Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/ChildofMidnight

Main case page (Talk) — Evidence (Talk) — Workshop (Talk) — Proposed decision (Talk) Case clerks: Tiptoety (Talk) & Amorymeltzer (Talk) Drafting arbitrator: Coren (Talk)

Case Opened on 04:23, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Case Closed on 03:49, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Watchlist all case pages: 1, 2, 3, 4

Please do not edit this page directly unless you are either 1) an Arbitrator, 2) an Arbitration Clerk, or 3) adding yourself to this case. Statements on this page are original comments provided when the Committee was initially requested to Arbitrate this page (at Requests for arbitration), and serve as opening statements; as such, they should not be altered. Any evidence you wish to provide to the Arbitrators should go on the /Evidence subpage.

Arbitrators, the parties, and other editors may suggest proposed principles, findings, and remedies at /Workshop. That page may also be used for general comments on the evidence. Arbitrators will then vote on a final decision in the case at /Proposed decision.

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Involved parties

• Ryan Postlethwaite (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• ChildofMidnight (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Requests for comment

• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/ChildofMidnight

Statement by Ryan Postlethwaite

I wish to bring to the attention of the Arbitration Committee the conduct of ChildofMidnight (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) as I believe we have issues which need the involvement of the committee. ChildofMidnight injects himself into just about every single high drama discussion on Wikipedia. Instead of helping to resolve the dispute, he flings personal attack and cries of admin abuse left right and centre. His recent RfC documents this quite well with a long list of unsourced accusations against other editors and general defamation of other contributors. The RfC showed extremely strong support towards the filer with a large number of contributors helping to certify the RfC and few people commenting in support of ChildofMidnight - this shows that his behaviour is viewed as unacceptable by a large proportion of the community. Since his RfC, he has continued his battleground mentality in the global warming topic (and that is clearly one which needs calm minds rather than a "shoot first, ask questions later" mentality). This has led to a long thread currently on the administrators' noticeboard (see here for the discussion) which was started because ChildofMidnight was blocked. Whilst the block for a specific incident was in my opinion (and a few others) viewed as poor and he was swiftly unblocked, the long thread that has ensued shows that ChildofMidnight has continued to display his problematic behaviour despite his recent RfC.

It should be pointed out that ChildofMidnight was subjected to two remedies in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Obama articles - He was topic banned from Obama articles and admonished and restriced. Putting this together with his problematic conduct in the global warming field, this is clearly an editor who is disruptive in a number of high drama areas and I believe the Arbitration Committee are the best people to look over his conduct and decide on appropriate remedies. Ryan Postlethwaite^{See the mess I've created or let's have banter} 20:30, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Statement by ChildofMidnight

I apologize for the delay in my response. The hounding and attacks have gotten to be a bit much for me so I'm taking a break. I'm not sure when I'll get back on Wiki, but when I do return I plan on focusing my time on article work and am going to do everything I can to minimize my time spent dealing with this kind of clusterfuck of smeary attacks, inimidating threats, and hounding insults.

This request comes from someone I have no dispute with whatsover. They've engaged in couple of broad smears that were rather vicious. These were particularly unhelpful as they came when I was dealing with a bad block, but I don't see any evidence of a dispute with Ryan. The lack of diffs is telling. I don't even have any involvements with Ryan and can't recall any areas where we edit together, but he's most welcome to bring any concerns or issues he has to me so we can discuss them collegially. I will note that while he invokes the Obama Arbcom atrocity, there isn't any recent dispute in that topic area that I'm involved in, and it's a subject where I continue to make useful article improvements in a productive and collegial manner. So it's clear that he doesn't have much idea what he's talking about.

It's also disturbing to see Arbs saying things like "let's make sure we focus solely on CoM". Fuck that. You better believe you'll have to answer for why an activist on Climate issues who operates an off-wiki attack site where he disparages those he disagrees with is allowed to bring those efforts on Wikipedia in order to distort our climate articles and smear article subjects he disagree with.

You'll also have to explain why Tarc and Mathsci have been allowed to relentlessly seek out conflict with me over issues where they have no onvolvement and why they continue to be allowed to engage in attack after attack after attack on me without any of you saying a thing.

And you'll have to explain why repeated violations of Arbcom's restrictions on those who have a long history of stalking and antagonizing me are allowed on Bigtimepeace's talk page, where he continues to engage with editors trying to harasms me via proxy since they're no longer able to do so directly. This goes on even though Bigtimepeace isn't working on any articles where I'm active.

There's also the problem that Risker, Coren and Rlevse have already expressed prejudicial objections to my being very open about the disdain I have for their assaults on Wikipedia's traditions of openness and transparency, and for their antagnoistic pursuit of editors they disagree with, a clear breach of the trust the community has put in them.

I agree with the editors who have noted that this filing is fundamentally flawed and that there are better way to deal with the issues being thrown together. I'm a good faith editor who works on lots of subjects with many editors. In contentious areas there are those who create disruptions and attempt to intimidate and harass those they disagree with in order to chase them off, but this kind of thuggery should never be allowed or encouraged.

I don't recall Ryan's ever approaching me with a concern, so the idea that he's pursued dispute resolution is preposterous. If collegiality, civility and fairness mean anything, this case will be denied so we can all get back to improving the encyclopedia, but if it is to be heard, let's be absolutely clear about what we'll be discussing:

The civility problem on Wikipedia is the harassment, intimidation, and hounding that's allowed, tolerated, and sometimes encouraged.

If this case is accepted by Arbcom the committee members will have a lot of explaining to do about why these behaviors have been allowed to continue. The lack of appropriate actions to address these problems, and the outrageous sanctioning of victims of these improper behaviors has encouraged the most grotesque of Orwellian toxic environments. Dealing with these problems is long overdue. The bullying and nastiness from those trying to pervert our article content against policy and consensus needs to be stopped.

If the committee chooses to accept this case, despite no evidence of any dispute between Ryan and myself, despite his making grotesque attacks on me which I responded to with laudable restraint (only to find that he reiterated the same attack) you will all have awful lot of explaining to do. No mediation has been attempted by Ryan, no dispute resolution, and no communications with me directly. I'm not sure what he's upset about exactly, but as far as I can tell he's a good editor who appears to just be going through a rough patch, and I think it's best to let it go at that. 20:07, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Preliminary decisions

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (6/0/0/2)

• Accept. Steve Smith (talk) 21:01, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

• Noting that if this case evolves in a direction that is primarily or even largely about the AGW issue, I will recuse. Steve Smith (talk) 01:44, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

• Comment Planning on accepting, but do not like to formally accept a case until both sides have a chance to make a statement. SirFozzie (talk) 21:17, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Accept Now that CoM has made his statement, there are issues that ArbCom is necessary for here. SirFozzie (talk) 20:52, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

• Comment: I'd like to hear what ChildofMidnight has to say.  Roger Davies ^talk 21:32, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
• Comment: Awaiting some response from ChildofMidnight. Should the case be accepted, I would be inclined to restrict it to CoM's editorial behaviour; this is not the proposed case in which to consider the climate/global warming issue as a whole. Risker (talk) 15:23, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
• Accept and restrict to CoM's behavior. Shell ^babelfish 04:46, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• Hold until ChildOfMidnight either submits a statement or resumes regular editing without submitting one. Newyorkbrad (talk) 05:28, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

• Accept Fritzpoll (talk) 21:15, 17 February 2010 (UTC) Retired Arb

• Accept - Limiting the case to ChildofMidnight's conduct, and those users immediately involved therein. I do not think examining the entire climate/global warming issue as a whole at this point would be a productive use of our time. KnightLago (talk) 21:28, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
• Accept; noting that the global warming issue is out of scope and will not be examined. — Coren ^(talk) 00:47, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
• Accept; per KL — Rlevse • Talk • 01:55, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
• Recuse. Cool Hand Luke 04:24, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Final decision

All numbering based on /Proposed decision, where vote counts and comments are also available.

Principles

Casting aspersions

1) It is unacceptable for an editor to repeatedly make false or unsupported accusations against others. Concerns, if they cannot be resolved directly with the other users concerned, should be brought up in the appropriate forums with evidence, if at all.

Passed 10 to 0, 03:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Vested contributors

2) Editors will sometimes make mistakes, suffer occasional lapses of judgment, and ignore all rules from time to time in well-meaning furtherance of the project's goals. However, strong or even exceptional contributions to the encyclopedia do not excuse repeated violations of basic policy, not even from highly experienced, knowledgeable editors who produce quality content. All editors should work within Wikipedia's collaborative consensus environment and if a dispute arises, avoid personal attacks and assumptions of bad faith and recognize that Wikipedia is a communal endeavor, with communal routes to dispute resolution.

Passed 10 to 0, 03:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Fair criticism

3) Editors are encouraged to engage in frank discussion of matters affecting the project, and are encouraged to share even those facts and opinions which demonstrate the shortcomings of the project, its policies, its decision-making structure, and its leaders. Such discourse is limited by the expectation that even difficult situations will be resolved in a dignified fashion, and by policies that prohibit behavior such as personal attacks and legal threats. Editors who have genuine grievances against others are expected to avail themselves of dispute resolution mechanisms rather than engage in unbridled criticism across all available forums.

Passed 10 to 0, 03:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Purpose of Wikipedia

4) The purpose of Wikipedia is to create a high-quality, free-content encyclopedia in an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual respect among contributors. Use of the site for other purposes, such as advocacy or propaganda, furtherance of outside conflicts, publishing or promoting original research, and political or ideological struggle, is prohibited.

Passed 10 to 0, 03:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

User conduct

5) Wikipedia's code of conduct, which outlines some of Wikipedia's expected standards of behavior and decorum, is one of the five pillars of Wikipedia that all editors should adhere to. Even in difficult situations, Wikipedia editors are expected to project a constructive and collaborative outlook, behave reasonably, calmly, and courteously in their interactions with other editors, and avoid acting in a manner that brings the project into disrepute. Administrators are expected to adhere to this at a higher standard. Uncivil, unseemly or disruptive conduct, including, but not limited to, lack of respect for other editors, failure to work towards consensus, offensive commentary (including rude, offensive, derogatory, and insulting terms in any language), personal attacks, failure to assume good faith, harassment, edit-warring, disruptive point-making and gaming the system, are all prohibited as they are inconsistent with Wikipedia's expected standards of behavior and decorum. Users should not respond to such misconduct in kind; concerns regarding the actions of other users should be brought up in the appropriate forums.

Passed 10 to 0, 03:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a battleground

6) Wikipedia is not a battleground. Consequently, it is a not a venue for the furtherance of grudges and personal disputes.

Passed 10 to 0, 03:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Findings of fact

Past sanctions

2) ChildofMidnight has previously been sanctioned by the Arbitration Committee in Obama Articles for having deleted and/or refactored comments of others on article talk pages and engaged in edit warring.

Passed 10 to 0, 03:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Request for Comment

3) In December 2009, ChildofMidnight was subject to a user-conduct request for comment that focused on his alleged incivility and unsupported accusations against other editors. Nihonjoe (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) closed the discussion in January 2010, stating that consensus was that ChildofMidnight should "tone things down a lot", should consider taking a "self-imposed vacation of a few months from posting to any policy talk page or any administrative noticeboards," and that it was "strongly suggested that [he] carefully review these conclusions and use the information here to modify [his] actions onwiki in such a way as to make [his] interactions with other editors more harmonious and productive."[1]

Passed 10 to 0, 03:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

ChildofMidnight's reaction to the Request for Comment

4) ChildofMidnight was combative and rude during the Request for comment [2][3], and refused to acknowledge its conclusion, opting instead to attack the process and the administrator who closed it[4][5].

Passed 10 to 0, 03:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

ChildofMidnight's history

5) ChildofMidnight has a long history of uncivil language[6], personal attacks[7][8] and widely cast aspersions[9] that continued after his RfC/U and the strong recommendations that he be more collegial[10][11][12].

Passed 10 to 0, 03:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

ChildofMidnight's dealings with criticism

6) Despite numerous attempts by dozens of editors over several months to counsel ChildofMidnight away from combative behavior, he remains unwilling or unable to correct his behavior or even acknowledge that it may be at fault. He generally dismisses criticism of his editing as censorship or harassment[13][14], even when it comes from editors with no prior involvement or dispute with him.

Passed 10 to 0, 03:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

ChildofMidnight banned

1) ChildofMidnight (talk · contribs) is banned from Wikipedia for one year.

Passed 10 to 0, 03:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

ChildofMidnight restricted

2) ChildofMidnight (talk · contribs) is restricted to editing main (article) space, the talk pages of articles he has edited, Template talk:Did you know, and his own talk and user talk pages only. In all cases he is forbidden from discussing the behavior of other editors, real or perceived, outside of his own user talk page. ChildofMidnight may apply to the Committee for exemptions to this restriction for the purposes of good faith dispute resolution on a case-by-case basis. This remedy is concurrent (and cumulative) with any extant topic bans, and consecutive to any editing ban.

Passed 10 to 0, 03:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Enforcement

Enforcement of restrictions

0) Should any user subject to a restriction in this case violate that restriction, that user may be blocked, initially for up to one month, and then with blocks increasing in duration to a maximum of one year.

In accordance with the procedure for the standard enforcement provision adopted 3 May 2014, this provision did not require a vote.

Appeals and modifications

0) Appeals and modifications

This procedure applies to appeals related to, and modifications of, actions taken by administrators to enforce the Committee's remedies. It does not apply to appeals related to the remedies directly enacted by the Committee. Appeals by sanctioned editors Appeals may be made only by the editor under sanction and only for a currently active sanction. Requests for modification of page restrictions may be made by any editor. The process has three possible stages (see "Important notes" below). The editor may: ask the enforcing administrator to reconsider their original decision; request review at the arbitration enforcement noticeboard ("AE") or at the administrators’ noticeboard ("AN"); and submit a request for amendment at "ARCA". If the editor is blocked, the appeal may be made by email through Special:EmailUser/Arbitration Committee (or, if email access is revoked, to arbcom-enwikimedia.org). Modifications by administrators No administrator may modify or remove a sanction placed by another administrator without: the explicit prior affirmative consent of the enforcing administrator; or prior affirmative agreement for the modification at (a) AE or (b) AN or (c) ARCA (see "Important notes" below). Administrators modifying sanctions out of process may at the discretion of the committee be desysopped. Nothing in this section prevents an administrator from replacing an existing sanction issued by another administrator with a new sanction if fresh misconduct has taken place after the existing sanction was applied. Administrators are free to modify sanctions placed by former administrators – that is, editors who do not have the administrator permission enabled (due to a temporary or permanent relinquishment or desysop) – without regard to the requirements of this section. If an administrator modifies a sanction placed by a former administrator, the administrator who made the modification becomes the "enforcing administrator". If a former administrator regains the tools, the provisions of this section again apply to their unmodified enforcement actions. Important notes: For a request to succeed, either (i) the clear and substantial consensus of (a) uninvolved administrators at AE or (b) uninvolved editors at AN or (ii) a passing motion of arbitrators at ARCA is required. If consensus at AE or AN is unclear, the status quo prevails. While asking the enforcing administrator and seeking reviews at AN or AE are not mandatory prior to seeking a decision from the committee, once the committee has reviewed a request, further substantive review at any forum is barred. The sole exception is editors under an active sanction who may still request an easing or removal of the sanction on the grounds that said sanction is no longer needed, but such requests may only be made once every six months, or whatever longer period the committee may specify. These provisions apply only to contentious topics placed by administrators and to blocks placed by administrators to enforce arbitration case decisions. They do not apply to sanctions directly authorised by the committee, and enacted either by arbitrators or by arbitration clerks, or to special functionary blocks of whatever nature. All actions designated as arbitration enforcement actions, including those alleged to be out of process or against existing policy, must first be appealed following arbitration enforcement procedures to establish if such enforcement is inappropriate before the action may be reversed or formally discussed at another venue.

In accordance with the procedure for the standard appeals and modifications provision adopted 3 May 2014, this provision did not require a vote.

Log of blocks, bans, and restrictions

Log any block, restriction, ban or extension under any remedy in this decision here. Minimum information includes name of administrator, date and time, what was done and the basis for doing it.

• 03:51, 9 March 2010 Amorymeltzer (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) blocked ChildofMidnight (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 1 year ‎ (By decision of the Arbitration Committee following this case. To appeal, email arbcom-l-at-lists.wikimedia.org)
• 03:42, 4 May 2010 Versageek (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) blocked Electroshoxcure (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite ‎ (Arbitration enforcement: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/ChildofMidnight - ban evasion, checkuser block.
• 18:42, May 5, 2010 Amorymeltzer (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) blocked ChildofMidnight (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 363 days (Arbitration enforcement: Resetting one year block following use of a sockpuppet to evade the ban)
• 06:55, 27 August 2010 Beeblebrox (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) (talk | contribs | block) blocked Freakshownerd (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) as a ban evading sock of CoM, case is the August 24 entry at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/ChildofMidnight
• 04:01, 28 August 2010 SchuminWeb (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) changed block settings for ChildofMidnight (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) with an expiry time of 364 days (account creation blocked) ‎ (Arbitration enforcement: Resetting one year block following use of a sockpuppet to evade the ban) - specifically regarding ban evasion regarding "Freakshownerd" account
• 15:01, 27 May 2014 Coffee (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) - Following a behaviour investigation, ChildofMidnight (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was found to have both violated and evaded the restrictions on his account by using the sockpuppet Candleabracadabra (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). ChildofMidnight blocked for 1 year, to match previous (max) block length as per enforcement instructions; Candleabracadabra blocked indefinitely as per WP:SOCK. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 15:01, 27 May 2014 (UTC)