Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/MZMcBride 2/Evidence

Main case page (Talk) — Evidence (Talk) — Workshop (Talk) — Proposed decision (Talk) Case clerks: Ryan Postlethwaite (Talk) & AlexandrDmitri (Talk) Drafting arbitrators: Roger Davies (Talk) & Kirill Lokshin (Talk)

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Evidence presented by Durova

No one doubts that MZMcBride is a skilled coder and an active volunteer. The problems that caused this case are with his his judgment and communication.

Past arbitrations

This is the third case in less than a year and a half where MZMcBride's actions have been arbitrated for similar reasons.

In the Sarah Palin protection wheel war arbitration the Committee concluded that MZMcBride had acted against consensus, had not communicated adequately, and had set his judgment ahead of the community's. It also concluded that his wheel warring had violated the provisions of a prior arbitration case. The Committee admonished him and warned that he would probably lose his admin bit if further incidents of that type occurred. The case closed in October 2008.

In the MZMcBride arbitration that followed the Committee determined that MZMcBride had taken controversial action without appopriate communication. His deletions occurred without warning and used summaries such as "o hai, i haz found ur sekrit page! please contribute to the encyclopedia more and search for hidden pages less"[1] He continued the deletions until after an arbitration request was filed, then resumed deletions during arbitration. The arbitrators passed two separate injunctions to halt the controversial deletions; the second injunction occurred after he violated the first one. Two days before the case ended he resigned his administrator ops. The case closed in April 2009.

Similar problems again

By early January 2010 MZMcBride had used his toolserver access to compile a list of unwatched biographies of living persons. On 8 January the following conversation took place between MZMcBride and a sitebanned editor.[2]

Banned user: Mr. McBride, you know... this really and truly calls for a breaching experiment. Please, I beg of you, provide me privately with a random selection of just 10 of these 8,062 time bombs.

MZMcBride: I just sent [name redacted] this list privately. I'm inclined to also post a list here. This site seems to be the easiest way to get biographies looked at and checked.... Feel free to post your results publicly, [name redacted].

Actually MZMcBride provided that banned editor with double the requested number of of unwatched biographies and then failed to monitor the banned user's experiment.[3] He did not provide that list of BLPs to the arbitrators until ten days later, shortly before this arbitration opened. On 9 January Roger Davies asked MZMcBride whether he had followed through on the promise in that offsite discussion.[4] MZMcBride's answers were uncooperative.[5]

Patterns that emerge from the discussion at his user talk and RFAR:

• Attempts to steer questions about the breaching experiment toward changes MZMcBride would like to implement in how Wikipedia handles biographies of living persons.[6][7][8][9]
• Attempts to sidestep responsibility for the unwatched BLP experiment.[10][11][12][13]
• Attempts to impugn the motives and conduct of people who persist in doubting his actions.[14][15][16][17][18]
• He calls transparency a core value when he requests information,[19] but invokes very different ideas when other people request information from him.[20]

Breaching experiments are not allowed on this website. If MZMcBride were determined to attempt one he could done it himself. MZMcBride magnified the problem by involving a banned user to experiment with nonpublic data, failing to monitor the banned user, and then delaying a week before complying with arbitrator requests for that data.

When MZMcBride first announced his intention to go about things this way he called it "the easiest way to get biographies looked at and checked". Afterward he behaved as if he could leverage the attention as a bargaining chip. He has expressed no regrets toward the twenty living people who did not consent to let an administrator entrust their biographies to the care of a sitebanned editor, nor for the arbitrators and other editors who watchlisted 8000 biographies and undid subtle vandalism from the experiment, nor for the person whose administrator account that same sitebanned user had compromised.

Once again MZMcBride has cut policy corners in order to have things his way. This time it involves gross misjudgment in one of our site's most sensitive areas. In order to prevent more problems I request that the arbitrators curtail his ability to seek administrator ops again.

Why barring RFA is necessary and preventative

Unless this has recently changed, administrators have access to a function called Special:UnwatchedPages. From a post today it appears that MZMcBride still fails to appreciate the seriousness of the situation he created: he attempts to take the Arbitration Committee to task for its legitimate offsite discussion that was engendered by MZMcBride's own very non-legitimate offsite decision to hand a list of unwatched biographies to a sitebanned user--a list which he withheld from the arbitrators until shortly before this case opened.[21]

At no time has MZMcBride expressed regrets for the disruption caused by his action. Nor has he provided any indication that he would refrain from future abuse of access to data on unwatched pages. It is necessary to curtail his opportunity to access such data, in order to prevent future disruption to BLP articles.

Communication

When case clerk Ryan Postlethwaite followed up on posts that I had made to this arbitration's talk page a very difficult dilemma arose: he demanded that I either withdraw a statement or substantiate it with diffs, yet his demand was based upon a misreading. It seemed to be a good faith misreading, but he actually attributed words to me within quotation marks that I hadn't written.

My meaning had been substantially different from Ryan's paraphrase. He appeared to expect a single quote (which didn't exist) to support a claim which I hadn't expressed or intended. How does one respond to that dilemma? His post conveyed urgency. He expressed willingness to let the post stand if diffs were forthcoming. So I replied on the premise that my actual assertion which headed in another direction would be okay, and onsite diffs would clear up any confusion. I identified the miscommunication and offered to cooperate. "Your post appears to demand evidence for an assertion I did not make. I am willing to provide diffs for the assertion I actually made. It would take a little while."[22] I promptly began collecting diffs because immediate followup seemed to be needed.

Three minutes later Ryan posted to my user talk again. Not to ask for clarification, but with a heated manner that anyone who has spent time on the Internet would recognize as the hallmark of a conversation that was headed nowhere good. I continued complying with his demands despite an impossible time frame and unclear directions. First he gave 30 minutes "to decide what you're going to do", then after I replied that I had indeed decided and was collecting diffs as quickly as possible, his next post announced that he had removed my posts himself. Apparently that 30 minute clock had been ticking retroactively. I wasn't given any second chance to discern what it was he actually wanted me to do there. His preemptive action created an appearance that I was being uncooperative. I stated that I indeed intended to cooperate with whatever he wanted, but it was difficult to parse his demands "and as a result of your action I see little alternative to entering something as evidence which I would have preferred to have resolved less formally."[23]

Reviewing that conversation again tonight, I notice for the first time that his final post to that thread did ask me to submit the evidence by email.[24] That was a good faith mistake on my part and I apologize for it. I had only noticed the instruction in his first statement, not his last statement. My final response to Ryan shows how harried I was by that point, and also demonstrates that I sincerely believed that posting evidence instead of emailing it was what he was demanding.

"We all have our strengths and our weaknesses; one of my weak points is multitasking. I am endeavoring to comply with your request as fast as possible. It's late afternoon in my time zone, though, and in a short while I will need to leave the computer to fix dinner. If all goes smoothly I may be able to post an early draft before then."[25]

Please review my interactions from that point forward from the perspective that it was my sincere belief that I had been told to post evidence onsite against my better judgment, and was then being held culpable for having obeyed. Other instructions had not been conveyed clearly at all so a turnabout of this magnitude looked plausible. Risker's action was correct and I apologize for the reaction, which was fueled by a righteous anger that resulted from the misunderstanding. I apologize also to Roger Davies, with whom I corresponded afterward in light of the same misunderstanding.

In a less tense atmosphere this probably would have been cleared up days ago. My onsite evidence post probably gave the impression of a deliberate and disruptive stunt. FloNight's comment at the workshop highlights the resulting problem:

• FloNight: "Durova ascribed a motive for the disagreement that was entirely unfounded and unsupported."[26]
• My actual closing words: "his motives are irrelevant."

When one's own statement is no longer available for the community to read, severe distortions of one's own opinion do not go down well. The good faith explanation is that context shapes anyone's impression, and that occasionally anyone misses a word or a phrase.

The evidence itself was hastily written due to Ryan's half hour time demand. It was not an easy subject to write or read under any conditions, and the result of adverse conditions was neither an ideal presentation nor and ideal reception. The result has been that several people who read it came away believing that it was asserting a blunt and shortsighted thesis that lacked adequate support. A careful reading does not confirm that interpretation; the structure and presentation would have been clearer under better conditions. It is the sort of subject where there are a lot of ways to stray off the path, and once a reader strays off the path they're apt to think the writer went there. A misreading is not the writer's fault, but it is the obligation of good writing to minimize misunderstandings.

Evidence presented by Nagle

There was subtle vandalism going on within the biography articles listed by McBride.

• Ron Hunt (footballer) - see this edit. The edit inserts the claim that Ron Hunt, a football (soccer) player from London, later became an officer of New Leaf Venture Partners. There's a vague citation which mentions a Ron Hunt. Checking the New Leaf Venture Partners web site for their officer bios [27], we find that their Ron Hunt has an MBA from Wharton and came from Coopers and Lybrand (accountants) and the venture capital arm of Credit Suisse. Said edit was later reverted by the original editor, Orderly Conductor (talk · contribs), an account currently blocked as a sock of Thekohser (talk · contribs).

• Petter Schjerven - see this edit. This is by "Orderly Conductor" again, and adds a reference in Norwegian. Someone who reads Norwegian will have to validate that one. Said edit was reverted by "Orderly Conductor" after 2 days.

• Eileen_MacDonagh - see this edit by Byzantium Loved Prague (talk · contribs). That user is now blocked as a sock. This added a claim that the artist had won an award when graduating from USC in 1963. Other sources indicate the artist was born in 1956.[28] Another editor caught the error and reverted.

• András Fejér - see this edit by banned sock Byzantium Loved Prague (talk · contribs). Here, the same editor seems to have inserted a valid piece of information, adding "Notably, he studied Bartok’s music with the violinist Zoltan Szekely", which is confirmed by this New York Times reference. [29] Unless there are two notable Hungarian violinists named András Fejér, it's a good cite. But the reference is mislinked; instead of having a link to the article, it just has a Wikilink to the New York Times. It's been removed from the article, then the remove reverted, by well-established editors who are clearly working to check the validity of the item.

• Patrick_McDonnell_(actor) - see this edit by Bluefish live peacefully (talk · contribs). "Prior to his work in the dramatic arts, McDonnell was an assistant city attorney in Milwaukee, Wisconsin." (Unlikely, since McDonnell's career has been in Ireland.) This was removed by Trulyequal1 (talk · contribs). That account was blocked for sockpuppetry after six days of editing, but Trulyequal1 (talk · contribs) removed the notice that their account was a sockpuppet.[30].

(Correction: Involved editor was "Trulyequal1", not "Trulyequal". The sockpuppet situation here is confusing.)

• Anne Katrin Walter - see this edit, inserting bogus info (2008 Miss World contestant cited with book published in 1939) by Big Lovin' Pineapple (talk · contribs). Account blocked as sockpuppet, bogus info reverted.

Remaining to be checked: Omid_Khouraj, Surapong_Kongthep, Tanakorn_Santanaprasit, Lydia_R._Diamond, Omar_Pene, D._W._Rutledge, Jasmin_Stavros, Piotr_Libera, Connor_Byrne, Tony_Bellus, Ced_Gee, Daniel_McConnell, Sylviane_Agacinski, Jaime_Zea.

I have no idea whether McBride was involved in this, encouraged it, or what, but someone now has to dig through every article in McBride's list, and every article edited by related editors, for subtle vandalism. Most of the damage from this exercise in vandalism seems to have been cleaned up, but it's eaten the time of at least half a dozen good editors to do it. --John Nagle (talk) 06:38, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Sjakkalle

Re: Petter Schjerven article. The link is a valid source, its use and translation is not

Responding to User:Nagle, as a Norwegian speaker I have looked at the diff of User:Orderly Conductor's edit on the Petter Schjerven article. The link is "Typisk norsk" fikk journalistpris, from Aftenposten, one of the most highly respected of the Norwegian newspapers and clearly qualifies as a WP:RS here. Superficially, much of the edit is correct; the article does indeed verify that Schjerven's program Typisk norsk (translates to "Typical Norwegian") won a 100000 kroner journalism prize.

However, the sentence: "...the editorial staff works together in an incredibly funny way to create an adventure around the Norwegian language." is a rather original rephrasing to say the least. Schjerven's quote in the Aftenposten article is:

• "Jeg synes også det er fint at prisen gikk til hele redaksjonen, vi har jobbet sammen og hatt det utrolig morsomt. Det hele har vært et eventyr."

A proper translation would be:

• "I also think it's great that the prize went to the entire editorial staff, we have worked to gether and had a lot of fun. The whole thing has been an adventure".

Translating this to "works together in an incredibly funny way", makes Schjerven's work look silly or ridiculous, when the program is really a perfectly sincere entertainment show. Such an edit on a BLP is not proper. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:57, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Hipocrite

"Administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrator actions and to justify them when needed." (WP:ADMIN) I questioned MZMcBride about what steps he had taken to ensure that data he was providing to banned users was not being used for nefarious purposes. After one clear reply ("I don't believe Mr. Kohs would actively harm biographies of living people."[31], which was evidently incorrect) He was evasive about how certain he was that he was right about Mr. Kohs and cagey about what he was and was not taking responsibility for [32], and eventually stated that he was dishonest [33].

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