Case Opened on 18:48, July 28, 2005 (UTC)
Case Closed on 06:28, August 5, 2005 (UTC)
Case Re-Opened 20:21, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
Case Closed (again) 02:59, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Amended by Open Motion 01:51, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Amended by Open Motion 10:19, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Amended by Open Motion 16:04, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Amended by Open Motion 00:25, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this request. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the
Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at
/Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.
Arbitrators will be working on evidence and suggesting proposed decisions at /Workshop and voting on proposed decisions at /Proposed decision.
Concern over Everyking's conduct on WP:AN and its subpages, particularly WP:AN/I
It's on his talk page.
Mediation was attempted at WP:TINMC. It worked briefly, but fell apart rapidly. Wikipedia:Wikimediation was tried, with minimal comment.
Everyking's actions on AN/I amount to one thing and one thing only - attacking admins he doesn't personally like. The only thing that can be said for his conduct is that it has improved to the point where he at least seems to read into disputes before commenting. Regardless, his comments show a disregard for consensus, policy, and civility in favor of his own views. Adding to this are a tendency towards personal attacks as in [1], [2], [3], and [4].
Immediately prior to bringing this RFAr, I asked him to cool it, reminding him of our past discussions. [5]. He flatly refused. [6].
The following users have, in the past two weeks, asked EK to look into what he's talking about more, provide evidence, use a form of dispute resolution, or otherwise lay off. Bishonen [7], Radiant [8] [9], Ta bu shi da yu [10], TenofAllTrades [11], Jwrosenzweig [12], Carnildo [13], Jayjg [14], JRM [15], Mel Etitis [16], me (Snowspinner) [17], Calton [18], UninvitedCompany [19], David Gerard [20], Raul654 [21], and Kbdank71 [22]. More or less without exception, Everyking's responses to these complaints, questions, or comments is to ignore them, or to make further accusations.
I also find it telling that Everyking's immediate response to this case, rather than being to defend or explain his actions, has been to make accusations against the first arbitrator to accept it.
I would also like to note, I certainyl hope this doesn't end in Everyking's banning. I wasn't going to ask for it, at least. I intended to ask for a personal attack parole and a ban from the administrator's noticeboard pages except to use them to notify people of his own actions. Snowspinner 14:52, July 28, 2005 (UTC)
Gerard accepted this case almost immediately. He has a stated animosity towards me and a personal alliance with Snowspinner, so I strongly believe he should recuse. Everyking 18:32, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
My response was not a flat refusal. It was conditional: I told him if he moderated his actions, I would moderate my words. Everyking 18:45, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
Gerard knows perfectly well why he should recuse and I am not going to dig up evidence to prove to him what he already knows. That's an exercise in absurdity. I may not get to pick and choose my arbitrators but I should certainly have the right to expect that people who have made themselves my personal enemies don't get a vote on my banning. Everyking 18:48, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
Sannse has recused (which is correct of her to do), but Gerard will not, even though my history of disagreement with Gerard far eclipses any similar history with Sannse. Everyking 20:59, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
I have no idea what Snowspinner or the ArbCom have in mind to throw at me. I suppose revoking my adminship would be on the agenda (I know Snowspinner was pushing for that a while ago), but it's been established that one can only lose adminship by abusing it, and even my worst enemies will concede that I don't abuse admin powers (in fact, I'm an active RC patroller, and I've often been thanked for my vandal fighting there). Perhaps instead they'd like to ban me from the Wikipedia namespace like they did to Anthony. Beats me. As far as I can tell Snowspinner has been the one basically at fault through all this. We reached an agreement in mediation, and he proceeded to derail that agreement by increasing the number and severity of his controversial admin actions. I proceeded to increase my criticism in proportion to his abuses. Normally I'm pretty willing to admit my errors and excesses and move on, but I really think my record with the AN criticism is, if not pure as driven snow, at least generally beneficial, and even if I've been wrong about some things (and I probably have; sometimes I slip into devil's advocacy when I see people being denied what I consider a fair hearing), it's done no harm (and it's probably still helped in those cases by sharpening understanding on all sides). It's really very disturbing that Snowspinner engages in hugely controversial actions which are definitely harmful if he's wrong about any of it, and does so very frequently, and yet the question of punishing him is not even being raised. The observer untutored in wiki-diplomacy would doubtless be quick to raise accusations of cabalism. I'll finish this off by quoting Snowspinner himself about me:
"...Everyking's edits to the article namespace are exceptional - he's one of our best content editors, and I thank him for that. I'd also like to note that I am very pleasantly surprised by how much he's moderated his conduct on Ashlee Simpson articles - I'll admit I was one of the naysayers about letting him back on the articles, and from what I've seen I was wrong about that."
Everyking 07:50, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
Following IRC discussion between disputants Everyking, Snowspinner, and members of the arbcom, the following agreement was reached:
Case indefinitely suspended on 06:28, August 5, 2005 (UTC) with no action taken. Will reopen if necessary.
With [23] Everyking has withdrawn from the agreement that led to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Everyking 3 being closed. In light of this, and his continued harassment of admins on AN/I (Most recently his criticism of jguk when he had clearly done no research into the situation), I ask that Everyking 3 be reopened, and that the previous requested penalty of him being banned from AN/I be instituted, or at the very least that the voluntary agreement be re-instituted by decree. Snowspinner 22:50, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't recall that James F. was present when this was being negotiated. I certainly would never have agreed to it if I hadn't thought the spirit of the agreement was that we would both hold ourselves to an equal standard. Everyking 23:42, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
I would like to suggest we disqualify Snowspinner from any further involvement regarding administrative action against Everyking. Not doing so would create an appearance of unfairness, even if there isn't any. We have a responsibility to take an extra effort in removing doubt about our impartiality in our administrative actions. Users who appear to carry a grudge, rightly or wrongly, simply shouldn't be involved because the community trusts these decisions to be made objectively and not emotionally. Any decision which results from this proposal will be seen as tainted by the community and as a result, it will almost certainly fail to be binding. -- Gmaxwell 00:04, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
I see Raul is trying to pin the blame on me for endorsing Snowspinner's RfC. Apparently he is ignoring the fact that it was made entirely clear that I could participate in RfCs against him. Even Gerard chimed in to say this was OK after I did it. Everyking 21:15, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
The arbcom also decided to warn Snowspinner not to bait Everyking. As an outsider to the dispute it is clear to me that Snowspinner did not heed this warning. While the agreement in question was only between EK and the Arbcom (or the community, if you will), we have failed to uphold our side of the bargain by failing to later add teeth to the warning when it wasn't heeded. It's always better to ask than to order, but we must accept the consequences of our more conservative actions, Quite a few others have expressed the thought that the enforced cease fire should be bilateral. If anything goes forward here, I would suggest that it be a rethinking of the nature of that warning to snowspinner. Surely we should not take action against EK based on that comment on Snowspinner's talkpage, even if we accept that it has meanging at all it was quite clearly conditional on Snowspinners compliance with the warning. -- Gmaxwell 00:22, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
I concur with Gmaxwell. It seems to me Everyking followed his ruling to the letter until now (in a rather unfortunate incident). Maybe if Everyking and Snowspinner just agree not to get into these useless fights with each other the arbcom members would be satisfied? I find a re-opening of this case very tragic as Everyking is one of the best editors here, and from what I hear Snowspinner is a good editor too. I'd just hope they'd agree to take some time off from each other. People may find Everyking's criticisms annoying but that does not seem to partian to this particular case, and really, criticism for admins is a good thing I think, even if some think it smacks of conspiracy theories :). Ryan Norton T | @ | C 01:57, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
I'm one of Everyking's mentors (see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Everyking 2). EK asked me to drop in here and talk about how the mentorship was going. His conduct has been much better on Ashlee Simpson-related articles. There haven't been any complaints from other users about his behavior, and there were only one or two instances when I felt that my input was required on Talk:Ashlee Simpson. I'm not sure whether to call the mentorship successful or unnecessary, but either way it should be lifted on schedule (it's been about 4 months since the mentorship agreement, June 19).
At the beginning of the mentorship I told EK that I was also concerned about his conduct on the admin noticeboard. [24] I didn't press him about it since the mentorship only covers his editing on Ashlee Simpson articles. Unfortunately his behavior on the noticeboard has not improved. EK suggested on Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Everyking 3 that the mentorship could be extended to his conduct on the noticeboard. That's up to the arbcom, but personally I think it's patronizing to have a team of people reviewing someone's conduct on a discussion board. Article editing is one thing, but if EK can't behave on a discussion page the proper response is to ban him from that page. It's not worth a mentor's time to mediate these political disputes. I also think Snowspinner and Calton have intentionally baited EK and they should stop. Rhobite 00:43, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
It is certainly true that EK is the most regular critic of admin actions on the noticeboard. There's nothing wrong with that. It is also true that he often criticizes (or had criticized) Snowspinner's actions. There are several possible explanations for that:
I hope that the ArbCom doesn't assume that #1 is all there is to this case. Zocky 16:44, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
2) Wikipedia:No personal attacks
3) Users are expected to have some modicum of understanding of a situation before criticizing the people involved in it.
3) Everyking's behavior has often been uncivil, including border-line personal attacks [25], [26], [27].
4) Everyking superlatively performs the technical aspects of the duties of an administrator such as recent changes patrolling.
5) Everyking's commentary often reveals he is totally ignorant of the situations he is commenting on.
6) Calton ( talk · contribs), and Radiant! ( talk · contribs) have made unproductive and inflammatory commentary on Everyking's behavior. [28] [29]
7) Everyking repeatedly engages in critical remarks, which could fairly be characterized as sniping, regarding the actions of other administrators and the Wikipedia arbitrators in Wikipedia forums. Often he has not adequately researched matters before commenting on them. Decisions are frequently characterized as unfair, often of the basis of technical objections which have little basis in Wikipedia policy. See Excellent summary of evidence
2) Except for posting notices of his own actions, Everyking is prohibited for one year from posting to the administrator's noticeboard and subpages thereof.
3) Everyking is prohibited from making comments on non-editorial actions taken by other administrators other than on the administrator's talk page, a Request for comment, or a Request for arbitration.
Both superceded by a Feb 2008 motion, see below
5) Everyking is required to familiarize himself with the particulars of a situation before commenting on it.
Having considered the request to lift the remaining restriction (remedy X) in the EK3 case, the Arbitration Committee decides that the request is denied, but that the indefinite nature of the restriction is altered so that the restriction will now expire one year after the enactment of this motion. This expiration date of one year will be reset following any future unsuccessful appeals of this restriction:
X) Everyking shall not interact with, or comment in any way (directly or indirectly) about, Snowspinner, on any page in Wikipedia for a length of one year. Should he do so, he may be blocked by any administrator (other than Snowspinner) for a short time, up to one week; after the fifth such violation, the maximum block length shall be one year. The duration of this remedy is to be reset following an unsuccessful appeal of this restriction.
1) Due to a history of past conflict the remedies in this decision are not to be enforced by Snowspinner.
Pursuant to discussion on the arbitration committee mailing list, Everyking has recently been causing more problems. Following our previous decision, he has instead begun harassing administrators on their talk pages. He has resumed editing Ashlee Simpson articles in the same fashion we previously sanctioned. Extraordinary Machine lodged a complaint on the ANI, and I recieved one in private from someone else (that person has refused to lodge one formally because he/she is fed up with EK from previous run-ins).
Per previous discussion, I'd like to propose the following remedies:
(Of 11 currently active arbitrators, those currently supporting these measures: Raul654, Epopt, Fred Bauder, JamesF, Morven, Dmcdevit)
Everyking has asked the arbitration committee to look into his two remaining paroles. The one pertaining to commenting on other admins' actions is still in effect. However, we have decided to suspend for three months the parole pertaining to music article. (Note: Unless we say otherwise, in 3 months it resumes) He may edit on music articles just as anyone else. Raul654 23:15, 14 November 2007 (UTC) link to original announcement Thatcher131 00:16, 15 November 2007 (UTC)