at their talk page you will see quite a few other editors were concerned with Mim.cis's editing, particularly Jytdog (talk · contribs) and an earlier discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive/2015/Dec#Computational anatomy. I also tried to help as I know a little on the subject he was working in. Mim.cis contributions were all on his academic specialty: Large deformation diffeomorphic metric mapping, and Computational anatomy and very biased to the work from his lab. Both articles still need a lot of work to clear up, being full of over precise details on the details of Mim.cis's research work. If anything the case illustrates the problem with Wikipedia:Expert editors who never quite get to grips with the way wikipedia works. --Salix alba (talk): 06:32, 25 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Editing while logged out

]

Evidence presented by {your user name}

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.