Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/SemBubenny/Proposed decision

Arbitrators active on this case

Active:

Carcharoth
Casliber
Cool Hand Luke
Coren
FayssalF
FloNight
Jayvdb
Kirill Lokshin
Newyorkbrad
Risker
Rlevse
Roger Davies
Sam Blacketer
Stephen Bain
Vassyana
Wizardman

Recused:

Away or inactive:

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Suggestion

Would FloNight and the other arbitrators consider a 6 month desysop for Mikka? Or at least consider a proposal where the ArbCom retains the power to resysop? He is very very experienced admin and, though admittedly a bit rough around the edges, irreplacable in some of the areas he works. He has no chance of passing a future RfA however, and because of this permanently desysopping threatens a permanent loss. There is nothing after all to lose with keeping the matter within ArbCom discretion, surely? Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 20:04, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with your suggestion is that I am "irreplaceable" in the areas where no one really cares. The Uncatchable Joe thing, you know. "Wikipedia Community" will not see any change: it sees me only when I occasionally piss somebody off. Once I attended a wikipedia meetup I felt extremely humiliated when I was recognized only "You are #6 in edit count or something, aren't you?". The guy thought he is praising me, but my reaction was to initiate this. - 7-bubёn >t 20:54, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Despite the legitimate concerns that have been raised, I oppose desysopping SemBubenny at this stage. That being said, the desysopping remedy that may pass provides, "SemBubenny's administrative privileges are revoked. He may apply to have them reinstated at any time, either through the usual means [a new RfA] or by appeal to the Committee." (Emphasis added.) There are prior instances in which the Committee has agreed to re-confer adminship on an administrator after concerns that had previously led to revocation of adminship had been addressed and some time had elapsed. I cannot, of course, predict whether such an appeal might be sustained in this instance, but FYI FWIW. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:10, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I planned to take away my oppose vote to close but I'll wait for now to see if someone wants to add an alternative remedy. I think a break for the admin tools is best for all involved at this time. Personally, I would be willing to review the situation at a later time and reinstate the tools if SemBubenny wanted the tools back. Recently, several desysopped users regained their tools through RFA so I don't think that option should be ruled out either. FloNight ♥♥♥ 23:21, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What about the motion re SlimVirgin remedy:

SemBubenny is desysopped for a period of six months. After six months, his administrator access will be automatically restored.

Here we get the break Flo feels is necessary, while NYB's harshness concern may also be addressed. This needn't prohibit btw the imposition of any resysopping restrictions/conditions, if a motion to that effect is more likely to gain arbitrator support. The wording in the current desysopping motion prejudices regranting ("usual means or"), and must do, otherwise it wouldn't be regarded as lighter than 6 months/other defined period of time (e.g. comments on the two options at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Motion:_re_SlimVirgin#SlimVirgin_desysopped).Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 23:59, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See the proposed decision page, where a couple of alternative remedy proposals are now up for voting. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:42, 28 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. The two new versions look like they represent a better center of gravity for arbitrator opinion. The nothing versus all !voting that was going on before (1. versus 1.1) resembled a game of Russian roulette. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 18:14, 28 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, in this context, you can say "voting" instead of "!voting". :) Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:21, 1 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification of statement at RFAR

I'm posting here to clarify the statement I made at the RFAR:

"Recuse on the phobias issue - took part in ANI thread on the phobias, and gave SemBubenny (Mikkalai at the time) advice on his talk page. Additionally, don't think deletion of phobia articles out of process needs to be dealt with by ArbCom (AfD and DRV should handle content issues like that). If the deletions get regularly overturned, then that would be a problem. Will check back here to see if SemBubenny makes a statement. Carcharoth (talk) 12:07, 26 January 2009 (UTC)"

That recusal was conditional on the case scope remaining restricted to the phobias issue. In retrospect, that was a mistake, as it should have been obvious the scope would be wider than that. What I should have done was declined the case and stated that if accepted I would abstain on any aspects of the case to do with the phobias issue. It is obviously too late to change the case acceptance (and it would likely have been accepted anyway), but I cannot in all conscience stand by on the non-phobias-related issues being decided here, so I am moving myself to active on this case. I should have clarified all this with the case clerk at the point when the case opened. This was a mistake on my part, and I don't intend to make this mistake again. In future, when I may need to abstain on parts (but not all of a case), I will note this at the RFAR and avoid conditional recusals that will only confuse matters. I have examined my recusals on other cases, and those still stand. I have notified my fellow arbitrators of this decision, and I will notify the case clerk and the parties to the case, and will add a note to the original record of the RFAR in these case pages. Carcharoth (talk) 16:57, 1 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't that create rather an odd situation? You've abstained on most of the findings of fact, but not (yet) on the remedies that are based on those findings of fact. You've abstained on enforcement of the remedies (though the enforcement only seems relevant to remedy 1) but not on the remedies (including remedy 1). Do you envisage yourself supporting or opposing remedies while not taking any position on the findings of fact that underlie those remedies? Or do you just plan only to support remedies that you think are justified by the findings of fact that you have voted on (which I think at present would be no remedies at all - you abstained on all actionable findings, correct)? Apologies for being so inquisitive, I'm just a little bemused as to where you could be going with this. Perhaps you're considering proposing new findings that would give rise to additional remedies unrelated to the other matters? 87.254.80.49 (talk) 19:00, 1 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, it seems you did vote on the remedies on the existing findings. How can that be reconciled with "abstain[ing] on any aspects of the case to do with the phobias issue"? Did you just disregard the core issues and find that most of the proposed remedies were too harsh in relation to what was left? Well, of course you would in that situation... this is weird. 87.254.80.49 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:30, 1 March 2009 (UTC).[reply]

I wrote a long reply that got lost when my computer crashed (well, the wireless card went doolally). Anyway, to cut a long story short (but still start at the beginning), my initial RFAR statement was the wrong approach entirely. Before I explain that, I should make clear that though I noted above that I've notified my fellow arbitrators about my late activity on this case, it was my decision alone to do this and any criticism of this should be directed at me alone. At the root of this is that I managed, in the RFAR statement, to confuse content and behaviour issues, and incorrectly stated a need to recuse on a specific issue. The reasoning I used at the time was that I took a strong stance on the content issue raised at the ANI thread (the one linked to from my RFAR statement), and I thought that this warranted recusal. It turns out, however, that the findings of fact about SemBubenny's behaviour related to those articles quite correctly say nothing about the relative merits of the content, so I could quite easily have voted on them without worrying that my earlier stance on the content was prejudicing my voting (all arbitrators should be able to do this, unless they are deeply involved, as I've said I would be for Tolkien-related articles, for example). However, this would require changing things again, and I think this one change was quite enough, and my abstaining on those findings of fact won't make any difference to the ruling. For the record, my RFAR statement (which pointed out ways SemBubenny should have handled these articles, mostly using PROD and AfD) clearly shows that I would have supported findings of fact 3 and 4 if I hadn't made things complicated by throwing the recusal word around too lightly (I've learnt a big lesson there). In short: I shouldn't have used that recusal word; I realised very late that I'd made a mistake; and rather than say nothing I decided to try and correct that mistake. So in essence, I support findings of fact 1, 3 and 4 (and have reservations about 2), but abstained on 3 and 4 on a technicality. Once I accepted that to my own satisfaction, I felt comfortable voting on the remedies. I do hope that was a sufficiently clear explanation. I can't emphasise enough the lessons I've learnt here, about content issues versus behaviour issues, and when recusal is warranted or not. I will be happy to discuss this further, but don't want proceedings to be distracted too much, as the critical issue now is deciding on which remedy gets enacted (or whether an alternative proposal will gain more support among the committee as a whole). Carcharoth (talk) 00:20, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I think I understand now and it makes sense to me. Thanks for taking the time to answer. 87.254.80.49 (talk) 00:30, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Voting for closure?

I see some are voting for closure. As it stands, the voting is:

1. -- 7 5 2 (12/14)

1.1 -- 8 5 2 (13/14)

1.2 -- 7 4 2 (11/14)

1.3 -- 6 6 0 (12/16)

So, unless I'm missing something in the clerk closure formulae, all four remedies could end up with the same result, while it is not clear how the math on first, second, etc, votes can be counted. Why on earth would it be closed at this stage? Cool Hand Luke is right. You guys should recall your old discussion days on wiki talk pages and try to build some consensus, per WP:VOTE and WP:Consensus not numbers. 16 of you isn't such a great number as that! It also looks bad if this is what happens here, and then elsewhere the Committee makes righteous resolutions urging what it's failing to attempt here. :) SemBubenny might get desyssoped permanently with no consensus here. Surely there can be some more gravitation to a middle line than this? No? Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 20:54, 1 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Right now, I think 1.1 is (barely) passing, while 1.0 and 1.2 are (barely) not passing, but I think we should talk this out to get a more convincing result. If User:Stephen Bain voted now, I think he would be able to make any one of these three pass—it shouldn't be this close. Cool Hand Luke 21:34, 1 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, only 1.1 passes with the abstains lower the majority to 8 on it. The rest do not have enough votes to pass. Often the more options that are added the less clear the voting is because the votes are split between the alternatives. Since the result remains the same now as before the alternatives were added, I think the outcome is okay. I'd been more concerned if the was shift from one remedy barely passing to different one barely passing. FloNight ♥♥♥ 21:44, 1 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Remedy 1 is now passing too ~~as there has been a recent abstain vote making the majority 8 (which is exactly the number of support votes)~~. Also, this case has not yet met the amount of close votes needed and as such will remain open until there have been a net total of at least four close votes. Tiptoety ^talk 01:34, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think (about the 02:30 update), remedy 1.2 is also passing due to the abstention? Carcharoth (talk) 02:33, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That is correct. The notes have been updated to reflect that. Thank you, Tiptoety ^talk 02:37, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's now at

1. -- 9 5 1 (15/14)

1.1 -- 7 6 2 (15/14)

1.2 -- 8 6 1 (15/14)

1.3 -- 6 8 0 (14/16)

One person changing their votes could change it all still. And as the needed one extra close vote could come down at any time, it definitely looks like Roulette (of the eastern Slavic kind). Erm ... Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 02:42, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not really. Once four net votes to close have been obtained, at that point a 24-hour clock starts to tick, but if an arbitrator turns up and opposes the close, the clock resets to zero until net four to close is obtained again. That's my understanding of it, anyway. BTW, what are the (x/y) bits for? Carcharoth (talk) 02:54, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Carcharoth, that is exactly correct. Also, I too am curious as to what those bits are for. Tiptoety ^talk 02:55, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Didn't know that actually, though it's still gonna be a nail-biter for him. x/y is, btw, votes cast/notional pool. I suppose it would be simpler to do majority (e.g. 8 and 9 rather than 14 and 16), but that's out of a habit I gained elsewhere and it also makes the numbers easier to crunch for multiple purposes. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 03:09, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Open to recall

I understand that my word that I have changed my wikipedians' attitudes may be unconvincing. As a further proof that I seriously intend no longer be a source of conflict hence disruption of wikipedia I am enlisting myself open to recall. - 7-bubёn >t 23:36, 1 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FoF 2

The diffs in FoF 2 don't adequately show the problem in my opinion. The two diffs there now only show his removal of content/archiving after I posted the arbitration notification (which as Carcharoth noted isn't a big deal) and a notice he had on his talkpage (which again, as Carcharoth noted, was a year ago). Better diffs would be blanking his talkpage during a discussion about his deletions, personal attacks during the ANI discussion about his deletions and uncivilly responding to queries about his deletions. ~ User:Ameliorate! ^{(with the !) (talk)} 03:22, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for pointing this out. I agree with what you are saying here, and possibly the right thing to do here is to propose a new finding of fact based on those diffs instead, but that is unlikely to make a substantial difference at this stage. One thing I did notice, when following one of the diffs you provided, is an earlier discussion that took place in a sequence that went: (1) speedy deletion of article; (2) Talk page discussion about deletion; (3) Article restoration; (4) AfD nomination; (5) Article deletion. The discussion was at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pyrexiophobia, and does not seem to have been mentioned in the evidence in this case. I think what that shows is that, regardless of the outcome of this case, someone needs to come up with a community-discussed standard for specific phobias. See Ilmari Karonen's suggestion at the end of that debate. As far as behaviour related to specific phobias by admins (or any editor), I think it is safe to say that speedy deletions are not correct, and that PRODs or AfDs (or some newly established standard) are the correct way to handle the articles. The crux all along has been whether SemBubenny can change the way he approaches such articles (he has said he can), what to do if he doesn't (and what should be done because he didn't in the past), and what general lessons other admins and editors can learn from this. Carcharoth (talk) 01:04, 4 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would open a community-wide discussion on phobia articles, but I am afraid to do so. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:13, 4 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion at Wikiproject psychology would be the best place really. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:21, 4 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]