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Initiated by TonyBallioni at 21:56, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Editing of Biographies of Living Persons arbitration case ( t) ( ev /  t) ( w /  t) ( pd /  t)

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

• TonyBallioni ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)
• Buffs ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• [1]

Statement by TonyBallioni

Buffs is currently interpreting WP:ECP to state that admins must either declare protection is for disruptive editing, or apply it under DS. He has taken to requesting logging of ECPs on BLPs at WP:AELOG based on the ruling at WP:NEWBLPBAN. I am requesting the committee clarify whether the practice of using the standard Twinkle drop down Violations of the biographies of living persons policy requires logging at WP:AELOG if it is not intended as a discretionary sanction and it complies with the rest of the policy at WP:ECP. The committee could also clarify whether all actions taken to enforce the BLP policy are under DS or whether the current practice of enforcing it as normal admin actions is fine. I'm sorry to bother you all with this, but since all of his user talk contributions going back 2 weeks amount to a super-literal policing of the use of ECP, I'd prefer the committee clarify this before it gets any further. TonyBallioni ( talk) 21:56, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

I’m not really sure how this is an end-run around ARBPIA4 (which I’ve ignored.) We have someone saying that using the Twinkle defaults for BLP protection requires logging, and when approached about it maintains that is the position. If Buffs is going to continue policing ECP (he can if he wants), there should be clarity on what is actually the standard outside of ARBPIA. TonyBallioni ( talk) 22:43, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Buff's. The reason this is at ARCA is because you said While the ECP of Joe Girardi was short-lived, you still need to log your actions here per the ArbCom ruling on BLPs. Please do so. Buffs (talk) 21:29, 24 October 2019 (UTC)} ( diff)

You also told Risker If you are invoking protection of the article because it's BLP]], you need to log such actions here. Please do so. ( diff)

You are saying that you are fine with this now that we are at ARCA, but the fact is that your most persistent activity of the last few weeks on Wikipedia has been policing the use of ECP. As I said, that's fine. What I have an issue with is you making up a requirement that all BLP protections must be logged, telling admins this, and when it is pointed out to you that you are wrong, you responding that you aren't. You have said on two occasions that ArbCom requires ECP of BLPs to be logged.

When I questioned you on it, you didn't back down and instead said Therefore, it you are citing WP:BLP as your rationale for WP:ECP, it seems to me that you're applying it due to DS, not DE. ( diff).

As for your objections: when someone has made it their mission on Wikipedia to enforce policy on something, are incorrect on what the policy says, and invokes ArbCom as a reason for their position when ArbCom has said nothing of the sort, the place you go to ask for clarification is here. TonyBallioni ( talk) 02:30, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Buffs

Well, that's a terribly biased and misleading interpretation of events.

First of all, to state that "all of [my] user talk contributions going back 2 weeks amount to a super-literal policing of the use of ECP" is beyond a stretch of the truth. In the only two specific instances he mentioned to me on my user page, the first had no rationale listed whatsoever. I asked for clarification and reminded him that, if it was under DS, to file it in the appropriate logs (even going so far as to provide a link to make it easier should that be the rationale). He stated that he probably overstepped where the protection needed to be. In the other, I asked for clarification and the Admin apparently felt it WAS under WP:DS and filed it under the logs as he should do so. In both instances, I felt such actions were appropriate and it was handled as it should have been.

Second, yes, I've asked for others to be more clear and, if necessary, to log such actions in accordance with ArbCom directives. In most instances, an admin says "hmm...you have a point there" and it's either clarified, clarified and logged, or any of a number of other actions which amount to  Done. To demonize all such conversations as super-literal policing of the use of ECP is beyond what anyone could objectively say is an accurate summary of events and is quite uncivil, IMNSHO.

Third, it seems quite obvious that the requirements for DS and ArbCom decisions are not being properly logged. You need to look no further than the first page of over 1800 ECP'd pages to see that there are dozens of pages under ArbCom rulings that are not logged anywhere. When notified, most admins go "Gee, you have a point there. I'll fix that!" Some have dug their heels in and said "No, I'm not going to do that". I haven't pursued such actions beyond a one-on-one conversation because of ongoing ArbCom discussion and clarification that's already underway. Bringing this here seems to be an attempt to end-run around that discussion. Buffs ( talk) 22:31, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Additionally, this falls under both ArbCom rulings (not just BLP) AND community consensus at WP:ECP. Please keep that in mind in your deliberations/conversations. Buffs ( talk) 22:37, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Buffs Responses to comments

• KrakatoaKatie I don't know where Buffs gets the idea that discretionary sanctions has anything to do with the ECP policy

  Third paragraph of WP:ECP

  So, somewhere between Buffs, that third paragraph deals with the history of ECP, not the current state.

  @ Worm That Turned: The point is that ECP is indeed applied for DS reasons. If you're saying the third paragraph no longer applies and admins can just do whatever they want, why bother having a policy at all?

• I don't see the problem with the rationales as they are

  Then I respectfully submit you aren't looking hard enough:

  • Protecting their own user pages without evidence of any need for any page protection: [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17]
  • "I'd rather new users use the talk page for now" but page is indef ECP: [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]
  • No reason at all (out of all the pages with ECP, 3% have no rationale at all):: [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] [58] [59] [60] [61] [62] [63] [64] [65] [66] [67] [68] [69] [70] [71] [72] [73] [74] [75] [76] [77] [78] [79]
  • My personal favorite: "place is fucked": [80]

• If ECP is applied as a discretionary sanction, the admin should say so and log it...

  Agree 100%

• it's not always the case that ECP is applied as a DS.

  Which is why I have a problem with the way this was initially brought to AFCA. I never said it was. This is no more than a straw man argument. There are hundreds of pages on the list of ECP protected pages which are BLPs that have nothing to do with ArbCom/DS. I don't have a problem with any of them. It's very clear from the edit summaries that WP:DE is a significant problem.

• If it isn't, a standard rationale of 'persistent sockpuppetry' or 'persistent vandalism' or 'violations of the BLP policy' (and so forth) is sufficient for me.

  Likewise. I never said otherwise. Buffs ( talk) 01:55, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

• The extra "paperwork" he is seeking is a solution in search of a problem.

  I'm sorry. I guess I thought we were on a site where the policies actually mattered. I guess us mere peons have to follow the rules to the letter and intent doesn't matter while admins get all sorts of leeway? Last I checked, WP:AC/DS still applies. Specifically: "While discretionary sanctions give administrators necessary latitude, they must not...repeatedly fail to properly explain their enforcement actions". Saying that no one can even ask removes that layer of accountability to the community as a whole. Buffs ( talk) 16:21, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

• ...some of these confirmed users would go on to disrupt articles that were not protected at all...

  So why not block the users? You're just pointing out the flaw in your argument here. Buffs ( talk) 17:26, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

• I would also want the parties involved to understand that actions needing to be logged are not made ineffective by a failure to log.

  AGK I never said they were and I don't see anyone advocating as such. An analogy: police officer arrests someone but puts the cuffs on too tight. I'm asking for the cops to make sure the cuffs are the proper tightness, not invalidate the arrest.

• The appropriate response in most cases will be to simply WP:FIXTHEPROBLEM – add the log entry yourself.

  AGK I would have done that LONG ago if the rules didn't preclude that: " All sanctions and page restrictions must be logged by the administrator who applied the sanction or page restriction at Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement log." Likewise, this is very clearly defined as a role of administrators, not editors. I find it odd that no one is even discussing sanctioning admins when WP:AC/DS states "While discretionary sanctions give administrators necessary latitude, they must not...repeatedly fail to log sanctions...Administrators who fail to meet these expectations may be subject to any remedy the committee considers appropriate..." Buffs ( talk) 21:29, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Johnuniq

My understanding is that ECP (30/500 protection) can be applied by an admin in either of these cases:

1. In certain topics specified by Arbcom.
2. In any topic if certain conditions (other methods are ineffective) are met.

In the first case, another admin must not change the protection as it is a discretionary sanction, and the action should be logged. The second case is a normal admin action which can be changed by another admin, and there is no log but pages are automatically listed at WP:AN. See the ECP RfC. Applying ECP is like any admin action—it might be reasonable to ask an admin why they had taken the action. However, it should be assumed that the first case applies if and only if mentioned in the edit summary. Admins have to take a lot of actions and requiring a discussion should be rare. In the second case, if there is reason to think that page protection should be reduced, ask the admin to do that or make a request at WP:RFPP. Johnuniq ( talk) 23:28, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

• Admins were notified regarding ECP on 23 September 2016: example. Johnuniq ( talk) 00:28, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Newyorkbrad

Like the others who have posted, I suggest that Buffs drop this matter. The extra "paperwork" he is seeking is a solution in search of a problem. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 02:26, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by JzG (Editing of Biographies of Living Persons)

Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. Buffs appears to want to make it one. No thanks. Guy ( help!) 10:13, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by El_C

With respect to my own protection cited here, the Kurdish set of articles had been a haven for socking-based disruption from confirmed accounts for months before I finally had to apply ECP to a set of related articles, to the relief of regular contributors. Anyway, some of these confirmed users would go on to disrupt articles that were not protected at all, so the formality of semiprotecting those articles first just so they could be immediately ECP'd seemed redundant to me. El_C 16:33, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

So why not block the users? You're just pointing out the flaw in your argument here — well, I did, at first, but as I recall, the volume proved to be too great. El_C 03:32, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Some more context is available here — it includes Buffs' objection to my application of ECP as well as a comment from another admin, who supported my applying ECP to several Kurdish-related articles. That aside, that this matter is before the Committee —what purview does it have over this?— surprises me. El_C 03:44, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Xaosflux

There seems to be some overlap with the items being discussed at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 4/Workshop, to follow up on my comments there: uses of page protection that are not explicitly related to active arbitration should be dealt with in standard community venues. If the use of protection outside of remedies has truly risen through dispute resolution without a solution emerging it should be dealt with as its own case and not shoehorned on to an old case that primarily dealt with behavior over a different issue. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:15, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

@ GorillaWarfare: your #4 note, as related to any non-arbcom remedy appears to pull in an unknown number of users involved or directly affected without confirmation that all are aware of the request; for example any admin that lowered a full or template protection to ECP for IAR reasons. It also seems that it would tie all those admins to this case - the core of which has nothing to do with applying protection outside of arbitration remedies or the enforcement thereof. It also appears to assume that "their reasoning" is actually lacking or otherwise not already explained. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:19, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Blackmane

Having been involved in the original discussion (and in fact I was the one that suggested that the WP:AN notification be required. Credit goes to MusikAnimal for the hard work though) on implementing ECP as a discretionary measure I would note that the whole point of the notification list at WP:AN was precisely so that there was a log of all ECP's that were levied, irrespective of what they were levied for. Requiring admins to log it elsewhere _as well as it being automatically logged at AN_ is just a box ticking exercise which adds virtually no value. Blackmane ( talk) 03:33, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by isaacl

@ Blackmane: while logging of discretionary sanctions for this situation is a pretty tiny benefit for most instances (how often are these sanctions modified?), due to the rigid rules surrounding arbitration enforcement, it's still welcome. isaacl ( talk) 19:42, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information.

Editing of Biographies of Living Persons: Clerk notes

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

Editing of Biographies of Living Persons: Arbitrator views and discussion

• I wrote the RFC to expand ECP. Option C, which became the bones of the current policy, states that ECP may be used to combat any form of disruption (such as vandalism, edit wars, etc.) on any topic, given that semi-protection has proven to be ineffective. Notification is to be posted in a subsection of AN for review, unless the topic is already authorized for 30/500 protection by the Arbitration Committee. A bot currently handles that AN notification. I don't know where Buffs gets the idea that discretionary sanctions has anything to do with the ECP policy, and I don't see the problem with the rationales as they are. If ECP is applied as a discretionary sanction, the admin should say so and log it, but it's not always the case that ECP is applied as a DS. (I don't think I've ever done it as a DS, but I could be wrong.) If it isn't, a standard rationale of 'persistent sockpuppetry' or 'persistent vandalism' or 'violations of the BLP policy' (and so forth) is sufficient for me. Katie ^talk 00:56, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
• I broadly agree with Katie above. ECP's usage has expanded far beyond DS over the years, and that RfC was the start. Buffs, that third paragraph deals with the history of ECP, not the current state. I accept that there are a number of rationales which are subpar, however that's not a question for ARCA. It's a question for the admins who placed ECP those rationale - we also have RFPP and AN if it cannot be resolved with the admin in question. For a review of ECP on a wider scale, can I suggest an RfC? At any rate, I'm not seeing the problem that needs to be clarified from an Arbcom perspective. Worm^TT( talk) 08:53, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
• I would think the current practice would be if an editor does not expressly state ECP is being applied as an arbitration enforcement relating to discretionary sanctions, it would be assumed it is a regular application of ECP. Mkdw ^talk 06:20, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
• Per Mkdw. I would also want the parties involved to understand that actions needing to be logged are not made ineffective by a failure to log. The appropriate response in most cases will be to simply WP:FIXTHEPROBLEM – add the log entry yourself. AGK  ■ 12:01, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

•  Note: Absent objection, I am suggesting that we close this request now. AGK  ■ 13:05, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

• It seems to me the state of affairs here is that 1) ECP may be placed as a discretionary sanction, in which case it needs to be logged at the WP:DSLOG; 2) ECP may alternatively be placed as an admin action if semi-protection has proven to be ineffective, and it is automatically logged to AN; 3) admins who have placed ECP as discretionary sanctions but not logged the actions in the DSLOG should be asked to do so; 4) admins who appear to have placed ECP outside of the scenarios allowed at WP:ECP should be asked to clarify their reasoning and/or modify the protection level; 5) admins who have placed ECP as per the "semi-protection has proven to be ineffective" scenario should not be required to also manually log the action. Does this seem to cover it? GorillaWarfare  (talk) 05:50, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @ Xaosflux: I probably could've wordsmithed a little better here to avoid what you're hearing. To be clear, I'm not suggesting any sort of formal amendment to the case or anything like that—rather, in cases where a user has concerns about an application of ECP they should determine which of the scenarios above apply and determine if an adjustment needs to be made. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 02:02, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

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Initiated by Sandstein at 19:37, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

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

Clauses to which an amendment is requested

1. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/The Rambling Man#The Rambling Man prohibited

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

• Sandstein ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (initiator)
• The Rambling Man ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• The Rambling Man

Information about amendment request

• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/The Rambling Man#The Rambling Man prohibited

• Change this restriction to a site ban or another appropriate sanction, or remove it.

Statement by Sandstein

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/The Rambling Man#The Rambling Man prohibited provides: "If however, in the opinion of an uninvolved administrator, The Rambling Man does engage in prohibited conduct, he may be blocked for up to 48 hours. If, in the opinion of the enforcing administrator, a longer block, or other sanction, is warranted a request is to be filed at WP:ARCA." This is such a request.

In the abovementioned decision, twice amended since 2016, The Rambling Man was "prohibited from posting speculation about the motivations of editors or reflections on their competence." He has been blocked four times by four different admins for violating this restriction (see his block log). A few days ago, Kingofaces43 requested enforcement of the restrictions for recent comments made by The Rambling Man such as:

• "are you open to recall as an admin who has consistently made bad judgements, false claims in edit summaries, deliberately introduced false claims into articles etc?" ( [81], edit summary)
• "Not to mention the other messes you've left all over the place" ( [82])

In my view, as expressed at AE, the comments at issue are "reflections on the competence" of others, and therefore violate the restriction. Other admins in the AE thread have disagreed.

If the Committee shares my view, it should ban The Rambling Man. If an explicit ArbCom restriction and four blocks (among many other blocks) are not effective in changing the conduct of an editor, nothing will be. Editors should not have to put up with intractably rude people. We would not accept such people among our friends or at our workplaces. We should not have to accept them in this collaborative, academic project. The merits of their contributions cannot make up for the disruption and bad will (and enforcement overhead) they cause.

If the Committee is of the view that the comments at issue are not a violation of the restriction, or are not worth sanctioning, it should lift the restriction, because this would show that the restriction is too vague to be consistently and fairly enforced. Sandstein 19:37, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

It is worth noting that, even as this request is pending, The Rambling Man continues to violate his restriction, as he himself recognizes below. For example, he removed my notification about this request with the edit summary "the harassment ends tonight". In addition to sounding like a threat, this is a speculation about my motive in making this request, namely, that it is intended as harassment instead of (as is in fact the case) a normal part of the arbitration enforcement process. This, too, violates the restriction.

I also take exception to Thryduulf and Iridescent's statements below, who are, as in previous cases involving The Rambling Man, casting unfounded aspersions on my supposed motives. I cannot interpret these interventions by Thryduulf and Iridescent other than as repeated attempts to protect The Rambling Man against legitimate and valid enforcement requests by multiple users who feel harassed by The Rambling Man's disruptive conduct. This is conduct unbecoming of administrators, and should be looked into by the Committee. Administrators should attempt to implement ArbCom's decisions, as I try to do, rather than trying to frustrate arbitration enforcement by making unfounded attacks against those who are engaged in the enforcement process. Sandstein 10:36, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

@ AGK: Thank you for your valuable feedback, which I will take into consideration, together with the feedback other arbitrators may want to offer. As to recusal from matters pertaining to The Rambling Man, so far I've taken the view - perhaps also colored by my experience in real-world administrative law - that an administrator should not recuse themselves just because they have repeatedly "interacted with an editor or topic area purely in an administrative role", as WP:INVOLVED tells us. In my view, this also applies if these interactions (as mine have been) have been strongly criticized by the subject of the interactions and by others. If I was wrong in these interactions, the place for the community or ArbCom to determine this would be an appeal of any sanctions I imposed. But I don't see how the fact that – probably more so than many other admins – I am generally in favor of relatively strict sanctions against regularly incivil and disruptive contributors (not only The Rambling Man) would make me appear biased. Overly strict, unemphatetic, obstinate, perhaps – but not, in my view, biased against a particular person. But, of course, if ArbCom as a body makes it clear that they prefer that I don't deal with The Rambling Man any more, I'd be happy to do so. You may want to consider, though, that this might incentivize others to attempt to pressure other AE admins into recusal if these admins are perceived as insufficiently lenient towards certain editors. Sandstein 15:31, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Since my proposal to ban The Rambling Man has generated so much opposition, let me briefly explain why I think it is appropriate. It is to do with the binding nature of ArbCom decisions, and basic fairness. Of course, the comments at issue here, taken alone, do not really merit a sanction, let alone a ban. But they cannot be looked at in isolation. Our supreme decision-making body, ArbCom, has already gone to the considerable trouble to go through a whole case dedicated to the conduct of one single editor, found that there was misconduct by him (whether or not we agree), and imposed binding sanctions (whether or not we agree with them). And now we find that this editor has basically been ignoring these sanctions on multiple occasions over several years, generating more acrimony, disputes and enforcement overhead. For ArbCom decisions to be binding, they must mean something. That is, there must be real consequences for disregarding them. And if the editor at issue, as here, does not indicate that they intend to obey the decision in the future, there is in my view only one option: a ban, (which need not be indefinite) or a lengthy block. Otherwise we might as well give up on the idea of binding arbitration altogether, or even worse, accept that it applies only to the weak, but not to well-connected editors with many friends. That would be unjust, and I would not want to be a part of such a project. There must be one set of rules, equally followed by and enforced against all. I hold these views irrespective of who they apply to. I would make the same argument if any other editor were in The Rambling Man's position. This is why I have problems understanding why some think I am biased against The Rambling Man in particular, and should recuse myself from cases against him in particular. I can well understand that many people might not agree with this approach to arbitration enforcement – and of course ArbCom is free to not follow my proposal – but I try to apply it consistently. Call me misguided, then, or inconsiderate, but don't call me biased. Sandstein 22:41, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

@ AGK, KrakatoaKatie, and Worm That Turned: I have some sympathy for your inclination to do nothing, because it is clear from this thread that doing anything would be very controversial. But solving intractable disputes and being shouted at for it is your job. Sorry.

I suggest to you that, if you think ArbCom can't come to an agreement about what to do, you lift the sanction. Keeping it around, even though it is in practice unenforceable (as the drama generated by this request and the previous AE threads indicate) is doing a disservice to all concerned: to The Rambling Man, who will in all likelihood be the subject of more fruitless enforcement requests; to the users subject to his misconduct, to whom the existence of the sanction gives false hope that they have an effective remedy against it; and to AE admins, who will not be able to make any sanction stick and be vilified for even attempting to impose one.

Speaking only for myself, I do not intend to undertake any enforcement actions, against any user, as long as I am not confident that ArbCom means its sanctions to be effectively enforced and supports admins in doing so even against community backlash. Based on what I've read from you, I don't currently have this confidence. Sandstein 16:08, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Statement by The Rambling Man

I literally give up. Sandstein has used every chance to see the back of me and I can't take it any longer. The Rambling Man ( Staying alive since 2005!) 19:51, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

This ARCA demonstrates the ridiculous nature of the wording of the sanction. I made substantiated claims at WP:AN about a number of edits by a certain admin who refused to do anything but bait me, and make false accusations about my motivations. If now, as it seems, I am to be banned because I objected and stated said objections to an admins inserting false information, incorrect sources, badly formatted citations, making false edit summaries and leaving articles in a worse state, half-removing contentious material but leaving the rest, in a meatbot fashion, then I guess that sums the place up now. Absolutely everything I said was factually accurate. There was no discussion over "motivation", just statements of fact about the ever-increasing mess this admin was leaving throughout the vast numbers of edits they were making. Of course, given the wording of the sanction, just about every sentence I've typed here now means I should be banned too. Bravo. The Rambling Man ( Staying alive since 2005!) 08:07, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Joe Roe I know exactly where you stand, but for "baiting" perhaps you could read "making unsubstantiated attacks about me, lying about my motivations, and continually invoking WP:ICANTHEARYOU". Of course, if I can't raise these issues at AN, I suppose there's no hope at all. Banned for telling the truth. The Rambling Man ( Staying alive since 2005!) 09:21, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Sandstein There is no "threat" there. How could it possibly, conceivably be a "threat"? What on earth are you talking about? I think it's clear from the various fora where you are always seeking the harshest possible punishment on me that I personally feel completely harassed by you. That is not a statement about your motivations, it is a clear, unambiguous description of how your actions make me feel. If you learn nothing else from this debacle, please at least know that. Are you actually suggesting that I cannot let others know that I feel you are harassing me? Are you seriously suggesting that is prohibited under these sanctions? The Rambling Man ( Staying alive since 2005!) 10:43, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Joe Roe so telling an admin that he has introduced factual errors and incorrect sources to an article is reflections on their competence? Or is it direct advice that anyone should be able to offer when problematic edits have been made by an admin and continue to be made by an admin despite being asked to stop? The Rambling Man ( Staying alive since 2005!) 10:46, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

AGK thanks for your comments. The "harassment ends" comment I left certainly couldn't be interpreted as anything other than me expressing my final thoughts on Wikipedia having felt so harassed by Sandstein time and again, and I was about to leave for good. But according to Sandstein, even feeling harassed by him is a violation of this sanction, so perhaps I need to contact T&S if that's the case. The Rambling Man ( Staying alive since 2005!) 14:07, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Cullen328 I made no "reflections" or "speculations" about the behaviour of two admins in this case. I gave clear and concise reasons as to why they should desist their behaviour. I am now beginning to understand that specific information about erroneous edits is now considered, by some, as "reflections on competence". I wholeheartedly refute that. There's no doubting that the two admins are competent but also that both have actually made mistakes in the context (and that's important) of this dispute. I even offered to completely retract and apologise for everything I'd asserted should their behaviour be backed up in policy and guideline. And that, in the face of multiple lies about my motivations, multiple personal attacks, etc, from these admins. I suppose if the sanction was designed to allow anyone and everyone to have a one-sided swing at me, it's succeeded in that. The Rambling Man ( Staying alive since 2005!) 19:50, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Awilley thanks for your input and note to me earlier. Somewhat like WP:BANEX, I had expected that I was able to note the multiple shortcomings of admins' behaviour in an "appropriate location" (e.g. WP:AN) and it would not constitute an infraction of the sanction even if it had even got close to violating the wording (which it did not). The alternative interpretation being promoted by others is to assume that I am banned from notifying anyone of any mistake they have made anywhere on Wikipedia, for fear of that now being classified as commenting on their competence, that I am banned from questioning the behaviour of admins who have actively introduced errors into the encyclopedia etc. Is that really what this sanction is about? And did either of the admins who variously attacked me personally or simply fallaciously speculated on my motives ever deem that the discussion needed this? Or was it another example of the sanction being a one-way street for people to watch and wait for their interpretation of it to be fulfilled and throw the book at me? I suppose if I'm going to be banned for telling these admins the truth about what they were doing, in the face of their attacks on me, that'll be interesting for Wikipedia going forward. The Rambling Man ( Staying alive since 2005!) 20:20, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

A general question: does this constitute a "reflection" on this user's "competence"? I corrected them a couple of times, gave reasons for doing so, but yet no-one sought to sanction me for it. Where is the line between correcting mistakes, telling people I'm correcting their mistakes, asking people to stop continually making mistakes I'm having to correct, and accepting personal attacks and aspersions about my motivations, while still asking them to desist from their introductions of errors into the encyclopedia? Is this really what this sanction is about? The Rambling Man ( Staying alive since 2005!) 22:32, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

And now it's just fine for the admin to accuse me of wiki-stalking? As noted clearly and unambiguously at WP:HOUND, Correct use of an editor's history includes (but is not limited to) fixing unambiguous errors or violations of Wikipedia policy, or correcting related problems on multiple articles. which is precisely what I did, and where it became obvious to me that the meatbot purge was being done with errors and leaving articles in mess. And despite suggesting the admin should stop, several times, I asked them if they were open to recall which they ignored, numerous times. But under the current sanction, I'm prevented from doing this? The Rambling Man ( Staying alive since 2005!) 07:58, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

And it's problematic that this admin is enabled to level such unverifiable and untrue personal attacks, continue to edit for a further thirty minutes and leave. All editors should know better than to do something like that. The Rambling Man ( Staying alive since 2005!) 08:37, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you David Gerard for eventually getting back and providing those diffs. It's no secret that Mandarax grave-danced on my previous retirement, it's no secret that I have in excess of 10,000 pages including his talk page on my watchlist. It's no secret that Vanamonde and I haven't gotten on at all for years, and it's certainly no secret that PBP has been claiming some kind of "agenda" on my behalf to have him "banned" from this Wikipedia after he was banned from Simple English Wikipedia. As for following your edits, given the nature of them that is in no way stalking, as I already provided the Wikipedia-based definition above - the problems you were introducing and the misleading edit summaries needed to be fixed. The Rambling Man ( Staying alive since 2005!) 19:34, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Thryduulf (re TRM)

It's worth being explicit here that of the administrators to comment at ARCA AE:

• I saw suboptimal conduct from TRM (and others) that was not a breach of this restriction.
• Seraphimblade and Lord Roem both indicated that they saw it similarly.
• El_C was less explicit, but my reading of their comments is that they believe it was not a violation of the restriction as worded.
• Sandstein saw it as a clear-cut violation that should be met with the harshest permissible sanction.

This matches very closely with the situation detailed in The December 2018 amendment request (see summary in my section there).

The underlying disagreement on this occasion is a content dispute between two groups of editors who each feel, apparently in good faith, that their actions are improving the encyclopaedia and the actions of the other group are harming it. I have not looked into it enough to have a view on whether one or other group is right or whether it is more complicated that that. Both sides however have got very annoyed with each other and instead of working out their differences calmly and amicably, heated walls of text are being lobbed from behind barricades. While this conduct is very clearly not what anybody wants to see from editors, I do not believe that it is what the committee intended the sanction to cover as TRM has not speculated about motives, and has not reflected on other editors' general competence but has detailed specific concerns he has and why he has those concerns (albeit phrased very poorly).

I would like the Committee to:

1. clarify their intent with the restriction
2. do so independently of the merits or otherwise of underlying content dispute (I don't think it has reached the level that requires committee involvement, but if it has it should be a separate case request), and actively discourage discussion of it here.
3. examine Sandstein's impartiality with regards to TRM as nothing has changed in 11 months. Thryduulf ( talk) 20:33, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Based on his comment above and this edit summary it is clear that TRM is feeling harassed by Sandstein (and given the history I can fully understand why). At the very least I think the committee should take note of this and actively consider an interaction ban or other restriction to help with this. Thryduulf ( talk) 23:36, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

• @ Joe Roe: TRM is prohibited from commenting on the general competence of an editor. That word is important and does allow for him to question the competence of editors' specific actions and in the context that is exactly what he was doing. Thryduulf ( talk) 09:40, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Hrm, that change does make a difference but I still do not think that the situation we have here is what the sanction was intended to deal with. Certainly it was not intended to sanction only one party in a multi-sided dispute where nearly everyone is engaging in the same behaviour and I don't see that it would help in resolving the underlying dispute. Thryduulf ( talk) 10:32, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

@ Sandstein: I am not protecting, or attempting to protect, TRM from valid enforcement requests. When I see evidence that TRM has violated both the letter and spirit of a restriction then I will either impose or endorse a proportionate sanction on him. What I will not do is impose or endorse a sanction where nearly everyone who is either (a) uninvolved or (b) you agrees TRMs action did not violate the letter and spirit of his restriction. This is not special treatment: this is exactly the same standard that I hold every editor to.
In the current dispute, as in previous ones, multiple administrators have explained to you, in detail, why there was not a violation yet on every occasion you attempt to impose not just any sanction but the harshest one available. Thryduulf ( talk) 11:03, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

@ Johnuniq: The issue with that is that any administrator imposing such a block would be doing so contrary to the consensus of uninvolved administrators at AE (when the discussion was closed there was either no consensus either way or a consensus against, depending how you read it). This sanction would then be appealed and we'd be back where we are now. Thryduulf ( talk) 11:08, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

@ GorillaWarfare: so how should TRM indicate that he believes an editor has made a series of bad judgements over a sustained period of time without violating this restriction? How can he heed this restriction if not even arbitrators can agree what is and is not a violation of it? I agree that TRM's conduct in this dispute is not good (but the conduct of several other parties is equally bad), but I do not understand how, in context, it violates this restriction.

Whatever the answers to the above, it is clearly not serving its intended purpose (and is probably actually hindering the resolution of this content dispute) and should be rescinded and replaced with something that clearly states its intent so that everyone (most importantly including TRM himself) can understand what is and what is not appropriate. Ideally with a provision that allows an identical sanction to be placed on any other party in a dispute with TRM that engages in behaviour that is prohibited of TRM and/or baits TRM. Thryduulf ( talk) 18:51, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

@ Awilley: I am not questioning Sandstein's involvedness in the sense of being a party to a dispute, I am questioning his objectivity with regards to The Rambling Man. It's not just coming to a slightly different conclusion about a single borderline issue, it's coming to a diametrically opposite conclusion to nearly every other uninvolved administrator on very nearly every occasion. Thryduulf ( talk) 10:06, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

@ Levivich: That was I think the intent of this sanction. The problem is that TRM has (in the opinion of a consensus of uninvolved administrators almost every time it has come to AE) stopped engaging in the specific behaviours listed, but it hasn't stopped the disruption. Yes, TRM is disruptive and yes, his behaviour is not good enough (and equally so the behaviour of others in this dispute), but it is not a violation of the sanction he was given. I'm not sure what clearer evidence is needed that the current sanction is not working. Thryduulf ( talk) 10:13, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

@ Fish and karate: I very much do disagree that asking whether an admin is open to recall is questioning their competence. As discussed (here or at AE, possibly both) it wasn't necessary to ask, and it did nothing to de-escalate the situation (especially asking it twice), but as there is no standard recall procedure and not every published set of criteria relate exclusive to competence it cannot be said to be questioning whether they are competent. Thryduulf ( talk) 17:05, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

@ Fish and karate: those are all specific grievances about the admin in question's actions in the specific dispute that TRM has presented specific diffs about in the specific discussion being had. The purpose of the restriction was surely not to prevent TRM from engaging in legitimate dispute resolution and while the phrasing might not be optimal I don't see how else he could go about it. Thryduulf ( talk) 19:26, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

@ Valereee: You're slightly missing the point that the reason we are where we are is that the current restriction, which prohibits TRM commenting on other editor's competence, has not worked because it has not, in practice, been possible to agree on what is a comment on an editor's competence and what is a criticism of another editor's action(s) (which is not prohibited under the current remedy), so it needs either removing or replacing with something different. Replacing it can only work if what replaces it is better defined than the current remedy. While prohibiting TRM from commenting about other editors seems easy at first glance it wouldn't work in practice, because a statement like "User:Example has repeatedly introduced factual errors to the Grenoble article." will be seen as a comment about edits (and thus allowed) by some admins and a comment about an editor (and thus not allowed) by others and we'll just end up back here. A straight civility restriction (something like "TRM may be blocked by any uninvolved administrator for any uncivil comment") will just end up with TRM permanently blocked because there are people who will go out of their way to take offence at something TRM says (see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive217#The Rambling Man for example), even when it really isn't offensive at all. Katie's proposal is not to throw our collective hands in the air and give up, it is to say that TRM should be held to the same standards of civility as any other editor with those standards to be enforced in the same way as they are for any other editor. I don't know whether that will work, but it is the only thing suggested here so far that could. Thryduulf ( talk) 15:53, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

@ Vanamonde93: There are three issues raised here (1) that TRM's behaviour is simultaneously appalling and not a violation of the restriction; (2) Sandstein's blindness to his being consistently at odds with the consensus regarding TRM; (3) Sandstein's conduct at AE more generally. Personally I don't think this is the place to discuss (3) as it is nothing to do with TRM. The problem with many comments here (and at many of the AE filings) is that they see either TRM's bad behaviour and therefore extrapolate that to mean it must be a breach of his sanction; or that TRM hasn't breached his sanction and extrapolate that to mean he must be behaving civilly. Unless and until people understand that the two aspects exist simultaneously the problem will never be solved though because they try to fix something other than the actual problem. Thryduulf ( talk) 11:28, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

@ Vanamonde93: fix the ping. Thryduulf ( talk) 11:29, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

• @ AGK and KrakatoaKatie: I think one thing that you could do that would be helpful, if nothing else, is to make it explicit that civility matters involving TRM which fall outside the scope of his restriction may (or may not) be dealt with at ANI as for any other editor. Thryduulf ( talk) 15:38, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
• @ GorillaWarfare: The whole reason we are here is that there is no consensus that TRM has violated the sanction. Yes he has made some comments that leave a lot to be desired civility wise, but in the judgement of multiple uninvolved administrators those comments did not violate the very specific sanction the arbitration committee passed (and on at least one occasion where nearly unanimously agreed not be problematic at all). Thryduulf ( talk) 12:15, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
• @ Levivich: Consensus does determine what is and is not a violation and there was no consensus that TRM's comments were. As this very request shows it is not "beyond arguable" that TRM's comments were violations and multiple admins have, in good faith, argued why they are not. That, on multiple occasions, AE has not been able to come to a consensus about whether there was a violation and, separately, that the sanction has not prevented the disruption surrounding TRM, are evidence that this sanction is not working. Thryduulf ( talk) 18:05, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Statement by Banedon

I've not read the original thread that led to the AE filing, but looking at the four diffs linked in the AE itself, I think that if we interpret the restrictions as written then the first and fourth diffs should violate the "... prohibited from posting speculation about the motivations of editors or reflections on their competence" restriction. The first diff clearly questions the competence, while the fourth clearly questions the motivation.

Problem with that is, in my (completely subjective) opinion none of the four diffs look like actionable, let alone bannable, offenses. In fact I completely don't see any issue with the 2nd and 3rd diffs. I suspect this is at the heart of the difference in opinion between Sandstein and the other AE admins.

Banedon ( talk) 00:06, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Re Dweller, it's not that simple unfortunately. Although I don't think the four diffs linked in the AE are actionable, the diffs linked by David Gerard are significantly more troubling. They never got to AE, but that's not reassuring - threads like the one Mandarax had on his/her talk page indicate they're suffering in silence because pursuing enforcement isn't worth it. That the victim hasn't complained isn't a sign that the objectionable behavior isn't there. Further, to say that "truly uninvolved admins did not support action" is in danger of committing the No true Scotsman fallacy. There have been admins other than Sandstein who've indicated the behavior is undesirable (including two arbitrators).

Two ARCAs ago, I wrote that Arbcom were undying optimists by trying to tweak the wording, and here we are. It genuinely makes me sad (not angry, just sad). I don't have a good suggestion for what to do. One ARCA ago, I floated the idea that perhaps Arbcom could implement a guarantor system. E.g., lift all sanctions, but require someone to act as a guarantor of good behavior. The next time someone complains about TRM's behavior, it comes directly to Arbcom (by skipping AE, this removes all possibility of AE admins being perceived as "involved" or "uninvolved"). If there's a majority of Arbcom that concludes the behavior is objectionable, then both TRM and the guarantor are blocked for some time. Repeat as long as someone is willing to act as a guarantor. I intuitively dislike this solution since it can punish someone who didn't act poorly, but if tweaking the wording doesn't work and wielding the banhammer is undesirable, this might make the best of a bad situation. Banedon ( talk) 11:59, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Can I ping Mandarax, Vanamonde93 & Purplebackpack89? I imagine they would be interested (their diffs are linked by David Gerard) but am not certain if doing so qualifies as canvassing. Banedon ( talk) 00:01, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm with Vanamonde, Sandstein and Levivich. Doing nothing is not a result - it just kicks the can down the road, practically guaranteeing another ARCA in the coming months, and hardly seems like what the arbitration process is supposed to achieve (i.e. break the back of the dispute). A bad decision is better than no decision. If there is no amendment, there should at least be clarification. Banedon ( talk) 01:52, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

@ KrakatoaKatie: Did something change between 2017 (when you said you would recuse in any proceeding involving TRM) and now? I'm not calling for you to recuse, I'm just curious what made you decide to participate. Banedon ( talk) 09:48, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Statement by Kingofaces43 (AE filer)

As Sandstein mentioned, I filed the most recent AE, mostly as an uninvolved editor, so I don't have any history with TRM, which seems to have been a confounding factor in some previous requests on TRM and comments I see here already.

For my background, I first came across TRM at this post at RSN noticing a content dispute was being exacerbated by TRM's behavior. I tried to give some guidance there, [83] [84] but their tone and response to that didn't allay concerns about battleground behavior or ignoring WP:ONUS policy: Hey? Suddenly you're looking for a consensus to include a source rather than exclude a source? You have it completely arse-about-face. . . [85] I saw them later when behavior problems bled over to AN where I was made aware TRM had specific restrictions towards commenting on editor motivation, competency, etc.

When I filed the AE, TRM saying David Gerard lacked competency as an admin and should be recalled when they said are you open to recall as an admin who has consistently made bad judgements, false claims in edit summaries, deliberately introduced false claims into articles etc? [86] as well as other diffs at the AE looked to be a plain as day violation from an outside perspective and pervasive throughout discussion rather than a one-off unactionable instance. Addressing one's capability is the same thing as competency even if the word itself is avoided. Just becoming aware of TRM in the last few days and doing a blind read of the remedy/case (and the most recent amendment), I thought the prohibition was clear and that TRM was also supposed to disengage. On that latter one, they've been badgering editors instead [87] at the RSN and AN posts to the point it seems to be in WP:ASPERSIONS territory, so the remedy seemed redundantly clear at that point even without broadly construed in the remedy language.

I don't have a horse in this dispute aside from noticing behavior problems exacerbated by TRM at the noticeboards that nearly had me ignore the postings instead as an uninvolved editor. That disruption by TRM just needs to stop. I thought the prohibition was clear, but since it's being tested by TRM, I agree something stricter might be needed since lack of enforcement has apparently been a perennial problem brought up here before. Arbs probably know more history than I do only getting up to speed on this over the last few days, but this seems to be a case where a sort of "topic" ban improvement could cover any inkling of WP:HOUNDING and WP:FOC given the WP:ROPE issue. Kingofaces43 ( talk) 01:24, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

@ AGK: I'm a bit confused by your comment indicating this edit summary questioning Gerard's competency/capability as a admin wasn't a violation of the competency prohibition. Could you clarify how that meshes, especially considering Joe Roe's comments? I'm not sure what would be considered a violation otherwise. That's probably a core need of this clarification, especially since I filed that AE seeing it as a straightforward violation as the remedy was written while being practically uninvolved with TRM or other background interactions you're bringing up.

If I were subject to such a ban and discussing purely content where someone was "wrong", I would expect that I could only say an edit was incorrect on the talk page (and how to fix the underlying issues) and not escalate to things beyond content (i.e, the disengage portion of the remedy). No going to ANI, etc. to say the person is messing everything up or using noticeboards to pursue someone rather than specifically address content only.

A parallel example would be if someone was topic-banned from edits on say competency of BLPs (with specific guidance to let other editors handle legitimate problems), and that editor made an edit to that page about the BLP getting fired from a job due to capability issues with job performance. I would expect, as an uninvolved editor just reading the topic ban, that undoing the edit as a ban violation or requesting admin intervention if other associated behavior problems came up would be relatively uncontroversial. This is a behavior "ban", but scope consideration would pretty much be the same, so I'm legitimately surprised so many are saying it's not a violation. That expectation was also why I didn't dig into slightly older diffs at the AE.

• If discussing editor competency in any form like that diff, especially as a bludgeon within a content dispute, isn't a violation of the competency prohibition, then the wording definitely needs to be changed to not include competency. To be clear, I think that wording is justified from what I've seen.
• The only other suggestion I have for a possible amendment (could be an improvement or another can of worms) would be to add the option of interaction bans (one or two-way depending on need) in addition to that 48 hour block language. I don't want to get into sanctions much since I originally just wanted to hand this off to admins and move on to other things, but that seems like a much more reasonable option than longer/more blocks.

I try not to turn my sections into walls of text, but that about sums up my views and questions to the point I don't think I need to add much more since I'll be away for awhile. Kingofaces43 ( talk) 05:37, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

• @ Sandstein and GorillaWarfare: both of you have commented on ideas or lack thereof of what we should do. One thing I haven't seen brought up yet besides more blocks or a ban are interaction bans. Since TRM's problems are mostly behavior-based, that seems to be the best fitting sanction to prevent disruption. Basically, some sort of "hair-trigger" considering the history of problems. Maybe in addition to the 48 hour block language, In any case where The Rambling Man personalizes disputes, shows battleground behavior, or does not disengage, one-way interaction bans are authorized against The Rambling Man. for a rough draft.

It might be possible to add in a sort of "no-fault" two-way ban language as well, but I'm not sure what I think of that on the other party since the remedy only applies to TRM. That language also might help with the "it's a violation, but not bad enough for a sanction" comments without ArbCom overstepping admin discretion. It doesn't require an interaction ban, but it sets a threshold saying they can be considered even in individual cases (based in reading previous cases and obvious WP:ROPE at play). Basically, TRM gets to edit, but they lose the privilege to interact with editor X if they even test the boundary of their prohibition. That's at least the intent I'm trying to get across as a possible option while balancing what GorrilaWarfare mentioned. I don't now how well it would work, but it would seem more effective than other options. Kingofaces43 ( talk) 00:25, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

• Coming back to this, I do want to echo My very best wishes's about the other "Judge Dredd" comments out there about Sandstein. If anything in the areas I edit, Sandstein has been one of the slower or more cautious admins in the GMO/pesticide area in AE requests, sometimes to the point that I've voiced concern that reluctance to act was detrimental to the topic. At least for this discussion though, that seems to be a positive of Sandstein's, so it does seem like the overzealousness comments at AE are an exaggeration themselves. That's all beside the point of this request though, so I'll say no more on that. Kingofaces43 ( talk) 02:39, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Cullen328

To the best of my recollection, I have had very few if any direct interactions with The Rambling Man. This is because I try to avoid interacting with combative established editors unless absolutely necessary, and I have read an awful lot about TRM over the years. If my memory is correct, then I am uninvolved. I am a logical kind of guy, so here is what I see: TRM is "prohibited from posting speculation about the motivations of editors or reflections on their competence." That seems clear. TRM recently wrote "are you open to recall as an admin who has consistently made bad judgements, false claims in edit summaries, deliberately introduced false claims into articles etc?" That also seems clear to me even though throwing "etc." at the end of it looks like mediocre writing to me. But mediocre writing is not actionable in this context. What is actionable is that TRM's comment looks to me like a clearcut violation of their editing restriction. TRM is reflecting on the competence and motivations of another editor. TRM's defense (defence) seems to be that their speculations and reflections are correct. This is not a valid defense. If, for the sake of discussion, I had an editing restriction regarding elephants, and I added some truly brilliant, well-referenced, neutral and completely correct content about elephants, I would still be in violation of my editing restriction. (This is hypothetical because, unlike TRM, I have conducted myself in such a way that no restrictions have ever been imposed on my editing.) What we have here is what looks to me to be a clearcut violation of an editing restriction. The only open question, in my view, is what type of sanction should be imposed for the violation. That is up to those at a higher pay grade, who should make that decision now. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 08:55, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Iridescent

I agree more or less word-for-word with everything Thryduulf says above, and (unusually) disagree with Cullen. It's obvious that the intention behind TRM's restriction was to prevent him from escalating disputes unnecessarily, not to prevent him from ever challenging an edit he deems inappropriate or raising concerns about the conduct of another editor. It's also clear that the "Admin A says there's nothing actionable, Admin B says there's nothing actionable, Admin C says there's nothing actionable, Sandstein not only says this is actionable but demands the harshest sanction allowed" cycle is repeating far too often, to the extent that it's becoming actively disruptive. (I presume none of the current committee needs it explained that Sandstein's "ignore the opinions of anyone who disagrees with me, and always throw the book" approach damages Wikipedia's credibility; it not only leads to bad feeling among those who receive unduly harsh treatment, but it increases the number of successful appeals and thus perpetuates the "arbitrary process" and "unblockable editors" memes.) It also seems to be becoming obvious that Sandstein has a particular fixation on TRM, as no matter what the concern raised about TRM—even if it's on a matter with which Sandstein has never shown any previous interest—Sandstein seems inevitably to be among the first people to pop up, and invariably demanding the harshest possible sanctions.

I'm not sure if this is something that would (or should) be appropriate for resolution by motion at ARCA or whether it would need a full case so evidence can be presented and examined in a more formal setting over a longer timescale, but I think we're now reaching the point where Sandstein's interactions with TRM, and Sandstein's activity at AE in general, ought to be formally examined. I've been hearing variations on "Sandstein disregards other AE admins and imposes supervote closures", "Sandstein makes AE decisions based on his personal like or dislike of the parties rather than on the evidence presented" and "Sandstein cherry-picks evidence to suit his preferred result" quite literally for years now. Some of that may just be because Sandstein's obsession with AE means he's by far the most active editor there so he receives blame for decisions that would have been made regardless of who made them, but the nature of the complaints against him seem remarkably specific and consistent over time, with the current spat with TRM just the latest manifestation. An admin consistently accused over a long period of time by multiple editors of the misuse of advanced permissions to pursue personal grudges—regardless of the accuracy of the allegations—is ultimately going to become a trust and safety issue (both with lowercase and uppercase T & S), and we only just finished sacrificing millions of innocent pixels to establish the principle that these situations are for Arbcom to clean up.

To avoid the timesink of what would likely be a lengthy and acrimonious case, I also think it would be healthy both for Sandstein and for Wikipedia were he to disengage from closing AE discussions or taking enforcement actions, either voluntarily or at the barrel of an Arbcom motion. That way he could still say his piece on any given issue about why he feels "the maximum sentence" or "no action at all" are the only acceptable courses; if his decisions aren't perverse and against consensus then whoever else closes the discussion and takes the enforcement action will reach the same conclusion so nothing will be lost or disrupted in any way. ‑  Iridescent 09:18, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

@Sandstein: Yeah, I'm only protecting TRM because of our undying admiration for each other. If you're going to start lashing out and making up conspiracy theories when people call your competence into question, at least make up conspiracy theories that are plausible. This isn't some kind of organized campaign against you because you're The Only One Brave Enough To Tell The Truth™, it's multiple people pointing out that in their opinion you've been consistently misunderstanding policy, demonstrating competence issues, and giving the strong impression that you believe so strongly in your own infallibility that you literally can't see any explanation for the fact that other people disagree with you than that they're part of some kind of plot which the rest of Wikipedia has hatched against you for some unspecified reason.

(What were the previous cases involving The Rambling Man in which I cast unfounded aspersions on [your] supposed motives, incidentally? This is Wikipedia and we run on sources; if you're going to make claims you're expected to provide diffs rather than just making shit up and hoping some of it sticks. To help jog your memory, here's the diffs for every single comment I've ever made at AE regarding TRM.)

You may well be attempting to implement Arbcom's decisions, but the issue is that you've in my opinion demonstrated systematic incompetence both in interpreting the intent of those decisions, and in researching and interpreting the background to disputes, and instead just take on face value the claims of anyone who happens to be bringing someone to AE whom you happen to have taken a dislike to.

That complaints of this nature have been made about you for years isn't in dispute, and is why if you're not willing to commit to following Wikipedia's customs, practices and policies, rather than constantly insisting that your personal opinions of the participants in a dispute overrule consensus, you're sooner or later going to end as the subject either of an Arbcom case or of one of Jan Eissfeldt's dossiers. It doesn't matter if the allegations are true or not, the fact that they keep being made means that someone will ultimately have a duty of care to investigate them. (If Framageddon has changed one thing on Wikipedia, it's that the good ol' boy days are over and we're no longer willing to dismiss repeated complaints about an editor or admin because "he's been around a long time so the complaints probably aren't worth investigating".) Your refusal to listen to other admins who aren't in total agreement with you on whatever the topic in question happens to be will mean that Arbcom or T&S—the only two bodies with the authority to compel you to participate—are the only people who will be able to conduct that investigation, and whichever of the two it turns out to be the process will be unpleasant and time-consuming for all involved. ‑  Iridescent 11:53, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

@ Joe Roe and AGK: I (unsurprisingly) disagree entirely that Sandstein's conduct and motivations are out of scope here. He opened this ARCA with the explicit aim of getting Arbcom to approve a hugely disproportionate response against an editor against whom it's documented that he's taken a dislike (If the Committee shares my view, it should ban The Rambling Man); it's entirely relevant whether this is a legitimate request or an attempt to weaponize the committee as a tool to intimidate a wiki-political opponent. Obviously if Sandstein isn't willing to moderate his behavior both at AE and more generally (I'm still waiting for either the evidence for his claims about me above or a retraction…) then this is going to end up as a full case eventually as it's not viable in the long term to have an admin abusing process to try to intimidate those who don't share his opinions—it does nobody any good to disregard the fact that Sandstein's actions aren't isolated incidents but are taking place within a broader context. ‑  Iridescent 15:34, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

@ Levivich: TRM can be annoying and disruptive and his "I'm right, you're wrong" approach is generally counterproductive, but his restriction is the very specific prohibited from posting speculation about the motivations of editors or reflections on their competence, not "TRM is prohibited from doing anything which Sandstein thinks is disruptive". We have a consistent pattern here of people complaining about TRM, uninvolved admins concluding that the action being complained about doesn't meet the terms of his Arbcom restriction and consequently isn't appropriate for AE and needs instead to be reported via the usual channels for dealing with user conduct, and Sandstein then parachuting in to the discussion demanding the harshest possible sanctions against TRM despite there being consensus that he hadn't actually violated the (fairly specific) terms that would make the complaint a matter for AE. We also seem to be developing a troubling pattern in which Sandstein accuses all those questioning his actions of being part of a conspiracy to protect TRM, despite a near-total lack of evidence—looking at the names here the only person to comment here whom I would consider any kind of friend of TRM is Dweller yet Sandstein is still not just insinuating but directly and repeatedly claiming above that the only reason people are opposing a total site ban for TRM here is that TRM is a well-connected editor with many friends. (On that topic, I am still waiting either for some evidence for Sandstein's fabricated direct allegation about me above, or a retraction and appropriate apology.) Sandstein may be the most active admin at AE but he's certainly not the only one; if his attitudes towards how TRM should be dealt with reflect consensus than it will make no difference whether he or someone else is the one to take action. If the action he would have taken is one that no other admin would take, then that's prima facie evidence that his judgement is impaired when dealing with editors against whom he has a personal grudge. ‑  Iridescent 10:52, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Johnuniq

Why all the drama? It appears the 48-hour block rule was imposed in December 2018 and there has only been one block (for 48 hours) since then. Any admin who believes a sanction is warranted should impose a 48-hour block and stop talking about it. Johnuniq ( talk) 09:55, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

SN54129

@ Sandstein: By I cannot interpret these interventions by Thryduulf and Iridescent..., are you speculating on their motives? If you are, then you will understand how innocently one may speculate; if you're not, you will understand how (such) commentary can be misunderstood. —— SN 54129 11:13, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Black Kite

I don't think it's "casting aspersions" on Sandstein to suggest that he has previously been vociferous in seeking sanctions on TRM at AE when there is actual empirical data on the situation. Here, for example, he calls for a block of a month, but the case is eventually closed as "No Violation". Here, exactly the same thing happens again. Previously, Sandstein had actually blocked TRM for a month, which was then reduced to a week on appeal. Even 18 months ago, Sandstein's neutrality was being questioned - from the second link above "Generally I would expect an admin to recognize when their judgement may be compromised regardless of whether they meet the letter of WP:INVOLVED. Failing that I would expect that they would step aside once several editors repeatedly bring the matter up; If for no other reason than to avoid the appearance of impropriety."' Black Kite (talk) 13:37, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

• @ Joe Roe: I disagree - Sandstein believes an actual site ban (or similar - Change this restriction to a site ban or another appropriate sanction...) for a veteran editor is a possible outcome here, so I'd suggest that looking at the motives behind that wish are not out of scope. Black Kite (talk) 15:07, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by OID

If Arbcom do not address Sandstein's behaviour towards TRM here, then the next step will be opening an AN discussion with intent to ban him from any interactions with TRM. At which point all of Sandsteins contributions at AE, his habit of ignoring and/or dismissing other admins concerns, the over-eagerness to (not just with TRM) impose the maximum possible penalty, the various instances where he frankly has a basic lack of competence/understanding in certain subjects makes him unsuitable for enforcing restrictions on that subject - I can line up a long list of editors if you want and pages of evidence. The likely outcome of said discussion (for reasons iridescent and others above go into) would either be A)Sandstein gets prevented from interacting with TRM in any editorial or administrative function, or b)it gets punted back to Arbcom as too complicated and too many problems. So feel free to save everyone a lot of time and effort here. Only in death does duty end ( talk) 14:24, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Awilley

Okay, so a contributor with 230,000 edits has received 4 AE civility blocks in 3 years, and the latest violation is borderline enough that admins disagree whether it should be enforced. So the solution is to either siteban the editor or remove the sanction entirely? And what is the metric for measuring success here? Is TRM being blocked too often, or not often enough? Since this is at ARCA, I think there are a few ways in which this custom sanction *cough* could be improved. For one thing, I think it could provide alternate pathways towards resolution besides time-consuming trips to arbitration enforcement and blocks. Obviously it would be ideal if the uncivil personal comments stopped altogether, but the next best thing is if the comments are stricken/withdrawn voluntarily like this ( diff of TRM striking one of their comments) Second, I think the scope could be narrowed to omit administrative noticeboards and TRM's user talk page. Unlike normal talk pages, noticeboards are designed to handle complaints about user behavior, and sometimes discussing things like competence and motivation is appropriate and necessary. And the user's own talk page is a low-disruption venue where users can traditionally blow off steam without too much fear of reprisal. ~ Awilley ( talk) 16:06, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

• A note about Sandstein's "involvement": this civility thing is obviously something where reasonable people can look at the same thing and come to very different conclusions. For this reason I object to painting Sandstein as "involved" because he reached a different conclusion from other AE admins looking at the diffs. In fact, while Sandstein usually comes down with harsher positions than I personally would prefer at AE, I have never seen anything that seemed WP:INVOLVED. Quite the opposite. Detractors could paint him as a robot meting out the will of Arbcom, but he's still an uninvolved robot as far as I can see. ~ Awilley ( talk) 01:33, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Statement by El_C

Taking into account that this is not an actual Arbitration request but one seeking clarification —and I would hope the distinction between the two would not become overly blurred— I think both parties here could benefit from advise that encompasses both criticism and praise. TRM for being (still) overly combative in their conduct, but notwithstanding their otherwise potent contributions. Sandstien for being overly strict —and, at times, supervotey— on AE, but who otherwise often does good work on that board.

There is also the matter of the restriction itself, which as mentioned in AE, I find confusing. That, indeed, should be clarified by motion. Uninvolved admins should be able to make immediate sense of it. Also, I would be opposed to any sanctions being applied at this juncture, even though I did find TRM's conduct in this latest dispute to have been subpar.

Finally, I'm a big believer in not needing to formalize everything. But I also don't know enough about the TRM arbitration case or about the TRM-Sandstien dynamic to offer more definitive input. Still, an awareness of (truly taking to heart) and a willingness by both parties to act upon their perceived strengths (more of) and weaknesses (less of) would be a good thing. It might be enough to turn the tide. Or we may be past that point. I don't really know which it is. But would lean toward giving the former informal approach a chance, if at all possible. El_C 17:10, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Seraphimblade

If nothing else, I think this illustrates the need for clarification. (I do not think the only two possible resolutions are "site ban" or "lift the restriction"; far from it.) In my view, while I think the phrasing in which TRM expressed his views was in some cases excessive, I did not see him to be questioning the overall competence of any editors or admins, but rather disagreeing with particular actions. In one sense, I suppose disagreeing with someone's edit or action could be considered a question on their competence, but, as I said at the request, if the requirement is that TRM isn't allowed to disagree with people or object to their edits, it should (and presumably would) say that. So far as Sandstein, well, Sandstein is often willing to make a decision in the tough cases (which AE sees plenty of), and when you do that, someone is going to be unhappy no matter what call you make. However, I would encourage Sandstein to consider some of the concerns brought up here by other admins with regard to TRM in specific, and handling in general. I absolutely do not want Sandstein pushed out of AE; we need people who are willing to make the tough call and take the inevitable flak for it. (I don't know enough about any particular history between Sandstein and TRM to comment on that). I'm around AE a fair bit myself, and in general, when I see Sandstein handle something, it is a reasonable and defensible decision. Sandstein does lean toward the tough side, but well, matters under discretionary sanctions are cases where decisive action is necessary to curb areas already subject to substantial disruption, so that in itself does not indicate a problem. I wish I knew the best way forward. I'm afraid I don't. But the current framework isn't working. The filer of the AE request made their filing in good faith; their belief that it was a violation is a defensible one, as is the assertion that it was not. It does no favors to either TRM or to the community for us to be uncertain of what is permitted and what is not, and it is certainly not a good situation when the answer to "Was that a violation?" primarily depends on who answers that question. At this point, even the two arbitrators who have commented as of this writing don't agree on whether it was sanctionable. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 22:22, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by David Gerard

I'm the admin TRM's comments were focused on (though the actions were purely editorial actions, not admin actions). FWIW, speaking as the target, I'm not too worried about them - non-admins' freedom to complain about admins, even in non-admin matters, is important, and I have a reasonably thick skin. I think he's dead-wrong and he thinks I'm dead-wrong - and the actual issue at hand will hopefully be resolved in an orderly manner with a resolution that all parties can live with in the current discussion at VPR.

But the effects of this behaviour on the editing environment need to be considered. I think it's important to note here that TRM's frankly amazing combativeness and junkyard-dog attitude is frankly wearying, and makes for a deeply unpleasant and repelling environment for other editors. This sanction isn't the precise appropriate one, but his behaviour is a serious problem - looking, for example, at the way he went off at Kingofaces43 as literally his first interaction, per above - and could do with some sort of action, because editors who insist on treating every interaction as a knock-down drag-out battle followed by wikistalking, as TRM does, are fundamentally bad for Wikipedia - David Gerard ( talk) 23:36, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Sluzzelin it's 1:30am here, I'll add tomorrow - David Gerard ( talk) 01:26, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

The following is not presented with the intention of being some sort of a slam-dunk case for immediate action against TRM - but just as an answer to Sluzzelin's request for edits demonstrating "editors who insist on treating every interaction as a knock-down drag-out battle followed by wikistalking".

Just picking a few examples from the last six months (and keeping in mind that this is not the issue this ARCA is about - but I've made a claim and should indeed back up what I said):

Interaction with TRM is unpleasant at best, and requires sifting through what he's saying for the substance amongst the gratuitous aggression - and a substantive response is often answered with an aggressive diversion.

I don't doubt his sincerity, or his considerable good work at Wikipedia - I do doubt his outbursts and intimidatory behaviour are appropriate, and he really needs to recognise and stop doing this sort of thing, at all.

I hope this answers Sluzzelin's question sufficiently - keeping in mind that this is not concerning what this ARCA is about, but about other behaviour. I do think this is at least some demonstration of an interaction style that is seriously problematic and intimidatory to third party editors, and that this needs attention. It would be good if TRM could just stop interacting with others in this manner, even when he's sure he's right - David Gerard ( talk) 19:19, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I should also note that, given Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/The Rambling Man, it's unclear how much store I should set upon repeated advice on how to comport myself as an administrator from someone literally de-adminned for cause by the Arbitration Committee. It is possible I should not do that - David Gerard ( talk) 23:31, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Banedon my uses of the {{ u}} would have pinged them, I think. But just to be sure, since we don't want to talk behind anyone's back: @ Mandarax: @ Vanamonde93: @ Purplebackpack89: - David Gerard ( talk) 00:21, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Sluzzelin

David Gerard, please provide diffs showing that TRM belongs to "editors who insist on treating every interaction as a knock-down drag-out battle followed by wikistalking" ("as TRM does"). Thank you. --- Sluzzelin talk 00:22, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Lord Roem

As much as actual neutrality is important, so too is the perception that the enforcement process is fair and consistent in the severity of sanctions issued. I'd urge Sandstein to consider AGK's suggestion of voluntarily recusing from TRM-related matters. We're obviously in a very unique use case, so I don't think there's a strong risk of this being used to pressure other admins out of AE going forward. The tendency to always pull the trigger for an exorbitantly harsh sanction will naturally make an editor feel singled out. I hardly think the other admins who monitor the AE board will be unequipped to handle a future potential incident should the need arise.

At this point, any block issued would be punitive as we're now far removed from the diffs that started this all. For the Committee, I'd request rethinking the sanction itself. I know it's been through the ringer several times already, but my sense is that's evidence it's been unworkable from the get-go and that no perfect wording will make these issues easier for TRM or the admins at AE. I don't have a strong position on what that replacement should be, but clearly what we have is, at bottom, difficult and highly subjective to parse. Lord Roem ~ ( talk) 00:54, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Levivich

I never understand why some editors find these situations difficult, nuanced, or unique.

["Competence is required"] does not mean we should label people as incompetent. Calling someone incompetent is a personal attack and is not helpful. Always refer to the contributions and not the contributor, and find ways to phrase things that do not put people on the defensive or attack their character or person. It does not mean that Wikipedia's civility policy does not apply when talking to people about required competence. Rude and uncivil comments are discouraging, and can raise psychological barriers against recognizing one's mistakes or improving one's skills ... It is generally inadvisable to call a person "incompetent" or their editing "incompetent". While being direct with problems is advisable, it is possible to be direct without being insulting. Telling people their work displays incompetence does nothing to improve their work; it only serves to put them on the defensive, making them less receptive to instruction.
—  WP:CIR, an explanatory supplement to WP:DISRUPT

The collapsed section of #Statement by David Gerard shows a significant number of recent uncivil comments and personal attacks. This is not complicated; this is simple. – Leviv ich 03:57, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

---

I'm going to throw out a crazy idea for a solution:

1. Identify the chronic and ongoing disruptive behavior(s) TRM engages in, if any
2. Ask TRM to stop the behavior(s)
3. If he refuses, block him until he agrees

What I like about this proposed solution is that it's simple, it's easy to enforce, it's effective, and it treats everybody as if they were adults working in a voluntary collegial environment, as opposed to as if we were in a court, or a school, or a prison, or at therapy. – Leviv ich 00:55, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

---

@ Valereee: Re If Sandstein believes there's an issue with TRM, they should bring it to the attention of some other admin.: isn't that what Sandstein did here, by taking it to ARCA instead of issuing a sanction? I'm surprised by the number of comments in this ARCA about involvement, bias, or overenforcement (made by many admin I respect), given that he didn't impose a sanction and instead raised the issue for discussion and voiced an opinion. What else do we want from him? Don't voice the opinion? – Leviv ich 19:42, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

---

Not enforcing it, not clarifying it, and not lifting it, is not a good idea. Arbcom should do one of those three, or just wait another 12 days for the new arbs to chime in. – Leviv ich 16:39, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

---

@ Thryduulf:

1. TRM is "prohibited from posting speculation about the motivations of editors or reflections on their competence."
2. TRM's post said an editor "consistently made bad judgements, false claims in edit summaries, deliberately introduced false claims into articles etc"
3. It is beyond dispute that "deliberately introduced false claims" is "speculation about the motivations of editors". It is beyond dispute that the statement is a reflection on competence.
4. You can say, "But we came to consensus that it isn't!" and you just sound silly. Sure, admin at AE can also come to consensus that up is down and black is white, but you all just look silly.
5. That this happens–that admin at AE come to consensus that the obvious is not obvious, that the truth is not true–is evidence that the prohibition as written isn't working. (In fact, it's evidence that the entire AE system doesn't work and needs to be torn down and rebuilt, because this happens not just with this sanction, but with many others as well.) Admin at AE are literally, publicly, arguing that up is down and black is white in order to avoid enforcing Arbcom's prohibition. That's a good reason to change the prohibition, but please don't argue with a straight face that TRM didn't violate it, just because a handful of people said so.
6. Consensus does not determine reality. Not even on Wikipedia. – Leviv ich 17:18, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

@ Thryduulf: The word "deliberately" means "with intent", and the word "motivations" is a synonym for "intent". So, "deliberately introduced false claims" is, by definition, a "speculation about the motivations of editors". Consensus cannot redefine words any more than it can redefine reality. You just can't come to consensus that "deliberately introduced false claims" is not a "speculation about the motivations of editors". Because those words have meanings that are not subject to multiple interpretations. There is only one interpretation for those words in that order: TRM was making a statement about the intent of another editor; specifically, that their intent was to introduce false claims. That's what "deliberately" means. You can't come to consensus otherwise any more than you can come to consensus that the sun rises in the west. Because it doesn't. Similarly, you can label an argument "good faith", but that doesn't make it so. You can even assume it, but that still doesn't make it so. Sure, I can argue that my wheel of swiss cheese is round and has holes, and the moon is also round and has holes, and therefore, the moon is made of cheese. I could argue that. And you could describe it as a good-faith argument. But it's not. Simple as that. Anyone who says that "deliberately introduced false claims" does not constitute "speculation about the motivations of editors" is being disingenuous or is incompetent (i.e., not fluent in English). There is simply no other interpretation of those words. That multiple admin feel the need to argue that up is down, because to admit the truth would be to trigger sanctions that they do not want triggered, is a sad state of affairs that should be rectified by Arbcom. It's the one thing we and everyone else agrees on: the current sanction doesn't work. But I think everyone should drop this fiction that TRM didn't violate the current sanction. Of course he did. The only question is what to do about it. Enforcing the sanction doesn't have consensus, but the fact that a violation occurred is a fact that is not subject to consensus. – Leviv ich 18:20, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Statement by Dweller

I wasn't going to comment here, but I was pinged by David Gerard. I think AGK absolutely nailed this. Arbcom's badly-worded restrictions on TRM are intended to prevent disruption, not to permit admins to run roughshod over him. He's complained with justification about an admin's actions at that admin's talk page and at AN. AGK correctly points out that of all the diffs complained, one might technically breach the restriction and even that's not at the level where it's reasonable to take action. Even Banedon, in the past an intractable opponent of TRM can see this (to Banedon's enormous credit - hats off to you).

Every time Arbcom looks at this, I point out to them that this sanction is backfiring and making future cases more likely not less, and each time I suggest they relax (or actually drop) it they strengthen it. I'm sick of telling them this and will wait for the next committee which may be less entrenched in its own position. You're all good people, but you've been getting this wrong - more and more wrong every time, to the extent that now you're even upbraiding him for despair because he was on the point of quitting. -- Dweller ( talk) Become old fashioned! 13:03, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Robert McClenon:

1. Irrelevant. This case is not about Sandstein's interactions with TRM or vice-versa.
2. None of the diffs under scrutiny feature "profanity". Further, this is not about hostility or vindictiveness, but whether he has materially breached his restriction. Which is a shame, because I think that he has been the subject of hostility and vindictiveness more than the aggressor in this case.
3. Irrelevant as the case has already come here and the AE showed clearly that the truly uninvolved admins did not support action.

This case should be closed without further action.

-- Dweller ( talk) Become old fashioned! 10:53, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Robert McClenon and many others contributing here. No, this is not about civility, hostility or the like. TRM is subject to WP:CIVIL the same as anyone else and ArbCom is not the referee for anything and everything people are upset about regarding TRM (which actually is what often happens at AE). The case is specifically about Arbcom's restriction that he is "prohibited from posting speculation about the motivations of editors or reflections on their competence." The uninvolved admins at the AE case found that he hadn't breached that. Sandstein said he had and urged the strongest sanctions, so the admins referred it here. -- Dweller ( talk) Become old fashioned! 08:51, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

I echo those calling for Arbcom to lift the sanction.

If they're not going to lift it, doing nothing further is merely to concur with the consensus of the admins at the AE case that prompted this. -- Dweller ( talk) Become old fashioned! 18:12, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

GorillaWarfare You cite Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/The Rambling Man#Enforcement_log That log shows a ton of activity in 2016/17 and in over two years since then...? What? Yet we have still have periodic AE cases due to this dreadful sanction. And every time I tell you to ditch it, the committee has either ignored me or made it worse. Can't you see you've just made a stick to poke the bear with? Yes, TRM needs to be less bear-like - actually, I think he's already a lot less bearlike as the record shows, but the stick is still offered to every passing bearpoker. Can't you be less sticklike?

And guys, this has been open for a heck of a long time. It really is time to wrap it up one way or another. -- Dweller ( talk) Become old fashioned! 18:42, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Statement by Robert McClenon

The troublesome aspects of this case are:

1. The Rambling Man (TRM) and Sandstein dislike each other.

2. The Rambling Man apparently has a crabbed interpretation of the requirement of civility, in that he apparently thinks that he honors it by avoiding profanity while otherwise being hostile and unpleasant to the number of editors whom he dislikes. This interpretation of civility games the fourth pillar of Wikipedia.

3. Sandstein is justified in disliking The Rambling Man because of his gaming of civility. However, that dislike does not justify vindictiveness, and the request to ban The Rambling Man is vindictive.

ArbCom should impose some sanction on The Rambling Man that is more severe than a 48-hour block but less severe than a ban. ArbCom should consider a full two-way interaction ban between Sandstein and The Rambling Man. Sandstein should be considered to be involved in any dispute with The Rambling Man, through no fault of either party, simply because the dislike is too strong to permit him to act objectively in an administrative capacity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Robert McClenon ( talk • contribs) 03:53, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Clarification

Evidently point 2 was not clear to User:Dweller. I never suggested that profanity had anything to do with this case. I meant that The Rambling Man never uses profanity, and may think that that is civility, but he is nonetheless profoundly uncivil without using profanity. There is a crabbed interpretation of the fourth pillar of Wikipedia that it is sufficient to avoid profanity. It is necessary but not sufficient to avoid profanity. This case is about The Rambling Man being hostile and unpleasant. Robert McClenon ( talk) 21:02, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Statement by WaltCip

The fact that Sandstein stands alone in wanting to impose the maximum possible punishment of a siteban on TRM for a debatable violation of his sanction is prima facie proof, given his prior history, that he cannot dispassionately act as a finder-of-fact for this individual. At minimum, he should recuse himself from this case, and more preferably, any future ones regarding TRM.-- WaltCip ( talk) 19:19, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Well, in response to Sandstein's latest comment, I do believe that he is, in fact, misguided and inconsiderate. I think KrakatoaKatie's reasoning is the most valid of all. TRM is being held to a deliberately unfair standard - speculation on one's competence occurs here on Wikipedia all the time. The last few attempts to bring him to WP:AE have amounted mostly to "Aha! Gotcha!" claims for usually minor offenses (which Sandstein usually attempts to double down on with calling for a full-blown ban). Because of this seemingly draconian standard, TRM has a fleet of defenders who protest the attempts at sanctioning, which usually results in attempts at enforcement falling short, which is how we ended up here. I believe the sanction itself is the issue. TRM should be held to the same standard of civility as everyone else here, because really what this comes down to in the end is civility, and how others perceive him to be incivil. If he doesn't abide by the civility policy everyone is required to follow, he should be blocked appropriately. He's not inextricably intertwined with highly controversial areas of Wikipedia like portals, infoboxes, or American politics, or any other spaces which would normally be under the purview of arbitration sanctions.-- WaltCip ( talk) 14:49, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

I get that there is an impasse here, but is any purpose being served by keeping this amendment case open any longer?-- WaltCip ( talk) 13:11, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Statement by JzG (TRM)

Is it just me, or is that restriction an attempt to legislate Clue? TRM used to be a top bloke, but has become an obnoxious grump. I don't fully understand what happened. Regardless, if this restriction stands then he clearly violated it so the question is probably: do we care? I don't know either way. Guy ( help!) 23:18, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Lepricavark

Regardless of the merits of TRM's conduct, I agree with those who have contended that Sandstein needs to recuse himself from taking administrative action with regards to TRM. I believe that admins should avoid even the appearance of taking involved actions. Lepricavark ( talk) 06:56, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Fish and karate

I have described Sandstein as someone who Judge Dredds his way around arbitration enforcement before, and would suggest that not only should he be kept away from any kind of administrative decision-making involving TRM, he should probably be kept away from closing arbitration enforcement discussions entirely, irrespective of the user under discussion. Fish+ Karate 15:03, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

To add, I don't think anyone can say TRM hasn't breached the restrictions around questioning the competency of others - this is clearly a breach, and should be dealt with accordingly, but not by Sandstein. Fish+ Karate 15:50, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

@ Thryduulf: It wasn’t the question that was a breach of the restriction, it was the accompanying edit summary. Fish+ Karate 18:27, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

@ Thryduulf: If you don’t think “are you open to recall as an admin who has consistently made bad judgements” is not questioning competency then I cheerfully withdraw my opinion that “I don’t think anyone can say TRM didn’t breach his restriction“, and replace it with a “blimey”. Fish+ Karate 21:28, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Statement by My very best wishes

I think the comment by TRM "are you open to recall as an admin who has consistently made bad judgements, false claims in edit summaries..." was an obvious violation. If something stronger is needed (I have no judgement about it), that could be only a blanket ban to comment anything about any other contributors, with standard exceptions. Some people complain about actions by Sandstein, but I do not think anyone can make a convincing case here. This is because most actions by Sandstein on WP:AE have been either supported or at least not explicitly objected by other admins. Only a couple of his decisions were overturned on WP:AE , as far as I remember. My very best wishes ( talk) 15:36, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Speaking about the Judge Dredd (comment above), yes, individual admins could act just like Judge Dredds in DS areas because Arbcom allows it (no reporting and discussions on WP:AE is required for any sanctions). Fortunately, none of the admins actually acts in this manner, even Sandstein. My very best wishes ( talk) 02:10, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Ched (TRM & Sanderstein)

I've tried to follow this back to some sort of "source" of disagreement, and my conclusion isn't a pleasant one. While I do agree with some of the others in their assessments (Iridescent, Black Kite, and AGK to name a few), I'm not sure this can be resolved here. I think that even if you outright find someone to hang the albatross on HERE, you'll simply be kicking the can further down the road to THERE. The concept of deprecating sources that were once considered perfectly reliable is proving to be a 'tough row to hoe' (that is to say "it will be difficult to reach agreement"). While the committee is already under a heavy workload with the Portals case, I'd venture to guess that the "Deprecated Sources" case isn't far behind. From here back to AE, back to AN, and back to VPPRO, discussion has been tried. — Ched ( talk) 18:29, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Valereee

I’ve become convinced TRM doesn’t realize what his words feel like from the other side. He excuses making noncollegial comments ‘because it’s the truth.’ I think he sincerely doesn’t comprehend that the fact what he's saying is true doesn’t make the way he says it acceptable. I don't think he realizes there are ways to say this stuff that aren't counterproductive to collegial work. I don’t know what to think, here. The guy is hugely useful. His insights are great, he works incredibly fast, he has a huge capacity for work, he catches 90% of issues that cross his screen. I’d seriously hate to lose that sharp eye. But he really doesn’t seem to understand why (or even that) the way he says something is important. He just doesn’t get it. It’s like this giant blind spot in his perception of reality. I certainly don’t want to see him banned, but I don't want to give him the message that this stuff is okay to say, either. I just wish we could teach him how humans interact collegially online.

Sandstein should stop being the TRM police. It's counterproductive. If Sandstein believes there's an issue with TRM, they should bring it to the attention of some other admin.

Levivich, what I'd suggest is that Sandstein say to (some uninvolved admin), "Hey, this diff looks to me like TRM is violating his sanction, what do you think?" rather than opening a case. If the other admin thinks it's worth a case, they can open it just as well. Opening a case is a huge frickin' deal, as we can see from the amount of time and energy we've expended here. If Sandstein had gone to someone else and said, "Hey, whaddaya think?" And that person had said, "Yeah, I'll just go (do X) to get his attention" we might have avoided this. --valereee ( talk) 19:56, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Thryduulf asked how should TRM indicate that he believes an editor has made a series of bad judgements over a sustained period of time without violating this restriction? It sucks that TRM is competent to notice such things but not competent to comment on them, but there you have it: he clearly isn't good at figuring where the rest of the world draws the line. In fact, it appears he is incompetent in that area. It's no different from an editor who simply cannot seem to learn any other policy, no matter how often multiple people explain it to them, no matter how often people point it out to them when they're doing it again. Eventually they just need to decide they'll contribute in other ways. --valereee ( talk) 12:22, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

KrakatoaKatie, I'm with Vanamonde. We can't just throw up our hands and say, "Clearly he can't learn how to do this competently and won't stop doing it anyway, so let's stop trying to get him to do it competently and just let him keep doing it incompetently." If an editor cannot contribute competently in an area, they need to stop contributing in that area. TRM isn't competent to comment on other editors' competence. He's terrible at it, and no matter how often it's explained to him, this is something he can't learn. It's really too bad, but there it is. --valereee ( talk) 13:03, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Possibly moot, but I agree with Thryduulf that one thing that could help would be to make it explicit that civility matters involving TRM which fall outside the scope of his restriction may (or may not) be dealt with at ANI as for any other editor. --valereee ( talk) 15:56, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Minor4th

I am totally uninvolved with the principals in this case. My only knowledge is what I have read here and the links provided. Arb definitely needs to clarify the sanction because, as written, it seems like a clear cut violation, but this type of behavior has been interpreted in the past to not be a violation.

Further, Sandstein and TRM obviously have problems with each other. TRM thinks Sandstein lacks judgment in his administrator actions; Sandstein would be happy to see TRM site banned. Both of their opinions about each other may be overblown. I think a two way interaction ban would be appropriate, along with a clarification of the sanction. Minor 4th 23:14, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Vanamonde (TRM)

I entirely endorse what Valereee has written above. I feel like a broken record at this point, but; TRM's content contributions are extremely valuable; but in interacting with other editors he has tended to make discussions unnecessarily and inappropriately hostile and personal whenever someone has the temerity to disagree with him. The possibility that he could occasionally be wrong, or even that there are matters over which reasonable people could disagree, does not seem to occur to him. As far as I can see, the intent behind the various restrictions TRM has been subjected to about the manner in which he may discuss other users has been to buffer this tendency as far as possible while allowing TRM to work in areas that he can be productive in. If that's the intent, then wrangling over whether a specific comment was a breech of the sanctions is almost irrelevant; the fact is that TRM's behavior in that discussion wasn't acceptable, and we're not doing much about it. KrakatoaKatie, I agree with most of your analysis below, but I'm baffled by your conclusion; if we can't give TRM a short sharp reminder for skirting the edge of this sanction, how on earth do you expect him to be sanctioned for his routine violation of WP:CIVIL? When was the last time you saw an experienced editor actually serve out a civility block? Mind you, this isn't the only sanction he has skirted; just off the top of my head I there's these examples ( [90], [91], [92], [93], [94]) Where TRM is violating the letter or spirit of his competence/motivation restriction and/or his DYK TBAN. Nobody chose to report those, but with TRM no good deed goes unpunished, I guess. ARBCOM's choices here are fairly clear; you could block him in this instance, and leave the restriction as is; you could take the position, implicit in several statements here over the years, that a certain level of content work entitles you to be bloody rude all the time, and lift the restriction (I don't say "bloody rude" lightly. Language used at my workplace is extremely casual, and even so I would have been subject to pretty severe sanction for treating my colleagues the way TRM treats his fellow editors). Or, if restrictions on language aren't working, formulate a broader restriction that can be written as a topic ban instead. Vanamonde ( Talk) 09:06, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

@ Dweller: The entire purpose behind the case that placed behavioral restrictions on TRM was to examine his behavior; and the case found that he had been uncivil, and had needlessly personalized disputes. The restriction we are arguing about here was framed to try to address that problem; it's only a means to an end. Arguing that this case is about the restriction, rather than how to address TRM's behavior, is...bizarre. If you genuinely don't see a problem with how he treats other editors, fine; but please recognize, at the very least, that this isn't a view shared by most other folks. I looked through the AE and ARCA archives related to this case the last time, and found nearly three dozen admins, plus the ARBs, telling TRM that his behavior was not okay; but you continue to imply that it's just a bunch of thin-skinned editors who have a problem with him. Vanamonde ( Talk) 10:38, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

@ Thryduulf: I think your outline of the three issues is fairly accurate. I agree that 3 is out of scope here, and would require a separate case (I do not think there's been any misbehavior which rises to the level of a case). With respect to issue 2, I've asked Sandstein, on multiple previous occasions, to recuse from conduct related to TRM; not because he is INVOLVED (he isn't) or biased (his bias is civility related, rather than TRM related) but because his involvement will engender more drama than it will solve; and as such his involvement is permitted, but unwise. Sandstein has elected not to do this, and I can't really blame him, because he isn't the only constant fixture in discussions about TRM; there's others who regularly show up to make the "no violation" argument (I think it would be quite an interesting experiment to see what would happen if every admin who had previously participated in AE discussions about TRM stepped away from them; but that's never going to happen). About TRM's own behavior; yes, we have to acknowledge that those aspects exist simultaneously. As I see it, AE exists to examine whether a violation of a specific remedy has occurred, and ARCA exists, in general, to determine if the remedy is fit for purpose. This case is unusual in that a lack of consensus at AE is supposed to be referred here; but we've got bogged down again in a) general discussions about Sandstein, and b) whether TRM violated this specific remedy, whereas we ought to be talking about "how do we ensure TRM can be productive without letting him vitiate the atmosphere". I've offered several suggestions, here and at previous ARCAs, in that regard; so to be honest I'm not sure why you aimed your comment at me, but I do agree with the thrust of it. Vanamonde ( Talk) 12:07, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

@ AGK and KrakatoaKatie: this request was opened by Sandstein explicitly to address whether or not the diffs brought to AE constituted a violation of TRM's sanction. To close this without answering that in either direction seems very odd to me, when a previous clarification suggested bringing these disputes here in the absence of consensus at AE. Vanamonde ( Talk) 16:45, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

@ Worm That Turned: I repeat to you my question to Katie and AGK. ARBCOM asked admins to bring AE discussions about TRM here if no clear consensus was reached. And now you're saying "no comment". I'm not even disagreeing with your decision here; you're just refusing to make a decision, and I'm baffled, to say the least. Vanamonde ( Talk) 18:15, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Statement by WBG

To echo V93:- this request was opened by Sandstein explicitly to address whether or not the diffs brought to AE constituted a violation of TRM's sanction. To close this without answering that in either direction seems very odd to me, when a previous clarification suggested bringing these disputes here in the absence of consensus at AE. ∯WBG ^converse 15:59, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Amakuru

Supporting the motion to close. It's clear that there's no action going to be taken, and we already have three votes to that effect. Meanwhile TRM has been absent since the end of November thanks to this, which is a great loss to the project. Can't believe the case is still open after all this time.  —  Amakuru ( talk) 22:19, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Girth Summit

I just had reason to drop by TRM's talk page, and wondered why he seemed to have disappeared - a bit lf digging led me here, so I'm late to this party. I empathise with Valereee's sentiments above, and support the motion to close. As a relative newcomer to content creation, I've found TRM's guidance and support tremendously helpful over the course of this past year - that's not to say his behaviour is perfect at all times, especially perhaps when it comes to interactions with long-standing editors with whom he has had a rocky history, but as a mentor for new editors hoping to produce DYKs and GAs he's amongst the best, and his absence is being felt already. GirthSummit _(blether) 15:20, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

The Rambling Man: Clerk notes

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

• @ AGK: With two recusals, a majority of the committee is 4. -- In actu (Guerillero) | My Talk 00:29, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

  Since the voting has ended, there are now no recusals, so a majority is 5 In actu (Guerillero) ^{Parlez Moi} 19:20, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

• I have fixed acmajority for the first motion as all new arbs are actively seated now. CodeLyoko ^talk 23:36, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

The Rambling Man: Arbitrator views and discussion

• I cannot see how an admin who has consistently made bad judgements in particular is not a reflection on competence. There are no exceptions in TRM's current sanction for reflections on competence that are specific, or substantiated, or in response to "baiting" (an embarrassing concept to apply to the conduct of adults in a collegial environment). He is banned from making them, full stop. It was worth a try, but I think at this point it's obvious that this sanction has not been effective in reducing disruption. If anything it's increased it, given the burden placed on AE admins who could otherwise be working on improving the encyclopaedia. So yes, let's either remove the sanction if we think TRM's conduct is acceptable, or replace it with a clearer and more easily enforceable one if it's not. –  Joe ( talk) 08:36, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

  @ Thryduulf: The wording of the sanction was amended last December specifically to remove the word "general". It now reads ...prohibited from posting speculation about the motivations of editors or reflections on their competence. I did get the impression that perhaps some participants in the AE discussion had missed that change (another reason why these highly 'bespoke' sanctions can be difficult to enforce). –  Joe ( talk) 10:25, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

  I don't think commenting on Sandstein's conduct here is helpful, because a) this isn't a forum where anything can be done about it and b) what Sandstein has or hasn't done has no bearing on whether TRM has breached his sanctions or what we should do about it. If there is a problem with Sandstein's AE actions, I'd suggest raising it at AN or failing that in a new case request. –  Joe ( talk) 13:42, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

• Given that the requested outcome could effect the Arbcom Elections, and I am a sitting candidate in that election, I'll keep out of this while the elections are ongoing. Worm^TT( talk) 09:33, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

  Since the voting period is over, I think I'm safe to comment on the issues regarding other Arbcom candidates again. I would like to echo the thoughts of AGK, that Sandstein is one of the most active AE admins and does a very good job on the whole, but I do not believe that his judgement with regards to TRM is up to his usual standards. Comments about scalpels and sledgehammers come to mind. Whilst I would really struggle with supporting a motion to enforce a required recusal from TRM enforcement, I would strongly recommend that he steps away too, focussing on other AE cases. Noting, I don't consider him WP:INVOLVED, just that his approach is not helping in this particular set of circumstances. Worm^TT( talk) 11:21, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

• Not all administrators are willing to volunteer at the AE noticeboard; many avoid it. Sandstein is one of the most active volunteers and obviously does a lot of good, no matter what else is written here. However, the result of this week's enforcement request was incorrect. Four diffs were presented in the request; only a single one (the other messes you've left all over the place) was remotely a sanction breach. Prior to Sandstein, the enforcement request was running an appropriate course and I would not have us amending the remedy. Instead, I would have Sandstein committing to recusal from enforcement of the TRM sanction. Having this commitment expire after 2 years would seem like selecting an appropriate amount of time.
  I am sidestepping a number of the other points and issues raised in this request because I do not view them as pertinent. However, I will offer three additional comments. First, @ The Rambling Man: you very well may have said the harassment ends tonight out of distress and not rage. Yet still the sentence is sinister and you have previously said things like that to other people on Wikipedia. When you are confronted by an interpersonal issue on Wikipedia, you need to start thinking upfront about the result you want to get to – rather than seeing red. Users in your position can erode and then lose community support if this sort of conduct goes on long enough, even if you are not actually "getting worse". Second, @ Sandstein: if you will not commit to recusal, I may bring a motion compelling you. Although this appears like no choice at all, the motion cannot carry without a majority of the committee. Lastly, @ Sandstein: I reiterate that I think your contributions to AE are valuable as a whole. You have received criticism about style and severity, from within this committee and by observers, that you need to take on board. However, peer review is a process that improves us and I encourage you not to resist its effects. AGK  ■ 13:57, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
• Recuse during the election. Katie ^talk 15:03, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

  Voting period has ended and so has my recusal. I'm inclined to lift the restriction. It places TRM under a special rule that largely keeps admins from dealing with his bad behavior on sight. The special rule is rarely enforced. And when it is enforced, there's huge dramah and gnashing of teeth and the block is lifted. Why are we going through this all the time? Katie ^talk 14:37, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

  @ Banedon: At the time I was still a little salty after TRM told me to go do something that's not anatomically possible for me to do. I'm over it now, and the guy deserves a fair hearing. That's all. Katie ^talk 18:13, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

• Agreed with Joe: the comments violate the restriction, and the restriction clearly is not being heeded. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 17:04, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @ Thryduulf: TRM's initial comment at the AN discussion was reasonable, within his restriction, and in my opinion exactly what he should have done in that scenario. He noticed what he viewed as an issue with another editor's work, and raised it politely at a relevant noticeboard so that other users/admins could investigate the issue. He could have left it at that, and stepped away from the conversation—instead he continued to argue in the AN thread and eventually breached the restriction. Even if he had decided to remain involved with the AN thread, I am certain it's possible to do so without making comments like you clearly are so far off the mark it's remarkable, not to mention the other messes you've left all over the place, and others he made in that conversation. Honestly, I'm not highly inclined to reword the sanction for a third time as you suggest—TRM has not been willing to adjust his behavior, and so we are just saddling AE with enforcement of a highly custom sanction (already difficult) against an editor who can make enforcement of sanctions against him quite unpleasant. That said, I'm not sure exactly what I think we should do—for one, the timing of this is really unfortunate: we have only six arbitrators who can give input on this, and TRM himself is a candidate in the current election. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 21:14, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @ Thryduulf: I'm referring to the fact that the Rambling Man has been sanctioned for violating this restriction several times: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/The Rambling Man#Enforcement_log. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 03:11, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Resolution: The Rambling Man

Proposed:

For this motion there are 13 active arbitrators, not counting 2 recused. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 7 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference

Abstentions	Support votes needed for majority
0–1	7
2–3	6
4–5	5

1. Support. Proposing we close this request now. Some weeks after it was filed, plenty of users have weighed in. Arbitrators have provided lots of views and advice. Some colleagues have other ideas (eg vacating the restriction or rewriting its text) but they do not seem to have support of a committee majority. It seems best that we proceed now in this way. AGK  ■ 12:35, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
2. Support Absent opening a new case, I really don't know what else to do. Katie ^talk 13:17, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
3. Support I don't think we need a formal resolution here - but this isn't going anywhere. Worm^TT( talk) 15:12, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

• I think we need to postpone this motion so that the incoming committee members have a chance to weigh in and vote. Mkdw ^talk 18:41, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
• Recuse. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 01:22, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
• Recuse. – xeno ^talk 19:17, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
• I cannot shake the feeling that time and again, the attempts to enforce a highly bepsoke restriction have tended to cause more trouble than they ever prevented or solved. With so much room for interpretation, it leaves the door open to gaming from both the subject of the restriction and from someone who, to put it delicately, is not a fan of the subject. At this point, I think that vacating the restriction, while not ideal, is the least bad option; keeping it seems to make matter worse. (And for completeness, I don't see the need to ban Sandstein from AE or to ban TRM from the project.) Maxim_(talk) 19:44, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
• I've proposed a motion to lift the restriction entirely. The fact that AN, AE, and this thread at ARCA have all failed to agree on an action here is evidence that it isn't working. – bradv 🍁 20:46, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

The Rambling Man: motion to lift prohibition

Proposed:

For this motion there are 12 active arbitrators, not counting 3 recused. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 7 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Majority reference

Abstentions	Support votes needed for majority
0	7
1–2	6
3–4	5

Enacted - CodeLyoko ^talk 05:52, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Support

1. Support. The existing remedy is having a chilling effect on administrators enforcing the civility policy, and appears to have outlived its usefulness. Continued personal attacks, aspersions cast without evidence, or other forms of incivility can be dealt with at the usual venues, including by means of new request for arbitration. – bradv 🍁 20:44, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

   Modified to also vacate the special enforcement provisions adopted in Dec 2018. – bradv 🍁 21:36, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

2. I'm ready to turn this back over to the community to handle, without fear of reprisal at AE. Katie ^talk 21:16, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
3. Ultimately the germane question to me is whether or not this enforcement provision is helping more than it's hurting. It seems clear that the specific wording of the restriction is causing a lot of problems and creating more issues than it seems to solve, because rather than focusing on conduct it's focusing on wording to determine infractions, with enforcement that is unclear and causing extra issues, especially as enforcement often comes down to just a few individuals who are then scrutinized heavily for the unenviable task of implementing ArbCom's handiwork. The fact that there's disagreement between arbitrators on this suggests it's just not a good restriction, and I'm open to letting the community take a wack at it. Right now, I think we're standing in the way of that. If it's still a problem the community can't deal with, then it's best examined in a new case. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 20:11, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
4. Maxim_(talk) 21:16, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
5. Stressing that this isn't an endorsement of TRM's conduct—it is obviously still causing disruption—just an admission that this sanction isn't working and we haven't been able to come up with something better. I'd encourage a new case request if the problems continue. –  Joe ( talk) 13:13, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
6. In this case, I agree that a bespoke sanction is not the right solution. This is absolutely kicking the can down the road, as the removal of this sanction should be on the understanding that we will consider a case request in the future. Worm^TT( talk) 13:42, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
7. Weakly, per Joe's reasoning. Regards So Why 20:08, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose removing a sanction that TRM repeatedly violated, without including some sort of replacement. I would suggest letting the new arbitrators take a crack at this, but since TRM has apparently taken a hiatus, perhaps we should pause this request until he returns. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 04:36, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
2. AGK  ■ 16:41, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
3. If a report to AE results in being declined, then it probably means the sanction is either working (and it was a bad report) or it was a good report but AE cannot handle it. I do not subscribe to the philosophy that it should be lifted unless it has been proven to no longer be necessary and that has clearly not been demonstrated here. If the sanction is not working, then other alternatives should be pursued which many have been proposed in the past including reporting violations to the Arbitration Committee. Mkdw ^talk 08:00, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussion by arbitrators

• Recuse. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 20:54, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
• Recuse. Beeblebrox ( talk) 19:12, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

---

Initiated by Piotrus at 04:44, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Antisemitism in Poland arbitration case ( t) ( ev /  t) ( w /  t) ( pd /  t)

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

• Piotrus ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)
• Sandstein ( talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• MyMoloboaccount ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• diff of notification Sandstein
• diff of notification MyMoloboaccount

Statement by Piotrus

The Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Antisemitism_in_Poland#Article_sourcing_expectations remedy from the recent case seemed like a good idea at a time. When I thought about the restriction passed, I thought it would reinforce WP:BRD: someone (re)adds a problematic reference, they get reverted, their source is discussed on talk or at WP:RSN, and they are warned that they should not re-add it or such until a consensus is reached. A sort of 1RR for problematic sources, particularly in case of WP:REDFLAGs.

However, this recent AE ruling, where an editor ( User:MyMoloboaccount) was blocked for a week in about an hour after the request was made, for restoring a problematic source or two, with no discussion on talk anywhere, just a straight report and near insta block, gave me a major pause. It is good to require editors to use quality sources; there is a ton of bad sources to be weeded out, and adding more low quality ones needs to be discouraged (I habitually remove low quality refs and there's a lot of garbage in this topic area: ex. [95], [96]). But discouragement should not be achieved by a wiki equivalent of nuking people for small infractions. Now, I have personally written hundreds of articles related to this topic area, and I am speaking with my content creator hat now: the above AE ruling has made me scared of creating any new topics in this area, expanding them or even of reverting problematic edits by likely socks/SPIs. Because if one can get a week long block for a first infraction with no need for an explicit warning, this is an invitation to create a battleground populated by said socks/SPIs, and in a short while we will have nobody else editing this topic area.

If one can get blocked for a week+ in an hour after adding a borderline source, this opens a major can of worms. Sure, we can all agree that some sources like personal webpages, blogs or forums are unacceptable, but there are plenty that fall in a gray area, and I find it scary that a single admin is now not only apparently empowered to decide what is reliable or not, bypassing prior talk consensuses, RSN and such, but per DS could even impose year blocks and topic bans of up to a year at a whim. Let me illustrate this with some practical example of what has been used in this topic area.

In the linked AE thread, for example, a newspaper was among the sources reported as 'bad', through the closing admin judged it acceptable. That was for Rzeczpospolita (newspaper). But which other newspaper will make the cut and which will be seen as not reliable? If someone uses a more controversial paper like Sieci or Do Rzeczy as a source, will they get a week long block? A year long topic ban? For the first infraction? What about an article from a news portal like Onet.pl? Can a city portal be used to reference information about unveiling of a local monument or celebration of a remembrance event? Or a March of the Living coverage? Yes, newspapers and such are not the best sources, but are they now a gamble with a potential block or ban? Is an average admin that does probably does not speak Polish empowered to make such calls based on what they see in an English Wikipedia article on a Polish newspaper, magazine or portal (if one event exists)? If it mentions words like controversial, right-wing, left-wing, or whatever is it that they see as a red flag, it's ban hammer time?

More examples. In my talk post at Talk:Home Army where I reviewed some sources recently challenged on that talk page (and that were shortly after discussed in that AE thread) I noted that I think course notes by a reliable academic are probably ok. Apparently, they are not, since lecture notes are not peer reviewed. Ok. How about [97], a source used in recently created Warsaw Ghetto Hunger Study (by the same editor who made the complain about said course notes...)? That appears to be a non-peer reviewed lecture delivered at an unspecified place (I have attended such events as a grad student and later, they can be very informal and address a room of <10 people). Ban editor for using such a source or not? What if someone cites a popular history magazine such as Histmag? Reliable or not? Toss a coin? How about a source published by Institute of National Remembrance? That institution has been criticized for some recent politicization (as described in the article body), what if the reviewing admin decides that an editor using this source, until now generally seen as acceptable, merits a ban because they find the criticism section in the IPN article convincing and feel that IPN is no longer a reliable source? How about articles from a a museum website? How about an educational website maintained by IPN, like [98] or [99]? How is it better than the course notes that were ruled 'not good enough'? Did I mention popular history magazines? IPN publishes several ( pl:Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej, pl:Biuletyn IPN „pamięć.pl”). What about a portal like [100], which contains information on Polish Righteous Among the Nations, co-financed by by Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but also by a controversial NGO associated with unreliable Radio Maryja? Is that portal unreliable because it received financing from a problematic NGO? Even if it is unreliable, an average editor using it may not even be aware of the connection. Block people because they didn't investigate who funds a website sufficiently? I am an academic and an editor experienced in this topic area and in finding reliable sources myself, yet I didn't even realize some of those sources were problematic until someone else pointed it out (that a magazine I assumed was peer reviewed might not be, or that this website received some financing from a shady NGO). Can a website about local tourist attractions be used a source to note that some World War II fortifications survive as said tourist attractions ( [101])? How about websites on shipwrecks? I recently became aware of articles like List of shipwrecks in August 1941 that use many substandard sources ( [102]). If someone adds a source like this about a Polish WWII shipwreck, how many weeks of a block are they looking at? Shortly after the ArbCom case closed I asked one of our milhist ship experts to create an article on a minor ship SMS M85, and he replied that "I think that the recent Arbcom ruling on articles associated with Poland in WW2 makes writing an article impossible." He created it nonetheless, but if he used a less then impeccable source (perhaps [103] that I see in German minesweeper M18 (1939)), would he be looking a ta block? Is using a site like [104] to reference some non- WP:REDFLAG technical details about a ship or another minor detail a major offense now? How about if the article I created on Japanese pilot Naoshi Kanno was Poland-related? I referenced his appearance in an anime series to a source or two that another editor objected to ( [105]). If it was a Polish pilot, would I be blocked now? Topic banned for a year, perhaps, if it was my second or third infraction?

I hope that the above illustrate clearly that the entire Poland WWII topic has become a minefield now that very few editors will dare to edit until this issue is clarified. In particular, we need to know the answers to:

• per [106], is this indeed correct that "the remedy does not require any particular notification or proof of awareness...and therefore [is] enforceable whether or not an editor was aware of it". And if this is not correct, how to make new editors aware of this? Would {{ Ds/alert}} for "topic=b" be sufficient?
• is it the intent that AE can now be used to bypass WP:RSN and such, and any admin can now speedily rule on what sources are reliable or not and impose DS-level blocks and bans (up to a year, including topic bans) for a single infraction without a specific warning?
• for this topic area, should RNS be bypassed and questions about reliability of sources directed to AE? Since the admin reviewing a complain is empowered to ignore RSN/talk consensus/etc. and make their own calls, why bother discussing sources anywhere else? Making a complain at AE seems to be the best way to get anything done in this topic area now (preferably by reporting one's opponents to AE until something sticks).

My constructive suggestion is to revise this remedy to make sure that this applies only to editors who have been warned and who engage in edit warring restoring bad sources. In other words, I think that editors should be allowed to add or readd any sources they wish, but once they have been made aware that there is an issue with a source they added through a talk page message, then a 0RR rule should apply pending an outcome of a RSN discussion that the editor who challenged the source should start. If, after made aware that a source is under review, they restore it, then they can be reported to AE. This should be done on a source basis, not editor, i.e. if an editor adds one problematic source, and few weeks later, a different one, it should be treated as separate case, not as a repeat violation (unless it is the same source). Further, an AE ruling in such a case should be not to block an editor for a first infraction, but to add the problematic source to a dedicated blacklist for this topic area. Only editors who re-add a source from said blacklist, after being made aware of its existence through a DS-like warning, should be eligible to being blocked (in practice, one should get warning "you added a source from this blacklist, if you do it again or add any other source from it you may be subject to escalating blocks and bans). To block editors for a first violation, when a source's reliability is often unclear and can merit further discussion, seems like a major battleground escalation, ignoring BDR, and encouraging editors to report their 'opponents' to AE in hope of a quick block. And yes, given the borderline and difficult to investigate nature of many sources, we need a blacklist that specifically states "this website/book/author are bad", because otherwise people will be blocked for plain ignorance or a simple mistake ("you reverted a likely sock that among other edits removed a problematic source. One year topic ban for you. Sock wins. Move on".

I end this with a reminder that I am a content creator and a professional writer, familiar with RS on and off wiki, and in my professional opinion anything more restrictive than the proposal above will create a chilling effect and a major battleground, with editors reporting one another for innocent borderline sources, until no-one is willing to touch this content area with a 10-foot long pole. Remember the adage about good intentions, please. It's enough to look at recent history for Home Army. I am a long standing, experienced contributor, and right now I am abandoning this article, and all related, to likely socks/SPI who have nothing to lose. And I am not going to revert anyone, I will just consider reporting them to AE, since any other course of action is an invitation to get myself blocked. Maybe they will gut this and other articles, removing bad sources, good sources, and whatever else they want, but I am frankly scared or restoring anything, if it is up to a semi-random admin to decide that maybe I merit a year-long topic ban because I added or restored a single borderline source. Is this the type of editing environment this remedy was meant to foster? -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:45, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

PS. Molobo cannot make a statement as he is currently blocked, unreviewed appeal pending.

PPS. There is also a simple date error with this finding that I raised here (date 1933 should be 1939). I don't think that merits a separate thread.

-->

Statement by Sandstein

I was not notified of this request, even though I am listed as involved. This is an appeal of an enforcement action couched in the terms of a clarification request. It should be dismissed because, per applicable policy, only the sanctioned editor may appeal an enforcement action.

In fact, MyMoloboaccount is trying to make an appeal on their talk page, but hasn't said in which forum they want to make the appeal. Maybe an admin can help them out with that. The question of whether I was right to block MyMoloboaccount should then properly be discussed in the course of that appeal.

As to the broader point raised by Piotrus that it is not a good idea to make individual admins decide which sources are inadequate and therefore blockable, I don't really have a view. It's for ArbCom to decide whether such a measure is necessary in this topic area. I assume they chose to do so after careful consideration because the normal method of determining the appropriateness of sources through consensus has failed. But the authority given to admins here isn't really any broader than under discretionary sanctions, which already apply to the topic area. Sandstein 16:18, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

The proper appeal has now been copied to AE: WP:AE#Arbitration enforcement action appeal by MyMoloboaccount. I have commented there. Sandstein 18:55, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by MyMoloboaccount

Statement by JzG

Mymoloboaccount has been here long enough to know better. [107] is a flagrant misrepresentation of the source. Mymoloboaccount is lucky to have received only a one week block for this. Guy ( help!) 11:50, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Ermenrich

Molobo is well aware that their editing is seen as problematic, see here. Their current arguing over the block only demonstrates either a lack of understanding of what a reliable source is, in which case competence issues seem present, or else willful disregard for it. There is no reason to hollow out these requirements because you're "scared". Molobo's block is, if anything, a sign that they are effective. He is fully aware of the remedy and the block, having participated in the case, and he's been here for years and years, so he ought to have a better sense of sourcing anyway.

If you have concerns about other editors' edits, you are also free to report them. The hope was this would clean up the area. Relaxing the restrictions would undermine this goal.-- Ermenrich ( talk) 14:17, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Nug, Paul Siebert is right - there are plenty of ways to get to good academic sources. There is no reason why these restrictions should stop anyone editing with good faith from editing.-- Ermenrich ( talk) 22:55, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by François Robere

In general, users who are new to Wikipedia or to a topic area aren't blocked immediately upon infringing on a rule - they're notified and asked to participate in the TP, as it should be. Molobo isn't either - he's familiar with the topic area, took part in the ArbCom case, [108] and later used as justification for an edit. [109] He's well aware that his edits are problematic - I can count at least six editors and two admins who expressed their concerns about him, in his presence, in several fora.

Editors who regularly discuss their edits, and who do not engage in source misrepresentation or needless edit wars - and I count Piotrus and myself as two - should not feel threatened by these DS. While we in theory we could be served with DS without prior warning, in practice it doesn't happen often.

As for the "chilling effect" of the sanctions: the ArbCom case subject of this amendment request had two editors T-banned, who after the case were blocked (one indef). ANI and AE cases resulted in another editor T-banned, and two more blocked. Another editor, who was already T-banned, postponed her appeal. Five editors were "left standing", but they are joined by a handful of editors who frequent the TA less often, and an unknown number of editors who edit in specific articles or on specific issues. All in all, anywhere from 5-15 editors are active in the topic area at any one time (not counting copy editors, reference fixers and bots), some of which have only become active in the TA after the ArbCom case. In short, there's no evidence of a "chilling effect" on the regular editing activities within the TA. François Robere ( talk) 15:14, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

• @ Nigel Ish: I can tell you from experience neither is required to edit on this, or any other TA. Are there any particular sources you're worried you'll not be allowed to use? François Robere ( talk) 19:56, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
  • @ Nigel Ish: I see what you mean. It can be argued that Conway Maritime Press (or Jane's, or Lloyd's) are "reputable institutions" per the language of the ruling, but perhaps it would be clearer to add an exception for widely accepted reference works. François Robere ( talk) 20:29, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
    • @ Nigel Ish: I entirely agree, and have argued many times that persistent editor bias is a "conduct" issue (eg. here: [110] [111]). Unfortunately, it's impossible to get admins convinced of that, [112] so we need a bureaucratic solution to help them move along. François Robere ( talk) 22:14, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Nigel Ish

As written, this sanction is incredibly vague - it could be argued to apply to almost any subject associated with either the Western or Eastern front in World War II - any area where Polish forces fought, any ship that served with the Polish Navy or with the German navy at the start of the war, any piece of military equipment in service during the German invasion of Poland or the Soviet campaign - and demands that only academic sources be used - a standard that is well in excess of anywhere else on Wikipedia, and if applied strictly will make it impossible to edit in many areas, including most of Military History, as someone can always argue that a source isn't academic enough and demand that the content it supports must be removed on pain of an Arbcom block. Statements by Arbcom members on the case above make it clear that the ruling is expected to be applied widely. This has a clear chilling effect and makes a mockery of Wikipedia being the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, as it means that only someone with access to a high quality university library and with the backing of a large bunch of supporters who can support them at Arbcom. Nigel Ish ( talk) 18:43, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

• @ François Robere: ::Since we are only allowed to use academic sources it effectively limits the user to using journal articles or books by academic presses, which effectively eliminates any sources that present detailed technical data. While the sources used in SMS M85 for example are reliable - it can be argued that they are not academic (and one source is in German, when an English language edition is available (although I don't have access to it), so I can be punished for writing this article if anyone with a grudge takes me to Arbcom. Nigel Ish ( talk) 20:12, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

• The solution is for people in authority (i.e. admins and Arbcom) to actually deal with behaviour issues (including things like Civil POV pushing) as behaviour issues using their existing powers, which are entirely adequate if they are prepared to use them properly, and not to invent ever more arcane discretionary sanctions regimes (which in this case can lead to someone being blocked without any warning whatsoever) which are capable of abuse as weapons in content disputes - if a sanction can be abused, it will be abused. Nigel Ish ( talk) 20:41, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Nug

I agree with Nigel Ish. This remedy does have a chilling effect and is an impediment to those who don’t have access to a university library.

Articles published in academic journals necessarily present new and/or novel perspectives on some topic, the dissemination of these new viewpoints to other academics is the raison d'être of these journals. As such a particular article doesn’t reflect the main stream view, but the viewpoint of the author, by definition a minority viewpoint at the point of publication. It is only when that article is cited by other articles and books that we can get a measure of the acceptance of that viewpoint. It must be noted that the peer review process in history journals isn’t intended to provide a measure of acceptance or endorsement of the view, but, as Anthony Grafton from Princeton University puts it, to assure the authors are not out “wearing their magenta socks”, i.e. to assure themselves their article doesn’t contain glaring mistakes in presentation.

Arbcom has always been about conduct, not content, and proscribing the sourcing of an article is surely not what Arbcom should be doing. Wikipedia already has mechanisms in place to deal with sourcing, and whether to impose stricter content source rules on a particular topic area should really be the decision of the wider community via a RFC.

A way forward in this case would be for Arbcom to suspend this content related remedy pending an outcome to a RFC to the wider community. -- Nug ( talk) 21:15, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

• I challenge Paul Siebert to add something to any Poland-in-WW2 article from this general book The Polish Army 1939–45 by non-academic Steven Zaloga, let's see if he will earn a one week block under the present remedy. -- Nug ( talk) 22:40, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

• @Sunshine, the difference is that retrictive sourcing policies like WP:BLP were developed by community concensus, not imposed by ArbCom because a tiny handful of editors managed to persuade them it was necessary in some arbitration case. It is like using a hand grenade to crack a nut. Topic banning all the participants of that particular case for a year would have been more effective than imposing a content sourcing restriction that impacts everyone else not involved. -- Nug ( talk) 21:06, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Paul Siebert

It seems Nigel Ish and Nug are talking about totally different subjects. Indeed, I concede what Nigel Ish's arguments are partially reasonable: it may be problematic to find, for example, some technical characteristics of some concrete WWII time battleship in peer-reviewed publications. However, it is equally hard to expect a hot dispute about that. In contrast, the Holocaust in Poland topic is an area of incessant conflict between two POVs, both of them are strongly politically motivated and, they seriously affect some national feelings. Obviously, the worst POV-pusher is using the worst sources, and the best way to stop an edit war is not 1RR or "Consensus required", and not even topic bans. The best way to fight against POV-pushers is to deprive them of their main weapon - their sources. Which sources national POV-pushers are using the most frequently? Some obscure books, local newspapers, questionable web sites. If such sources are not allowed - the conflict ends.

Regarding Nug's "This remedy does have a chilling effect and is an impediment to those who don’t have access to a university library." Exactly. If you want to write about such a sensitive topic as Holocaust - go to a local library, find good sources - and write. Jstor provides a free subscription (several articles per month), some journals are free, google scholar provides citations - those who want to write good content have a lot of tools. If, instead of that, they prefer to collect various rumors at the very dark recesses of Internet, then WP:NOTHERE is the only option.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 21:40, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

@ DGG: I got a much better idea: if some source has been cited by peers, and the references can be found via google.scholar (or some other scientific/scholarly search engine), such a source can be used. This is the approach I myself use (I very rarely use sources that cannot be found by gscholar or jstor search), and this approach was recognized as good in this peer-reviewed publication, which is specifically devoted to the analysis of content disputes in Wikipedia. With regard to newspapers, there is currently a discussion about a modification of that part of the policy, and it seems a consensus is that only very reputable newspapers are "mainstream newspapers" (good sources per WP:V), and even for them WP:NEWSORG should work, which means editorial and op-ed materials are primary sources about author's opinion.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 22:43, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Re Zaloga, this author is being widely used in WWII related articles, this concrete book was cited by many peer-reviewed publications, and at least one generally positive review on Zaloga's earlier book with the same title was published in The Polish Review, Vol. 28, No. 3 (1983), pp. 103-105. If some admin will try to block me for using that source, I will successfully contest this block, and will request that admin to be banned from reviewing cases that relate to WWII history per WP:CIR. Most likely, that my request will be implemented. However, that is a purely hypothetical case. If you want, you may directly ask admins who are active on this page if any of them is going to block me for Zaloga.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 23:23, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

@ Nug: I accepted your challenge and duly answered. Your turn.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 14:58, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

@ DGG: You are obviously wrong. One of the most cited works is this.

However, you are right that the number of citations per se is not an indication of validity. However, it is an indication that the source X is the part of a scientific/scholarly discourse, which creates an opportunity for verification: every participant of the content dispute can randomly pick several articles/books that cite the source X and see if that source is rejected or accepted by peers. Actually, that is how I work, and, as a rule, in majority cases citations mean not criticism but support. Obviously, if the source X is used as a source of information in the source Y, which cites X, that is an indication of validity of the source X.

Regarding newspapers, this part of WP:V is being discussed currently, partially to address the arguments similar to the one you presented. Indeed, "mainstream" is vague, but my point is that in any scenario, "mainstream" refers to just a small fraction of newspapers, and a significant part of materials published in newspapers are primary sources, and should be treated as such. Therefore, the question about citing newspapers belongs to the realm of WP:NOR, not WP:V, and the core idea of NOR is: "be careful when you use primary sources." -- Paul Siebert ( talk) 14:58, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

As I already explained in the previous case, I reconsidered my initial opinion, and I think no specific sourcing restrictions are needed in the Holocaust in Poland area. Instead, admins should be advised to strictly enforce any reported WP:REDFLAG violations, because, in my opinion, it is the position of admins who are active on the AE page which makes DS effectively not working, and the "Sourcing expectation" clause is a non-optimal attempt to partially fix that problem. All needed rules are already present in standard DS, concretely, guide.expect say that editors must strictly comply with all applicable policies and guidelines, and one our policy says:

Thou shalt not use low quality sources to support exceptional claims

Indeed, if someone made an non-controversial edit using a poor but reliable source, that is ok, as soon as such edit has not been contested. Let's take the recent Molobo vs FR case as an example: there were no reason to report him for usage of a single garbage source, a simple revert with explanations would be sufficient. After the revert, Molobo was expected either to demonstrate his claim was not exceptional, or to provide multiple good sources, and, up to that point, there is nothing in this conflict that deserves AE. However, if Molobo ignores FR's concern, FR has a right to report Molobo, and AE admins must take such a report seriously. In my opinion, that scheme, if it is adopted, will decrease both a risk for good faith editors to be sanctioned and admin's burden, for in situation when both parties know that REDFLAG violations may inflict serious sanctions dramatically facilitates their willingness to achieve consensus.

Unfortunately, a current admins' attitude makes such scenario unrealistic, because the standard response would be "that is just a content dispute, not actionable". That attitude makes all conflicts in DS areas so long and painful, that that creates an artificial situation when one party looses patience and... and admins perfectly know how to deal with such cases.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 22:33, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Statment by DGG

With respect ot the specific request here, I agree with Piotrus that the wording was too rigid. Making a sharp division between academic and no academic sources is not necessarily helpful--there are multiple works in any field that defy easy classification, and also many works not strictly academic that are of equal standing and reliability. Nor is being academic a guarantee of reliability--I mention for example Soviet Lysenkoism and Nazi racial science, both with high national academic standing, and, in the case of Nazi science, considerable international recognition. I'd suggest a much more flexible wording Only high quality sources may be used, specifically peer-reviewed scholarly journals, academically focused books by reputable publishers, and/or articles published by reputable institutions. and works of similar quality and responsibility". Considering the examples given in the request, I think that this would deal with much of it. Newspapers, however, are a more difficult problem, and the responsibility of content of serious topics published is newspapers is variable. I wouldn't rule them out entirely, but I don't know quite how to word it. {Possibly '"and other responsible sources bywide general agreement . ) DGG ( talk ) 22:14, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

@ Paul Siebert:, It's not whether something is cited, but what is aid about it. The most cited sources are sometimes the ones that are obviously wrong, because everyone refutes them. As for newspapers, in the soviet era, Pravda was a mainstream newspaper, and, in fact, the national paper of record. Peoples Daily is a mainstream newspaper. They can both be cited, but they can not be used to give a honest view of reality. There is no shortcut to a detailed consideration of how sources are used in context. There is no shortcut to NPOV. Perhaps shortcuts here are all arb com has to work with for affecting content, but they won't by themselves do it. DGG ( talk ) 05:37, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

@ Paul Siebert:, the most cited sources are sometimes.... They also sometimes are the famous works everyone cites without actually reading. There's n onecessary relationship, except that the uncited ones can be assumed to have no influence. DGG ( talk ) 06:09, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by ThoughtIdRetired

What of the "casual" editor of one of the articles to which these restrictions apply - by that I mean someone who is not deeply involved within the narrow confines of the subject, but adds what they believe to be helpful content from a source that would be OK elsewhere in Wikipedia? How would such an editor know that these restrictions apply or, even, how to comply with them? If the casual editor is going to be sanctioned, how does this fit with WP:GOODFAITH? Surely a central principle of Wikipedia is being subverted in order to control a few rogue problem editors. Feel free to point out to me if you think I have misunderstood (but me saying this emphasises the apparent complexity of rules with draconian penalties). ThoughtIdRetired ( talk) 23:13, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

So these restrictions should only apply to persistent and knowing offenders who ignore warnings. ThoughtIdRetired ( talk) 23:46, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by My very best wishes

This should be a request for amendment. I think this sourcing restriction should be removed and never used again for the reasons I explained in my request. The discretionary sanctions already existing in this subject area are more than sufficient to handle any problems.

• In addition, this "sourcing restriction" is open to "gaming". Here is how.

Step 1. Consider user X (even me, for example) who uses sources which qualify as WP:RS and are normally accepted on various WP pages. A couple of other users do not like what these sources say, want to remove this content [113] and are trying to discredit these sources by resorting to ridiculous arguments, such as a criticism of these sources (e.g. a notable book by Petro Grigorenko) found in a blog post by unknown person [114], and they even bring this blog post as an "RS" to RSNB and argue that the blog post was "good" [115]. They claim that even academic sources are not good just because they cited an article from Komsomolskaya pravda. They claim that an article in Kontinent is not good, etc.

Step 2. After not receiving a support from community in this and several other similar threads [116], [117], these users are demanding on WP:AE to follow the "sourcing restrictions" on content completely unrelated to Poland [118].

Step 3. These users demand to sanction user X on WP:AE [119]. That would not happen on WP:AE if we had no the "sourcing restriction" for Poland.

• @Sunrise. Thank you for bringing the comparison with sourcing per WP:BLP and WP:MEDRS. Those are excellent examples to explain the differences:

1. The WP:BLP and WP:MEDRS have been developed and can be modified at any time by consensus of contributors who edit in these areas. Therefore, these rules were carefully and openly debated and can be fixed at any time if needed, unlike this restriction.
2. The practical applications are completely different. I have never seen a long-term contributor being sanctioned on WP:AE for a single BLP violation on a single page. One really needs to demonstrate a serious pattern of placing poorly sourced (rather than WP:NEWSORG) defamatory materials on BLP pages, and ignore warnings. As about the WP:MEDRS, this is only a guideline that no one actually follows on many thousands of WP pages by making references to original peer reviewed publications in scientific journals, which is not really a big problem. No one normally reports people for doing this. WP:MEDRS does come to play only on the highly controversial matters, when a dispute arises. Then, the disputes do need to be resolved by using good review articles per WP:MEDRS. My very best wishes ( talk) 21:45, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

• I also agree with thoughtful comments by DGG just above. Yes, one absolutely can use even such sources as Pravda, for example, to cite claims by Andrey Vyshinsky during Stalinist show trials, assuming that his words (like "shot the rabid dogs") are placed in the appropriate context, as defined by modern secondary sources on the subject. This is yet another argument not to use such "sourcing restrictions" anywhere. My very best wishes ( talk) 05:00, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

• @AGK. Could you please clarify these two questions to avoid any future confusion on WP:AE:

1. Is it required for admins to post this editing restriction on specific pages to apply sanctions to contributors, as described in Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions?
2. Do you really exclude all WP:NEWSORG in this restriction? I am asking because Sandstein interpreted a Polish newspaper as a "recognized institution", which is not unreasonable. My very best wishes ( talk) 17:22, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Assayer

A lot of scenarios have been developed, where scores of unsuspecting editors are going to be blocked immediately for using anything other than peer-reviewed scholarly studies. This amounts to scare tactics without actual evidence that these threats are real. But, as a matter of fact, RSN and dispute resolution mechanisms like RfC often fail when it comes to certain disputes about whether a particular source is reliable or not. I can name various examples of questionable sources which were determined acceptable and reliable, including interviews with convicted Holocaust perpetrators commenting on “Operation Reinhard”. Instead of discussing abstract scenarios and opening loopholes, the question thus should be: What is the objective of these restrictions? Is this objective acchieved? -- Assayer ( talk) 20:29, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

In my experience there are two main arguments to fend off a more restricted use of sources, e.g. of scholarly sources only. According to the first argument even primary sources are admissible when they are used for “uncontroversial”, “factual” information which may not be covered by scholarly sources, but is allegedly needed to provide for a “comprehensive” article. The second argument, namely “consensus”, is used to subdue criticism by stating that the use of such sources has been decided upon by “consensus” and that critics should “drop the stick”, even though the criticism and the debate itself demonstrate that “consensus” has changed. Thereby primary sources like SS personal files hosted at state archives, self-published publications, publications by SS veteran organizations and scores of militaria literature have all been declared permissible reliable sources. Yes, article sourcing guidance should be developed by “content creators”, but sometimes some “content creators” become a gated community at odds with the guidelines of the community as a whole and in need of some input from the outside.

@MvbW If I understand correctly, Molobo has not been blocked, because they inserted references to ‘’Jane’s Fighting Ships’’ in an article on a German minesweeper sunk in 1939. And you have not been blocked at all, yet.-- Assayer ( talk) 13:05, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

@Peacemaker67: I was thinking of sources used and propagated by User:OberRanks. In particular I remember Karl Wolff, where the use of SS service records hosted at the National Archives at College park was vigorously defended. The discussion was closed by Eggishorn as without clear consensus. These SS personal files were still used. The discussion found some continuation at the article on Theodor Eicke [120], where I was able to demonstrate divergences between dates given by OberRanks and dates given in scholarly sources. About one and a half years later OberRanks was blocked indefinitely for fabrication of offline references. [121] You will still find references to SS service records in the articles on Amon Göth, Reinhard Heydrich and Rudolf Höß although the latter’s service record has since been removed. The Heydrich article refers to Lina Heydrich's and Walter Schellenberg's memoirs alongside scholarly literature like Aronson and Schreiber.

One should not expect this in an article on German pilot Hans-Joachim Marseille, but here we find Karl Wolff being cited on the Aktion Reinhard. [122] I challenged that extraordinary story by Wolff [123] which contradicts established evidence that Operation Reinhard was top secret. I took the source, which I consider militaria, to RSN where it was considered “acceptable and reliable”. [124]

Turning to self-published sources, I might refer to Veit Scherzer’s work as it was discussed between us. [125] It’s been used in many articles, e.g. in Johannes Blaskowitz or Hermann Fegelein. The latter also features Florian Berger’s self-published work just as Joachim Peiper.

All of the examples I gave are within the subject area of Poland 1939-45 or feature claims which pertain to this subject. This affects other subject areas like Yugoslavia as well, but I’ll leave it at that. The point is not to encourage “mission creep” by anyone, but stricter rules in certain subject areas which would, hopefully, make certain prolonged debates superfluous. You consider this to be a peanut, I consider it to be a stonewall that needs to be breached.-- Assayer ( talk) 00:31, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

@MvbW: You are seriously misrepresenting arguments and I would suggest that you to withdraw your misleading statement. [126]-- Assayer ( talk) 00:31, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

@Peacemaker67: If an editor is able to use and place fabricated sources in a sensitive subject area for more than ten years, in your own words one of the most egregious betrayals of Wikipedia any editor can commit, [127] how has that not been deleterious to the project as a whole? My point is that your notion, that the reliability whether a particular source is reliable should best be determined by consensus, is naive, because this “consensus” has been used to work around even basic guidelines like WP:SOURCE, stating “Unpublished materials are not considered reliable”, and WP:PRIMARY. As Sunrise has pointed out below, this is less an issue of content, but of behavior, because the use of poor sources is likely to cause disruption. To minimize disruption, e.g. example to spare us endless debates about reliability of unpublished archival records, testimonies or memoirs, stricter rules should be in place in certain subject areas where such disruption has occurred.-- Assayer ( talk) 12:38, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

In the case of OberRanks there were several attempts to remove the “offending material” and we went through RfC, which was without clear consensus and labelled “mission creep” (see links above). Even after OberRanks’ ban you suggested to merge “unique reliably sourced material” from his article on Heinrich Himmler’s service record into the main article on Himmler. [128] OberRanks have been banned by the community only because User:Future Perfect at Sunrise took a closer look. [129] -- Assayer ( talk) 04:53, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Peacemaker67

Mostly copied from the first ARCA thread on this case, because it is just as relevant here as there. I have plenty of experience with disputed sourcing in ARBEE from my work on Yugoslavia in WWII articles and have never once thought this sort of ArbCom intervention was needed. I am fundamentally opposed to this remedy because it enters into content areas, and the arbitration process exists to impose binding solutions to Wikipedia conduct disputes, not content ones. If ArbCom wants to get involved in content matters, then it should ask the community for the scope of ArbCom to be expanded and receive that imprimatur before sticking its oar into content areas. We have a perfectly serviceable reliable sources policy, and questions about whether a particular source is reliable are determined by consensus, supplemented by outside opinions via RSN and dispute resolution mechanisms like RfC if a consensus cannot be arrived at between the regular editors of the article in question. As has been noted elsewhere, if the editor that wants to use a source cannot get a consensus that a source is reliable, it cannot be used. The Article sourcing expectations remedy should be voided as it was made outside the scope of ArbCom's remit. I think the comments about the chilling effect of this remedy reflect quite reasonable concerns, and these sanctions have a great deal of potential to be used as weapons in content disputes. If article sourcing guidance beyond WP:RS is needed for a particular contentious area, it should be developed by the content creators who actually know the subject area, not by ArbCom. Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 01:21, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

There are a lot of generalised WP:OTHERSTUFF arguments here being used to bolster extremely thin arguments about this subject area and to try to encourage "mission creep" by ArbCom into content areas where the members of the committee have virtually no demonstrated expertise. For example, I encourage Assayer to point out where the consensus exists that SS personal files, self-published publications, publications by SS veteran organizations and "scores of militaria literature" have been used in this subject area and a consensus has been arrived at that they are reliable and this has caused conduct issues or even has been deleterious for articles in the subject area. I'll be happy to withdraw my objections if there is compelling evidence of same. Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 07:37, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

An example of the nonsensical results of this remedy is that an article on a Luftwaffe pilot that flew during the invasion of Poland cannot use a reliable (but non-academic) book which details his movements and activities during the invasion, but if he went on to fly during the Battle of France, the same article can include the same sort of detail for that campaign using the same book. The same could be said of any German individual, squadron, unit or ship that fought in Poland and went on to serve elsewhere, or any Pole or Polish squadron, unit or ship for that matter. It is ridiculous. This remedy is like using a piledriver to crack a peanut. Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 22:11, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

In response to Assayer, we have differences of opinion about what is a reliable source, but where have any of your examples resulted in persistent conduct issues or been deleterious to the project as a whole? They just haven't, and as a result, ArbCom shouldn't be getting itself involved in what is clearly a content dispute. It certainly is "mission creep" into content areas that you are encouraging, and it should be opposed vigorously as outside the remit of the committee. This whole remedy is completely out of ArbCom's lane, and they should just void it and back off until they have community approval to get involved in content rather than conduct matters. Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 08:09, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

In response to Sunrise, BLP and medical content sourcing requirements were determined by the community via consensus, and were not dictated by ArbCom. I have no problem with the community deciding that particular areas should have higher standards than RS, but that is for the community to decide, not ArbCom, which doesn't know the complexities of the subject area. ArbCom is well out of its lane here and should back off. Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 03:06, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Assayer's example of OberRanks is a perfect example of what happens when there is a pattern of conduct issues on WP. After a pattern of unacceptable behaviour, OberRanks was indefinitely banned by the community as he should have been. So that conduct problem was resolved by the community, and didn't even need ArbCom attention. So why bring it up here when we are talking about sourcing issues apparently so serious that they need ArbCom intervention (which is outside its lane, as I've already stated). My question is why Assayer has not followed the usual BRD process by attempting to delete the offending material and then gone through dispute resolution like a RfC if it was opposed, rather than bring his unique interpretation of the reliable sources policy to ArbCom to get ArbCom to try to get a hammer to beat other editors who are using reliable sources, just ones he doesn't personally agree with or considers "militaria"? Peacemaker67 ( click to talk to me) 00:38, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Nick-D

Like Peacemaker's comment above, the comment I made at WP:ARCA#Clarification request: Antisemitism in Poland also applies here. In short, while I think that a remedy requiring quality sourcing is justified, the current remedy is too narrow as it rules out high quality but non-scholarly works. I'd suggest changing it to something like "Only high quality sources may be used. Preference should be given to peer-reviewed scholarly journals and books. Other reliable sources may be used to augment scholarly works or where such works are not available." I have no opinion on the mechanism for enforcing this, noting especially that this topic area has subject to very long-running and serious problems so strict penalties are likely justified, but the usual arrangement where editors who are not aware of the sanction are warned first should obviously apply. Nick-D ( talk) 09:22, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Sunrise

I'd like to point out, since it doesn't seem to have been mentioned in the above discussion, that we already enforce sourcing thresholds requiring a higher level of quality than that of WP:RS alone - they're used in two of the largest areas of Wikipedia, those being BLP and medical content. Since those areas seem to be working fine, many of the claims about major problems arising from this sanction would therefore seem to be incorrect. While the exact threshold is different in this case (being roughly in between the two in terms of restrictiveness), any argument that would apply equally in those areas needs to establish why this particular topic should be considered to be uniquely different.

The sanction seems to have been successful at preventing the use of poor sources to cause disruption (an issue of behavior, not content), and that should be recognized. Of course, it is entirely possible this particular threshold could be refined, but requests to do so should be based in reasoned argument as to why specific categories of sources have an equivalent level of reliability to the sources that are already permitted, as opposed to the (IMO quite hyperbolic) rhetoric used in some of the comments above. Sunrise ( talk) 09:27, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Statement by Buidhe

I'm not convinced by the arguments above that using university sources places an undue burden on editors. For one, the militaria sources preferred by these editors are more difficult to obtain and not necessarily cheaper. For another, we have WP:RX where volunteers are happy to help you get the source you need, and an increasing number of academic publications in continental Europe are open-access. I'm also not convinced by the hyperbole that someone is going to be immediately blocked for using a non-compliant source. To the contrary, source restrictions can be very helpful for getting rid of the ethno-nationalist POV pushing that plagues this area, simply because academic sources are not likely to contain ethno-nationalist POV pushing.

That said, minor uses of news sources can sometimes be helpful for recent updates on a topic (I cite two of them in this Good Article in the subject area). How can we allow that flexibility while discouraging their use for disputed content? I think that it could be amended to explicitly allow the use of RS but non-academic sources on minor parts of an article that deal with technical information or recent updates that are not covered in academic sources. I hesitate to expand that to all areas of an article that are not covered by academic sources because that would likely lead to unbalanced articles where the areas that are not sourced to as good quality sources are covered in more detail and depth than they should be. Like @JzG, I don't think we should relax our sourcing restrictions at all for areas that are only covered by questionable sources. b uidh e 17:47, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Statement by {other-editor}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should opine whether and how the Committee should clarify or amend the decision or provide additional information.

Antisemitism in Poland: Clerk notes

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

Antisemitism in Poland: Arbitrator views and discussion

• For the case triggering this grievance, I think the sanction operated as intended. The content of Wikipedia articles needs to be sourced to formal, mainstream academic works; and failing that to mainstream, non-academic works. The changes in question did not meet that standard and were appropriately met with a sanction. For the broader concern, I am unconvinced by submissions here that the arbitration decision contains problems. Where possible, we should give recent decisions time to bed in. AGK  ■ 12:59, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
• I agree with AGK that the sourcing expectation is working as intended here. However, I would prefer to see violations of this remedy handled through talk page discussion as a first course of action, rather than a block for a first offense. – bradv 🍁 21:29, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
• Per my comments on the other ARCA - I think that the best solution is to leave things as is. I would absolutely advise that blocks should not be the go-to solution for sourcing violations, however, they are a tool in the uninvolved administrator's arsenal and if they think that a block is the best solution, then that has an option for them. Worm^TT( talk) 13:44, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
• Ie commented previously in the regular section, andwill theefore be abstaining here. DGG ( talk ) 18:59, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

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