Main case page (Talk) — Preliminary statements (Talk) — Evidence (Talk) — Workshop (Talk) — Proposed decision (Talk)

Case clerks: MJL (Talk) & Dreamy Jazz (Talk) & Firefly (Talk) Drafting arbitrators: Aoidh (Talk) & Moneytrees (Talk) & Z1720 (Talk)

Purpose of the workshop

Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at fair, well-informed decisions. The case Workshop exists so that parties to the case, other interested members of the community, and members of the Arbitration Committee can post possible components of the final decision for review and comment by others. Components proposed here may be general principles of site policy and procedure, findings of fact about the dispute, remedies to resolve the dispute, and arrangements for remedy enforcement. These are the four types of proposals that can be included in committee final decisions. There are also sections for analysis of /Evidence, and for general discussion of the case. Any user may edit this workshop page; please sign all posts and proposals. Arbitrators will place components they wish to propose be adopted into the final decision on the /Proposed decision page. Only Arbitrators and clerks may edit that page, for voting, clarification as well as implementation purposes.

Expected standards of behavior

You are required to act with appropriate decorum during this case. While grievances must often be aired during a case, you are expected to air them without being incivil or engaging in personal attacks, and to respond calmly to allegations against you.
Accusations of misbehaviour posted in this case must be proven with clear evidence (and otherwise not made at all).

Consequences of inappropriate behavior

Editors who conduct themselves inappropriately during a case may be sanctioned by an arbitrator or clerk, without warning.
Sanctions issued by arbitrators or clerks may include being banned from particular case pages or from further participation in the case.
Editors who ignore sanctions issued by arbitrators or clerks may be blocked from editing.
Behavior during a case may also be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision.

Motions and requests by the parties

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Proposed temporary injunctions

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Questions to the parties

Arbitrators may ask questions of the parties in this section.

Proposed final decision

Proposals by Tamzin

Proposed principles

Prompt reply

1) All users are expected to reply within a reasonable amount of time when they are the subject of a noticeboard inquiry, and for administrators this is a core expectation. Failure to reply for a lengthy period of time while being otherwise available is a prima facie violation of administrator accountability.

Comment by Arbitrators:

I think the wording of this clause makes it seem like users are forced to respond. However, users can choose to disappear from Wikipedia if they choose so because we are all volunteers. While the intention is correct, I think this needs to be worded differently. Z1720 (talk) 01:42, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm doing some more reflection after reading Tamzin's response below, and I think that editors do not need to respond if they do not wish to. However, admin are held to a different standard and are normally expected to respond when an admin action they have taken is questioned, per ADMINACCT. If I think the evidence warrants this type of finding, I will re-read the policies and previous case decisions that relate to this and try to propose something that works more in line with what is needed. Z1720 (talk) 01:52, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

While there are a number of existing principles around administrator accountability I am not sure we have any that get at this idea. However, I think the second sentence pushes things too far, even with the caveat Tamzin offers below. Barkeep49 (talk) 04:12, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Putting this principle into action is more likely to manifest as a motion to desysop-and-suspend-the-case than as a formal principle in the case. Cabayi (talk) 11:06, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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@Z1720: That's what I was getting at with "while being otherwise available", but it could be emphasized more, including by starting with something like Wikipedia is a volunteer service, and editors will sometimes become unavailable with little to no notice. However, when a user is actively editing, they are expected to reply ... -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 01:46, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be better as "Administrators are expected to be responsive to noticeboard inquiries to which they are a party, inasmuch as real life duties allow, and it should be a priority above other tasks performed at the Project. With few exceptions, if an administrator is active in other areas of the Project in more than a minimal way, but doesn't participate in these noticeboard inquiries, beyond token statements, it is reasonable to conclude they have the ability, but not the willingness, to respond. This is not acceptable behavior, via WP:ADMINACCT." Dennis Brown 2¢ 08:06, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear, I don't think we need to address non-admin users, just administrators, which is the core issue here. Users are free to ignore ANI/AN/AE requests (often, at their own peril. See WP:ENGAGE.) but administrators are not, if they want to keep the bit. Dennis Brown 2¢ 08:10, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Long-term administrators

2) Administrators of long tenure are held to no higher or lower a standard than any other administrator. Administrators are not assessed by when they became administrators, but with how they have served in their time as administrators. Some administrators make more use of their tools, some little, and some none, but all administrators are expected to be familiar with current policies, guidelines, and best practices surrounding administrator tools they use. Administrators who misapprehend these principles are expected to correct themselves when alerted.

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I think this is trying to say an admin's tenure is not considered, but their actions are. I'm not sure about the wording of "but with how they have served in their time as administrators"; I think there's a better way to word that which I would like to explore later. I also don't agree with "Administrators who misapprehend these principles are expected to correct themselves when alerted." An alert can be someone posting a grievance on the admin's talk page, but the admin might have taken the correct action. I think the last sentence should instead talk about admin being responsive to concerns and reflective in their practice, but I'm unsure how to word it. Z1720 (talk) 01:37, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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Proposed findings of fact

AE threads regarding Mzajac

1) See Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Mzajac/Evidence § Evidence presented by Tamzin

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AE identified a problem but was unable to act

2) The closing statement of the 2022 AE thread explicitly noted that WP:ADMINACCT may have been violated, but that the venue lacked recourse to do anything about it. While ArbCom's jurisdiction over ADMINACCT was noted, no one brought the matter before ArbCom for review.

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On a technical level this is true, but I would expect to oppose such a FoF were it offered. ArbCom has shown, in a variety of ways, a willingness to take seriously recommendations from AE admins. Beyond this general set of events, which in fairness had already just begun to become clear in 2002 any of the AE participants, involved or uninvolved could have filed a case. The idea that the venue was unable to act but any individual could have undercuts the premise of this FoF for me. Barkeep49 (talk) 04:17, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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I think the whole “anyone could have referred Mzajac to ArbCom at any point” thing raises a bunch of other questions.

First of all, not all of us who knew him only from actual war-related pages were immediately aware of his previous history with AE, RMs, etc. It took me, for one, months, off and on, to piece together the full picture, and this was only after I stumbled across the fact that he had been the one to push through the move of Stakhanov, Donetsk Oblast to Kadiivka. And I’ve seen no indication that several of his past sparring partners have any idea that all this hullaballoo is underway.

In my case, while I had seriously considered it, I did not feel prepared to be the lead complainant on a full ArbCom case. And I had legitimate concerns that it would end up with anyone who had ever been in a content dispute in RUSUKR being slapped with sanctions and topic bans and whatnot. I wasn’t interested in sanctifying the name of Wikipedia through some kind of Holmes-and-Moriarty-type encounter. Nope. Not for me. In fact, if I could have helped it, I would rather have nothing to do with the inevitable judgment now facing him. As it is, I think I feel obligated to submit some evidence and diffs before the deadline regarding patterns of incivility and consistent refusal to accept consensus. Nobody likes holding the sword, especially those of us who regret the fact that CT are already so contentious.

Secondly, in my view, the system failed abysmally here. While I obviously presume that the Mzajac who was anciently granted sysop status is the same person as the one we know and are troubled by, the two main periods of his activity don’t really appear like it. Since his return circa ‘19 (well before I and many others were active here), he has edited pretty much only one one topic area, with consistent POV pushing, and frequent incivility of a nature so toxic as to make one wonder whether it would be appropriate to fully voice one’s strong suspicions as to the meaning of certain behavioral patterns…

The fact is, without a smoking gun, nobody was going to actually do anything based on a pattern of microaggressions, however consistent (there were times he was clearly baiting people; one diff I plan to present should have probably gotten an instant 24h block or something).

But that raises another question, the most important of all. In the end, it wasn’t an editor in a content dispute who got sick of the incivility, gaslighting, obsessive counterfactuals, or battleground mentality. In fact, it sounds like a bunch of admins and even Guerillero, an arb, already had their eye on him.

In reply to Barkeep, if I recall the AE admin(s) basically passed the buck back to whomever had reported. This sounds an awful lot like “there’s no precedent to do this exact thing so we’re not going to risk it right now. Next!” This sort of thing would tend to defeat the raison d’etre of AE, dont’cha think? Meanwhile, in contrast, recently I found out that Lourdes, a highly active admin, had been blocked some months ago due to being a sock (😱!!). This all happened very quietly, without, say, The Signpost or external mass media finding out about such an epic lapse. Because she was a confirmed sock, there was no hesitation. Yet here, a dozen or more experienced editors and admins — the very people the community trusts to maintain order – passed the buck around instead of deal with a difficult rogue admin.

Anyway…I’ve long felt that this particular matter was and remains an existential test case. As it is, it seems like any sufficiently brazen and creative “legacy admin” can do the exact same things and get away scot free for years, at least so long as they aren’t doing it in favor of “the bad guys” in any given topic area. And many of these topic areas are exactly the sort of thing that en-wiki editors are largely apathetic about and unfamiliar with the details of…for example, Armenia/Azerbaijan, or even African conflicts, which often entail large populations of Anglophone readers who care about it. Someone like Mzajac could easily wreak even worse havoc in, say, South African politics and current affairs (just to illustrate how little experienced editors pay attention to that particular country, I once happened to save Cape Town Stock Exchange, whose notability is and was self-evident from a single Google search, from being PRODded by an editor who had just been granted new page reviewer permissions!)

We’ve managed to prevent Russian state actors and many others, from Scientology to corporate shills to the multiple cabals involved in whatever happened back then with the Holocaust in Poland, from overrunning controversial content. Were we really that flummoxed by one individual acting out of strong psychological motivation and possessing admin status?

Cheers, RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 11:01, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Mzajac and admin policies

3) See Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Mzajac/Evidence § Mzajac was dismissive of ADMINCOND concerns in this case, even while acknowledging unfamiliarity with admin policies

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Just to be fair, none of two original AE requests was about a misuse of tools by Mzajac. However, the evidence by Red-tailed hawk seem to show that the abuse of tools did occur. Another problem are inadequate responses by Mzajac on various noticeboards, including AE and ARCA. Perhaps this case would not be needed if he responded timely and properly everywhere. My very best wishes (talk) 21:01, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed 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.

Procedure established for AE escalation

The following text is appended to Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures § Referrals from Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard to the full Committee:

If a request's outcome includes a sanction against an administrator (other than a logged warning) or a finding that an administrator has fallen short of conduct or accountability standards, the closing administrator should make a referral; if they do not, the arbitration clerks will do so for them. The Arbitration Committee will then consider whether the evidence presented raises any issues requiring review of the administrator's conduct.

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I have practical concerns about findings that require arbcom (or in this case its clerks) to act when they may or may not know they have to act. I also note that it would have not helped with the 2022 AE thread, only the 2020 thread. Beyond that I do not subscribe to the idea that admins cannot have restrictions, though I do find myself persuaded a fair amount of the time when it comes to specific instances. Barkeep49 (talk) 04:20, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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I think this might be a good idea, although I would leave only "if a request's outcome includes a sanction" and exclude "has fallen short of ..." part to avoid uncertainty about the latter. My very best wishes (talk) 23:09, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

On second thought, it depends. If an administrator having a sanction is completely incompatible with admin status, then such procedure can make sense. But if not, then no. In my personal opinion, having a sanction does not prevent someone from performing their administrative duties, but this is something for Arbcom to decide. My very best wishes (talk) 16:35, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There are rare times ArbCom has felt it's appropriate for an admin to have a sanction. That's why I'm suggesting a mandatory referral, not an automatic desysop or even a mandatory case. ArbCom would be entirely within its rights to decline a referred case at the request stage for any reason or no reason. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 18:44, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Then, sanctioning an administrator on AE could trigger one of two processes: (1) the Arbcom is simply notified to look at the AE and decide if an arbitration case would be needed, or (2) a request for a new arbitration case is automatically submitted to ARCA, the admin in question is expected to make an additional statement to Arbcom about it, etc. I understand you suggest the latter.My very best wishes (talk) 22:50, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I suggested the latter mostly because it's more consistent with other ArbCom procedures. But really I'm okay with anything that creates some sort of automatic referral. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 01:58, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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Proposals by User:Guerillero

Proposed principles

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Analysis of evidence

Place here items of evidence (with diffs) and detailed analysis

Analysis of Guerillero's evidence

@Guerillero: I agree with the thrust of your evidence, but aren't the last two undeletions pretty straightforward reversals of a procedural deletion? Liz' deletion didn't represent an independent admin determining that those redirects should not exist—rather, just, that due to a technical state of affairs that was subsequently remedied, they were not at that moment useful redirects. As best I can tell, what happened was that a series of pagemoves led to the redirects being automatically retargeted to Anti-Ukrainian sentiment in the Russo-Ukrainian War, which was then moved back to the previous title Russian allegations of fascism against Ukraine without a redirect, causing those redirects to become G8-eligible. Really, they should have been retargeted rather than deleted, but then Colin M's move really shouldn't have been without a redirect either. Either way, I don't think I've ever seen an admin faulted, even when involved, for reversing a "no-fault" speedy deletion (principally U1, G6, G7, G8, or G13) where the reason for deletion had been fixed or would be fixed shortly after restoration. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 20:09, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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@Guerillero: Moved from evidence per your request. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 17:44, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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General discussion

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Just noting here that I won't be reading proposed FoFs or remedies until after the evidence phase has closed because I want to read all the evidence first and let that guide my initial decision-making. This doesn't mean that editors shouldn't post FoFs or remedies yet, but since I am commenting on principles I wanted to explain why I wasn't giving my thoughts for other proposals. Z1720 (talk) 02:00, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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