Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/172 2

Chat from original request

(William M. Connolley 21:15, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)) I don't know if this makes any difference, but 172 declares on his page that he has left wiki.

It shouldn't make any difference. This diff from his page [1] in a passage he deleted indicates some thoughts he had about returning to assist in protecting his pages. Note the list of those he will miss. He has been willing to abuse his admin privileges for Stirling Newberry more than once in the past. It should be assumed that if he retains sysop privileges he may be tempted to do so in the future. I don't mind him staying on as a user with proper sanctions. But the arbitration committee should not be lulled into thinking this question is moot because he claims he "quit", and therefore leave his sysadmin privileges intact. His administrator privileges should be revoked for the above violations, and since his account is possibly going to be inactive, the privleges should be removed anyway as a precaution. Given his past behavior, the temptation to abuse the powers will be even greater when he no longer has a stake, since he isn't active anymore.--Silverback 23:17, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I mostly agree with Silverback. I must add that I find Grunt's "conditional acceptance" concept troublesome. It just allows the defendant to pick the best (for him) time for his own arbitration; presumably first nurturing some supporting sockpuppets or just waiting for people to forgot or for any opportunity to "game the system". Announcing to "quit" is a tactic often used by trolls. Especially admin abuse complaints should be handled immediately, the risk of having a potentially rogue sysop jumping in to cause trouble at some later time, when it makes the most disruption, is just too high. I'm speaking of the general case here, not implying that 172 is a troll or would resort to such tactics, although I'm not very confident in his ability to continue as a Wikipedia administrator given his disregard of various policies. jni 12:41, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree entirely with my fellow primate. If the arbcomm wishes to defer any formal finding of fact until 172 returns, that's one thing. But there really must be some effective procedure to deal with his sysop bit until such time, given at least the theoretical possibility that his 'return' happen in the form of blocking or unblocking someone on a partial basis, applying page-protection without regard to procedure, etc. Alai 00:17, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[Re. Neutrality's vote of "Abstain"]

I'd prefer if you'd recuse, based on this personal attack. -- Netoholic @ 03:12, 2005 Mar 3 (UTC)

Request denied. You have no particular connection with this case, except bringing it. I'd only recuse if you were the respondent rather than the petitioner. Neutrality^talk 04:04, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)

Hubris.--Silverback 06:03, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If neutrality refuses to recuse, I think his abilities as an Arbitrator need to be brought into question. A more clear example of bias towards a case would be difficulty to come by. (Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 12:59, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Given that Neutrality has called Netoholic an idiot, whist posting a message in favour of 172, I can't see how he can be considered impartial in this case. I presume that the technical distinction between "abstain" and "recuse" is that abstain would allow him to vote if it was accepted. Judging from the message on 172's talk page, Neutrality isn't, in this case. I also agree with Jni, above (William M. Connolley 13:53, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)).

I think Neutrality meant "abstain" to mean "I've seen the case, but I've not made up my mind right now whether to recuse or vote to accept or reject, but I'd like people to be aware that I am considering it and would appreciate input therefrom". Input that, indeed, he has now received. James F. (talk) 15:11, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I have recused myself. Neutrality^talk 04:12, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

I would like it noted that Neutrality has repeatedly removed comments from this page, simply it seems because they are critical of his actions. This is deplorable and I insist it stop immediately. -- Netoholic @ 06:23, 2005 Mar 5 (UTC)

I've added a note to the top of this page that talk should go to the talk page. Please Assume good faith! - David Gerard 14:18, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

So I should be punished for bringing history of Russia up to featured article status, right? Figures. All of these complaints are bogus, vindictive, and petty. 1) The disputes on history of Russia, the LA riots, and Communism have already been resolved, and involved no violations of the 3RR. 2) I was unblocking Gz when there was some ambiguity as to whether or not he was hard-banned. Since the most recent arbitration ruling, there has been no ambiguity, and I have not attempted to unblock Gz since that point. 3) The dispute over 195.70.48.242 was a two-way conflict between Fred Bauder and me that was resolved (after I gave up and let Fred win). 4) This is the first time anyone has complained about the deletion of a page like "beaurocrat." Netoholic is just hunting for resolved disputes in order to get rid of me. 172 17:29, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If the issue is the unblocking of the account (resulting from a misleading bad-faith report by Silverback--see comments by Dab on all the related pages-- not a 3RR violation), I will stop doing it. I said all that I'd needed to say on Talk:History of Russia already. I don't care about whether or not I'll be able to edit today and tomorrow; I frankly don't care at this point. Wikipedia is increasingly a social club with no regard for professional expertise, and I'm rapidly losing faith in this project. 172 19:21, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and BTW, this is coming out of nowhere-- I did not break the "parole" and ran into no one accusing me of doing so last month-- and Netoholic did not bother to go through prior steps in the dispute resolution process (e.g., waiting for consensus to develop on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents, RfC). 172 22:18, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I suspect it was because few were aware of your parole conditions, combined with the fact that a) your edit summaries lack details and often fail to explicitely note when you're reverting and b) that you often follow-up your reverts quickly with a minor edit. I draw attention to these two edits to Communism - at 23:39, 2005 Feb 19 you fully revert to the 21:59, 2005 Feb 19 version and then at 21:42, 2005 Feb 20 you rollback. Off-hand, that is one example of you breaking the parole. From that edit, your parole was reset for one more month, which means your recent 3RR violation falls within it and resets the parole yet again. The point is that you don't seem to have followed through on the promises you made in the last Arbitration, and have compounded that by misusing your admin functions. -- Netoholic @ 23:32, 2005 Mar 1 (UTC)

Implementation of final decision?

Assuming that 172 has indeed been asked if he wishes to remain as an admin, as per the final decision in this case, isn't further action due, one way or the other? (De-admining, or re-opening the case.) There was a statement that this would be resolved within "probably a few days", but the case has been closed for 4 weeks now. Alai 09:03, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Should this be re-opened now 172 is back?

Seeing as 172 is now active again, should this 'case' be re-opened? I think it was given an early bath because he'd said he'd left. Dan100 23:18, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

I have not really "returned." Once I have a VfD page out of the way (Sixteen known nuclear crises of the Cold War), I don't expect to be making any edits for quite some time. But to send the message that the Arbcom is not interested in acting as a tool for trolls to drive off serious users with spurious cases, I think that it should most definitely be reopened, regardless of my intentions to leave or stay. These charges were never given any review whatsoever, but apparently I was sanctioned anyway. 172 00:42, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

As you are both aware, this case will be reopened if 172 requests it and shows that he is willing to participate in the process by responding to the allegations on the evidence page. -- sannse (talk) 08:59, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This wasn't a condition when the case was opened, and not even a condition in any of the rulings. Perhaps sanctioning me without even bothering to examine the charges was the advice that you people got from Michael Snow on IRC. [2] But that's non-binding and quite untransparent. It's also further evidence that the Arbcom it totally out of touch with productive contributors and showing how unaccountable it is. (Due process apparently matters for nothing in my case, despite the support stated on my talk page from several dozen of the most valuable WP contributors, while Netolitic is given a slap on the wrist and assigned several "mentors.") 172 13:49, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I gave no advice about this on IRC; my only participation was to ask about the enforcement of the ruling on Meta [3]. Due process was given; when a party elects not to participate, it should not be surprising if judgment is entered by default. --Michael Snow 04:37, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

172, why do you persist in this belief that Wikipedia will stick with its stated rules? You're reminding me of the character of Paul Isaacson in "The Book of Daniel", calling for a policeman's aid and expecting to get it. Or the non-fictional case of Mumia Abu Jamal, who asked for a cop's help in the 1960's and instead got stomped on his head. I think your time would be better served helping some of the alternative wiki's I told you about grow, instead of just hitting your head against the wall here. Perhaps Wikipedia will always be the go-to source for articles about things like quantum mechanics, but I am certain the wikis offering a people's perspective of history, politics, political economy, philosophy and so forth will eventually rival Wikipedia's sections on such topics. Alternative specialist wikis like Sourcewatch already supersede Wikipedia in its niche. Such specialization is inevitable, eventually. And the GFDL helps it along that much more so. Ruy Lopez 07:13, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

OK. I don't really know who 172 is or what this is all about, I had just seen that he appeared to be editing again shortly before seeing this page, and thought I should leave a note. Sorry if I'm raking over the past re-opening old wounds etc. Dan100 17:39, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

No need to apologize. Your question was a good one that got a made-up answer attempting to cover up the lack of transparency in the way these decisions are really made. 172 09:50, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You should read the record, and you will see how the decision was made. As a repeat abuser of admin privileges, it was pretty clear the decision would have gone against you had you chosen to participate. The praise of your abilities as an author and authority on your talk page were irrelevant to these issues of abuse of power. As an apologist for other regimes which abused power, it perhaps should be no suprise that you viewed adminship as a right rather than a public trust.--Silverback 19:30, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)