text:
Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 28

Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate closed

 * Original announcement

 * Seems like there's a small typo in 8.4, where the word "not" is repeated: "including, not not limited to". Pretty sure that isn't intended? ansh 666 02:03, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah... there is. Fixed here and on the case page; the first not was (I think obviously) supposed to be a but. Courcelles 02:21, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * What happened to all of the missing numbers? We've got remedies 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 4.1, 5.1, 5.3, etc., but not 3.anything or 5.2.  Were they unsuccessful proposals that got only minority support on the committee?  Meanwhile, there are several links to the "standard topic ban", which all go to the nonexistent Administrators%27_noticeboard.  What's the correct link?  Nyttend (talk) 03:59, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, the missing numbers are failed proposals, the numbering is not changed form their proposal. (The standard topic ban is spelled out in Remedy 2.1) Courcelles 04:05, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the help. I've left a note at the end of the WP:AN thread, saying basically "2.1 is the standard topic ban".  Nyttend (talk) 04:09, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

 * Ya know, maybe you all should actually close a case before putting out a press release.Two kinds of pork Makin'Bacon 05:03, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * They didn't have a choice, really. The Guardian "article" (I'm not really allowed to call it what it really is) kinda forced their hand before they were finished deliberating. — Jeremy  v^_^v  Bori! 05:10, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * At least they had the decency to correct the article, WP really needs a project to explain how the inner working of the encyclopaedia works to the public/press in order to make sure such mistakes don't happen again. There seems to be a big misunderstanding how Arbcom works. Avono (talk) 09:39, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

 * You can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink. No matter how well documented our processes are, no matter how much effort isput into educating others how Arbcom works, it doesn't matter when you have biased reporters and clickbait authors trying to put their own spin on things. // coldacid (talk|contrib) 12:39, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * They have a penchant for ignoring editors, so I'm perplexed as to why they care what that rag thinks. But the real point is commenting before the case closed was inappropriate.  They could have sent a letter to the editor after the fact.  Now they are wearing egg after making a substantial change less than a day later. If they felt the need to explain so urgently, they should have let the WMF handle it.Two kinds of pork Makin'Bacon 09:44, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * For those who may have not been following as closely, and therefore don't see a "substantial change", what are you referring to? Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:00, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Statement from ArbCom says no bans. Then they ban Ryulong. Yes, the statement was technically true, because it said "right now." It was tremendously misleading, however, that some of them said "no bans right now," but then switched, with what appears to be no additional evidence presented to bans? I guess there must have been some back room horse trading and ultimatum dropping or something. Too bad deliberations are all private now. Hipocrite (talk) 14:20, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

 * The Guardian is protected by BLP now? <IP_ADDRESS> (talk) 12:45, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * My comment would have been an attack on the article's author as much as on the article itself. — Jeremy  v^_^v  Bori! 21:27, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Okay. For GamerGate, look at the many arbitrator prompts for evidence and input on the /Evidence and /Workshop pages. To encourage participation from all parties, we doubled evidence lengths on 4 Dec, and sent out a call for further and improved participation a week later. We tried,  Roger Davies  talk 14:32, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I just hope ArbCom is prepared for disgruntled and/or sanctioned editors going to the press with their own version of the story to tell. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé !  12:00, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Enjoy your albatross gentlemen. --Barberio 12:01, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I also note that the ban passed invalidates the public press statement that was voted on by the ArbCom. I think in the light of that we should insist on identification of the individual ArbCom members who voted to make what became a misleading public statement. --Barberio 12:37, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Before any of you hyperventilate, remember that this case is not much different from ones that have happened before. Jehochman Talk 12:18, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I do not recall the ArbCom ever before issuing a press-release to try to defend it's self mid-case. Nor one that mistakenly pre-announced the result as being other than the one that was eventually issued. --Barberio 12:37, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The press release was unnecessary. Otherwise, it's business as usual. Jehochman Talk 12:40, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Business as usual does not equate to business correctly undertaken. Barberio 13:18, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Watchlist WP:ACE2015. If you think you can do a better job, run.  If you don't like how some of the present arbitrators conducted themselves, ask them questions, make statements, write a guide, or vote against them. Jehochman Talk 13:53, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * And, in the meantime, participate in cases. That's what the evidence and workshop pages are for. The big problem with the Gamergate case was low community participation. Don't wait until it's at voting and then start kicking ArbCom ass, it's too late.  Roger Davies  talk 14:01, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The reason people don't participate in cases is because they are a free-fire zone where it's not clear if anyone is ever being listened to at all. People have no idea what the arbs want to know more about, or what's driving discussion, because all of your discussions are held in secret, backroom horse trading and ultimatum dropping sessions on your mailing list. Prove me wrong. Hipocrite (talk) 14:16, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you didn't read what I said? The reason people don't participate in cases isn't because you aren't asking enough, it's because those of us who have been around the block know how to influence the committee. I mean, I'm giving away the secret, but User:Short Brigade Harvester Boris/A pocket guide to Arbitration is right. I'm not even sure why I'm commenting here at all - you're the only one in a position to do anything about the back room reading this, and we're both aware that it's not changing as long as Arbcom is elected by a process that requires going along to get along, with a necessary precursor of going along to get along. Hipocrite (talk) 14:37, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Short Brigade Harvester Boris is a great guy and his guide is excellent. We have tried to get rid of some of our peripheral responsibilities which take up a lot of time so that we can concentrate better on core stuff but there's zero interest in taking them on. I'm keen on reform, big reform if necessary, but nobody is prepared to work with the committee to help achieve it. It's not a one-way street.  Roger Davies  talk 14:51, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * What do you want me to do? Here, I'll take everything unrelated to actually filed cases and advanced permissions off of your hands - I've sent them to the circular file - you are no longer dealing with "child protection," and "anti-harassment." If the foundation wants something done about that, they can do it. You can pay me by no longer deliberating in private about anything, ever. Hipocrite (talk) 14:57, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * If only it were that easy. We passed on Child Pro just before Christmas but it took a lot of work to get there.  Roger Davies  talk 15:17, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

 * The age old wiki canards of "People who are not willing to spend as much time invested in the project as we do are not allowed to criticise us!" and "It's not our fault you didn't know about it till after we'd already made our minds up!".
 * Also, are you honestly saying that the point at which a draft is published, is the point at which you stop listening to outside input? How does that work then, how do we know to start criticising potential decisions until you start voting on very badly worded ones? Are we supposed to read your minds and predict what we need to criticise? ArbCom used to make it very clear that they were not a 'formal court', and have recently insisted they are not the Wiki's "Supreme Court", yet now you insist we treat you like a court room and have to work within your bureaucracy. That we have to follow every one of your not-a-court's public-briefings, or check on people who may be a party to a case's talk page, in case there is ever a point where we need to say something. (But no person should ever advertise those themselves, or risk being accused of Canvasing...) And if we miss our window, then we must remain silent or be ignored?
 * What next, do we need start hiring advocates, have people monitoring cases being brought up so we know when to file our amicus briefs? Do you want to be a formal court, or do you still claim you are not acting like a formal court, make up your mind.
 * That the community, and those outside the community would have problems with this should not be a surprise. The last time you handled a case like this, a member of the press lambasted you for it, and you don't appear to have learned anything from it or comments made by the community at the time of that case. Blaming ArbCom's unforced errors on "low community participation" is not fair. You've consistently rebuffed community concern raised, by defending the process you follow. I want to ask you, if you are following a process that may be causing harm to Wikipedia, do you deserve community support? --Barberio 14:42, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * If you can come up with a viable alternative process that allows the many differing stakeholders (not "both sides") in a complex and entrenched dispute to participate calmly and dispassionately, and somehow arrive at a binding solution, I'd love to hear.  Roger Davies  talk 14:57, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Maybe you folks should come up with one first. Protonk (talk) 14:59, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The main hurdle is getting people to address the issues and not spend their whole time fighting with or attacking each other. Address that and much of it is cracked,  Roger Davies  talk 15:19, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I don't buy that. This isn't arbcom's first rodeo. Cases are characterized by people fighting intractably--that's what brings the issue before the committee. If the lack of evidence or the lack of decorum was so poisonous (as many arbs knew it would be before the case opened), why were no termporary injunctions proposed? Why was no one sanctioned during the case for gumming up the works? Why, at the conclusion of the case is there unanimous support for a principle extolling the importance of decorum during the case if a drafting arbitrator feels behavior during the case negatively impacted the decision? Protonk (talk) 16:00, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * What sort of injunctions? Injunctions to be nice to each other? Conduct during cases always impacts on the outcome. We simply don't have enough clerks to keep stuff tightly locked down and if we started handing out lengthy blocks "simply" for case misconduct, the community would go ballistic.  Roger Davies  talk 20:45, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I dunno, injunctions to stop people from filling the evidence page with shit, making it hard for anyone who isn't already fully devoted to the case to even know if their evidence will be read or duplicates something elsewhere. Or stopping people from swapping evidence sections to escape limits. Or demanding people put up or shut up with respect to accusations made with minimal or non-germane evidence. Really anything envisioned by Beeblebrox here. And I don't know if you can tell, but the community is going ballistic. Maybe that's six on one hand, half a dozen in the other but it's distressing to see arbcom know in advance that conduct would be a problem and that the case needed to be moved along at an appropriate pace then just...do nothing until the case concludes at which point the community is blamed for not bringing enough evidence. Protonk (talk) 20:57, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * People fighting with and attacking each other - when one side is using paintball guns and the other nuclear weapons. The committee did exactly what I warned you against on the case request page and gave the harassers exactly what they wanted. You punted the people trying to protect the article at personal risk to themselves, left a vacuum that will more likely be filled by the SPAs than anytone else, and only offered the community the laughable remedy 18 which is basically a request asking for people willing to be doxxed and threatened for trying to maintain Wikipedia's policies.  Oh, and if you do so, you can expect to be sanctioned for it.  No thanks Resolute 16:23, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * If only there were some kind of committee, elected by the community, that could use it's weight to initiate a review and reform of the arbitration policy? Perhaps they could start an RfC, I understand that's a tool editors can use to draw in attention to something they need help with.
 * But to be serious, if you are sincere about supporting reform, we can start an RfC on the process right now and you can lend your support to that review. -Barberio 15:02, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I'll gladly support any reasonable proposal, really, but don't expect me to turn up and support a load of arb-kicking stuff. The fact is that the writing has been on the wall for the committee in its current form for a couple of years now. Too much baggage, too many disgruntled people etc. I was hoping to make a real change this year and welcome this opportunity to do so,  Roger Davies  talk 15:19, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I invite your input on this draft RFC User:Barberio/sandbox -Barberio 18:29, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * From what I've seen of trying to getting ArbCom stuff through the community, RFCs are a complete waste of time. What you don't is drive-by supports but people who will hang around and commit the time to effective producing solutions. What is much more effective is a moderated discussion which is moved on from time to time as consensus develops. I'll gladly comment on your draft on that basis.  Roger Davies  talk 20:56, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * So the story now is that we extended the deadlines and expanded the limits because we didn't get enough evidence? Protonk (talk) 15:11, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * To be clear, you're saying that none of the extensions were prompted by 11th hour requests for more time and space from parties to the case (and the knock-on requests from other parties to rebut)? Protonk (talk) 16:02, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I've moved your two posts together here. We extended it for nearly a week to get more input. That input duly arrived from various people.  Roger Davies  talk 20:56, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, I provided sample links. There was a lot of bickering and little hard fact. Maybe we should just have closed it then but I expect that would have been controversial too,  Roger Davies  talk 15:22, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * So I guess it was a mistake to just believe that ArbCom knew what was going on, the organized harassment, and trust the committee to handle the case with common sense. I have no beef with Eric Corbett or Sitush, but can you explain why some Arb members voted against site and topic bans for them(citing such excuses and baiting), while supporting site bans for Carol Moore, Neotarf, Tarc(mostly topic ban) and Ryulong? It seems if you are marginally 'baited', not a feminist and are deemed a 'content creator', you get the benefit of the doubt and can do whatever you want without fear of sanction. But if you are relentlessly harassed by an organized, off-site group, your 'civility' is reason enough for a site ban. It seems to me that some members of the committee believe if a non-feminist man defends himself it's ok, but if a woman or a feminist defends herself/himself it's nagging or bickering. Dave Dial (talk) 15:39, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 2
What would the ArbCom say to editors who might want to edit about a subject, but don't want to suffer the same fate as those who came before them? Nobody wants to end up banned, or even topic-banned, just for contributing some of their time to try to improve an article. "Anyone can edit" ends up sounding pretty hollow when you follow it with "...except all those people who already tried". Nobody wants to invest time in something that's liable to earn them nothing more than an ArbCom-certified ass-kicking. I think this kind of official abuse chills participation a lot more than you realize. Ryulong invested years of volunteer effort into improving this project, and now he's banned—exiled, persona non grata, his name forever blackened, an officially designated miscreant. Who else wants to go down that road to nowhere? Everyking (talk) 15:41, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The vast bulk of the 150 sanctions covered by this case arose from admin action from a dozen or so admins. I guess many of the same admins will now be working on the same issues under discretionary sanctions. Although ArbCom retains jurisdiction over DS, the committee is usually very hands off in he day-to-day operation of it.  Roger Davies  talk 21:10, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The fact that editors were harassed both onsite and offsite for their participation is probably even more chilling to discourse and participation, especially considering that the editors who were most toxic to the conversation and most directly involved in coordinating offsite harassment received little more than a slap on the wrist for their efforts. -gtrmp (talk) 17:00, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * There was a great deal of email evidence and almost none of it was about harassment. The one "clear" example of GamerGate brigading turned out to be one of the GaterGaters complaining about having been brigaded himself. There is no reason to suppose that the the people who came to Wikipedia were the same ones who had been involved in the monstrous activity reported in the press. The stuff I have seen was mild (mostly low level vandalism) and certainly nowhere near the levels we see in other problematic topics. As it happens, the harassment allegations mostly surfaced after the proposed decision was posted and were unspecific.  Roger Davies  talk
 * "There is no reason to suppose that the the people who came to Wikipedia were the same ones who had been involved in the monstrous activity reported in the press." ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME WITH THIS. Protonk (talk) 21:18, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, they're not all GamerGaters for a start. The politics of this - and the allegiances - are very complicated. For instance, there's even a radical feminist group aligned with the GamerGaters (and at one point fundraising for them). So what makes you think that people engaging in extreme activity on one hand are going to get involved with arguing about sources and BLP on the other?  Roger Davies  talk 21:33, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * So is there no reason to suppose it or is it unlikely because some people donated to TFYC and you believe people won't code switch? Because those don't seem relevant at all. I'll bottom line it for you. A party to the case is a moderator' of KiA and you're telling me that there is no evidence of crossover? Or are you making the narrower claim that the people actually calling in bomb threats aren't editing wikipedia (rather than harassing people over twitter, email, etc.)? Because even if that's true it's hardly the same thing. Protonk (talk) 21:45, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * During the case, I looked over the private evidence and came to the conclusion that there was evidence that off-site harassment was taking place and a party was involved in it. In response I drafted two FOFs. Due to my personal anxiety and the fact that I felt that I was increasingly on an island in respect to this issue, I retracted them an hour later. I dropped the ball here and I am sorry. -- Guerillero |  My Talk  22:06, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

 * Roger, are you saying that you believe harassment didn't occur, or just that you don't believe that the people who publicly said they were going to carry out harassment were the ones carrying out harassment that exactly matched what they said they were going to do? If it's the former...that's pretty scary, that an arbitrator could have managed to be entirely ignorant of what was going on surrounding a case they were hearing when the facts were to be had by simply googling one or two words. If the latter, it's...well actually, to me that's still pretty scary, and brings to mind suicide pacts. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 21:53, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm saying that the whole situation is so complicated, with so many people involved and with their identities so concealed, that we cannot state with any degree of certainty that the individuals who were involved in doxing, swatting, death threats and so on are the same individuals who came onto Wikipedia. Sure, we can speculate ....   Roger Davies  talk 22:03, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with Roger that the evidence (public and private) was severely lacking in this case. I get the sense that a lot of people think more private evidence of harassment was submitted than actually was. The evidence of harassment that we did receive was extremely difficult to connect to specific users, which is largely why I (and presumably others, though I'll let them speak for themselves) chose not to use it heavily in the decision. I do disagree with Roger's implication that those involved in offwiki harrassment can't be supposed to be involved in issues onwiki—there was pretty clear offsite collusion, and it's coy to imply otherwise. I also think that pointing to TFYC is disingenuous and beside the point. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:06, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * With respect, it's impossible for a non-arb to know what private evidence has and hasn't been submitted, especially before the PD is posted. That's not a rejoinder per se but it needs to be said. Protonk (talk) 22:12, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Right, that's largely what I'm trying to say. I think both arbs and non-arbs alike need to remember that—arbitrators can't expect non-arbitrators to submit evidence based on what has and has not already been submitted, and non-arbitrators can't assume that arbitrators have evidence that we're just ignoring. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:22, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh yea, those 'concealed' identities that had the same damned user names on Wikipedia as they do on Reddit. Or almost every time Loganmac posted on 8chan to organize harassment he started the posts with "Logan here". It takes a real CIA researcher to figure out those identities. And Roger is more than being coy or disingenuous, he's insulting the intelligence of any editor with common sense. Sheesh. Dave Dial (talk) 22:51, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * There's no good solution here, unless the user publishes the connection on-wiki. If we don't make the link, we are accused of ignoring offwiki harassment. If we do make the link, we are accused of enabling joe-jobbing. Short of electing a telepathic to the Committee, we have to try to weigh the two. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:00, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * How on earth was this weighed? By what standard is not blatantly obvious that Loganmac and Logan_mac are the same person. Like seriously? I dont know what private evidence you recieved but surely any even vaguely pertaining to Loganmac would make it blatanly obvious they're the same person. There is literally nothing to weigh here. But if onwiki evidence is what you want I'll give it. Here is Loganmac admitting both the reddit and twitter loganmac accounts are his, note the wording "looked up my twitter and reddit". If that's not enough proof that the reddit account is his (it should be enough proof that the twitter account is), here are tweets (now deleted) of logan admitting he's the reddit moderator. Bosstopher (talk) 23:21, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Are you saying you endorse behavior like this as a reason not to participate in mediation? Shii (tock) 17:13, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Um...yes? Mediation would have been a terrible route for GG, for those reasons and others. Mediation only works under two conditions: 1. Everyone with a stake can be brought to the table. 2. Everyone at the table is willing to reach an agreement. GG by definition fails to meet condition 1, even if you assume that it will meet condition 2. Protonk (talk) 17:20, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Considering that the Mediation Committee themselves turned down Mediation on the basis that "in light of the number of editors currently actively participating in the discussions at the article talk page who are not listed here, there can be no reasonable hope that any effort here would include enough participants to solve the problems." I would not expect any mediation possible in the face of a campaign creating SPAs and conducting off-site harassment, and the parties that turned down mediation should not be criticised for turning down an impossible method that the mediation committee themselves said would be fruitless. I strongly hope that was not used in the decision making by ArbCom. --Barberio 17:30, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It's actually cited in the decision. Shii (tock) 17:48, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * That's just absolutely absurd. Absolutely absurd. Dave Dial (talk) 18:25, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Un-fucking-believable. Protonk (talk) 18:28, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * What's absurd or unbelievable about it? Ryulong's response was super hostile and battleground-y. Or are you suggesting that this would still have been cited as battleground behavior had Ryulong written "I would rather not participate in mediation" rather than "Stop fucking forum shopping"? Starke Hathaway (talk) 18:44, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It's brash and rude, but it's not wrong, at all. Mediation was destined to fail and did fail, we're here because it failed. And we're also here, funnily enough, because gaters wouldn't stop forum shopping until they got what they wanted. Protonk (talk) 18:46, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah, I seem to have been mistaken about what ArbCom actually cited. My apologies. Still, being wrong about mediation effectiveness is not necessarily against policy. Being brash, rude, and hostile arguably is. Starke Hathaway (talk) 18:51, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Of course. My problem is that there are conflicting principles, policies and (frankly) realities here. I think Ryulong is a dick, no doubt. But compared to me he has the patience of a saint. Compare this to the GGTF case where we had a long term editor with serious civility problems being baited by a few other editors. In that case arbcom took pains to note the mitigating circumstances (whatever your opinion of those circumstances is) when determining the remedy. Here, because we refused to consider the impact of off-wiki action the committee apparently felt such a weighing of issues was unnecessary. When we remove from the record the thousands of edits, posts and tweets aimed at Ryulong by a group of people who (let's make no mistake) don't give a shit about wikipedia beyond our popularity and accessibility then yeah, you could come to the conclusion that he's a dick and that's bad so let's ban him. Protonk (talk) 18:57, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Well. I definitely see your point re. refusing to consider the impact of off-wiki action. Did ArbCom actually say they refused to consider that? I don't recall seeing it but I could easily be mistaken, as we have seen in this very conversation. My impression was that they simply noted the reality that they had no power, really, to do anything about those off-wiki actions. I would appreciate it if you could set me straight if I've gotten it wrong somewhere.
 * That aside, what would have been a fair result re: Ryulong in your estimation? Starke Hathaway (talk) 19:17, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * So they've said they had no power to stop the harassment, which is largely true. They've also said that they cannot sanction editors on wiki who harass people off wiki (less true, but let's grant it). Neither of those statements means they could not weigh the issue, but it does make weighing the issue incredibly difficult. One of the FoFs notes that "off-wiki coordination" was a problem, but almost none of the other remedies, principles or FoFs grapple with this issue at all. Perhaps there was a spirited debate about how to treat baiting, endless SPAs and harassment with respect to mitigating circumstances, but that debate didn't take place in the open and there's little evidence of it in the eventual decision. One of the principal sources of this harassment was left out of the original proposed decision and then topic banned as an afterthought--otherwise it's pretty much unmentioned. Protonk (talk) 19:27, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * As a personal view, I agree with Protonk's characterisation in the post above. Arguably more discussion could have occurred openly rather than in private, but numerous case participants also submitted private evidence, or were referred to in other people's private evidence, and it would have been difficult to construct useful public conversations while still respecting these issues. Theres also an annoying reality that some of the case remedies only make sense when the private evidence is considered - without that, it must appear a little mystifying as to how the committee reached its decisions.
 * Having only been here a month I don't know I'd this is public-private evidence split is a commonplace or a particular feature of this case, but I suspect the latter as personal privacy issues were fairly prominent here. --Euryalus (talk) 19:45, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * To answer your last question (or dodge it respectfully), I don't know for sure. My ad hoc feeling is that most of Ryolung's actual problems come from revert warring over borderline edits. 1RR across the project might have been an effective remedy (the word remedy being crucial here, not punishment). Protonk (talk) 19:32, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Aha, a point of consensus! If we phrase the complaint as "ArbCom failed to adequately document its deliberations, if any, regarding off-wiki actions concerning parties to the case and the weight, if any, given to these actions in mitigating the sanctions imposed on those parties," I cannot but fully agree. Starke Hathaway (talk) 19:41, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * From what I've seen, his judgment of the situation wasn't inaccurate in the least. By its nature, mediation doesn't and can't work in a situation where one party isn't a discrete group of users but is instead a semi-disorganized high-turnover group that frequently brings in new participants from the various offsite social networks where said party kaffeeklatsches and occasionally plans out its strategies for (among other things) editing Wikipedia. In such a scenario, mediators can't really interact meaningfully with both parties, and in practice mediation would only serve to effectively restrain the regular users editing on the other side of the issue from said group. -gtrmp (talk) 19:49, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It's probably helpful to mention again at this stage there weren't two groups, reflecting pro or anti views. There were various blocs reflecting various views, plus a fair number who'd heard about the controversy and were curious. Which made it difficult to identify who was involved with what and what, if any, agenda they had.  Roger Davies  talk 21:16, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Interestingly, it seems at least some of your colleagues disagree with you on this point, Roger; DGG says below that he saw this as a two-group situation. In fact, I don't think I've seen any of your colleagues saying that there were multiple groups or blocs. This can sometimes be a challenge for the committee when the person drafting a decision does not interpret the evidence similarly to the others in the committee; every time I've been aware that it has happened, it's usually resulted in an unsatisfactory, overreaching, and drama-inducing result. (And yes, I wound up voting on some of those, and left before required instead of drafting the last decision because I knew it would wind up that way.) I still do not understand why gender was included in the decision, since there really was nothing to do with gender in the case.  Risker (talk) 02:47, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd agree, to a point. Absent any evidence a discussion happened it might be premature to castigate them for merely not showing their work rather than shirking the assignment. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Protonk (talk) 20:01, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Now this may just be me, but I think its fairly obvious to identify what group a person who is moderator for KotakuinAction and is currently trying to get Jimmy Wales to do an AMA on his subreddit, who posted almost daily in that subreddit disparaging Ryulong while involved in edit conflicts against him bringing the conflict to the eyes of a massive (and angry) audience, and has been banned 24 hours for wikistalking Ryulong, falls under. I'm assuming at least some of this stuff was in the private evidence Ryulong submitted to you? Bosstopher (talk) 22:03, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I personally feel that most issues that have come before arb com do involve two sides, and this case was a good example of that (with the usual exceptions and variations), and obvious just from the public evidence. Surely the votes on the PD, let alone the comments here, show that there was  some disagreement about the obviousness of this  among the various members of the committee. But I find it very odd to say that the pro-GG side won the decision, or has unduly influenced the balance of the article. Certainly they tried, but they failed.  DGG ( talk ) 00:18, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You may find it odd, but the "pro-GG side" is certainly celebrating the success of their "Operation Five Horseman" (although they only managed to bin 3/5 of their targets). They did take note of, among other things, who voted against the Ryulong ban, and already decided these admins will "have to go" (also here. In their eyes, the "operation" payed off, so expect more of this kind of off-site coordination trying to get rid of disagreeable editors, under whatever pretext comes handy. The ArbCom decision is pointedly neutral, but from the evidence you have reviewed - did you really get the impression that this type of off-wiki coordination and targeting of specific editors on-wiki is a common M.O. on "both sides"? GreggHamster (talk) 13:26, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I would imagine the Arbs, both past and present, would practise as they preach and report all off-wiki harassment to the relevant authorities. As for on-wiki, I didn't cite RtBA's remedies for no reason whatsoever. I will grant to Roger Davies that neither side is a saint, but it's the "pro-" sides that are resorting more to battles by attrition here, and in my mind discretionary sanctions for throwaway users is a complete and phenomenal waste of time. — Jeremy  v^_^v  Bori! 19:54, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 3
Once again I'm going to ask for input to the draft RfC on community Arbitration Policy Reform since there is an apparent consensus in support of a review of current practice. --Barberio 19:23, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Did you read what I wrote above?  Roger Davies  talk 21:34, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You are welcome to draft the RFC; I will be opposing most of it, including especially all of 1 and 2d. The only items I feel I unambiguously support are 2a and 4. TotientDragooned (talk) 21:45, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * In fact the impetus for the ArbCom (not Wikipedia, ArbCom) statement came from the WMF.  Roger Davies  talk 22:05, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * On a similar vein, I'm drafting a timeline on the events that happened between the Guardian article and the close of the case, in relation to the case and the press release published here. I expect to have it ready sometime UTC-morrow. L Faraone  23:09, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

 * If the WMF felt it important to issue a press release, why the hell didn't they do so themselves? In that regard, I think you guys did the best you could, but if what you say is true, Roger, I would say the Foundation basically set you up for a fall. Resolute 00:06, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I think it's 50/50, in that the Foundation failed completely but they merely added to the complete failure of ArbCom to grasp the issues concerned. Black Kite (talk) 01:19, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Comment I think a few of the people in the above discussion (extending through the "arbitrary breaks") would benefit from reading up on the fundamental attribution error and fallacy of composition. <IP_ADDRESS> (talk) 05:30, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Consensus forming
Just putting this here so we can just drop things when we realise that there's a general consensus around it instead of talking in circles.

First, I think there's a general consensus that the Press Release was a mistake, it's not ArbCom's job to issue press release, and that the statement about the ban not currently passing was unintentionally misleading. Hopefully, the lesson has been learned, and we can all drop this line of debate? --Barberio 23:50, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I broadly agree. The problem is that the Arbcom should not take media perception into account when making its decisions, but *should* take it into account when communicating its decisions. Drafting arbitrators should consciously reflect on the imaging of the case before posting the first decision draft. Much of the content of the press release -- that Arbcom can remedy *only* on-wiki conduct; that it has authority only over conduct matters, and not content; that most of the worst elements of the GamerGate "side" had already been banned or topic-banned, and the article protected by general sanctions; that the committee condemns off-wiki harassment in the strongest possible terms -- could and should have been principles or FoFs of the original case, which would have nipped much of the drama in the bud. Once the negative press began, the right response was to expedite the case, which was already close to being finished, and not waste time on a press release. Finally, I would have been more comfortable if the Arbcom had left writing a press release to the communications professionals at the WMF, *if* a press release was even necessary: WP:DENY is equally effective against trolls in the media as trolls on-wiki. TotientDragooned (talk) 00:11, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I do not think it is useful to ignore the press, entirely. "No comment" never looked flattering. In any case, this is an example of a balanced article (from my cursory read) that was probably helped by the press release, here. There have also been retractions, corrections, and subsequent writings that resulted from both inbound press enquiries and proactive contacts. And as Roger noted, the WMF was involved in the crafting of this document. L Faraone  20:24, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I thought the informational post (not sure if "press release" is an accurate description) was an ok idea in principle. The main problem is that the post itself could have used another iteration or two of rewriting before publication.  I liked Philippe's version better, for example.  On the other hand, when to hit "send" with things like this is always a dilemma, so I sympathize.  Ultimately though, reaction to this thing seems overblown.  I don't see how it's something other than the usual malcontents making the usual noise. <IP_ADDRESS> (talk) 02:01, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Can we also say that there's consensus that there has been general confusion around submitting evidence of off-site harassment, rooted in unclear and inconsistent understanding of what the committee will consider as mitigating circumstances? --Barberio 00:00, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

 * The committee does not have a formal mandate to consider mitigating circumstances though informally it always will. The issue is that one person's mitigating circumstance is someone else's lame excuse. These are incredibly grey areas and are basically about judgment and common sense,  Roger Davies  talk 09:01, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

It seems to me that you're just making excuses because you don't want to take responsibility for being involved in supporting harassment of Wikipedia editors. Silver seren C 09:42, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I'll keep this simple. I consider this case result to be one of the biggest, if not the biggest, Arbcom failures in memory. I think that the entirety of Arbcom utterly failed in their remit in every possible manner and should be disgraced and ashamed of themselves for, basically, putting out a ruling supporting off-wiki harassment campaigns and direct harassment of Wikipedians. I will not be voting for any of you in any capacity in the next Arbcom election and I hope none of you are reelected to this or any other position of influence ever again. You are a detriment to this encyclopedia and everything it stands for. Silver  seren C 05:23, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Minor point, not all the decisions were unanimous. I think it's wrong to characterise everyone as having the same position, which is what you seem to be saying. On the major issue, would you like to see ArbCom mandated to consider off-wiki activities, and if so do you agree that this needs to be clarified to specify the scope within which they can do this? At the moment it isn't mentioned in either Arbitration/Guide to arbitration or Arbitration/Policy. I'm not certain as to how far our role legitimately (at the moment) extends here, and I doubt that I'm the only new arbitrator that is uncertain. I'd probably support an extension into this area but think that it needs to be made formal. Dougweller (talk) 08:10, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Ummm. Arbcom has frequently taken into consideration off-wiki activities, and has in the past explicitly sanctioned for such activities; less well-known is that it has also elected to either not sanction or lessen sanctions because of off-wiki activities. The committee decides what evidence it will consider in any given case; while off-wiki activity alone would rarely result in an Arbcom action, it has certainly been the main focus in more than one arbcom action, and the Sandifer desysop was pretty much all about off-wiki activity. There is nothing in the policy that specifically excludes review of off-wiki activity; in fact, the "admissibility of evidence" section is deliberately written to allow evidence other than the types enumerated. Risker (talk) 08:29, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Since we have two Arbitration Committee members disagreeing over this, I think that makes it clear enough that there's confusion over evidence handling and what may be submitted. I think this is a clear signal that there needs to be review of this part of the Arbitration Policy. --08:35, 30 January 2015 (UTC)Barberio
 * No, I'm not disagreeing, I'm just new and still learning. It is at WP:OWH which says it is "admissible evidence in the dispute-resolution process, including Arbitration cases." Dougweller (talk) 13:00, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * That's apples and oranges, surely? The question is whether evidence of alleged off-wiki activities is persuasive enough to be acted on. And if so, where should the bar be? Balance of probabilities? Clear and compelling? Beyond reasonable doubt? And then we have all the potential implications of the committee WP:OUTING someone to consider ...  Roger Davies  talk 09:06, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm confused by this statement, and past statements. Could you make a clear statement that sets out your position on submitting evidence of off-wiki harassment to the committee, and if the committee should consider that as mitigating circumstances? You can not blame the community for not submitting evidence on off-wiki harassment, then turn around and raise doubts over if the committee should accept evidence on off-wiki harassment. Again, as I said on the draft RfC, it is not a matter of if mitigating circumstances should be considered... Throughout the history of Wikipedia they have been, it's just they have been considered in wildly variable ways, with little consistency and sometimes in outright contradictory ways. Sometimes within the same case. This is clearly a source of dispute, and producer of inconsistent remedies. --Barberio 09:20, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * In the GamerGate nobody asked by email for external harassment to be treated as a mitigating circumstance. And, contra that, we had email evidence that some of those "harassing" (well, "shouting at off-wiki" more realistically) was a part of a two-way slanging match.  Roger Davies  talk 09:35, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The unfortunate reality is that we can do something to protect people on-wiki (page protection, admins watchlisting, oversighting, etc) but can do nothing at all to protect them off-wiki. That can only be done by either off-wiki site management or by law enforcement. Plus, there is no WP:BADSITES policy.   Roger Davies  talk 09:49, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, hey, SUCCESS! You've succeeded in having Gamergate go after other Wikipedians now! See here and here. Congrats, Arbcom, you did it! You accomplished your goal of getting more Wikipedians targeted and harassed! I knew you had it in you! Great job, Roger Davies, i'm proud of you. Silver  seren C 09:58, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Can you tell me please whether you believe that declaring certain editors "Defenders of the Wiki" or some such, would have reduced or increased the prospect of them being harassed? Hipocrite isn't even mentioned in the decision.  Roger Davies  talk 10:08, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * , hey, Rodger, how do you think that syncs up with 18, exactly? Would you expect any new users to volunteer for a GamerGate ethics review along the lines of the one I'm getting? Let's see - I'm being impersonated on Reddit via some ridiculous false-flag, I'm currently the trending topic on the main GamerGate message board, I have a wife or husband and some number of kids that is greater than zero and less than eight, and GamerGate or those closely connected it it have Swatted people before. But don't worry - it's all justified because I tried to make Ryulong, a decade long contributor here, feel better about his ban by promising to read emails he'd send me and that I'd put articles he cares about on a watchlist. ETHICS! Hipocrite (talk) 13:50, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

 * Arbcom has made it clear that anyone who tries to defend the Gamergate article or related articles from BLP violations and POV editing is going to be sanctioned. So Gamergate clearly thinks the best method then is to harass anyone whatsoever that is involved in defending the article and then will use the discretionary sanctions against them. Arbcom has already directly shown that it is fine with supporting off-wiki harassment and not editors trying to defend Wikipedia. Silver  seren C 10:15, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It is, and always has been, site policy that people are expected to be restrained and calm, even in the face of provocation. If they can't do that, they are expected to leave the topic to others. Sure, people are cut some slack but nobody, ever, has been given a carte blanche to do whatever they like. ArbCom is prohibited from creating new policy by fiat but if you think the policy should be changed, you're welcome to try doing so.   Roger Davies  talk 10:27, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Your Arbcom speech is as good as always. Deflection of issues, pointing at policies, never taking responsibility. In this case, not caring about harassment of Wikipedians. I guess you'd make a good politician, Roger. And, no, that's not a compliment. I'm done here. I'm going to try and actually help Wikipedia and do what I can to protect and support the editors that you all have abandoned. Silver  seren C 10:38, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Roger, I know you are vested in defending your decision, but try to remember that there are wider considerations and you're making public statements. I was unaware that there was a requirement that someone email you to ask for external harassment to be treated as a mitigating circumstance during a case. I assume this is not a formal policy of any kind?
 * Can I get a Yes/No answer on the question "Would you ever consider off-site harassment as a mitigation"? --Barberio 09:52, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course I would (and I have plenty of times in the past). But it all greatly depends on other contributory factors, which cannot easily/sensibly/practically be legislated for. In the real world, it's covered by exercise of discretion.  Roger Davies  talk 09:58, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Do you agree that the current level of discretion has resulted in inconsistent, and sometimes even contradictory application of mitigating factors within the same case? --Barberio 10:05, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * As a passing comment, I think its important to acknowledge that any two people can examine evidence in good faith and come to different conclusions as to its value, origins, mitigating factors etc. That's not "inconsistency" so much as a diversity of views. It's one of the reasons why there are fifteen committee members. The committee has certainly taken off-wiki issues into account, on occasion, and where relevant. But the weight given to these off-wiki issues will vary somewhat between committee members, as it should when people are asked to exercise independent judgement. -- Euryalus (talk) 11:03, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * If it were just diversity of views between Arbitrators, that'd be one thing, but the problem is that there's a 'diversity' in how cases are actually handled, and the application of remedies. If it were a matter of Arbitrators disagreeing on off-site harrasment being considered, then there would not be so many instances of contradictory remedies, particularly ones within the same case, because they would still be consistent to their own views. And there certainly needs to be a clear guideline for evidence submission, which certainly can't be written off as 'diversity of views' because there needs to be one single standard there or it's not going to work. --Barberio 11:20, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Fair points, but I'm not sure they apply. A quantity of off-wiki evidence was provided existed, some of it as mitigation for on-wiki conduct. I bore it in mind when considering the findings and remedies. It was relevant but was not always entirely exculpatory - sometimes there were other conduct factors to consider, and sometimes the off-wiki evidence simply wasn't enough to either impose the sanction some called for, or mitigate a sanction others opposed. I can't speak for everyone else, but I don't consider my voting in the case to have shown any great inconsistency. But I accept that that's just my opinion, based on my own assessment of the material presented and the votes cast. -- Euryalus (talk) 11:33, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

 * I'll counter by saying that I believe the Arbcom, overall, did a decent job handling an incredibly difficult case with no obvious best answers. The central question was whether off-wiki misbehavior by one set of parties ever gives carte blanche to the other set of parties to edit-war and tendentiously edit on-wiki. They leaned towards "no," which makes sense to me: if you are being harassed off-wiki, the right response is to disengage, alert the WMF and law enforcement, and ask uninvolved administrators to step in. The wrong response is to entrench yourself in the topic and double-down on on-wiki misbehavior.
 * I was particularly impressed with Roger Davies and Beeblebrox, who cut to the heart of the case without getting distracted by side drama, and hope that Roger will continue to be as decisive and incisive during the rest of his committee tenure. TotientDragooned (talk) 05:43, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

 * Says the SPA account that hadn't posted more than twice in the past two years and suddenly reactivated to start posting in the Gamergate case. You are the perfect example of the problem. Silver  seren C 05:50, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * SPA, huh? How many edits of mine do you see in the area of GamerGate, or for that matter gender and sexuality, broadly construed? You must not have checked very carefully ;) And yes, I haven't edited in a while, but when misinformed posts about the arbcom decision started flooding my Facebook news feed I became rather concerned. Now if you have replies other than personal attacks, I'd be happy to read them. TotientDragooned (talk) 05:55, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

... WP:NPA is still official policy, right? <IP_ADDRESS> (talk) 12:10, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * What are you characterising as a personal attack exactly, seeing neither you nor TotientDragooned have really justified the question or remark? A more careful review of Silver seren's comment might better clarify what was intended. Ncmvocalist (talk) 12:44, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Then perhaps you or Silver seren could clarify; since 1) my editing history here predates the GamerGate controversy by over five years, and 2) I have never made any edits anywhere near the topic area, and certainly have no plans to go POV-war there now, I'm not sure how to characterize their remark other than as (poorly-researched) ad hominem. That said, I'm not particularly offended and don't need help from the NPA police. TotientDragooned (talk) 14:22, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The way I interpreted Silver seren's reply to your comment was that after reading your posting, he made an assessment regarding its (poor) quality before comparing it to your other recent contributions and decision to just post to this case discussion page (after being inactive for so long). I don't know if I necessarily disagree/agree with Silver seren's overall view that you are a perfect example of the problem that the topic area is regularly being subjected to (like a few other areas in this project), but if I were basing it on your last two comments including the unnecessary reference to "NPA police", I'd be inclined to agree. I thought your postings were foolish because you don't seem to read things carefully and/or seem to rely on erroneous/unnecessary assumptions. To clarify, Silver seren simply characterised you as an SPA (which in itself is not necessarily a bad thing anyway); he didn't say anything else. Rather than seek clarification about what sort of SPA, you ask for evidence as to when you have directly contributed to the Gamergate/gender/sexuality topics, suggest he hasn't checked properly (because you apparently assume he called you a Gamergate controversy SPA), and then refer to unspecified "personal attacks" in his comment (even though you were "not particularly offended"). Anyway, enough red herrings please. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:02, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * If I had replied to one of your posts solely to 1) call you an SPA, and 2) call you "a perfect example of [a] problem", wouldn't you some difficulty taking them in good faith? I thought Seren's comment was a clear-cut ad hominem attack but I apologize if I was mistaken. I will disengage now as it seems my contributions here are not welcome. (And in case it wasn't clear, the last sentence of my last post was urging the IP to back off, *not* directed at you or Silver seren). TotientDragooned (talk) 16:10, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * TotientDragooned, I didn't say you shouldn't disagree with Silver seren - just that before you disagree, at least know exactly what it is you're disagreeing with and frame it properly. If you take offence to being called an SPA at all re: any topic, then at least frame your reply to him accordingly rather than asking for evidence as to why you're an SPA in one area which he didn't otherwise specify. And if you aren't genuinely offended, don't make the accusation which will end up turning a molehill into a mountain. To be clear, my criticism of your last couple of comments was not intended to be a reflection of suggesting you are unwelcome to comment at all; it's just a reflection that you can and should take a bit more care when you do comment in future rather than repeating the same issues like you did on these two occasions. (And while I know who you were referring to, it's just as bad if the IP then accused you of making a personal attack by calling it NPA police when there are other ways you can get the point across to it.) Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:38, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Ok, I have to pluck this out,. You say "nobody asked by email for external harassment to be treated as a mitigating circumstance" first of all, WHAT? If, as you say, arbcom has no policy about mitigating circumstances, how could parties be expected to know that they need to file their evidence under "mitigating circumstances"? Protonk (talk) 14:35, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * In a nutshell, ArbCom policy is "use common sense". There is no reason that mitigating circumstances couldn't be presented now in a request for modification.  Before doing that I suggest showing that evidence to somebody uninvolved to see if they think it would be a good idea to file such a request.  There shouldn't be a flood of frivolous requests, however, ArbCom should entertain legitimate requests to fix errors in decisions. Jehochman Talk 14:57, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * If "use common sense" were such an easy thing, then ArbCom wouldn't need to exist in the first place.
 * I do think that ArbCom do need an explicit direct mandate to consider mitigating circumstances, in particular off-site attacks. The current position is "we don't but we will, maybe", and we can patently see what this has resulted in. People need to clearly know they can submit evidence of mitigating circumstances, and that evidence will be considered as a part of the process not just on the whim of any particular arbitrator. --Barberio 16:36, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

What I'm "characterizing" as personal attacks:

"You are a detriment to this encyclopedia and everything it stands for." - addressed to all of Arbcom, not justified beyond a personal opinion on the ruling.

"It seems to me that you're just making excuses because you don't want to take responsibility for being involved in supporting harassment of Wikipedia editors." - addressed directly to Roger Davies.

"Congrats, Arbcom, you did it! You accomplished your goal of getting more Wikipedians targeted and harassed! I knew you had it in you! Great job, Roger Davies, i'm proud of you."

"Your Arbcom speech is as good as always. Deflection of issues, pointing at policies, never taking responsibility. In this case, not caring about harassment of Wikipedians. I guess you'd make a good politician, Roger."

"Says the SPA account that hadn't posted more than twice in the past two years and suddenly reactivated to start posting in the Gamergate case. You are the perfect example of the problem."

No "characterization" is necessary, though. It's transparently obvious to any rational reader that these are personal attacks. <IP_ADDRESS> (talk) 02:11, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

 * Thanks, but I'm sure Roger (and any other committee member) is perfectly capable of addressing their own NPA concerns. -- Euryalus (talk) 02:21, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Just one question
For the arbs, can you tell us one thing the committee--not the community, not the parties, not the complexity of the case, the committee--did wrong in this decision? Alternately if you feel the committee did nothing wrong, would you be willing to say that simply and explicitly? Protonk (talk) 16:03, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, we published the PD onwiki too early. There are other proposals that I think we should have passed and didn't, but that's pretty clear from my votes. GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:59, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I think we did a lot of things wrong. And I'm thinking of them now, some of which I am sorry to say I failed to note operationally.  I think we should have passed remedy 11, which would have helped admins control conduct within the topic area without as much rigamarole.  Another thing I'm guilty of (and didn't realize as a problem until neck-deep), is that newly-elected arbs likely should not be allowed to participate in a case if their terms begin after the evidence and workshop phases have concluded, particularly on cases that take several days to read.  After this one, I think the system of drafting arbs needs some reform; while a subset is needed to drive the writing of a PD, it allows too much for the rest to vote to take a case, and then forget it exists until a PD is posted.  And I agree with GorillaWarfare, a few more days and a few more eyes on the PD before it was posted would have been very useful here, something that would have likely happened had it not been posted two days earlier than the target date. Courcelles 18:32, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I didn't even realise newly-elected arbs got involved in the voting on this case. I would have figured only the arbs who were active at the time of the case's being accepted would vote on it. — Jeremy  v^_^v  Bori! 19:49, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I broadly agree with Courcelles. Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:44, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * As do I. Courcelles, you say "it allows too much" - not sure what you mean but I get the gist. So far as the new arbs go, there was a big turn over and that would have left at best 6 arbs to vote on the case. Would the community be willing to let us adjust the timetable of cases to better suit the timetable of new arbs coming in? I guess new arbs could be asked if they are willing to commit to a case and start reading the evidence when they are 'inducted'. That would minimise any timetable changes. But it would still mean that cases taken on at the end of the year would take longer to settle. This would probably only be important and major cases such as GamerGate with large numbers of participants and a lot of evidence to read through. I didn't take part because I had no idea before I became an arb what it was all about, and then didn't think I could digest such a large amount of material in an area where I had no background knowledge. Dougweller (talk) 20:28, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

 * I agree with GW. I think that the committee needs to ask more targeted questions in relation to private evidence; we can't just expect people to send us things and then wonder why the info we would like to see isn't there. -- Guerillero |  My Talk  18:51, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * "Wrong?" I think that's too declarative. However with all the experience of precisely one month in the Committee, I'd agree some things could have been done better. First, I agree with most of the points Courcelles made, especially the importance of keeping in top of the evidence at an early stage. Second, there should more of a bias towards on-wiki evidence. On a couple of occasions people emailed the committee asking for things to be considered as private evidence or private requests, that had no privacy implications at all. In hindsight they should have been asked to post it on-wiki. Third, I believe the outcome was a good reflection of "the rules" even though I didn't agree with all the remedies that finally passed; but as a statement of the obvious, rules enforcement must be tempered with a view of what's best for the encyclopedia. It's the reason we have IAR. It's part of the reason why there are occasional heated debates over "content contributors" getting free passes. Now perhaps this is not the role of Arbcom, which gets disputes only at their most intractable and where nothing but a rigid rules-based approach will do. And the application of IAR is always controversial, so perhaps a less rules-based outcome would have simply magnified the subsequent drama - it's Arbcom's responsibility to calm disputes, not make them worse. But it's something worth consideration. Just some thoughts - feel free to disagree and/or throw stones. -- Euryalus (talk) 20:36, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * "rules enforcement must be tempered with what's best for the encyclopedia" – yes, if only ArbCom had considered what's best for the encyclopedia. Banning POV pushing but somewhat civil throwaway accounts who don't agree with the media coverage of their movement or long-standing productive editors whose mistake was to crack under the off- and on-wiki harassment, all in the name of a false impartiality. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 20:57, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * No fact-based interpretation of the case could lead to that conclusion. If you think that's what happened, I suggest you read the case and carefully examine the histories of all the parties involved, starting perhaps with the dates they registered their accounts and their block logs. HJ Mitchell  |  Penny for your thoughts?  21:16, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

 * I join with Courcelles in saying that a significant issue, and always has been, getting enough of the committee to focus far enough in advance to make significant input on a draft. We have so many things happening in so many different areas that this is a systemic, rather than a behavioural, issue. So we tend to firefight as things bubble to the service. The solution to the focusing issue is to draft things in public, or at least workshop them in public before moving to vote. That brings its own problems though ... notably by encouraging people to exert pressure to sway things one way or another. It may also reduce further the number of people prepared to run for ArbCom.  Roger Davies  talk 20:43, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * "Wrong" is a bit too declarative, I agree, but it would have been nice (bearing in mind that hindsight is always 20:20), that to have had the general remedies like the discretionary sanctions from the get-go, perhaps as a temporary injunction. The community sanctions were something, but ArbCom discretionary sanctions come with broader powers and greater visibility, and they were left in state of limbo while the case rumbled on. That would have allowed misconduct to have been dealt with more rigorously during the case, leaving ArbCom to sort out what's left at a more suitable timescale. Arbitrator participation in the evidence phase (perhaps with arbs going through once all the evidence was complete and asking for clarification/diffs as necessary) would have been nice, as would better clerking to deal with feuding, petty bickering, and personal attacks disguised as evidence or workshop proposals. But big cases like these don't come around very often; had I been an arb (and I'm very grateful that I'm not!), I would have voted differently on a few proposals, but I think the arbs made the best they could of a horrible case. HJ Mitchell  |  Penny for your thoughts?  21:16, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The point about clerking is one that applies to many cases over the recent years. While much of the conduct during this case was appalling, it's often particularly striking how cases revolving around civility over the past couple of years have always been riddled with PAs and uncivil behaviour, and rarely limited to the accused parties. Just like RFA, too many RFARs and open proceedings are rule-free zones where anything goes. This exacerbates tensions further during the months long cases, and most certainly participates to the establishing of the toxic grudges parties to past cases keep dragging for years, sometimes closer to a decade, after their sanctions expire. Much stricter enforcement of decorum and WP:NPA could help. MLauba (Talk) 23:44, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * One of the problems we had with this case was that there were just not enough clerks to monitor what was happening. Hence the reason we're trying to recruit. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 23:52, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Frankly, I think the problem was more that the clerks were too timid, and don't have (or don't see themselves as having) a strong enough mandate to enforce standards of conduct, with the result that parties can make baseless attacks with impunity. HJ Mitchell  |  Penny for your thoughts?  17:56, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Should the committee have a direct mandate to accept and consider evidence of mitigating circumstances?
I think the overwhelming consensus is that evidence of mitigating circumstances should be considered. I see no one above arguing against that. I do see a realm of confusion and inconsistency over how they should do so, and a clear statement that they don't have a mandate to do so right now.

I think that we need to make the small modification to the policy, to grant a direct mandate to consider evidence of mitigating circumstances, including evidence of off-site harassment. This probably shouldn't have needed to be directly said, perhaps it was simply assumed that would happen and everyone would know it would happen as a given. But as I said above you can't depend on "common sense", and it's clear that this isn't working very well at the moment.

So I'm going to present the following question that I think needs to be answered. Should the Arbitration Policy include a direct mandate for the Committee to accept and consider evidence of mitigating circumstances, including off-site harassment? --Barberio 16:48, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

 * Giant custom-made warning banner notwithstanding, it's fundamentally problematic to demand a vote on a change to a Wikipedia policy without any discussion—with the exception, of course, of the argument in favor presented by the original proposer. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:48, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed. If you want to change policy, do it properly via RFC and with the usual ability to discuss the proposal. Resolute 17:53, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

 * No NE Ent 17:55, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Out of scope. Please also see Arbitration/Policy.  Risker (talk) 18:07, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Guy Macon
(And yes, I welcome threaded replies to my statement.)

I think that policy should be clarified in the opposite direction from Barberio's good-faith suggestion above. I understand and sympathize with his suggestion, but in my considered opinion such a policy would have undesired unforeseen consequences. I would suggest the following alternative:

 * No amount of misbehavior (real or imagined) by those on one side of a dispute (on-wiki or off-wiki) justifies or excuses misbehavior by the other side. Editors should disengage if they feel that they are not able to follow Wikipedia's behavioral standards and should resolve disputes using the standard Wikipedia dispute resolution process.

...which I believe to be a clarification of existing policy, not a new policy.. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:20, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

 * If there is community support for strictly enforcing this, and thus restraining ArbCom from ever considering mitigating circumstances, then so be it. I would then expect the ArbCom to be ruthless and strict about user conduct. I look forward to a future where practically everyone who ends up in an arbcom case gets some kind of ban out of it, it'll trim the herd. --Barberio 20:02, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * And to make it explicit. I Support either this or changing policy to better reflect practice. Sure, there may well be side-effects to tying the ArbCom's hands to use strict liability for 3RRs and such when applying remedies, and it'll make being an Admin a much bigger deal, but so be it. --Barberio 20:20, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

 * (In response to "Should the ArbCom, as Guy Macon suggests, never accept mitigating circumstances, what-so-ever?" question asked below)

 * My statement said absolutely nothing about arbitrator behavior and instead focused on user behavior. This was intentional. So let me address the question you raised above. Consider two cases: in the first case editor A spends a long time patiently staying within Wikipedia behavioral guidelines while being viciously harassed on-wiki and/or off-wiki, then snaps and misbehaves in response. In the second case editor B misbehaves despite his opponents patiently staying withing Wikipedia behavioral guidelines and being nice off-wiki as well. Both editors are doing the wrong thing, but most would agree that B's behavior is worse, and arbitrators are human and would naturally tend to take the harassment of A into consideration.

 * However, this does not imply that there should be any hint in any policy that arbcom should do that. The reason is that any such policy will encourage misbehavior by A -- and will encourage misbehavior by editors who think they are editor A when they really are editor B. There is, however, a solution (one that is already in place) to this problem. Arbcom's job is to prevent, not to punish. It is very likely that A will stop misbehaving with a reminder, and it is likely that B will require a stronger sanction to prevent future misbehavior. Thus the two can be treated differently purely on the basis of preventing probable future problems, without any hint in any policy or any arbcom ruling that A is in any way justified or excused for his misbehavior. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:29, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * That would be a valid point... If not for the problem that it doesn't reflect at all the current circumstances where those who know-the-system, have often been able to claim mitigating circumstances, and point to their "good works" on the wiki in order to avoid bans on civility and conduct issues. In theory, yes, possibly adding language about it might lead more people to try to game the system. But not much more than already do so. And without clear guidelines, it does look a lot like those who try to game the system have a better chance under the current practice. --Barberio 23:40, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't agree that the existing guidelines are unclear or that arbcom is not following them. As suggested elsewhere, perhaps you should start over with a specific example that you believe shows the problem that you believe exists. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:23, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Request to Roger Davies
Since you strongly objected to an RfC process, I attempted to implement a "directed discussion on a single topic" above. It was a very very narrow question, with an attempt at preventing threaded slanging matches and "point of order!" objections. Roadblocks are already being thrown up to that. I'm at a loss as to what the "right" way is, since no matter what it appears someone is going to step in and drag the whole thing down crying "This is the wrong way to go about this!".

So I'm going to put the whole thing in your lap. I appoint you chief in charge of sorting out this mess, or chiding the ArbCom into appointing someone to do it. Reform is wanted, you said you want reform. You're in a position to direct people to make a civil attempt at discussing reform. And at the moment the only way this process is going to get started at all is from someone within the committee starting it and warning people off from being disruptive and wiki-lawyering it into oblivion. --Barberio 18:23, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * And yes, reform is absolutely needed for one reason...
 * Current practice is that ArbCom members may consider mitigating circumstances resulting from personal attacks, and this has been a very long standing practice.
 * It's possible to have a strict reading of the current policy that ArbCom members should never consider mitigating circumstances resulting from personal attacks.
 * This conflict must be resolved. But no one seems to actually want to resolve it by making policy match practice, and to be frank I'm pretty sure no one who made their practice match the "strict" reading of policy would ever get a second term in ArbCom. So what are we going to do about it? For myself, I'm growing quickly bored of being told what the "wrong" ways are for the community to make what appears a pretty simple decision.Barberio 18:41, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not going say much other than to offer an opinion. I' don't think that freshly minted policy that flatly contradicts WP:DR and offers endless opportunities to argue over was mitigating circumstances are and what constitutes off-wiki harassment is a constructive way forward. I'd like to see a more streamlined and more focused process (though I don't know how to achieve it); more realistic expectations of what ArbCom can actually do; and found ways to reduce ripples from disputes spreading throughout the community. There's an analogy with WP:RFA here: there's wide consensus that arbitration isn't perfect but little consensus about how to fix it.  Roger Davies  talk 19:09, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Arbitration has absolutely nothing to do with arbitration as the word is commonly understood in the real world, that's the fundamental problem. All it has to do with is handing out sanctions. Eric   Corbett  19:15, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Correct. Complete misnomer,  Roger Davies  talk 20:36, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Maybe ArbCom should be renamed "Conduct Review Committee", "Disciplinary Board" or some such. Andreas JN 466 14:01, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * There is nothing in WP:DR that directly conflicts with current practice of allowing consideration of mitigating circumstances conflicts. The phrasing used there is "In all cases, and even in the face of serious misconduct, please try to act in a professional and polite manner.", and "arbitration may result in a number of serious consequences up to totally banning someone from editing" (emphasis mine).
 * Again, there is a clear conflict between policy as written, and what the actual practice of the ArbCom has been. Can you give a clear yes/no answer... Should the ArbCom, as Guy Macon suggests, never accept mitigating circumstances, what-so-ever? --Barberio 19:40, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * @ Barberio. What is a mitigating factor? On one hand, if someone says "I'm really sorry. I got sucked into something and completely lost my cool. I won't do it again and will move away from the topic", that will attract almost universal sympathy. Unless it's the second or third time they've done it. On the other hand, if someone says "I did bad stuff but I don't care because I was responding to equally bad stuff, and I will continue to fight my corner on-wiki" it's a whole different can of worms. Policy on this clear: read WP:DISENGAGE.  Roger Davies  talk 20:36, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * See, if you just alter the phrasing of those two statements, then you have a nice clear and bright guideline for Arbitrators on how to accept mitigating circumstances. All you have to do is draft it, have it accepted by enough other Arbs, and publish it as a guideline, then see if that standard has community support. Albeit I think you're confusing "move away from the dispute" with "move away from the topic", we do not want a wikipedia where a single moment's of incivility results in an automatic broad-scoped topic ban. --Barberio 22:05, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Here's sample language based on your comment - "Where editors formerly in good standing have provided evidence of mitigating circumstances, and accept that they failed to uphold conduct standards, the Arbitration committee may issue a caution for their conduct." Possibly with additional language such as "Evidence for any mitigating circumstances must be provided to the Committee.". This seems a non-contraversial reflection of practice, and provides a nice clear guideline for ArbCom and the Community. --Barberio 22:57, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Quick revision "Where editors formerly in good standing have provided evidence of mitigating circumstances, and accept that they failed to uphold conduct standards, the Arbitration committee may take that into consideration. Mitigating circumstances will not be considered without evidence supporting it, and giving a recorded commitment to good behaviour. Evidence for any mitigating circumstances must be provided to the Committee."
 * As it stands, ArbCom basically have a "double secret probation" system, where someone might get mitigating circumstances. But then that hangs over them as a virtual suspended sentence if they ever end up back in arbitration. But this isn't written down anywhere, and it's hopelessly unclear how it's supposed to work.
 * This is strongly why people got upset about the Ryulong ban, because it doesn't seem warented in sole reference to the case in isolation. So if you don't know that Ryulong has basically been on "double secret probation" for years, it looks like ArbCom came down on him like a ton of bricks, and sent very bad signals about off-wiki harassment campaigns. And this is probably going to keep happening for as long as the "double secret probation" undocumented pseudo-policy. --Barberio 12:21, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break the Nth

 * You said you want a "directed discussion on a single topic". But you put up a banner saying no threaded discussion, just statements of support or opposition. That's not discussion. What do you think justifies misbehavior, and what kind of misbehavior does it justify? Answers to those questions might help others understand what you are trying to achieve. Dougweller (talk) 19:50, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * No, Roger wanted that, after I tried to draft a more open ended RfC. And "Make your own statements" was "make your own statements". If anyone wanted to propose something else, they could do so in their own sub-heading, I just wanted to limit that sub-heading to that question so it wouldn't end up a free-wheeling debate. --Barberio 19:56, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * And watch as we get bogged down in a debate over painting the bikeshed rather than adressing the actual issue of when/if/how ArbCom should consider mitigating circumstances, and that they already do so despite there not being a clear remit for it and some people thinking they should be explicitly barred from doing so. --Barberio 19:59, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Barberio, if you must: Finally, I'll tell you right out I sincerely believe you're wasting your time because I don't think you'll get the necessary one hundred supports. (And be prepared for pointless haggling over what the "good standing" in the linked policy actually means.) NE Ent 20:07, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Create Requests for comment/PetitionForArbComPolicyAmendment. Reference Arbitration/Policy. Fill in as desired.
 * Stick RFC tag on it, and request listing on MediaWiki talk:Watchlist-details.
 * Don't try to make "rules" about people can comment. As you've seen, those don't work.
 * Thank you for this, but the only way to get to the hundred supports for amendment, is to work out the best change to suggest before hand. Your suggestion would in fact, be one more of those "Wrong ways to change policy". --Barberio 20:14, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

 * Arbcom can and always has taken mitigating circumstances into account, so the suggested amendment seems like unnecessary bureaucracy and instruction creep. If there's a particular editor who you think got a bad rap, it would be more informative if you named the editor and commented on the specific issue, instead of going off on flights of abstraction about policy changes.  <IP_ADDRESS> (talk) 06:48, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The problem is that this practice is not reflected in policy, and it's causing a great deal of confusion with some people interpreting current stated policy as saying Arbitrators should never consider mitigating circumstances and confusion over if evidence of mitigating circumstances will be accepted. This also means that yes, there are currently people who act inappropriately because they assume they'll receive more leniency from ArbCom than they actually would. Leaving it this unclear is not less bureaucracy, it's just hidden and unclear bureaucracy.
 * As an aside, I've very rarely seen anyone argue "instruction creep" on wiki when it's not been the case that the practice required knowing all the stuff that the instructions would contain, but for some reason people strongly objecting to writing those instructions down. --Barberio 11:59, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * In my experience [//tools.wmflabs.org/xtools-ec/?user=NE+Ent&project=en.wikipedia.org], which includes 1,000 WP:WQA and 2,500 WP:ANI contributions, well intentioned efforts to clarify practice do not work because more words on policy pages simply lead to more confirmation bias driven out-of-context cherry-picking of phrases and wiki-lawyering. It is the principles that ultimately matter, not the nuts and bolts. By definition, any thing that ends up at arbcom is of sufficient nuance and complexity that the community has been unable to resolve it using boilerplate application of existing policy. Additionally, that also implies some non-trivial portion of the community is always going to be unhappy with some or all of the committee's final decision. What's of primary importance is not the the committee makes perfect decisions so much as they make closure. NE Ent 13:51, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I think the mistake is in thinking that wiki-lawyering isn't already happening. It's just happening with the people who know the "unwritten" rules. So we get to the point where an editor who is well known to have conduct problems has been able to avoid remedy for a long time by knowing how to claim "mitigating-circumstances", and when they finally get sanctioned it happens in a high profile case and sends entirely the wrong message to the community. Unwritten rules are just as much subject to abuse as written ones, it's just much much harder to identify and avoid that abuse with unwritten rules.
 * And yes, the principles are what matters... But that's the point that is entirely unclear. What are ArbCom's principles in regard to considering mitigating-circumstances? I've already outlined phrasing that appears to cover the current practice and makes it clear what the principles are, but the principles need to be stated not just assumed to be understood by the community. At the moment all that happens is people point to WP:DR and assume that you can then infer what the practice and principles are from there. Which is problematic because people can have good faith disagreements as to what principles you can infer about mitigating circumstances from those more general policies. --Barberio 14:18, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Barberio, could you give a concrete example, of how you think this case would have gone differently if your amendment had been in place? Is this about Ryulong, i.e. you think he got banned because circumstances weren't considered enough?  Is that because you think there is some evidence he could have presented but didn't, that arbcom might have considered?  What evidence is that?  Or is it about someone else--same questions?  Or are you saying he (or whoever) would have conducted themselves differently outside the case, and avoided getting in trouble in the first place?  I too was a bit surprised about Ryulong's siteban, but I didn't examine the case that closely.  I know Ryulong had lots of past blocks, but I thought they were mostly over minor nuisance behaviour (low level edit wars) rather than the more evil or destructive types of conduct that damage the project a lot more.  <IP_ADDRESS> (talk) 16:44, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * It's more complicated than that.
 * I think Ryulong looked at the way ArbCom have acted in the past, including cases they were involved with, and saw a wide scope of practically unlimited "extenuating circumstances" that they could claim, backed up with their position as an editor with lots of "high-value" contributions. Because when Ryulong looked at how it was all working in practice, they concluded that it wasn't conduct that mattered so much as 'contribution'. Ryulong was taking advantage of the system as they saw it, and so continued as they were, never really changing.
 * The problem comes when we hit a really high profile case, and that's the one that Ryulong finally exceeds the allotment of "extenuating circumstances" ArbCom were willing to give. Combine that with a fundamental misunderstanding that it's the weight of their contributions that matter when asking for mitigation, not evidence they need to provide of harassment they've received, and much of that evidence never gets submitted. So we get a "surprise" ban, that's really the suspended sentence bans from lots of prior mis-conduct.
 * But because this was a "double secret probation", under unwritten rules of how "extenuating circumstances" consideration works, the following results:
 * People think the ban is solely about Ryulong's conduct in this case, get confused and offended because it doesn't appear waranted, and in isolation there was a huge case for "extenuating circumstances" due to the coordinated off-wiki campaign.
 * People get angry, and the impression taken away is that you can get banned if you lose your cool. This causes a chilling effect in this area.
 * What's worse, it leaves a signal that the harassment campaign scored a hit on a target. As we've seen, this has already spawned people organising to attack the editors seen as "taking over" from Ryulong.
 * There's absolutely no chance of the Press reporting well on this, because how can they possibly understand the reasoning used here when it's entirely undocumented. Which leads to reporting assuming bias.
 * These are all the negative effects from having an undocumented, not very well understood process for considering "extenuating circumstances", that is generally conducted under the table, and works on the basis that everyone assumes everyone else knows how the system is meant to work. --Barberio 17:29, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks but I'm still not understanding this:
 * The FoF explicitly mentions Ryulong's past problems so it's clear that Ryulong's ban wasn't purely from the current case. Considering past issues is a standard arbcom practice (many case decisions explicitly include a recidivism principle) and I think most regulars here are used to that.  It's not "double secret probation".
 * Similarly I don't take from Ryulong's ban that regular contributors can get banned for isolated occurrences of losing their cool. My reading from the FoF's explicit reference to Ryulong's past history is "if you have a lot of past blocks and sanctions, then edit extra carefully" which seems like good advice for anyone.  So I don't find your first two bullet points persuasive.  I'd like the project to forgive ancient offenses more than it currently does, but some of Ryulong's blocks were recent rather than ancient.
 * I think the press can understand the concept "this guy acted bad under circumstances where we might have let him off if it was the first time, but he's done similar bad stuff about a billion other times in situations where he had no such excuse, so we decided enough was enough".
 * The issue of harassers scoring a victory is more relevant, and if I agree this was a bad outcome, I see multiple possible interpretations:
 * Arbcom saw this too and it would have preferred to have gone easier on Ryulong, but was constrained by policy from following its judgement, so policy should be relaxed (per your amendment) by giving arbcom more freedom to consider circumstances. I don't think this is what happened, since after all, people were surprised by the ban.
 * Arbcom was aware of the harassment and could have chosen lenience towards Ryulong, but its judgement after balancing all factors was to ban him anyway per something like WP:NOTTHEM. Therefore you want to change policy to override arbcom's judgement (i.e. your amendment is intended to mandate more weight on circumstances, thereby constraining arbcom more rather than less).
 * Arbcom balanced all the factors and applied its best judgement per its existing authority, but reached the wrong conclusion, and you think it should have weighed things differently based on the subtleties of the specific case without mandating a different process. Stuff like that happens all the time and when it does, it's better to contribute feedback about the specific decision, rather than go into "legislator" mode (remember NOTSTATUTE) and take flight into generalities.
 * Arbcom was unaware of the harassment and would plausibly have reached a different decision if only Ryulong had thought of telling them about it, so you want to change policy to alert people like Ryulong to make more noise about such issues. I think Arbcom is observant enough to have seen all the stuff that the rest of us (except those with private or offsite knowledge) saw, so it's a question of how much weight they gave it rather than whether they were aware.  In any case, you or anyone else could have advised Ryulong to write more evidence, without any policy change being needed.
 * Arbcom knew about the harassment but couldn't consider it because it wasn't formally presented at /Evidence. That would be pure BURO and I hope we haven't degenerated that much yet.

I still don't know which of these (or something else) you mean. In other words I appreciate the partial clarification but I'm still confused about what you're trying to do. Particularly I haven't figured out whether you are trying to constrain arbcom more rather than less. I generally prefer fewer constraints, with the corrective mechanism for poor decisions being editor feedback and possibly electing different arbitrators in future elections. If your intention is to relax constraints, it's generally better to do that by deleting the existing language from policy pages that describes or implies the constraints, rather than adding more. <IP_ADDRESS> (talk) 19:53, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * ArbCom *was* aware of the harassment. As I said above, they did consider restricting him to 1RR as a final chance, but after a few arbitrators found that there was discussion off-wiki on how to use the 1RR to continue their harassment of Ryulong, they switched back to a siteban, since it would have been unlikely that Ryulong would have upheld 1RR, and even if he did he would have to contend with even more harassment. — Jeremy  v^_^v  Bori! 20:03, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I remember that now. I still don't see what Barberio is so worked up about and I had to think through all those possibilities to try to understand.  I can see why 1RR for Ryulong wasn't workable, so I could have accepted looking the other way or imposing a shorter (1-3 months) block as possible alternatives to the long term site ban.  I saw Ryulong as a persistent problem user but not that bad of one on the scale of things (that's re his overall history; I haven't tried to understand what he did in the current case).  On the other hand I don't think many saw him as a really valuable contributor.  E.g., the usual defenders of Giano/Malleus/etc. haven't been speaking up for him. <IP_ADDRESS> (talk) 20:33, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm still confused as to how "edit a page, knowing that a specific editor won't be allowed to revert your change more than once" is supposed to constitute "harassment". If the edit message contains abuse, there's already policy to handle that. If it doesn't, then we can split into exactly two more cases: the edit is legitimate - in which case there's no reasonable argument that any offense was committed - or it isn't - in which case there are still N-1 editors around to revert it. I would think that the natural response of a good-faith editor, having been sanctioned with 1RR, would be to remove certain pages from their watchlist if they'd had issues before, so as not risk getting emotionally involved with someone who could very well still be acting in good faith.
 * To my mind, it's absurd that certain specific changes to Wikipedia would be automatically construed as spiteful to Ryulong, simply because of the history of the pages being edited. I mean, if you're going to argue that, aren't you directly implying previous WP:OWNership by Ryulong? The guy's already banned, no need to pile on like that.... I mean, it's possible that some of the would-be "harassers" believe in such ownership, but they aren't claiming that, so why legitimize the claim by creating drama around the edits, when they could be evaluated tabula rasa? <IP_ADDRESS> (talk) 07:05, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Personnel changes in the Oversight team

 * Original announcement

New arbitration clerk trainees

 * Original announcement

Arbitration motion regarding Arbitration/Requests/Case/Interactions at GGTF

 * Original announcement

Arbitration motion regarding Requests for arbitration/Ryulong

 * Original announcement

How are admins supposed to determine whether there have been 500 edits? Looie496 (talk) 16:38, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * One method would be to click on his contributions page, click on "last 500," and see if the 500 edits extend back prior to the date of the motion. Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:01, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The only way I know of to get an actually accurate edit count is the CentralAuth. The edit count at the time the motion was passed (8,910) is noted under the motion, and when the CentralAuth reads 9,410 that condition will have expired.  (Various labs tools give inflated numbers, the centralauth is the only accurate counter I know of.) Courcelles 16:21, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Arbitration/Requests/Case/Wifione closed

 * Original announcement

I've never quite understood: what's the point of topicbanning someone who's also being sitebanned indefinitely? Nyttend (talk) 18:00, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

 * Because the siteban might be overturned without overturning the topic ban? A topic ban might even make it more likely for the siteban to be overturned. --Guy Macon (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 18:13, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding Arbitration/Requests/Case/American politics

 * Original announcement

Arbitration motion regarding Requests for arbitration/Eastern Europe

 * Original announcement

Arbitration/Requests/Case/Toddst1 closed

 * Original announcement

Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes/Review closed

 * Original announcement

The Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes page hasn't been edited since July. When a remedy is repealed, modified, etc., is it standard for someone to update the original page? I hope this consists of a little note on 1.1, basically "no longer in force; see 2015 modification" with a section at the bottom of the page consisting of this newly announced update. Nyttend (talk) 21:15, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Both that and Requests for arbitration/Pigsonthewing need to be updated. I'll ping the clerks. Courcelles (talk) 21:35, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
 * My bad, done. Thanks for noticing so quickly. --L235 (t / c / ping in reply ) 21:43, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. This fixes a situation that needed to be fixed. Guy (Help!) 22:32, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Arbitration/Requests/Case/Christianity_and_Sexuality closed

 * Original announcement

ARCA archives
Where are closed ARCA discussions archived? Thanks. MarkBernstein (talk) 22:15, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The most recently closed one has been archived at Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate. Bosstopher (talk) 22:30, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

 * Thanks. I've received a number of queries off-wiki about why the discussion suddenly vanished. Thanks for the pointer. MarkBernstein (talk) 22:54, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

New trainee clerk

 * Original announcement

2015 Checkuser and Oversight appointments: Candidates appointed

 * Original announcement

Well done to those appointed, and good luck. --Dweller (talk) 10:07, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Ditto. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:43, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Looks like a good group! The cream always rises. S warm   we ♥ our hive  17:52, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Arbitration motion: Dreadstar desysopped

 * Original announcement

 * Good outcome. Totally unexceptable behaviour. Bring on the next one.  Lugnuts  Dick Laurent is dead 18:10, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

 * Hmm I think you mean "unacceptable". I think he had had enough, and decided upon something similar to "death by admin". DS if you're out there I wish you all the best, although we never crossed paths. Lugnuts, is there any reason you want less admins? Just curious really... --Mrjulesd  (talk)  18:25, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I understand he exploded over defending me. (People die, and we fight over hidden text.) I take the blame. - I am on a voluntary 1RR and try to stick to two comments, - If a few more people did that, we would need fewer admins. How about a rule like that for certain topics, instead of sanctions which come too late anyway? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:01, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Hmm I think you mean "fewer" not less... :D No, I just want to weed out the bad ones. Anyone remember Dangerous Panda? No, me neither.  Lugnuts  Dick Laurent is dead 07:08, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

 * Unexceptable: "When a statement or question cannot be contradicted with the word 'except'". Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:59, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

 * I am still trying to understand why anyone would walk the gauntlet to become an admin. I could see myself quietly working away at some of our backlogs, but I certainly wouldn't go through that in order to be able to help out. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:49, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

 * @Hawkeye hah hah. @Guy is RfA that bad? I think you'd probably get through. So if nobody likes you here, I would just think nothing had changed. In fact maybe I'll try, and fail like WP:NOTYET or WP:NOTEVER hah --Mrjulesd  (talk)  21:15, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

 * Last year we had two editors quit for good after a failed RfA, but none so far this year. About a third of desysopped admins quit. Dreadstar and Wifione make two so far this year. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:58, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

 * The sad part is that I am pretty sure that I could pass an RfA with flying colors by doing the following:
 * Stop participating in any conversation related to policy or user behavior.
 * Spend 50% of my time building high-quality content on obscure pages that pretty much nobody edits.
 * Spend the other 50% of my time welcoming new users, fixing typos, reformatting references and other useful but noncontroversial activities that keep the edit counter rapidly incrementing.
 * If anyone disagrees with any of my edits for any reason, abandon that page forever and pick another.
 * Continue this pattern for over a year.
 * In other words, stop doing anything that resembles the tasks that administrators are needed for.
 * My motto would be You can soar with the eagles if you want to, but those of us who run with the weasels never get sucked into jet engines." --Guy Macon (talk) 08:26, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

 * Hopefully, most, if not all of WP's admins will wise up soon and quit so we can hasten either the demise of this experiement, or getting some outside intervention to get its problems fixed. Cla68 (talk) 00:46, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

 * Er,, Wifione didn't 'quit'. He was banned indefinitely.  Speaking generally and without reference to specific editors, it's also not unheard of (or particularly uncommon) for former admins to declare a retirement and subsequently return to the project—before or after they put down their tools.  Sometimes some time away to recharge intellectually and emotionally is helpful.  TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:25, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

 * @Guy I like the motto. Well I won't comment anymore on your admin possibilities (mainly in case I'm wrong), but I must say I'm surprised by the people who quit after a failed RfA. I think that if you went for it, you'd have to be prepared that there was a definite chance you were going to come in for some major criticism, which might not be fair at all. I'm quite surprised that some aren't prepared for this, as it's a common occurence. Presumably they didn't realize this, or just didn't think it would happen to them. --Mrjulesd (talk)  00:26, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Someone needs to reblock } Guy (Help!) 23:22, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Symbol comment vote.svg Clerk note: moved from noticeboard by Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 00:08, 2 April 2015 (UTC).
 * Given [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AListUsers&username=JzG&group=&limit=1], why is JzG talking instead of acting? NE Ent 00:13, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * It's not always wise for a given admin to act, depending on what definition of "involved" prevails during a given week. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:36, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Indeed. And if I had, I have no doubt that this, too, would have been raised by one or other of the anti-admin crusaders. Guy (Help!) 22:37, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Reblocked for 26 days, roughly the original duration.—Kww(talk) 02:50, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't understand what was wrong with Dreadstar's unblock of MB. Dreadstar had lifted the topic ban that MB was blocked for, so leaving the block in place is just bureaucracy. Dreadstar then asked the blocking admin to lift the block, waited a while with no response, then lifted the block himself. The blocking admin's user talk says in bold red letters at the top of the page: "Admins: If I have erred in one of my admin actions, or my rationale for the action no longer applies, please don't hesitate to reverse it." The rationale for the block was the topic ban, which no longer applied. So point 3 of Dreadstar's desysop rationale mystified me a little. It might have been more logical to stay with just two. <IP_ADDRESS> (talk) 07:57, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

 * MB is unblocked. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:06, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding Argentine History February 2015

 * Original discussion

Arbitration/Requests/Case/Collect and others

 * Original announcement

Temporary injunction regarding open OccultZone and others arbitration case

 * Original announcement

 * If possible, can someone have a look at the edits made by OccultZone today in the SPI area, in particular, the edits (and allegations made) at Sockpuppet investigations/Sonic2030. There's an element of seeking administrator attention, the SPI case is connected with the Arbitration Request, and we have OccultZone accusing another party to the Arbitration request of wikihounding. Nick (talk) 23:27, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

User:AntonioMartin desysopped

 * Original announcement

 * Was there a CU or was it just based on behavioral evidence? § FreeRangeFrog croak 18:01, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, there was a CU. Both the CU result and the behaviour lined up. Courcelles (talk) 18:04, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. § FreeRangeFrog croak 18:07, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

 * Thank you, for this. The opinion at ANI is running strongly in the direction that this was the correct call. --IJBall (talk) 18:14, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

 * Yes, a good, timely action. Thanks all. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:21, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

 * Obviously a good call, but I am left to wonder if it isn't time for a more comprehensive review of admins who got appointed in the "anything goes" era. When this admin was sysopped in 2003, he had to have it explained to him what an admin even does in the middle of his own RFA, which was attended by about five users. These semi-active admins who got in 8-12 years ago have been a persistent problem for some time now. There's not all that many of them left due to retirements, removal for inactivitry, and stuff like this. I'm not proposing a wholesale culling of all of them, but I do think a closer look is in order. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:31, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Should there be "term limits" on admins? That might go a ways towards fixing this kind of problem. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:53, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I've thought for quite a while that adminshipship should be for a fixed period of time, with a renewal vote required to go on to the next time period - however, to avoid the obvious problems inherent in a renewal vote,, it should be heavily biased in favor of renewal, so that, say, a thirty or forty percent vote would be sufficient. BMK (talk) 20:48, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think that's the answer. RFA standards got much higher by 2007 or so, and we shouldn't fire people from an unpaid job if they are actually doing it well. I think the problem stems from the fact that it truly was "no big deal" way back then. That changed, but the "no big deal" admins remained. Some of them never awakened to the new realities of what the community expects from admins. (I was personally shocked to discover the very admin who is the subject of this thread was an admin whe I spoke to them two years ago about the appropriateness of having the phrase "piss on the Queen's face" in their signature. I shouldn't have to explain that to anyone, let alone someone who at that point had been an admin for over a decade.) Beeblebrox (talk) 19:09, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I just proposed almost exactly this at AN/I. A review of pre-2007 admins could be a good idea in my opinion. Sam Walton (talk) 19:11, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Speaking as someone who favors data-driven policy initiatives, I would have to ask—is the timewasting, vitriol, and disruption that would accompany such a process actually justified by evidence? Yes, AntonioMartin's RfA was way back in the early mists of time, but looking at other recent desysoppings/resignations a patten of 'old' accounts isn't readily apparent.
 * Dreadstar, desysopped in March 2015, passed RfA in 2007.
 * Wifione, desysopped in February 2015, passed RfA in 2010.
 * Secret, desysopped in December 2014, passed RfA in 2013.
 * DangerousPanda, desysopped in December 2014, passed RfA in 2010.
 * Hahc21, resigned under a cloud in December 2014, passed RfA in March 2014.
 * Based on the tables at WP:FORMER, AntonioMartin seems to be the only pre-2007 admin desysopped (or forced to resign) in the last six months. And honestly, looking back on my 2005 RfA, I hardly think 60 voters constitutes a wink and a nod or a lack of community scrutiny. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:45, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Well the idea is that this would be an undertaking to discover admins which maybe should be desysopped but haven't because no one has noticed. These admins all did noticeable things that brought along their desysopping. I agree that 60 users is good, but the primary concern seems to be that no matter how many users elected an admin, if they were elected as far back as 10 years ago and haven't been very active since, it seems reasonable that they may not be using their tools in the way the community expects. And as I said at AN/I, this doesn't need to be an arduous process for the admins who are obviously still using their tools in a sensible manner. Sam Walton (talk) 19:54, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * How does one become "an admin who should be desysopped, but haven't because no one has noticed"? If they're doing something wrong, someone will notice.  If they're not doing something wrong, wouldn't it make sense to leave them alone? --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:00, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't a simple review show exactly that?... I wouldn't expect a review to uncover many more cases like this one. But even if there are only 1 or 2, and if such a review could be non-invasive to the rest, a review like this might be something worth considering. --IJBall (talk) 20:12, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, Floquenbeam, I think of a long-time admin I had never encountered before who came to this noticeboard a while ago and decided to edit the discretionary sanctions page as if it was a regular article. He seemed surprised to find out that you can't simply rewrite arbitration policy pages to what you think they should say. I'm a pretty new editor and I still come across a few admins who don't know how some basic areas (deletion policies, article creation, etc.) work. It's not many but they are out there. They often haven't edited in a while but they return to Wikipedia and are very rusty as far as policy goes. Liz  Read! Talk! 22:22, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Something like this would need a RFC, and given how long it took to get a generous inactivity criterion to be a reason for desysop, I don't think it would pass. But that being said, anybody can go through logs, find bad actions, and bring it to the attention of those admins. Also, I think that a blanket reconfirmation would result in a lot of unnecessary reconfirmations: what about pre-2007 admins who went on to be crats, or ArbCom members, or functionaries, or stewards, or CU/OS on other wikis, etc.? --Rschen7754 01:24, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

 * It's amusing how the sock account that ultimately resulted on his desysoping was created exactly 1 year from today. --damiens.rf 19:02, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * RE "amusing" - I suggest a little less of gravedancing, please. Kraxler (talk) 19:17, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

If the Committee is inclined to say, was the investigation provoked by the recent AN/I thread, or related to it in some way? BMK (talk) 19:46, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I first CU'ed Le Pato Frances very early in the morning of 24 May (UTC) as it was quite obvious from the two most recent edits that the account was not a legitimate seven edit account. The rest of the level II process, from sending a request for explanation to AntonioMartin, to receiving his reply, and then voting took until today. Courcelles (talk) 20:23, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. BMK (talk) 20:44, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

 * While Tenof All's statistics are interesting, I think they do not show the full picture. The problem as I see it is the small group of old-school admins who just barely use admin tools at all. So, when they do make a really bad call, everyone says "that's bad, but they haven't made a habit of it and they've been an admin for so long so that's that." I think if it seems clear that an admin is only using their tools enough to keep their grip on them, they aren't really an admin at all, they just don't want to give up their cool extra buttons even though they have long-since stopped being any help with the neverending backlog of administrative tasks.
 * I do share the concern that a review process could turn into a wirchunt, which isn't in anyone's best interest, and would only support such a review if it were done very, very carefully, slowly, and deliberately. How we do that, I'm not so sure right now. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:22, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I haven't thought about this at length but I think we could avoid reviewing most admins by a simple 'more than X actions per year' filter. I think it's safe to assume that if an admin has been making a large amount of admin actions, someone would notice them making bad decisions. Additionally we could have a first round where users are only asked to assess whether a given admin warrants further investigation or if it's obvious that they're doing fine. I'm not sure how to avoid the further processes making the same mistakes as WP:RFC/U though. Sam Walton (talk) 20:27, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * As a ten year admin, I'm admittedly a little biased here. But I do think maybe the inactivity thresholds are too lax.  Using admin actions specifically would flag both inactive editors who check in once every three years to keep the tools and active editors who have the tools but don't use them.   Gamaliel  ( talk ) 20:33, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I would agree with that. Now that auto-desysoping seems to have gotten past the controversial phase, it's probably a good idea to take another look at the parameters used. BMK (talk) 20:43, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Totally agree. What constitutes an "Active" Admin in terms of List of administrators/Active is far too low a threshold. (See, also, somewhat related discussion here...) --IJBall (talk) 20:50, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree, too. It should take more than one edit every three years to retain the tools. But I think I have talked about this before on other noticeboards. Liz  Read!</b> <b style="color:#006400;">Talk!</b> 22:27, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

 * I'd like to invite any users skeptical of the above proposals to take a look through Successful_requests_for_adminship/2003 and Successful_requests_for_adminship/2004 and look at the activity of some of the users there who are still admins. It didn't take me long to find a handful who have made the bare minimum of edits over the past years yet still have admin rights. Sam Walton (talk) 20:37, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Perhaps there should be a more stringent activity requirement. Say, a minimum of 500 edits per year and 100 logged admin actions. I don't think that would be hard to meet for any active admin. I mean we require 500 edits to use the Gamergate talk page now, apparently. Those who don't meet it would be desysopped as they are now for inactivity, and may regain the tools as usual by requesting it at the 'crat noticeboard assuming not a lot of time has passed, or an RFA otherwise. This would go a long way towards ensuring all admins are up to date in most policy areas. § FreeRangeFrog croak 20:47, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I've started a discussion at the Idea Lab regarding the above topics to see if we can come to some agreement on the actions which might be suitable before starting a proper RfC. Sam Walton (talk) 21:22, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * 100 admin actions in the last year is more than you'd think. Only 364 admins meet that standard, nearly 1000 would have to be desysopped under that proposal.  Hut 8.5  21:36, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree. At minimum I'd like to see the requirement be extended to one edit and one admin action per year, but I can't feasibly see me supporting anything more than 20 admin actions minimum. Sam Walton (talk) 21:39, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Probably something between 1 Admin tool use per month and 100 per year would probably be in the ballpark then... But we should probably take this discussion to Sam Walton's Idea Lab topic... --IJBall (talk) 21:41, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * That stats page is scary. I typically make at least a hundred admin actions a day while I'm active at all, but until a couple minutes ago, I wouldn't have thought I'd be even in the top half of admins by activity. —Cryptic 21:51, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * That list is quite shocking. I'm quite disengaged these days and I'm still 130th with 919 actions in a year. Jeeze we need to find new admins not get rid of the ones we have. Spartaz Humbug! 21:58, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I also find it shocking, though perhaps for different reasons. And as long as admins continue to fight tooth and nail against any proposal for community de-adminship, as we saw in the failed 2010 WP:CDA proposal, or anything progressive such as de-bundling the tool kit or admin term limits, you are going to have a situation where the community is going to be reluctant to grant the tools. The recent revelations of corrupt admins, including this case, hardly inspires confidence to create more lifetime admins. I thank ArbCom for their prompt action in this case, but my perception, rightly or wrongly, is that it's not nearly enough, because it actually took this admin clumsily socking at ANI before anything got done. Jus  da  fax   22:27, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * There are 4000 or so engaged editors making more than 100 edits a month, and fewer than 600 active admins (using the very generous standard currently used on the active admins list). Presumably, in any reasonably democratic process the views of the larger community ought to be able to win out.  I agree that the community has failed to find solutions to a number of these long-standing problems, but I disagree with suggesting that the entrenched admins are the main reason for a lack of a way forward.  Dragons flight (talk) 23:59, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

 * I find these stats amazing. They are cumulative, right? If so, there are 471 "active" admins who have made 0 admin actions. Ever! None! And even more who have only made 1 admin action in their time on Wikipedia. This is crazy, why do they have the tools? Liz  <sup style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><b style="color:#006400;">Read!</b> <b style="color:#006400;">Talk!</b> 22:35, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * No, it's for the last year. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:38, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Those zero action admins include (a foundation employee),  (an arb from last term),  (a content worker),  (a content expert),  (a content creator/expert),  (a bot op),  (a foundation employee), and  (a content worker). This is just the names that stood out to me at first glance. I would oppose yanking the bits of any of these people because they do not meet some arbitrary standard when they are active members of the community. -- Guerillero  |  Parlez Moi  17:54, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Fine. How do I quit? I should hope people would have better things to do with their time around here than even have this discussion. What exactly is it supposed to accomplish? Admin tools aren't a finite resource like bars of gold. I have six books to edit in the upcoming year and zero interest in keeping track of when I do and do not use the tools, even if giving them up means I'll never again even have the option of helping with them should a need arise. Doczilla  @SUPERHEROLOGIST 23:05, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Don't quit. But I endorse the rest of your comment. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:36, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

 * Why are we giving Admin privileges in perpetuity? Why do people who have moved back to content creation, or who have important real-world priorities, need to continue to have Admin privileges? (Especially when they can easily ask to have Admin privileges reinstated once they get more time again.) These are the questions that I have yet to see anyone answer with any satisfaction. There really is a disquieting sense of entitlement running through some of these comments. If Admins, as a class (and, yes, it's unfair to paint with this broad a brush, as we can even see from these discussion that Admins are hardly a monolithic block on these issues, but such is human nature...), have perception issues with the great unwashed masses of editors, I'd suggest it's this that's contributing substantially to it. --IJBall (talk) 02:46, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

 * Yes, that's what this discussion has been all about. Essentially, the "600 active Admins" (or however many there are that do the requisite "one edit per year") number is completely phony – in truth, the real "active Admin" number is probably 200–300, and those Admins are doing a large percentage of the "work" that needs to be done... But, really, I think this discussion needs to shift to Sam Walton's Idea Lab topic. --IJBall (talk) 22:44, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Very well, though in my view it's almost certainly going to die there. One further note here, if I may: I have previously proposed that Jimmy and the WMF create a new userrights group, "Auditors," whose function would be to look at problematic cases of systemic admin or established editor abuse without fear of blocking or Admin retaliation. I don't care to hash over the proposal here, but I continue to feel that only strong top-down policy changes by the WMF are going to be able to cut the Gordian Knott of ongoing abuse by flag holders and certain established editors, some of which is by way of subtle intimidation. Admins, until they flagrantly blow it, are given amazing latitude in all ways. At least, that's been my experience for most of the last 8 years. And admins, earlier this year, have !voted down attempts to unbundle the tools, which I find telling. Jus  da  fax   23:38, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Maybe these auditors can be elected by the community for staggered terms so we know they are in touch with the norms of this project, conduct cases in public for transparency reasons, have a mailing list for coordination, have the ability to desysop a user or restrict where they can edit, and have jimmy be the final appeals body to keep them from being a runaway grand jury. Oh wait, this already exists. -- Guerillero |  Parlez Moi  18:00, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

 * Can anyone give me a good reason why we shouldn't require administrators to go through a new RfA after they have been administrators for a full ten years? Clearly the requirements set by the community have changed, and it is also possible that some admims have skills that have deteriorated because of disease or advanced age. I would expect that many current admins would easily pass, and for those that wouldn't pass, do we really want them to have the tools? --Guy Macon (talk) 00:31, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Many admins I know do very few admin level actions but the ones they do perform are done correctly and few even know about it. So unless someone screws up what is the issue? I doubt that most long time admins are more likely to muss things up than more recent ones.--MONGO 01:03, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Based on the data shown above in the post by TenOfAllTrades we should desysop admins who passed after 2007. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:14, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * It does seem unlikely that many admins get worse over time. The notion that long standing admins can't be trusted to pay attention to changes in relevant policies, guidelines and norms is also dubious IMO. If any old timers are habitually screwing up and not learning from their mistakes, they should be taken to ArbCom through the usual procedures. Nick-D (talk) 08:19, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Interesting. I can see some good editors down at the bottom. Maybe we need to reach out to some of them and ask why they've been so inactive? Maybe that would encourage them to help out a bit more? Doug Weller (talk) 09:31, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Asking people why their real life circmstances are limiting their editing seems a bit intrusive to me. Tricky without risking giving people the idea that we only want people who can give a huge amount of time to the project. I know admins and other editors who are starting careers or have small children; I think we are a better site if we accept and value those who give time when they are free to do so. I hope that this site will still be going in thirty years time, long after I have shuffled off the mortal coil or been blocked for editing whilst senile. Unless we fix RFA many of the admins we will be relying on then will be the ones who became admins as precocious adolescents in the early years of the project. Providing we don't make the mistake of driving them away this can be the hobby they resume in their retirement or when their kids leave home.  Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers  12:31, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

 * "...some admins have skills that have deteriorated because of disease or advanced age". *snort* Come on, Guy.  Absent evidence to the contrary, the admin corps most likely roughly follows the demographics of the editor population.  I suspect that most admins get their bits in their twenties or thirties.  Admins who got their bits ten years ago are probably mostly in their thirties and forties now, maybe skewing a bit older.  They're less active because they have full-time jobs and full-time children.  It doesn't mean that their judgement and sanity have departed, nor that they are unable to follow changes in policy and practice. Forcing them to go through an unnecessary RfA for no reason other than age, when you can't be arsed to even look for problems with their conduct, is just an excellent way to ensure that Wikipedia has no long-term admins and no institutional memory.  It's a way to take the now-broken RfA process and retroactively ensure that we go back and break all the past successful, functional RfAs in the same way.  It's also a rewarming of – and variation on, an backdoor to – the perennial failed proposal that we carry out unnecessary and unpleasant re-RfAs on every admin at more frequent intervals—something the community has rejected over and over again.   TenOfAllTrades(talk) 12:58, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I wonder whether this entire discussion is something of a red herring. Is there really a problem of "sleeper" administrators, inactive but deeply incompetent, someday rising to wreak havoc? I think a more important issue, the one that underlies the "trial by fire" nature of RfAs, is that there is no mechanism to remove, counsel or discipline admins short of ANI and Arbcom, both of which are far too drama-prone, and which I think are viewed with some cynicism by admins and ordinary users alike. I've proposed another approach in the idea labs discussion Sam initiated. Coretheapple (talk) 16:57, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * TenOfAllTrades, I am sure that it was inadvertent, but you quoted only part of what I wrote, thus completely changing the meaning. I wrote "...it is also possible that some admims have skills that have deteriorated because of disease or advanced age", not "some admims have skills that have deteriorated because of disease or advanced age". --Guy Macon (talk) 18:54, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * No, I don't think I did change the meaning, actually; you're just playing semantic games to cover for advancing an untenable argument. Either you honestly believed that secretly-senile admins were a likely enough possibility to warrant mentioning them in support of your proposal, or you dishonestly wanted to just put that canard out there to garner undeserved support for your position.  If neither of those things were true, there wasn't any reason for you to type what you wrote.  (It is also possible that your dog actually randomly struck keys on your computer to post your comment, but using those four magic words wouldn't actually absolve me from criticism or ridicule had I tried to advance that as an explanation for your post.)  TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:29, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I am sorry that you are having so much trouble differentiating between the concepts "it is possible", "it is likely" and (through misquoting) simply asserting that something is true with no qualifier. Given your aggressive, sarcastic, and uncivil tone, I must conclude that further comments by me on the subject are unlikely to help you to tell these concepts apart, so I am invoking WP:IAD and withdrawing from this conversation now. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:52, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

 * In my opinion, the principle of eating your own dog food should apply to Wikipedia administrators and RfAs. If going through an RfA after ten years as an administrator is such an onerous burden that administrators need to be protected from having to experience it, new candidates should have the same protection. The fact that we