Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Sarah Palin protection wheel war/Evidence

Until this arbCom case is closed, I will refrain from applying admin actions in any and all articles related to US politics. I may comment here from time to time as evidence is presented. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:38, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Further developments

This may be applicable in the context of this case - edits made to the protected page by administrators (outside of editprotect process)

• Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Inappropriate_conduct_of_administrators_on_Sarah_Palin
  • Massive edit and removal of sourced material to protected page by Moreschi (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
  • Adding material to protected page by Bogdangiusca (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Hindsight is 20/20

I have been reflecting on this incident, and my conclusion is that regardless of my intention in invoking IAR, which was to allow the editing to continue, it actually did the opposite: four other admins after me reverted each other, drama ensued, and as of today the article is still protected (no admin willing to touch it now, not while this arbCom case is proceeding...)

So I can see that regardless of the question if I was right or wrong in invoking IAR, the result was obvious: it simply did not work. Given similar circumstances, would I do this again? Of course not, if I want to stay true to the reason why I did invoke IAR in the first place. I will need to find another way if such circumstances ever arise again ... maybe time to re-read SoftSecurity vs HardSecurity -- (quote: When SoftSecurity becomes unilaterally enforced, it fails. )

So, lesson learned: you may feel right, and even be right, but the result of your actions will not always be the ones you expect. I may need to add a new law to

Editing through protection

Post-wheelwar non-consensual editing through protection for consideration:

[9] User:Tone adds {{prose}} tag (in the middle of a section, no less). Prose v. list discussion ongoing on talk page without "stick a template on there" conclusion. (Diffs on request).

[10] User:Bogdangiusca makes an edit apparently based on his own judgement/OR.

(TimVickers blank edit, summary informing of intention to block the next admin to edit without consensus)

[11] User:jossi changes the protection note from banner to padlock, explicitly against talk page consensus. When challenged, cites belief that present protection is nonconsensual & and user:newyorkbrad's forgetting that when actin outside of his arb role, admins are not his winged monkeys "non-arb" RFARB request that it be modified. (Diffs on request)

[12]

[13] User:Bogdangiusca against consensus. Position on talk page is that "It's pointless to propose anything as long as the Republicans have their little dwarves around here to vote in mass against". This in a section where an unsupported proposal has attracted three objections, making it a personal attack. [14]

Since desysopping is such an inexplicably big deal around here, clearly the feeling is that one can sneak a few edits in and get away with it. I would have thought that a simple respect for their fellow editors would bring them to the talk page seeking consensus, but no.

Rationale for special sanctions

Questions have been raised as to why I invoked the

"Administrators are authorized to use any and all means at their disposal to ensure that every Wikipedia article is in full compliance with the letter and spirit of the biographies of living persons policy."

I felt that any options were on the table to ensure compliance with the

• I could delete the article to prevent a version with BLP violations from being shown publicly, but I knew several hundred thousand people per day were viewing the article, and that there existed acceptable versions of it, free from poorly sourced and unsourced statements.

• I could begin 4-im warning every person who inserted a BLP violating section in the article, and then blocking them. But given that most of the insertions were by newly-auto confirmed accounts, I would be biting a large number of new editors who had probably never heard of
  BLP
  . Also, given that I believed the article was being viewed at a rate of 300 page views per minutes (actually closed to 500), in the minute or so it would take me to review each edit and check the source, several hundred people would see an incorrect version. Since the point of blocks are to prevent damage, blocking after so many hundred people had seen a version would be counter productive.

• I could full protect the article. This ran the risk of people not being happy that they could not edit the article, but would keep newbie editors from being blocked, the subject's BLP rights from being violated, and the reader community's ability to learn about a topic intact.

• I also could have given a final talk page warning that further BLP violations would result in some sort of sanction, but given that the warning template for such behavior had been deleted {{BLP Spec Notice}} in July by MZMcBride as "G6" (housekeeping) and that the vast majority of the drive-by insertions was not coming from people talking on the talk page, I did not see that as an effective means to ensure immediate compliance with the BLP policy.

So, I proceeded to full protect [16] the article, citing the special sanctions in the edit summary, I applied the standard notice template to the article talk page [17], I noted it in the

@Jossi, as our BLP policy and Jimbo have said 'We must get the article right.' Following your second unprotection, I cite [22] (in the article 4 minutes), [23] (1 minute), [24] (3 minutes), [25] (3 minutes), [26] (4 minutes), [27] (2 minutes). So for the 47 minutes the article was semi-protected, there were 6 BLP-problematic insertions (all were reverted by established editors) lasting 17 minutes, which is nearly 1/3 of the time semi-protected and is equal to an average of 8,500 page views delivered. Also, pointing up, Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Sarah_Palin_protection_wheel_war/Evidence#.40Jossi.2C_requested_links_to_BLP_vios presents similar evidence in a much easier to read format.

Involved status

The

Administrators should not use their tools to advantage, or in a content dispute (or article) where they are a party (or significant editor), or where a significant conflict of interest is likely to exist. With few specific exceptions where tool use is allowed by any admin, administrators should ensure they are reasonably neutral parties when they use the tools.

The following summarizes the involved status of the named parties.

• MBisanz (talk · contribs) had never edited the article or talk page of the article prior to using administrative tools to full protect it[28].

• WilyD (talk · contribs) had edited the talk page to endorse full protection if problematic edits resumed [29] and to fix a reference broken during the protection confusion [30], per a talk page request[31].

• MZMcBride (talk · contribs) had edited the talk page once to disagree with semi-protecting the article [32], and later to remove semi-protection from the article[33], and then to remove full protection (to semi-protection) from the article[34].

• Jossi (talk · contribs) has edited the primary Sarah Palin article and the related Political positions of Sarah Palin and Alaska Public Safety Commissioner dismissal articles numerous times[35] before and after protection warring, including substantial content edits prior to the protection war, such as [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], [41].

Still protected?

Following the initial two week protection, I was actively engaged in discussion with the intent of substantially decreasing the time the article would remain full protected [42], [43], [44]. Had I not become an involved party to this RFAR, and therefore an involved and disqualified administrator to the topic, I would have likely semi-protected the article late Saturday or Sunday EST. Of course, this is all academic hindsight.

Following a discussion at

AE [45], a clear consensus was reached to reduce the time for protection from 336 to 104 hours and was implemented by kmccoy (talk · contribs

).

Update: I do have further evidence to present, primarily a summation of an event that occurred at an unrelated forum I participate in, but I am waiting for permission from the proprietor of that forum before posting the summation. Pre-clearance granted [46].

Based on all facts available to me, I assert with a categorical degree of certainty, the veracity of the following statements (in camera evidence has been provided to the Arbitration Committee to this end).

• MZMcBride held the explicit intent that his unprotection should be viewed as a wheel war.
• MZMcBride was aware of the in-progress discussion at AE and that special BLP sanctions had been invoked.
• MZMcBride understood the probable consequence of his action would be the immediate filing of an RFAR.
• Following the establishment of the above, MZMcBride unprotected the article.

Evidence per NYB and Thebainer's request

I based my protection primarily off of the edit activity that occurred subsequent to Jossi's second unprotection, taking into account the already voluminous noticeboard threads and the prior protections as mitigating factors that indicated our regular processes of vigorous editing, blocking policy violators, and seeking to adhere to the BLP policy, were not working.

Below are the specific edit sequences that led me to believe simple blocking and reverting was insufficient to maintain an article free of BLP-problems.

• [47], [48], [49]
• [50], [51]
• [52], [53], [54], [55]
• [56], [57], [58], [59](last edit subsequent to protection)

Looking before Fritzpoll's reprotection, I see the following problematic edits:

• [60] (edit sum " summarize abortion (WP:BRD...)" is not a good BLP edit)
• [61] (removing a BLP violation)
• [62], [63], [64], [65] (repeated insertion of section challenged on BLP grounds)
• [66] (potentially controversial fact sourced to the National Enquirer)

Involved statistics

• Of the 7,237 edits to the Sarah Palin article, through 17:30UTC Sept 16, 2008, the following is a breakdown of the top ten contributors, administrative parties to this RFAR are bolded:

• Of the 1,228 edits to the Political positions of Sarah Palin article, through 17:30UTC Sept 16, 2008, the following is a breakdown of the top ten contributors, administrative parties to this RFAR are bolded:

Wheel Warring

Looking at the protection log for Sarah Palin there are a very large number of actions by a large number of respected, longtime contributors [67]. However, only two people appear more than once in the log who also appear during the wheel war in question (note NawlinWiki appears twice but before this incident). Jossi [68] and MZMcBride [69].

Seeing as the entire basis for Jossi's second unprotect was in his own words "This is one of the times in which I will

Do not repeat an administrative action when you know that another administrator opposes it. Do not continue a chain of administrative reversals without discussion.

and given that Jossi was possibly an involved content editor, his repeated unprotections, citing

Addressing the second individual to perform multiple unprotections, MZMcBride, the situation is less clear. While I was not on IRC when the comments MBisanz and Ryan Postlethwaite cite were made, it seems that MZMcBride declared an intent to violate the wheel warring policy, knowing full well that an onwiki conversation was in progress and that discretionary arbcom sanctions had been applied to the article, and still went forward with the unprotection [71]. Further, I can find nowhere onwiki where discussed the unprotection, either before or immediately after unprotecting. His comments on both protections was "This is a wiki", which ignores the entire reason we have a protection policy. Given that MZMcBride was blocked in June of this year [72] for refusing to discuss an automated deletion script, this may indicate a worrying trend of refusal to engage in discussions over his admin actions. Regardless, the wheel warring in and of itself is unacceptable conduct from an administrator.

MZMcBride's second unprotect was clear wheel-warring. Jossi also wheel-warred by twice reinstating edit=autoconfirmed against consensus to the contrary.

Looking at the other individuals named in this case, it does not appear that WilyD or MBisanz wheel warred under the commonly accepted definition of redoing the undo of one of their actions or that they operated outside of the

I was not a proponent of either full protection or semi-protection

• I endorse Jossi's first unprotection; to the best of my knowledge, this is the first time I'd ever edited her biography (is there a good tool for this?) Certainly I find nothing to well before the start of July[73]
• I endorse Fritzpol's reprotection, indicating that I was kind of opposed to it, but I'll endorse it for the sake of not protection warring.\
• When I indicated I'd hand out blocks to admins who continued to war over protection, I consul dialogue, then action. I remain open to semi-protection once a consensus exists. And the same, the same, and again.

Blocking for wheel wars was consistant with WP:WHEEL

• At the time I blocked MZMcBride, WP:WHEEL stated "Sanctions for wheel warring have varied from reprimands and cautions, to temporary blocks, to desysopping, even for first time incidents." Thus my actions were consistant with WP:WHEEL, though maybe not mandated by it. In any event, when I warned that I would block anyone who continued to war over the protection, it was received uniformly well. Warn, warn " I get dittoed on the warning After MZMcBride's action, Oren0 asks "Where's the promised block already?" Historically it's a usual penalty for disruption in general, and I cannot fathom any argument that the protection war was not disruptive.

A little bit of background…

MZMcBride has repeatedly unprotected pages with minimal explanation

• Protection log MZMcBride has unprotected over 500 pages in the last month with the identical reason "This is a wiki". The rate of unprotection, which gets up to six pages a minute at certain points, does not suggest a great deal of prior research before taking the decision to unprotect.

Jossi has not obviously misused protection tools prior to this dispute

• Protection log Jossi's protection log is much shorter, and gives reasons for each action (both protects and unprotects) which prima facie fall within
  WP:PROTECT
  .

Short term full protection has been used in the past in similar situations

In response to the admin summaries "This is a wiki" (MZMcBride), "High traffic articles should not be proteded" and "There are times in which IAR is a necessity. This is a highly trafficked page AND a current event." (Jossi), it is instructive to look at the situation on similar pages:

U.S. (vice-)presidential candidates

• Barack Obama full-protected for 26 hours August 10–12, 2007 (by Jossi); for one week March 7–14, 2008; for one week March 26 – April 3, 2008; for two hours April 5–6, 2008; for 27 hours June 7–8, 2008 (unprotection by MZMcBride with the summary "This is a wiki"), for seven hours June 16–17, 2008; for one hour June 25, 2008.
• John McCain no full protection to date
• United States presidential election, 2008 full-protected for 15 hours January 31, 2008.
• Joe Biden no full protection to date

Other politicians

• Gordon Brown Full-protected for eleven hours June 26–27, 2007 (while waiting for him to officially become Prime Minister)
• Stephen Harper full-protected for one week November 2–9, 2007; for 22 days March 9–30, 2008
• Kevin Rudd full-protected for nine hours October 24, 2007

Childish Behavior

It is unfortunate this document was fully protected in the first place. I am sure by now everyone realizes it should not have been and from what I understand this action is against the spirit of Wikipedia. At this stage I would strongly suggest the article be set back to Semi protect just like every other political figure on Wikipedia. Everyone should stop acting like children. As a new user on Wikipedia I would hope all the admins can grow up, unlock the article, shake hands and kiss and make up. Sitedown (talk) 02:00, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Traffic and attention to Sarah Palin was very high

The following is a summary of the traffic to Sarah Palin during the days before, during, and immediately after the events leading to this dispute. Calculations done according to UTC time.

For every day from August 29th to September 6th, Sarah Palin was the most visited article on Wikipedia.

During September 1st to 6th, the next five most trafficed articles showed the following pattern:

Visual summary of protection log

The following is a visual summary of the protection log. For brevity, I have ignored move protection acts.

white = unprotected, yellow = semi-protected, red = full-protected

{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.

Jossi had previous exhibited carelessness/poor judgment

I am not 100% sure this is relevant to the issue at hand, but I thought the community should be made ware of it. At 01:03, August 30, 2008 Jossi proposed that the

Jossi apparently continues to disrupt the Sarah Palin article

I am very concerned that some of Jossi's recent edits at the Sarah Palin article appear to be disruptive. This edit by Jossi inserted a section that has been the subject of revert-warring for the past 24 hours, and is highly contentious. There is currently a "poll" being conducted about it here. As you can see from the poll, there is no consensus to include this material in this article. Since this is a BLP, "The burden of proof is on those who wish to retain, restore, or undelete disputed material".[84]

It therefore appears that the events of the Palin wheel war were not an anomaly. All of the material that Jossi has revert-warred back into the article is already in the sub-article on Political positions of Sarah Palin. Therefore, according to WP:Summary style, it's our job to summarize that sub-article material in the appropriate section of the main article, rather than creating whole new sections that repeat everything verbatim from the sub-article.

Also, much of the material Jossi has revert-warred back into the article was already in the article, including stuff about creationism, which now appears twice. I wish Jossi would work within Wikipedia guidelines and policies. Thanks.Ferrylodge (talk) 02:05, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum: shutting down the discussion that he wishes to disregard, by removing tag.Ferrylodge (talk) 04:10, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

{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.