Statement by Cryptic

Regarding speedy deletions - if arbitrators don't want to have to wade through the ANI archives Tony provided,

The use of CheckUser and the bitey, out-of-policy block for "socking" of an editor seeking help by Bbb23 should also be looked at. This whole thing has been a clusterfuck of heavy-handed admins abusing tools to the detriment of the community. See here Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#How many things can go wrong in one WP:BITE incident? [1]ConstantPlancks (talk) 05:06, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'll add that the two accounts that were blocked had already said they were the same person. There is no reason or justification to run checkuser after that. It becomes a fishing expedition. It's against policy to fish for other accounts and there is no reason to believe there were other accounts. Confirming that a user was truthful w/ checkuser followed by a checkuser block that only confirmed checkuser was improperly used is an abuse of checkuser that should result in removal of checkuser access. ConstantPlancks (talk) 04:29, 22 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Bbb23

I wanted to elaborate a bit on Tony's comments about my CU block and the unblock request by the user. By the time I logged on to Wikipedia this morning, the unblock request had already been made and RHaworth had already unblocked the user. At that point, I felt that the priority was to notify RHaworth of his breach of CU policy. By the time RHaworth responded (sort of), another administrator had "reinstated" the block. It would have been a bit awkward for me to then consider unblocking the user. However, if I had seen the unblock request in the normal way, I would probably have either unblocked the user myself or at least stated that I had no objection to the user being unblocked. I doubt that in this particular instance, the request would have to have been reviewed by another CU or the Committee. I actually apologized to the user for being "yanked" around (blocked, unblocked, reblocked) and tried to explain briefly what happened. As I'm writing this, I just noticed that the user has made another unblock request post my explanation. I will AGF their explanation and unblock them...and go to bed. I don't think that my unblock in any way mitigates RHaworth's breach of policy and believe the Committee should accept the case.--Bbb23 (talk) 05:21, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@

"Checkusers should clearly mark as a 'checkuser block' any block based on findings that involve checkuser data." (subsection "Reasons and communication")--Bbb23 (talk) 13:22, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply

]

@Worm That Turned: So you're saying that my compliance with policy is wrong? Designating a block as a CU block has more than one purpose, and one of them is to indicate to others that the block was not just behavioral. Non-CUs cannot know for sure whether I ran a check as they cannot look at the logs, so this may be helpful if the blocked user requests an unblock. There are some brightline rules in CU policy, e.g., we can't disclose certain information publicly, but as with everything else at Wikipedia, we also have discretion. There was a discussion about the issue of designating blocks as CU-blocks recently, and it quickly became clear that many of us almost always designate blocks as CU blocks whereas others almost never do. You might have a personal opinion as to which is "right", but I don't see how you can fault a CU who does or one who does not. To do that, in my view you'd have to change the policy itself, and it would be a radical change.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:04, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Worm That Turned: I understand your point, but I think that you're reading too much into it and, at the same time, that your interpretation is too narrow. I don't think that the one section circumscribes the other. Rather, if anything, it enhances it by first communicating to others that the block was based on a check and second that a consequence of such a block is that it cannot be overturned by a non-CU without the consent of either the blocking CU or another. I do appreciate your willingness to discuss this issue; it's not one that is often fleshed out, but I also think it's peripheral to the thrust of this case request.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:39, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• @
  WP:CHECKUSER#CheckUser blocks: "Checkusers can block accounts based on technical (checkuser) evidence. They will make clear in the block log summary that they have blocked as a 'checkuser action'. These blocks must not be reversed by non-checkusers." --Bbb23 (talk) 14:40, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Question to Committee. My question assumes that nothing changes before clerk action and that this case is accepted. Regardless of whether I am formally added as a party, will the scope of the case include my conduct? If this question belongs somewhere else, feel free to dispose of it as you wish, but I would appreciate an answer.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:58, 23 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Fastily

RHaworth performs *a lot* of administrative actions and while there are bound to be mistakes (believe me, I would know), I am troubled by the way he chooses to respond to concerns about his administrative actions. Even a brief look through his talk page history and simple search of AN/ANI archives reveal a plethora of complaints complete with BITEy/acrimonious retorts from RHaworth. Today's incident isn't a one-off occurrence; this has literally been going on for years. I'm also unimpressed with his unusual talk page archiving scheme, which appears to be deliberately messy in order to confuse would-be complainers. I'll note for the record that while I have nothing personally against RHaworth, his behavior reflects poorly on the group of admins who do a lot of the heavy administrative lifting on Wikipedia.

I encourage the committee to accept this case and review RHaworth's behavior as applicable to

• Regarding the claim that the checkuser tool has been abused, this is not true. After being told that they shouldn't write about themselves, that didn't stop them from making another edit several minutes later and then they pulled the tags off despite the fact that COI is true and the article still had puffery and peacock language. After being told not to create an article in their name, they created a new account with a different name to
  avoid scrutiny and leave the previous warnings behind for an attempt at article recreation. Creating a new account would only be justified if they forgot the password...any other reason in this case is garbage. Running a check is at the discretion of the checkuser and in this case, the pulling of COI tags, avoiding scrutiny and having the hallmarks of a paid editor means that running a check is well-justified to confirm the socks and has the potential of turning up other UPEs/socks. There has been no abuse of the checkuser tool.
   — Berean Hunter (talk) 06:24, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply
  ]

RHaworth conducts himself too casually. He doesn’t seem to be conversant with the fine details of policy. He is very quick and loose in deleting unimportant pages. The current DRV case is exactly an example, he misused CSD policy, when instead the page should be sent to AfD and SNOW deleted.

If ArbCom needs to do anything, it is to devalue the 2010 ArbCom statement at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=374236496#Statement_on_checkuser_blocks. While it is broadly correct, in letter and spirit, that is not how Wikipedia is supposed to manage itself, by committing ArbCom statements to stone as Gospel. That statement was not intended for a newcomer who is just first grasping the purpose of an account, having first registered an account matching their first topic. If an administrator believes that a Checkuser block has been made in error, the administrator should first discuss the matter with the Checkuser in question, and if a satisfactory resolution is not reached, should e-mail the committee. As appropriate, the matter will be handled by the Ban Appeals Subcommittee, by the Arbitration Committee as a whole, or by an individual arbitrator designated by the committee. is absurd in the context of this particular example. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:35, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There has been no abuse or misuse of the checkuser tool. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:40, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Andrew Davidson

The main issue here seems to be the blocking/unblocking. As I understand it, the first block was a bad block. RHaworth's action of unblocking was therefore reasonable and

I couldn't really care less about the CU unblock, to be honest. The oversight thing is bizarre, but I'm shrugging my shoulders on that one too. What I do find utterly incredible in this whole saga is this tagging of the article as an A7 speedy by RHaworth. Now bear in mind this is an admin who does a shitload of speedy deletions, yet clearly, judging by this example, has no idea what A7 actually means (an article about a real person that does not credibly indicate the importance or significance of the subject). Just look at the article at the time - yes, it's a bit promotional, but there is clear credibility, not to mention some decent sources including a full page interview in The Hindu! Still, we've got the backup that although an admin got the tagging wrong, another admin won't make the same mistake and actually delete it, will they? Oh, right. And the reason I'm prioritising this is because this is what drives new users away. Black Kite (talk) 10:58, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• OK, this is getting silly now. This is what RHaworth has deleted while this has been running (and I haven't looked at everything)
• 19th December

• Anyone else think PKH DAS was a G11?
• Eris Lifesciences wasn't an A7 (might not be completely notable, but it ain't an A7)
• Ultimate Custom Night
  - Deleted as a G1?? Let's just go through G1 again - "This applies to pages consisting entirely of incoherent text or gibberish with no meaningful content or history. It does not cover poor writing, partisan screeds, obscene remarks, implausible theories, vandalism or hoaxes, fictional material, coherent non-English material, or poorly translated material. Nor does it apply to user sandboxes or other pages in the user namespace. In short, if it is understandable, G1 does not apply."

• 20th December

• Cricingif ain't an A7 (one of the most notable cricketers ever is promoting a cricket app? That's not your run-of-the-mill bit of software made by Kevin in his basement, is it?). It's not a G11 either - purely factual.
• Sheikh bin Faisal bin Khaled Al Qassimi definitely isn't an A7 (clear claim of importance) or a G11 (there's no promotion at all, it's all facts)

• Mmm. Apparently this might be a valid G5 deletion, but it wasn't deleted as G5, and it turns out that RH has deleted it A7 twice before as Sheikh Mohammed Bin Faisal Al Qassimi ... when it wasn't an A7 on either occasion.

Statement by Nnadigoodluck

Considering the way things turned out yesterday towards the block, unlock, re-blocked and unblocked again issue, whether this request for an ArbCom case will be accepted or not, concrete efforts should be made to prevent such from repeating itself in the foreseeable future. NNADIGOODLUCK (Talk|Contribs) 11:47, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Boing! said Zebedee

I want to echo Black Kite's point, but in a more general way than specifically this incident - and not specific to any admin, but as part of the background to the case request. I used to do a lot of CSD work, but I gave it up largely because of the increasing abuse of the CSD criteria I kept seeing from admins. Editors not understanding the critera and nominating incorrectly is understandable, but I expect admins to be able to recognise that, to decline incorrect nominations, and explain to the nominator. And I expect admins to not make incorrect nominations themselves. But almost every CSD patrol session I did, I'd see admins deleting nominated articles when the nomination was obviously incorrect. Someone above mentioned the similarity with just opeaning a category and running a delete script on it all, and I've seen what looks like that approach many times (but can't remember the guilty parties). A7 was probably the worst, with the deleting admin appearing to treat it as a notability issue and deleting articles which contained very clear claims to importance or significance. G11 was probably the second worst, and is for "pages that are exclusively promotional and would need to be fundamentally rewritten to conform with WP:SOAP". But I frequently saw it abused with no stronger rationale than effectively "I think this is trying to promote something", or based solely on an alleged COI from the article creator - often articles containing not even a hint of promotional writing. If the committee takes this case, I hope you'll consider this a key part of it - and if not, I hope you might at least offer a few words about it and perhaps clarify the obligations of admins working on CSD. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:57, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• I also want to echo a comment made by Kusma, that "Many of these pages should probably be deleted, but not speedily". Many times I've seen pages deleted on the apparent sentiment that they obviously should be deleted even if they don't strictly meet any CSD criteria. In many of these cases I'd probably agree that the pages should be deleted - but the CSD criteria are strict (and as limited and objective as practical) for a reason, they have been decided by community consensus stretching back years, and admins do not have a mandate to exercise their own judgment and delete pages summarily that do not meet the criteria. Sure, it might take more time and effort to go through the PROD and/or AfD processes and it might be seen as a waste of time, but admins do not have the right to shortcut that, and doing so is an abuse of power. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:59, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• My comments so far have been general, but after reading Barkeep49's comments I have to offer some thoughts on the case brought against RHaworth. That list of diffs spread over just 17 days is really quite disturbing, and I can't help thinking it might be due to admin burnout. It's summed up by a comment in this diff, "For those of us who work in the deletions area the only emotion is a resigned acceptance that we are going to see the same inappropriate rubbish for ever." I understand the feeling, but that does not excuse treating editors who make mistakes with the disdain I'm seeing in a number of those diffs. The 1,000th person an admin encounters submitting a bad article (or making any common mistake) should be treated with the same civility and assistance as the 1st, and not with condescension that's built up over the intervening 998. I've seen the same descent into dismissive snarkiness from others before, and in at least one case it's resulted in a desysop. I'll also say, judging from those 17 days of diffs, that RHaworth's responses to those who question his decisions also show unacceptable condescension and snark. So, I would now urge the committee to take this case, and examine what I think is an overall unacceptable admin attitude. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:33, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• @
  Creffett: No, G11 is about content, not intent. The former (promotional content) can be objectively assessed, but the latter (intent) can not. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 23:33, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• @
  WP:SOAP" (italics in original) other than as what it actually says. What part of it do you find in any way ambiguous or hard to understand? It's in plain English (some of the plainest we have anywhere in our policies) and plain English needs no community discussion to interpret. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 00:53, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply
  ]

(PS: Off to bed now, so no further responses tonight - though I can't think of anything more I can say to explain it, so I'm probably done here anyway. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 01:01, 20 December 2019 (UTC))[reply]

• In the light of continuing objections to some of his deletions, I have asked RHaworth to consider temporarily suspending his CSD work. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:09, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  And he has agreed. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:47, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Mz7

Speaking generally, I think it is an important bright-line rule that administrators should first consult with a checkuser before lifting checkuser blocks, even if a case appears obvious. For various reasons, checkusers don't always state publicly everything that they know about a particular case. For example, there could've been logged out editing involved or perhaps more accounts than there initially appears. There could even be something quirky in that data that makes a user's explanation suspicious or unlikely. Simply put: the checkuser has access to more information than you do, so you should talk to them first.

How the Arbitration Committee responds to an out-of-process modification of a checkuser block is up to the Committee. If it's a one-off, unwitting mistake that is unlikely to happen again, a quick reminder would probably be best. In the past, however, the Committee has used it as part of the rationale to desysop an administrator—see Special:PermanentLink/700515004#Checkuser blocks (FOF) for an example from 2016—particularly if the action fits as part of a pattern of suboptimal administrative decisions. Mz7 (talk) 12:31, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Kusma

(edited, some comments of others may refer to earlier versions of this statement) There are several aspects to this case, and the Committee should clarify the scope if a case is accepted. There is the issue of the CU block (which was apparently unnecessary) that RHaworth probably shouldn't have undone (it looked like a block for something not blockworthy at all, so RHaworth should have assumed there is additional private evidence that led to the block, and double check with the blocking CU). But this requires trust in the CUs only making CU blocks when truly necessary, and CUs need to make sure they do not overstep their bounds. From a 2010 ArbCom motion: Checkusers are reminded that because designating a block as a "Checkuser block" means that it cannot be reviewed on-wiki or on unblock-l, this term should only be used when confidential information has been used in the blocking decision. In this case, the accounts were known to be the same person and nobody so far has stated anything about the existence of confidential information related to the block.

Then there is a long history of RHaworth deleting things very quickly, and under an interpretation of CSD that leads to more things being deleted than my own. Many of these pages should probably be deleted, but not speedily, so I have some sympathy with his position, especially as he does respond to reasonable requests. In any case, CSD is not nearly as high-volume as it used to be pre-

Separately, I also think that every time an admin reverses a CU or OS action without either (a) consultation with or (b) express permission from someone with the relevant permission; or reverses a CU/OS action in direct contradiction to the comments received, the Committee should look in to the circumstances and determine if action is required. This need not be a full case in every instance, but the decision to desysop or not desysop must always be actively made. If an admin is unhappy with a CU or OS action taken by an individual functionary they should seek input from other functionaries or the Arbitration Committee. Ultimately the m:Ombudsman commission is available should the need arise. There is no need for action to be taken by someone not in possession of the full facts.

Finally, if a case is opened the Committee will need to be explicit about its scope in order to be fair to all parties. Thryduulf (talk) 13:01, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I cannot endorse strongly enough what Boing! said Zebedee says above, Many times I've seen pages deleted on the apparent sentiment that they obviously should be deleted even if they don't strictly meet any CSD criteria. In many of these cases I'd probably agree that the pages should be deleted - but the CSD criteria are strict (and as limited and objective as practical) for a reason, they have been decided by community consensus stretching back years, and admins do not have a mandate to exercise their own judgment and delete pages summarily that do not meet the criteria. Sure, it might take more time and effort to go through the PROD and/or AfD processes and it might be seen as a waste of time, but admins do not have the right to shortcut that, and doing so is an abuse of power.

Pages on the English Wikipedia may only be deleted when there is a consensus to do so. The criteria for speedy deletion is an intentionally narrow list of the only circumstances in which this consensus does not need to be established in advance of deletion. If a page does not meet both the letter and the spirit of at least one criterion then it must not be deleted without going through the relevant XfD or Prod process, regardless of how time wasting that might seem. If there are any pages that someone thinks should be speedily deleteable then the correct process is to nominate them at XfD, so that a documented record of them always being deleted is available to support a proposal for a new or expanded criterion at

WT:CSD. Thryduulf (talk) 15:06, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply

]

@

Creffett and ONUnicorn

: There have been many community discussions about the CSD criteria over the years. Every single one of them that I am aware of has agreed that the criteria should be interpreted and enforced narrowly, as explicitly noted in various places:

• At
  WP:CSD
  :
  • The criteria for speedy deletion (CSD) specify the only cases in which administrators have broad consensus to bypass deletion discussion, at their discretion, and immediately delete Wikipedia pages or media. They cover only the cases specified in the rules here.
  • Administrators should take care not to speedy delete pages or media except in the most obvious cases."
  • A page is eligible for speedy deletion only if all of its revisions are also eligible
  • Use common sense when applying a speedy deletion request to a page: review the page history to make sure that all earlier revisions of the page meet the speedy deletion criterion...
  • If an editor other than the creator removes a speedy deletion tag in good faith, it should be taken as a sign that the deletion is not uncontroversial and another deletion process should be used
• A Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Speedy deletion:
  • Speedy deletion should not be used except in the most obvious cases.
  • Either a page fits the speedy deletion criteria or it does not. If there is a dispute over whether a page meets the criteria, the issue is typically taken to deletion discussions, mentioned below, rather than being deleted.
• At Wikipedia:Guide to deletion#Deletion process
  • The allowable criteria for speedy-deletion are deliberately very narrow.
  • Articles which do not meet the narrow criteria for speedy deletion and whose deletion is (or might be) contested are discussed by the community through the Articles for deletion (AfD) process.
• At Wikipedia:Field guide to proper speedy deletion (only an essay, but it is linked from the CSD page indicating that, at least to a degree, that it reflects community consensus):

• These articles fall under our speedy deletion criteria, which were reached by various levels of consensus, and intended to be followed rather rigidly.
• The policy is quite clear in usage – it is meant to be used in "limited circumstances," and is not the only option when approached.

All together the message is unequivocal. If you interpret the criteria "loosely" then you are acting other than in accordance with the policy and need to stop doing so immediately. Thryduulf (talk) 21:35, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@

Creffett: No, there is no ambiguity - read the criteria: This applies to pages that are exclusively promotional and would need to be fundamentally rewritten to conform with WP:SOAP. If the page could be edited, without a fundamental rewrite, to be neutral then the criterion does not apply. It doesn't matter if there is a possible COI. It doesn't matter if the intent is to promote. If the content is neutrally written, or could be made neutral without deleting it all and starting again, then G11 does not apply. This is even more so in draft space as that namespace exists for the specific purpose of allowing articles to be created and developed without requiring immediate perfection. If there is any doubt about whether a CSD criteria applies then it does not. Thryduulf (talk) 23:56, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply

]

@

Creffett: If admins have been deleting those taggings (and sadly it doesn't surprise me) then both you and they have been getting it wrong. Those pages should be restored (without prejudice to XfD) for being deleted out of process and the admins given a strong reminder that policy requires them to follow the CSD criteria as written. Thryduulf (talk) 10:30, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply

]

@The Blade of the Northern Lights: Deleting something is one of the most harmful things that an admin can do, so all the relevant policies are very clear that nothing may be deleted without consensus to do so. The criteria for speedy deletion (which per above are explicitly narrow and intended to be interpreted narrowly) are the only situations where the community consensus is strong enough that any discussion would always end in consensus to delete for this to be presumed. If there is any doubt or ambiguity in whether a given page meets a speedy deletion criterion it does not and it must not be speedily deleted. If there are any good-faith objections to speedy deleting something then it must be discussed. IAR only allows you to ignore rules when doing so would uncontroversially improve the encyclopaedia. Speedily deleting something that does not meet the letter and spirit of one or more speedy deletion criteria is always controversial so IAR cannot apply. Thryduulf (talk) 12:39, 22 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Bbb23
There seems to be very little overlap between the allegations regarding Bbb23 and the allegations regarding RHaworth so I think it might be better to run them as separate cases. As it is not really relevant to RHaworth's issues who placed the CU block or whether it was good or bad, the case about them would be best focused on his handling of such blocks in general. In contrast whether it was correct or not is key to Bbb23's actions, so those questions would be in scope on that case. (Note that while I'm strongly in favour of a case regarding RHaworth, I don't yet have a firm opinion whether one is warranted for Bbb23). Thryduulf (talk) 13:17, 22 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@

Leaky Cauldron: it depends what the scope of the case is. If it is to examine the actions around the one incident then absolutely everyone's conduct needs to be examined, however if it is to examine RHaworth's admin conduct more generally (which is what almost all the evidence presented here so far is about) then it makes less sense, especially if (as I suggest) there should be a separate case about Bbb23's conduct and/or (as Worm That Turned appears to be suggesting) a separate case about CU Blocks in general. Thryduulf (talk) 13:23, 23 December 2019 (UTC)[reply

]

@Crouch, Swale: The speedy deletion criteria list the only cases where administrators can delete pages without explicit consensus (it's not about immediacy, as several criteria require a time delay). The snowball clause is not an exception to this - that is for cases where the consensus (for some action, not necessarily deletion) is so overwhelming that the discussion can be closed early. Whether RHowarth undeletes on request is not really relevant - there would be no need to ask if he didn't delete things out of process. Thryduulf (talk) 21:14, 29 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Nosebagbear

On the RHaworth behaviour side of this, I'm inclined to think that a desysopping is unnecessary, but that a stern "be more careful in the future" isn't enough - we've had multiple ANIs with that as the result. Everyone freely grants he does staggering amounts of work, so naturally more errors will come through. But it's the way concerns and complaints are handled, both on this talk page and in ANI discussions, that I think needs Arb consideration.

As to what intermediate resolution route is most suitable I leave to the Arbs (both current and incoming), but I do think something should be done.

I don't have a particular opinion at this point as to whether it should have been a checkuserblock at all, but if it goes to full case, I do think it should be included in the scope. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:39, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Elahrairah

Basically what Kusma said. I think it's worth bearing in mind that RHaworth's approach is perhaps a product of a time when CSD was higher-volume than it is now and there was less time to consider. Each one of us can always improve at CSD, but I think he does a lot of the "heavy lifting" and some poor calls are the effect of taking on such a high volume of work. As for the other aspects of the case (CU), I think everything has already been said. Admins should probably get a huge neon pop up reminding them about CU blocks at login as it's an easy landmine to step on for admins who take no interest in the area. ElAhrairah ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 17:15, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Vanamonde

I'm glad Tony brought this here, because this has seemed increasingly inevitable to me all year; there's been just too many people asking questions about RHaworth's use of the tools for ARBCOM not to examine their conduct, even if it's just to clear up some of the allegations and allow RHaworth to continue to contribute with less of a cloud hanging over him. I endorse in their entirety the statements by Black Kite and Boing! said Zebedee above about speedy deletion. Additionally; every time RHaworth's conduct (or that of any other productive admin) is examined, someone makes the "all of us make some mistakes, these are prolific admins so they make more" argument, and I think that argument is seriously misleading here. There's broadly two types of mistakes from admins; bad actions taken because someone missed something (didn't read a sentence carefully, confused two usernames, made a typo during a google search, etc), and bad actions taken because of a genuine misunderstanding or misjudgement of policy. The first kind is common forgetfulness; the second kind needs to be learned from and then not repeated. Prolific admins can be forgiven more mistakes of the first category, but if they are repeatedly displaying serious misunderstandings of policy, especially repeated misunderstandings of the same policy, it's a serious problem. In discussions about RHaworth's deletions, he quite often says "I made a mistake" in reference to egregiously misapplied CSD criteria, is hauled up to AN for the same mistake some months later. I don't know this is an inability or an unwillingness to learn the CSD criteria, but ARBCOM needs to look at it either way. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:49, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Barkeep49

Looking at RHaworth's current talk page there are, in 17 days, the following issues:

• Speedy deletion review request by an IP [3] and a logged-in editor [4]. The request was confusingly worded which RH stated and sent to DRV [5]. I was pinged as it speedy deleted something I had just draftified after an AfD. It felt like such an obvious mistake I said nothing because I thought RH would just correct without incident. When this was taken to DRV, the editor included the wrong link [6] which RH passively aggressively corrected [7]. DRV overturned with every participant suggesting it was a bad delete [8]. The G12 is particularly troubling - I would expect any sysop doing copyvio work to suspect, based on the URL alone, that the supposed copyvio was in fact a Wikipedia mirror. When the DRV closed I went back to ask what I could have done to avoid this situation in the future, figuring that RH had considered the edit history (something I think there is evidence to suggest is not the case) before deleting [9] to which I got a reply from RH [10] that I misunderstood [11] but was him taking issue with my word choice [12]
• Cynicism (fairly earned no doubt) about CSD [13] [14]
• Dan Spilo (mentioned by Cryptic) defended on the basis of the number of speedy tags placed [15]. Discussion is ongoing current consensus appears to be overturn the deletion [16]
• Ponni Concessao with separate issues raised by Fram [17] [18] [19] and Bbb [20] which elicits an apology from RH [21]
• A question from an editor [22] is met with a scolding for the use of common wiki abbreviations but no answer to the substance of the question [23]. Only after a follow-up [24] does the editor get a substantive answer [25].
• A request for a restoration of an A7 [26], A Cloud Guru, which contained a credible claim of significance "the largest cloud computing training library in the world". This request was met with a scolding [27]. A different editor then, playfully, questioned the validity of the A7 [28]. RH replied questioning the playfulness aspects rather than the substance [29] [30]
• A request to restore a G7 [31]. RH's deletion was defended by another sysop [32]. RH answered the question but only with a healthy dose of scorn to the requesting editor [33] [34]
• A DRV notification [35] for a speedy deletion for A7 of a 13 year-old article whose speedy deletion had already been declined by another sysop [36]

Multiple times in 17 days of talk page discussion, RH was derisive towards experienced editors (though admirably not as BITEY to newer editors even those who are clearly here for Spam or COI) and legitimate concerns over their use of multiple speedy deletion criteria. These are concerns not only about their interpretation of the criteria, but the level of care exerted in performing speedy deletions. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:14, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

RH reversed last A7 saying it was edit conflict [37] Barkeep49 (talk) 19:18, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Pawnkingthree

This case should be accepted to examine longstanding issues with RHaworth's conduct as an admin, including questionable speedy deletions and his cavalier attitude to mistakes (basically, "any admin can just overturn what I do per BRD" [38]) his condescending and dismissive responses to queries on his talk page, and blatant disregard for policy in overturning a CU block. -- P-K3 (talk) 18:39, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Robert McClenon

This is a case involving administrative conduct. At present, ArbCom and the WMF are the only means by which administrative conduct can be reviewed, because the community has not set up a mechanism for community or other review of administrative conduct. The community has the power to

This is a case presented by another administrator. (I mostly agree with User:SmokeyJoe that some administrators take themselves too seriously, and some do not take themselves seriously enough, but that is not critical to whether this case should be heard.) In my opinion, there is enough merit in this case, filed by another administrator, so that ArbCom should review the case. It is not necessary for ArbCom to pre-decide the case. If ArbCom dismisses concerns about administrative conduct that should be heard, the WMF might decide that it needs to review such cases, and that will probably make things worse. ArbCom should accept this case, both because it may have merit, which can be assessed after opening the case, and to minimize meddling by the WMF. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:53, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Praxidicae

I echo Barkeep's concern and hadn't plan to really comment here as I think RHaworth does some of the dirtier jobs on Wikipedia in taking out the trash however their cavalier attitude and lack of accountability concerns me greatly. Since Barkeep also pointed out a more recent interaction I had with them I won't rehash it but I'm very concerned about their lack of understanding actual speedy criteria and response when challenged. Particularly their response here or really, non-response for the DRV for Energy Institute. I understand the possibility that they did not see the speedy being contested but the greater issue here is yet another poor deletion of something that is very unambiguously not an A7 candidate. Praxidicae (talk) 19:14, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

And in my opinion this rather brusque response is unacceptable for an admin and shows a clear lack of understanding of policy. No sources doesn't mean not notable. Praxidicae (talk) 19:23, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by ONUnicorn

As Boing! said Zebedee said above, I have noticed a number of deletions that do not strictly adhere to the

talk) 23:28, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply

]

talk) 00:37, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply

]

My random 2 cents: When it comes to harm to the Encyclopedia, which of the following is more concerning? A) A completely unnecessary block, somehow wall gardened into not being able to be overturned by even advanced rights holding plebs, or B) Possibly overzealous deletions that can be reversed in a moments notice. Seems like a very easy answer to me. Arkon (talk) 21:06, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by ComplexRational For starters, I believe the CU block was hasty—one cannot unambiguously assume that the actions of the accounts' operator were in bad faith, so perhaps a discussion first would be better. The rush to a CU block is

WP:BITEy, so I feel this should also be given fair weight. Even so, it is clear that such a reversal of a CU block is against policy; two wrongs do not make a right. If the case is expanded to include this background event,

I endorse the inclusion of Bbb23 as a party; some users below raise good points, and there have been similar questions about their behavior and adherence to ADMINACCT and BITE (both at ANI and their talk page) that remain unanswered. It would be unfair to scrutinize only one admin's actions given the scope of the case and years of questionable actions leading to it. ComplexRational (talk) 21:09, 22 December 2019 (UTC)[reply

]

In regards to

WP:BITE are being upheld. ComplexRational (talk) 22:56, 19 December 2019 (UTC)[reply

]

I'm willing to drop this minor incident, but for completeness, also see this talkpage exchange initiated by RHaworth in response to my statement here. ComplexRational (talk) 17:28, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Espresso Addict

As an admin who has worked with A7/G11s, I'd endorse the points made on speedy deletion by Black Kite, Boing! said Zebedee, Thryduulf & Vanamonde. I'm particularly concerned by RHaworth's attitude to his mistakes as being an acceptable price of the volume of work he performs. Since autoconfirmed status has been required for article creation, the flood of A7s has decreased to a trickle and few of those I see require immediate deletion. It is impossible for non-admins to check deletions for appropriateness, and hard even for those able to view redlinks to check the accuracy of a prolific deleter. The complaints raised on RHaworth's talk page and at deletion review probably underestimate the problem, as inexperienced editors often lack the confidence or competence to complain.

I'm also concerned by his habitual brusque interactions with new editors on his talk page. It's been said in my hearing that RHaworth's talk page is the encyclopedia's de facto welcome mat for a lot of good-faith new editors, which puts a burden on him to be actively helpful even to those whose first efforts are subpar. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:39, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Buffs

RHaworth's talk page history is replete with severe

Add to this discussion:

WP:ANI (among many other boards) are not getting the point across to RHaworth: this behavior is NOT acceptable. As long as he remains an admin, this will continue. There is no other board that can handle such a request. Denying it will only embolden more atrocious behavior. Judging from the number of people who are joining in on this case, there is VERY strong interest from the community for ArbCom to make a ruling on the matter. Buffs (talk) 06:19, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply

]

Quoting RHaworth: "Please remember to view any specific admin action of mine in the light of the total number of my actions. Surely I am allowed to make a few 'mistakes'?" No! You are NOT permitted to be so brash with noobs and apply speedy deletion criteria just because it's shorter solely because "well, I do a lot". You have repeatedly bitten the noobs, speedily deleted articles that shouldn't have been, and you've refused to slow down, step back, reassess your behavior, change your approach, etc in ANY meaningful way. Enough is enough. ArbCom, PLEASE take this up and set the example that such brash behavior is NOT tolerated. Not taking this case is tantamount to endorsing such behavior. If there is any question why we are losing people from Wikipedia, look no further. It's because of actions like this we aren't getting new blood. Buffs (talk) 06:36, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Too quick to pull the trigger for deletions of Drafts that have potential, given a little time/TLC (D - Deletion(s) of draft(s)/original, A - AFD/DRV resulting in keep).

• Evan Nagao D A
• Shefali Rana Dx3 in rapid succession A
• Securities and Exchange Commission v. Electric Bond and Share company D A

• Learn to provide a link whenever you talk about a page.
• Count yourself lucky that I am talking to an IP address who could not provide a link
• Kindly have the decency to wait until someone who a) has no CoI and b) knows what an article here should look like, thinks your company is notable and writes about it here.
• I can forgive you forgetting what you had done half an hour earlier...But I cannot forgive your apparent inability to look at your own contributions history.
• You are hopelessly long-winded...Text emailed. Go to DRV if you are not satisfied
• When asked why a page was deleted, he responded Please keep your fantasies on your own website
• Edit summary of responses: nothing really needing any reply

Others have noted and tried to talk to RHaworth about his behavior with no apparent effect/dismissive remarks about concerns

• Johnbod
• Reaper Eternal
• Andy Dingley
• me
• Dozens of other editors at various
  WP:AN
  boards...

Previous AN complaints

• IArchive 1008
• IArchive 980
• IArchive 903
• IArchive 852
• IArchive 753
• Archive 312

Given that

• Support review of Bbb23 as well per Lepricavark, et al. Buffs (talk) 18:19, 27 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Galobtter

I think RHaworth may be the most prominent example of "admin who persistently violates policy, but never in a major enough fashion for a case" - as mentioned by many others above, he regularly deletes things without enough attention and without following

I don't have much of an opinion here, just general concern with the Dan Spilo/"some mistakes are acceptable" attitude per the CU error/Barkeep49's diffs/Vanamonde's statement/recent RHaworth CSDs at DRV, but enough of a concern to request ArbCom review this admin's recent behaviour. I also concur with Nosebagbear's assessment about an intermediate or even relatively basic remedy here, and would not mind a decline per WormTT if the decline helps remedy some of the issues. I do think RHaworth a net asset to the project and hope this can be resolved positively. SportingFlyer T·C 07:58, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by North8000

In the recent WMF dust-up it became clear that we probably don't oversee our admins enough. This is probably because defacto the only place this ever gets done is by arbcom. For editors, arbcom only takes the giant last-resort cases because there are so many other ways to handle editor issues. Until/unless another venue starts actually handling admins, for admins arbcom needs to take more routine cases (not just egregious or pre-proven ones) because defacto there is nowhere else. So you should take this one, and it shouldn't be a giant deal. Most likely it should end up with a warning and direction, which for admins, only arbcom does. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:28, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Deepfriedokra

• RHaworth has performed more than 100 deletions in the past 24 hours, so probably his error rate is pretty low. ArbCom will need to make note of this.

• In this thread-- User talk:Deepfriedokra#Cleanup thoroughly?-- RHaworth questions my tagging pages for CSD, rather than "boldly" deleting myself, after I've gone ahead and blocked the creator. (I prefer to measure twice and cut once. If I've made an error, this is an opportunity for it to be caught.) The subtext of the discussion suggests to me that RHaworth is at times overwrought, which causes him to make mistakes and become snappish. I would recommend RHaworth pledge to respond open-mindedly to this thread, agree to do less, and to be less impatient with others. Given the shear (excessive) volume, I see him as a net positive. However, the time is come to address these concerns via ArbCom.-- Deepfriedokra 17:39, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• @Ivanvector: Yes!. Wish I'd said that.-- Deepfriedokra 23:30, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• per Crouch, Swale RHaworth does undelete when asked.-- Deepfriedokra 19:53, 26 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ivanvector

Administrators should not act, and especially should not undo administrative actions, without being aware of the totality of facts about the action. Checkuser blocks (and oversight and arbcom blocks) are marked as such because administrators without access to the relevant tools cannot know the totality of facts. It stands to common sense that administrators in that situation should consult. It's alarming that any administrator of any tenure would not understand that, let alone one as active and long-tenured as RHaworth. As for the block: it possibly being a bad block does not forgive the breach of policy and lack of consultation. Either "don't undo checkuser blocks at peril of your mop" is a policy or it isn't. The case should be accepted on those grounds alone.

That said, though I find it stunning that RHaworth could have not been aware of this from the start, I'm inclined to take him at his word that he acted with good intent notwithstanding the seriousness of the action, and he now understands the importance of this very simple rule.

As for speedy deletions, it is heavily unfair to lay the the problems with the

@

Lepricavark: checkuser blocks are not irreversible. They merely require a checkuser's input before reversing. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 20:24, 27 December 2019 (UTC)[reply

]

Hello, this is somewhat out of place as it has little to do with the need to accept or decline this case - however, I suggest while this concern has attention a review of MediaWiki:Unblockiptext may be in order. I think it is a good place to place any "last chance" warnings for administrators that are about to unblock an account. Any editor should feel free to help workshop an update at MediaWiki talk:Unblockiptext and use an edit request when ready. Best regards, — xaosflux ^Talk 16:54, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Govindaharihari

Nothing majorly disruptive here or massive out of policy worthy of a dysop. Not worth a full case/christmas case, give a motion offering advice and a warning and move on.Govindaharihari (talk) 18:01, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Lepricavark

If we're going to grant an irreversible (or even nearly irreversible) status to checkuser blocks, we need to be very certain that these blocks are imposed properly. In my experience, Bbb23's CU blocks do not inspire that kind of confidence. To give some background, I request and received a 6-month block from Bishonen. The block was not in any way intended to evade scrutiny for behavioral issues and was purely based on my personal wishes. About a month after receiving the block (which included the revocation of tpa and email), I caved to the urges to resume my Wikignoming work (which was unwise on my part, but I was nevertheless improving the encyclopedia). It was not long before Bbb23 swooped in and indeffed both my newly created account (reasonable) and this one as well (heavy-handed and unreasonable). My indef was only removed after Bishonen commented in opposition to the block. See the related discussion here.

In my opinion, Bbb23's handling of the situation was lacking in both empathy and common sense. There were any number of possible courses of action that would have dealt with the extra account and enabled me to get to back to work (since I was never blocked for being a problematic editor), but instead Bbb23 went for the nuclear option. He did eventually unblock me, but I still resent having been treated as nothing more than a common sockmaster. I also have my doubts about whether Bbb23 even had valid cause to run a CU; even if he did, he was hardly justified in his heavy-handed actions. I was lucky; a few respected editors went to bat for me and helped me get unblocked. Otherwise, I might have remained indeffed after evading a self-respected temporary block. I suspect that there have been other editors who were unfairly blocked by Bbb23, but we don't know about them because they didn't know how to appeal the block (or they were new/inexperienced, so it was easy to shut them up). Let's not act pretend that Bbb23's blocks are infallible. They aren't.

Also, I find this post by Bbb23 to be unnecessarily aggressive. An admin should be able to raise concerns with another admin without immediately playing the 'You might get desysopped' card. If Bbb23 was truly at a loss to understand RHaworth's actions, he might have tried asking questions before issuing ultimatums.

Lepricavark (talk) 22:24, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply

]

Generally speaking admins should always consult the CU admin before unblocking a CU account but ofcourse mistakes happen, I also don't really see any issue with his deletions, My only concern is his snappiness with people that's really my only issue..... IMHO a case is not warranted and desysoppings/sanctions aren't needed either. –Davey2010^Talk 22:33, 21 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ched

I've thought about this for a while now, and my statement is to question the assessment that @

The VERY top of the VERY FIRST section of Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy states: To act as a final binding decision-maker primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve (there is no unless it's an admin clause)

If other statements by other users above me are to be believed, then this "BITE" issue has been going on for years unchecked. Apparently there have been numerous AN/ANI reports, without resolution. I believe that Fastily sums it up quite well: Even a brief look through his talk page history and simple search of AN/ANI archives reveal a plethora of complaints complete with BITEy/acrimonious retorts from RHaworth. Today's incident isn't a one-off occurrence; this has literally been going on for years.

I'm fairly sure that you wouldn't be saying that policy says we'll look at behavior, but if it's an admin, then we'll only look at their behavior with admin. tools, and not other behavior. I would ask you to reconsider the scope aspect of your statement, or perhaps more accurately the wording of it. Thank you. — Ched (talk) 01:01, 22 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jehochman

I think the behavior of all parties needs to be scrutinized, including Bbb23. It is telling that an administrator felt the need to reverse Bbb23’s block. It is also telling that Bbb23 is using Checkuser status to place irreversible blocks that could instead be managed through ordinary consensus-based admin activity. Bbb23 recently demonstrated to me that they may not have the good sense to serve as a Checkuser. If they are added to the case, I will provide the evidence. Jehochman ^Talk 03:10, 22 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I find Lepricavark‘s statemet curiously consistent with my own unpleasant experience of trying to talk with Bbb23. Jehochman ^Talk 03:13, 22 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear, there should be a case. Rather than the pattern of past years where ArbCom robotically desysops every party, the goal should be to get the parties to agree to raise their standards. With that agreement any faults can be documented and everyone can go about their business. Jehochman ^Talk 14:16, 22 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Bbb23: do you want your actions to be reviewed or would you prefer they not be reviewed? Jehochman ^Talk 17:44, 23 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by The Blade of the Northern Lights

I tend on the side that RHaworth does a lot of great work, and that people who do a lot will make more mistakes. And I've never understood the lawyering about CSD, the people shrieking and obsessing over every last possible minutia imaginable are rarely the ones I see out there actually, you know, deleting things. Yes, CSD are to be adhered to, but it doesn't override IAR; for some reason this is the only area of Wikipedia where everyone gets their panties in a twist about process over getting the right outcome. Sometimes it really doesn't matter what the right "process" is, and it's not as if any of this is being subjected to damnatio memoriae. As to his communication style, everyone writes a different way; there's certainly nothing blockable, and when new editors make no attempt at all to learn anything about Wikipedia (which isn't really that hard to do) it gets frustrating. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:31, 22 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by WBGodric

I echo Jehochman and Leprivacark, in that the behavior of all parties needs to be scrutinized, including Bbb23. He's one of the most unpleasant admins to deal with, having substituted a heavy handed use of CU tools for common sense, since long back. I look forward to provide evidence if the case is broadened to examine BBB23, as well. ∯WBG^converse 12:57, 22 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Leaky Caldron

Echoing several comments above, I fail to see how you can fairly and impartially consider the Admin. conduct of one of the involved parties and ignore that actions of all of those involved, in particular the CU aspects. Leaky caldron (talk) 09:47, 23 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by RoySmith

There's a few different issues here , but the one which ostensibly got this going is unblocking a CU-block, and that's what I want to address here. The gist is, unblocking a CU block is a desysop-on-sight offense, and a highly experienced admin should know that.

The problem is, there's a ton of rules, and it's unreasonable to expect anybody to know all of them. I work mostly at

Assume for the moment that I didn't work in SPI, happened to come upon User:AlbanGeller and saw reason to unblock them. I'm a conscientious admin, so I do a little research first. I go to their user page, and find a template telling me that they've been confirmed by a CheckUser as a sock puppet. I don't see anything that says, "and, by-the-way, you can't unblock them". I look in the block log and see {{checkuserblock-account}}. True, if I followed up on that and read Template:Checkuserblock-account, I would discover the restrictions on unblocking, but there's nothing in the log message that's obviously compelling me to go read that page.

For whatever reason, I'm still not sure, so I go to

I raised a similar point at

The specific issues regarding the incident(s) have been well covered by experienced admins above and need no further comment from me. However, as a calibration, I offer the perspective of someone who has been doing a reasonable amount of CSD work. For the last 30 days, I have NPP'ed over 600 articles, and from that have generated almost 60 CSDs (they are all from NPP work), and almost 10 AfDs (also, all from NPP work) – E.g. over 10% of my NPPs ended up at CSD/AfDs; and by comparison, in the last 365 days, over 100,000 articles have been NPP'ed.

RHaworth is one of a small number of admins active at CSD, and who are also very good at handlining the socks/spammers who can make life very difficult for editors working in this area, and some of who are forensically familiar with how to game it/get around CSDs. With two editors doing over 90,000 of the 100,000 NPPs in the last 365 days, the system is one step away from completely breaking down. As discussed

I say this not to diminish the incident(s) described above (more experienced than I will opine on this), but to calibrate the implications of a loss of one of the few admins focused on CSDs to the project. Unfortunately, there are many other important processes in Wikipedia were a very "thin wall" of ultra-dedicated admins (the nom of this case is another great example), that stand between the proper functioning of the process, and its collapse. I hope my contribution is of use in this regard, and humbly offer it as such. Britishfinance (talk) 14:37, 24 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Puddleglum2.0

I don't know how much my opinion will be valued here, but I have seen RHaworth around and many of the actions I see them perform have seemed problematic. In this case, I believe that both the CU unblock and the Speedy Deletion matters are problematic, and since the latter issue has been going on for a while now, I believe it is important that the ArbCom accepts this case, reviews the evidence, and takes any necessary actions.

Statement by Crouch, Swale

I don't think CSD is the only case where admins may delete pages immediately, I think it specifies the cases where admins have broad consensus. The CSD even links to the Snowball clause which says "if an article is speedily deleted for the wrong reason (the reason was not within the criteria for speedy deletion), but the article has no chance of surviving the normal deletion process, it would be pointless to resurrect the article and force everyone to go through the motions of deleting it again". I think the point of broad consensus is that undeletion requests of pages that clearly meet the criteria and are unlikely to survive XFD are unlikely to be granted (unless its an old page) while undeletion requests made by another uses are likely to be granted. While I'd expect that if someone deletes a page outside of CSD that they should restore it and follow XFD even if its very likely to be deleted there. Although admins have to adhere to stricter guidelines for such actions than regular actions (due to the fact non-admins can't simply "revert" such actions) that doesn't mean they can't use common senses. And it appears RHaworth does indeed undelete when asked. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:33, 26 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Thryduulf: well SNOW does make reference to the point of not requesting undeletion for pages deleted outside CSD that would be unlikely to survive XFD. But yes if more than a trivial number of such deletions are questioned that's probably a sign that the admin probably shouldn't be doing do. To do something "out of process" tends to mean doing something against standard (or local) consensus. The deletion policy doesn't appear to specifically prohibit undiscussed deletions outside CSD. Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:32, 29 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by PonyToast

I do not want to spend too much time reiterating what has already been said by other editors. I am deeply concerned, however, at the number of times this user who is entrusted with special capabilities has "forgotten" or "misunderstood" Wikipedia policies. Making a mistake is one thing; making repeated mistakes is another. Also—for an administrator to not know what Oversight is...that is deeply concerning because Oversight is a major tool in securing personal information to mitigate liability and maintain user privacy. This is important, need-to-know-on-short-notice information. The Pony Toast 🍞 (Talk) 14:17, 27 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Frood

I don't usually comment on this sort of thing, but I'm concerned that somebody who has been an admin for over 14 years doesn't know what oversight is, or that you cannot unblock somebody who is under a checkuser block. These are two things I'd expect every administrator to know. If they don't know these policies, that leaves me wondering what other basic but important policies they don't know. – Frood (talk) 19:59, 27 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Tavix

I'm happy to see a case on RHaworth is finally coming to fruition. I put together the case for a case back in May at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2019 May 16 but stopped just short of formally filing one. We've been in the same loop over and over again: a complain is lodged, several of his recent mistakes are aired, RHaworth apologies and says he's going to improve, people are satisfied enough by the apology to put down the pitchforks, RHaworth does not improve and another complaint is filed, rinse and repeat. It's gotten exhausting and I hope the matter can finally be put to bed. -- Tavix ^(talk) 05:03, 29 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]