Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arbitration Enforcement sanction handling

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All statements made prior to the opening of the case

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Statement by Sandstein

At 23:27, 8 March 2011, I blocked Ludwigs2 for 72 hours as a response to threats they made at WP:AN against another editor in the context of a dispute concerning the pseudoscience article (State of the AN thread at that time). I labeled this block as an arbitration enforcement action pursuant to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience#Discretionary sanctions, and applied the {{uw-aeblock}} template to Ludwigs2's talk page, which warns administrators not to unilaterally undo it except as per WP:AEBLOCK (Current state of the respective section of Ludwigs2's talk page).

Following my announcement of the block, it was criticized by five editors at WP:AN (Slimvirgin, Hans Adler, Short Brigade Harvester Boris, The Four Deuces, Xxanthippe), of which several, as it appears to me from their statements, had been involved in disputes related to the editor threatened by Ludwigs2 and/or the topic of pseudoscience. Two editors, on the other hand, appeared to agree that Ludwigs2's statement at issue had been disruptive (Collect, N419BH).

At 02:41, 9 March 2011, about three hours after the block, Dreadstar unblocked Ludwigs2 without entering into discussion with me. Later, on his talk page, in response to a query from another user, Dreadstar declined to undo his reversal of my arbitration enforcement action.

I submit that the discussion at WP:AN did not constitute at the time of the unblock, or indeed now, the "clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors" that is required, per this Committee's prior decision, to undo my AE action. I therefore respectfully ask the Committee to take the steps it considers appropriate to prevent Dreadstar from continuing to unilaterally revert AE actions. At the same time, I welcome any advice or criticism by the Committee about whether my AE action was appropriate or what other action, if any, would have been better.  Sandstein  06:38, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Response to Stephan Schulz

Your assertions are incorrect. As I noted at the AN thread, Ludwigs2 had previously been warned about the Pseudoscience discretionary sanctions. I also did not break any self-imposed deadline. I asked Ludwigs2 to respond to my concerns about his threat, noting that I expected them to do so within two hours of their next edit, which they did, albeit without addressing their threat. Moreover, Ludwigs2 is an "editor working in the area of conflict (defined as articles which relate to pseudoscience, broadly interpreted)", as per the discretionary sanctions remedy, and therefore discretionary sanctions can be applied to him in reaction to threats made in connection with that topic area.  Sandstein  07:40, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Response to Roger Davies

The threat was made here, and reads in relevant part: "I'm dropping this in your lap now, because if you don't do something to get him to fly right you'll leave me with no choice except to shout him down and shut him up. I'm very capable of doing that (as some of you should be aware), but if I have to go that route things will get progressively more ugly." I read this as a threat to cause unspecified serious disruption unless administrators take action against the other editor, and it appears even Dreadstar agrees with this interpretation.

As to why I believed a short block was more appropriate than a topic or interaction ban: I considered the block to be the most appropriate measure to prevent Ludwigs2 from making such threats in the (near) future. I would have lifted the block myself had Ludwigs2 shown that he understood the problem and agreed to withdraw the comment. A topic ban would have been too broad, as the problem here did not involve article editing, and an interaction ban would almost certainly have had to be applied to both editors in order to work, but there was no actionable case (as I saw it) for an interaction ban against QuackGuru at the time.  Sandstein  08:30, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Response to Jclemens

I am not aware of anything that would disqualify me from taking action as an uninvolved administrator in this case.  Sandstein  08:22, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the facts are sufficiently clear that addressing the matter via motion should suffice; there is no need to open a full arbitration case as far as I am concerned. I suggest that the scope be limited to Dreadstar's unblock (and my block, if it is deemed problematic). There are cleary unresolved underlying matters surrounding Ludwigs2 and QuackGuru, but I believe that these still need "normal" prior dispute resolution (such as a RFC or AE request).  Sandstein  15:50, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Ludwigs2 states that "that he and I have had words in the recent past, on an editor-to-editor basis". Diffs for this would be helpful, because I recall no such interactions. It is possible, I suppose (although I can't recall it either) that I took admin actions against Ludwigs2 at some time in the past, but such interactions do not matter with respect to WP:UNINVOLVED.  Sandstein  17:47, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Response to John Vandenberg and Casliber

I would appreciate advice about the form of dispute resolution that you believe I should have undertaken with respect to Dreadstar, in view of his statement that he is unwilling to reverse his reversal of my AE action.

If you decline this case, you in effect overturn the decision cited at WP:AEBLOCK that AE actions may not be unilaterally undone. If that is your intention, I recommend that for the sake of clarity you also propose a motion to that effect. (I think it would not be advisable to overturn that rule, but that decision is up to you, since it affects the authority of your own decisions).  Sandstein  10:55, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment with respect to Ncmvocalist's comment

I welcome any community or ArbCom review of my AE work. To my knowledge, I am among the few administrators who regularly engage in AE, and as a consequence I have issued a great number of AE sanctions (see the enforcement logs of the cases listed at {{uw-sanctions}}). It is unfortunately to be expected that this leads to much grumbling by the editors so sanctioned and their friends. But as far as I recall, none of the (probably) dozens of the AE sanctions I have imposed have ever been overturned by the Committee or by the community on appeal, and I submit that this is a more useful benchmark of my enforcement practices than any individual disagreements. While it is a statistical certainty that some of my decisions (like those of most people) were not optimal, I have always attempted to act as fairly, predictably and as close to policy as possible within the time and resource constraints imposed by the volunteer nature of our work. To those who believe that the job could be done better, I say that they are very probably right, and invite them to stand for administrator and do some of this better enforcement work themselves.  Sandstein  16:26, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Response to Deadstar

You are right that I did not communicate optimally in this case. In retrospect I should have made it more clear to Ludwigs2 what my concerns about his statement were, as Casliber has already noted, and I should perhaps have given him another chance to address his threat when his response to my message did not do so, rather than assume, as I did, that he simply chose not to do so for reasons of his own. I will take this into account in the future.

Nonetheless, you are mistaken to assume that discretionary sanctions do not apply to conduct on WP:AN. The remedy is intended to cover all conduct related to the topic of pseudoscience, not only articles about pseudoscience. This is evident, in particular, in the provision that allows "bans on any editing related to the topic" (compare WP:TBAN). This is because, as here, ugly disputes about such topics have a tendency to spill out into other fora where they also need to be contained.

This false assumption is understandable in an admin who does not have experience in AE situations. But exactly for this reason you should have heeded the clear instructions of the Committee, as left in a template on the blocked user's talk page, not to unblock (on pain of possible desysopping) except in the case of "a clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors". If you do believe that this discussion, which lasted about three hours and involved about seven other editors, of whom at least Hans Adler and Xxanthippe were involved in the discussions that led to the dispute, constitutes such consensus, I must respectfully doubt your ability, or willingness, to gauge consensus.  Sandstein  00:37, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Jmh649

It does appear dreadstar is involved in wheel-waring. One should not revert another admins block without discussing it with them first or at least obtaining consensus at AN. The comments by Ludwig2 where uncivil and do not improve the atmosphere of editing in this difficult area. Sandsteins block was not unreasonable given the comments. I am sure all Ludwig2 would have had to have done was simply acknowledge that a) what was said was inappropriate and b) agree to remove it and he would have gotten unblocked. Having another admin come in a revert things especially one who is favorable towards pseudoscience was not appropriate.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:59, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Stephan Schulz

This request is as hasty and ill-considered as the original block. Quite apart from the fact that the block was disproportionate to begin with, and that it was even more disproportionate to claim AE protection for it, it also had several technical problems (insufficient warning, failing to adhere to the self-set deadline), and it should have been removed under WP:IAR anyways. Moreover, there was substantial support for the unblock at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#QuackGuru_again_-_what_do_I_do_now.3F - in my opinion enough to support consensus. Trout Sandstein and reject. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:28, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

• I see a worrying tendency in several Arbiters statements to once more not bolster the authority of ArbCom and the dispute resolution process in general by openness and well-reasoned, widely accepted decisions (i.e. by arbitrating well), but rather by inventing or strengthening yet more Draconian sanctions for editors showing even a modicum of personal initiative. The AE block protection was not one of the brightest ideas to begin with, and recent events have show just how broken it is. I strongly urge the committee not to further strengthen process wonkery over good sense and consensus. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:25, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved The Four Deuces

Other editors complained about the block on both Ludwigs2's and Sandstein's talk pages: User: PPdd,[1] User:Volunteer Marek[2], and User:Ocaasi[3] And Sandstein should have allowed Ludwigs2 the two hours he said he would allow for a response.[4]

I think too that the block should not have been made as an arbitration sanction, because the comments were not made in a pseudoscience article talk page but at AN. Also, even if Dreadstar had been wrong to remove the block, the suggestion that he re-block for procedural reasons is unreasonable, as it would seem unfair to Ludwigs2.

Therefore I do not see any reason for Arbitration action against Dreadstar.

TFD (talk) 14:47, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Suggestion Since there are different opinions about whether one administrator should have used an arbitration or administrative block, and whether another administrator had the authority to remove the block, it might be more helpful to discuss the issue at a "request for clarification" instead. TFD (talk) 20:53, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Ludwigs2

Let's be clear: Sandstein's block was deeply problematic for a number of reasons:

1. The statement in question (in the last paragraph of this diff, since self-refactored) could hardly be construed as a threat against another editor: yes I was frustrated with a difficult situation, and probably spoke out of turn, but the last line clearly notes that I don't want things to go down an unpleasant route. How could that constitute a threat?
   • besides, by comparison to other things I have seen on AN, ANI, and talk pages that have never received sanctions, this is milquetoast.
2. I was happy to retract the statement, but was never allowed the opportunity. Sandstein warned me [5], I asked for clarification [6] (because I really wasn't sure what he was talking about), and he immediately blocked me [7] without explanation or the opportunity to address the issue. He was clearly on a beeline to blocking me, and only left a warning as a pro-forma exercise
3. Sandstein is applying the pseudoscience arbitration result to discussion wp:AN, which is not by any stretch of the imagination a pseudoscience article. that's just bizarre, and apparently designed to punish me for complaining about QG's behavior
4. There was no trouble on the article talk page, no trouble on the article itself, I was engaged in a RfC about removing synthesis from the article (so I couldn't possibly have been pushing a viewpoint): In short, there was no actual, foreseeable, imminent, or even theoretical threat of any unpleasant behavior.

In short, the block was at best purely and completely punitive, and at worst vindictive in response to recent confrontations I've had with him. This block should never have happened, and since it did happen, appropriate actions should be taken to limit or remove sandstein's administrative powers. I will open a second arbitration thread on that issue in a couple of days.

Arbitration rulings were never intended to create petty tyrannies in which administrators could sanction editors with impunity according to irrational whims, momentary furies, or personal grudges. Sandstein went off the deep end on this, and Dreadstar ought to receive the committee's thanks for redressing a significant abuse of the committee's delegated authority.

as an final though, I apologize for any part of this bureaucratic confusion that may be my fault: I placed an {{unblock}} template on my talk page, as well as notifying the committee by email. I've never been blocked under arbitration rulings before, and I was unsure about proper procedures, so I wanted to cover all my bases, but this may have confused things. My ignorance, my bad. --Ludwigs2 07:51, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Response to Jclemens

No, I'm not asserting anything as strong as ineligibility due to prior interactions. I'm merely noting that he and I have had words in the recent past, on an editor-to-editor basis. It was nothing particularly significant, but it was sufficient to demonstrate a level of personal animosity. My main point is that there was no reasonable, rational explanation for his actions regarding me, so I have to assume his motivations were unreasonable and irrational. I am being kind by asserting that he was looking for a reason to block me due to being miffed at me; the other alternatives I have considered are far more cynical and callous and would call for immediate desysopping. --Ludwigs2 17:16, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment to Coren

with respect to this claim: You appear to be saying that it's alright for one sysop to lynch someone at a whim, but that anyone who wants to cut the lynching victim down needs to fill out forms in triplicate first. If there really is a prohibiting rule here, that rule is pure bureaucratic nonsense that is a poster-boy for wp:IAR. In the case of an obviously bad block like this common sense should dictate immediate reversal, and since the blocking admin in such a case clearly demonstrates a lack of common sense simply for having made the block in the first place, it's up to other admins to redress the issue. Tying their hands serves the project no good; It simply serves to perpetuate an unjust block for no productive reason. --Ludwigs2 20:37, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment to Risker

Yes, I agree that including QuackGuru in this arbitration is an appropriate move. good suggestion. --Ludwigs2 23:25, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

On AE sanctions in general

Just a comment about the mixed nature of AE sanctions:

• In the hands of a thoughtful, objective, and cautious admin, an AE sanction is an unfortunate but sometimes pragmatic tool for quickly stopping some tenacious editorial problems.
• In the hands of a hasty, angry, or biased admin, an AE sanction is a 'state terror' tool, that allows an admin to dispose of any editor whom s/he dislikes - quickly, quietly, and with no possibility of redemption, on any trumped-up charge that admin can manage.

I can see some value to the former use; the latter use needs to stamped out with prejudice. I am not the first editor who has received incomprehensible AE sanctions for editing on fringe articles (I need only point to the recent 3-month topic ban Littleolive oil (talk · contribs) got from NuclearWarfare (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)) - If someone points me to where I can find a list of AE sanctions given, I'll start doing the research needed to see how extensive a problem this really is.

If there are no effective guarantees on AE sanctions that prevent abuse of this sort, then the system need to be dismantled and discarded. Any positive value it might have is far outweighed by the negative consequences of allowing admins to lynch editors at whim with impunity. --Ludwigs2 17:16, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Note on the 'rapid escalation' of this issue

For what it's worth, here's my opinion on why this issue escalated to this point this quickly. Much of this has to do with the way my personality and skills interacts with the still-simmering fringe and pseudoscience issues on project. The result is that I am often (much to my chagrin) a flashpoint on fringe topics, so that things which should be simple discussions become heated, congested, and eventually blow up into full-scale conflagrations like this. There are a few reasons for this, which I'll list out in bullet-point format

• I am broadly considered a 'pseudoscience advocate'. I'm not: in fact I am very knowledgable about science and scientific methodology - far more so than most of the putative science people who label me as an advocate - and I usually work on fringe topics in order to restore some measure of NPOV and common sense. However, this often means that I try to rein in ridiculously exaggerated skeptical claims as well as ridiculously exaggerated proponent claims; no one ever remembers that I do the latter and many editors get annoyed at me for trying to do the former.
• I make no bones about confronting people on errors in their reasoning. I'm not always right, but I am (as a rule) rational and reasonable, and I expect that other editors be (as a rule) rational and reasonable as well. In my view the final authority in a consensus discussion is reason, which means I am constantly IARing silly policy assertions, bluntly confronting admins and other long-term editors on unreasoning comments or behavior, blithely deconstructing senseless rhetorical arguments. This kind of thing wins me friends and respect in academia, but - understandably - infuriates some people on project, particularly those who do not have the academic training that I have and rely on more intuitive/emotional arguments to make their case.
• I have learned the hard way the kind of political games that anti-fringe editors play on project, and I have become adept at defusing/deflecting them. This also infuriates some people: It is understandably frustrating for those who rely on political ploys to get their way on project to have the wikipolitics rug pulled out from under them.

The long and the short of it is that there are still a number of editors and administrators fighting the old pseudoscience wars. They keep trying to fight that war with me, but - because I'm not the pseudoscience advocate they think I am, am generally rational, and am usually capable of evading all but the worst political attacks - they don't get the result they are looking for, and things escalate as they try to fight the war with me harder. If I were more saintly than I am I could do a better job at keeping things cool - I'm more than wiling to admit I get periodically frustrated by the anti-fringe shenanigans and have unpleasant displays of temper, and that I can be an arrogant, stubborn ass when I get my goat up - but I don't think it's reasonable to suggest that I need to be far more saintly than everyone around me just to keep myself from getting blocked, and with respect to some editors no amount of saintliness that I could showed would be satisfactory regardless.

If you want to solve this problem, IMO, you're going to have to revisit the pseudoscience arbitration and take some actions to force the anti-fringe editors out of their battleground mentality. That will mean pulling some of the teeth from the arbitration rulings (so that administrators who are of a mind to cannot unilaterally use their powers to dispose of editors they have unilaterally decided are fringe editors), and adding some teeth to behavioral policy (so that anti-fringe editors cannot consistently violate civility and talk page guidelines with impunity, as they currently do now). Otherwise, we have what we have: I will obviously try to be more saintly, but no matter how much I try it will solve nothing.

my 2¢. --Ludwigs2 19:15, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Preliminary comment by Hans Adler

Three major issues have come together here:

(1) Sandstein's inclination to make essentially arbitrary draconian blocks. In this case Ludwigs2 reported extremely disruptive behaviour by QuackGuru that had been going on at Talk:Pseudoscience for weeks. QuackGuru has been communicating along the lines of "'No, it is a well established fact that penguins can't fly, and it is well known that your source is an April Fools' joke. There is even a video about how the fake documentary was made. [8]' – 'I provided V, you did not provide V. You cannot provide V. Will you stop adding OR?'" (completely made-up example for clarity). Normally this would be easy to deal with, but not if such a user is getting massive support due to (3). Ludwigs2 described a natural reaction, the aim of which is to gradually get the supporters of the non-communicator to realise just what they are supporting, with these words: "So, you guys want to keep QuackGuru around as an editor - okayfine. Now, tell me how to get him to use even a modicum of common sense and reason so that we can have a proper discussion on the page. I'm dropping this in your lap now, because if you don't do something to get him to fly right you'll leave me with no choice except to shout him down and shut him up. I'm very capable of doing that (as some of you should be aware), but if I have to go that route things will get progressively more ugly. We don't want that (or at least I don't), so give me another solution." (The background was an earlier AN thread in which Ludwigs2 had asked for a QuackGuru ban, and a general feeling seemed to be that QuackGuru is a serious problem but nothing should be done for the moment.)

It would never have occurred to me to see this as a threat. Sandstein, however, contacted Ludwigs2 on his talk page, asked him for a reason why he should not block Ludwigs2 for making a threat, while pointing at his statement in the AN thread where he gave more details. Ludwigs2 then apparently made the mistake of responding to what he thought was the substance of Sandstein's complaint, rather than the surface. (Both at AN and on his own talk page.) Instead of engaging in discussion and making clear to Ludwigs2 that as far as he was concerned the surface was the substance, Sandstein blocked Ludwigs2 55 minutes after the clock for his two-hour ultimatum was started, i.e. 65 minutes before the ultimatum ran out. Predictably, this arbitrary and draconian action has led to editors such as Short Brigade Harvester Boris, who is generally very critical of Ludwigs2 and had contributed to the derailing of his AN report against QuackGuru, finding themselves defending Ludwigs2.

Sandstein blocked Ludwigs2 for very little reason, essentially for being frustrated with the inefficient handling of a long-standing problem (look at the date of WP:Requests for comment/QuackGuru; nothing has changed since then), as his last action before going to bed. To make matters worse, he declared this as an arbitration enforcement block to make sure it would not be reverted. Surely he was aware how controversial this block would be.

(2) The behavioural problems of QuackGuru have long caused disruption, sometimes severe disruption. An RFC/U in mid-2007 was rather unfocused and ran out without conclusion. I don't have a full record of attempts to solve the problem, but I believe the last one is the one archived at WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive220#Community ban for User:QuackGuru. At the time I gave the following example that demonstrates the dimension of the problem: "[A]t Talk:Citizendium/Archive 4#Won't someone please think of the article? you can see how David Gerard and SlimVirgin were about to fix an article between them, and then gave up after QuackGuru made it clear that he is the owner."

(3) In the climate change arbitration, Arbcom apparently came to the conclusion that the main problem was severe polarisation, and that the pro-science side was to a large extent responsible for it. While I do not agree that this was the best point to address for solving the entire problem, I do see it as one valid point among several.

Similar mechanisms are at work in the general area of pseudoscience, but in a much purer form. The main difference is that in the climate change area we had actual scientific experts who were respected by the pro-science side. General pseudoscience-related discussions, however, are usually dominated by sectarian self-described "skeptics" who tend to adore pretended experts on pseudoscience whose expertise generally manifests in using strong words rather than strong arguments.

It appears to me that whenever a discussion at an article such as pseudoscience or list of topics characterized as pseudoscience derails, large numbers of such editors swarm in to support each other while showing very few signs that they know what is actually being discussed. (This is probably not the best I can do to describe this problem, so I may revise the description once I find the time.) Hans Adler 08:27, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Mathsci

When an administrator blocks while enforcing ArbCom sanctions, there are more rigid rules for unblocking which are clearly set out in the blocking template. Whatever the merits or demerits of the block, Dreadstar did not follow those rules, although he was evidently acting in good faith. Even if Dreadstar broke those rules, I do not believe that warrants an ArbCom case. There is an ongoing problem with Ludwigs2's conduct on wikipedia. He must surely have been aware that if he wished to edit Pseudoscience or its talk page, he had to be on his best behaviour. Perhaps some community feedback through an RfC/U might help Ludwigs2 work out better ways of expressing himself and of interacting with other editors. Mathsci (talk) 09:51, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

If a case is opened, as now seems possible, it might be necessary to look at the legitimacy of both the specific block and unblock. This depends partly on an awareness of the history of postings on noticeboards over the last six months concerning QuackGuru and Ronz. The articles concerned vary, but usually have been related to fringe science or pseudoscience. Editing restrictions have been proposed for both these editors, but have not so far found approval from the community. A typical posting on ANI by Ludwigs2 occurred in October 2010, following postings on several other noticeboards. It concerned the article Weston Price. The discussion on ANI was put onto this subpage Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Problem on BLP noticeboard. It initially named both QuackGuru and Ronz, but, after the initial posting, there was no further discussion of QuackGuru. Mathsci (talk) 16:49, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Collect

Either ArbCom rulings have effect, or they do not. As the specific admonition to all admins not to reverse the block was clearly posted, one can not then "assume good faith" in a deliberate flouting of an ArbCom ruling. This is not even a very close call. And has naught to do with Ludwgs2, and everything to do with the belief that otherwise no ArbCom ruling has any real force or effect. I suggest that ArbCom retract its rules if the rules have no force. I suggest that ArbCom strictly enforce such absolute rules if they are to have force. Collect (talk) 11:15, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment by Ncmvocalist

@ Elen, the mere words of Dreadstar reflect a different picture in my opinion. He is telling y'all (ArbCom) that administrators are prepared to be absurdly sanctioned if ArbCom are going to directly or indirectly authorise a single particular administrator to misuse the rulings and site policies to the detriment of the project. I'm not really commenting on Ludwig2/QuackGuru when I say that. What I am saying is that other admins (including some AE patrollers) have practically never encountered a situation where there blocks or sanctions need to be reversed in this fashion; EdJohnston's name pops to my mind as a good example. However, if a single administrator repeatedly finds his actions being subject to concerns, disputes, or even repeated reversals, that is a sign that this Community has serious concerns about that user's fitness as an administrator; whether he has the judgement and trust required of an administrator. This is not the first time this has happened with Sandstein...this is not even the second time...goodness knows if we're nearing a two digit number. To worry about whether AE blocks maintain their image is far less of a concern than an administrator imposing a block in response to a request for clarification. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:53, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

@Elen The alternatives are not practicable because of the detrimental effects that blocking can have on contributors (which is different to other restrictions) - this is inevitable for editors who were already frustrated with what they perceived as tendentious editing (not sure if it's a justified perception in this case which is why I've called for the RfC/U - but the perception nevertheless exists). The amount of effort + length of time it takes to address the block or administrator concerned, under the alternatives, is unreasonable. For matters handled by the Community, unblocks are considered somewhat of a priority because it has never endorsed the idea that admins should be permitted to perpetuate that sort of damage. However, the Community and ArbCom seem to be divided due to the archaic wording in the SV motion. That is, any blocks imposed under AC's decisions are a priority; unblocks are subject to red tape and therefore not a priority. The most ironic part is that the Community and ArbCom seem to be in agreement on this: "AC's decisions are to be enforced appropriately/effectively and that the authority of those decisions should not be undermined by individual admins".

In the cases of SV and Trusilver, arbs not only endorsed the respective blocks; in the former, they later showed their willingness to impose blocks in a relatively similar fashion (I think it was Sam Blacketer who later imposed a block on Giano). However, in this case, the block undermined ArbCom's decision in that it enforced the decision in a way which no arbitrator him/her self would have enforced (correct me if I'm wrong; if an arb was enforcing the pseudoscience decision, would they have imposed a block for the exasperated comment, and that too, like this? I'd think not). As pseudoscience advocacy was not being used as a reason for blocking, we can't look into that possibility.

The archaic motion from March needs to be changed from what SirFozzie has quoted to something that works. My suggestion is not perfect, but it's something to work from/towards:

"Administrators are generally prohibited from reversing or overturning (explicitly or in substance) any action taken by another administrator pursuant to the terms of an active arbitration remedy, and explicitly noted as being taken to enforce said remedy, except: (a) with the written authorization of the Committee, or (b) following a clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors at a community discussion noticeboard (such as WP:AN or WP:ANI). Should an administrator overturn an enforcement action outside of these circumstances, the Committee will review the matter and determine whether the action and reversal was warranted. Appropriate sanctions, from reminders and admonishments, up to and including desysopping, will be considered by the Committee for administrators who have taken an action which was not warranted in the circumstances." Ncmvocalist (talk) 01:53, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Sandstein's administrator review of 2009

1. "I'm puzzled. Sandstein evidently felt the foolish remark was egregious enough to justify a block, but gave [user] no request or opportunity to remove the remark." - dave souza
2. "I think you sometimes let strict rules get in the way of proper judgment and more importantly, common sense" - Juliancolten
3. "Get out of AE and DR in general for a few weeks. Take a proverbial walk around the block. You're very by the book and you seem to have difficulty approaching situations with nuance when it is needed. Admin intervention has to be the means to an end, and that end has to eventually be content creation, and I'm not sure if you see the link in your own actions." - Tznkai
4. "I agree with what User Tznkai has advised, the wiki is a place that need rules and guidlines and essays and all but it is not all so clear cut, as he says, the nuances are also important to consider. The wiki should not be a cold hard place, wield the tools with a degree of compassion, take a step back for a couple of weeks and remember that you are an editor and an admin." - Off2riob
5. "WP editors have a policy they should follow. WP:OWN. This same policy should also apply to administrative actions. We don't "own" blocks and protections. If someone questions, or "edits" an admin. action - then it's possible that the edit or change was done to improve the project. Talk. Discuss. Become familiar with the folks we're working with. Blocks should be a last resort, and only to prevent some sort of distruction that's going on. Please step back for a time, consider what others are saying, and think about the big picture." - Ched
6. "The correct response to the criticism of the block would have been "D'oh! Sorry"." - Guy
7. "Threatening to block other admins over a difference in opinion is not ok. Full stop. In that context you'd be involved by any sane standard and threatening such blocks is really, really not ok." - JoshuaZ
8. "Overall, I got the feeling that you thought you were in charge of everything and no one was going to tell you any different. And if someone had a different opinion, you'd just threaten to block them. Less talk, more listening would be a great thing. I would lay off the block button for a while. The power seems to be going to your head." - Tex

I don't think any arbitrator can with a straight face suggest the Community has changed its stance since then because we see the same issues popping up repeatedly. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:36, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

@Kww

, the fact is you cannot impose blocks in the guise of something else - be it AE or otherwise. If something does not fall under AE, but you act as if it does, then you are in the wrong and your pride will bear the consequences. If you want to block someone for inappropriate pseudoscience advocacy, you cannot act as if the block is merely for something that can be interpreted as threat by some people, otherwise the outcome will be no different. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:36, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

@Timotheus

not a single person is willing to state that they would impose a block in response to a request for a clarification...but you seem quite ready to be the exception to make this embarassing circus complete. Maybe you are among the handful of our admins that think that's an orderly way to resolve disputes and that it won't invite any further disputes; I (and I know many people would agree with me) think you have no clue what you are talking about if you insist on that. The gravity of my concerns have been well known by the Committee and more than enough members of the Community. I've not hesitated to state those concerns in the relevant noticeboard discussions - including a most recent one concerning *surprise surprise* this Committee. In fact, as I recall, another administrator and a functionary endorsed those concerns despite your noted absence from that discussion. If recent enough feedback from a self-created administrator review has dismally failed to produce the desired results, then the purpose of the RfC/U was already served in that form (much like a recall RFA). I don't entertain absurd notions of bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy, but if you do, maybe the 4 comments I quoted above have some application in regards to you as well as Sandstein. I suggest you read what your experienced peers are saying on a practical level instead of having such unrealistic optimism on theory alone - Moreschi, HJ Mitchell.... Ncmvocalist (talk) 07:16, 10 March 2011 (UTC) <start>Oh...how silly of me for not acknowledging your authority. You, dearest Timotheus, like Sandstein, have evidently been given ultimate authority on Wikipedia by AC to do whatever you like...you can ask others not to misrepresent your comments while essentially misrepresenting others comments as you see fit. Of course that's not hypocritical of you; if I say "your experienced peers are saying X", that must mean "all those peers are more experienced than dearest Timotheus" or "all those peers always agree with Ncmvocalist" because what you say goes, no exceptions, no one else has a say, and no common sense is allowed to prevail because your sense is common to everyone. That they have disagreed with...no I shouldn't say that, because it would be undermining your unquestionable authority. My bad...I almost committed a mistake right there. I must remember if something goes wrong and I want to request the responsible users to take responsibility, I must be a Godking. But seeing that's not the case, I must shut up and act as if everything is perfectly fine. *Nod* *Smile* Way to go guys; we hold our heads high when we think about what your motion and what your roles in this circus has accomplished (as well as what will be accomplished in the future circuses). If an administrator makes a block, it cannot be modified because collaboration and mutual respect have been deprecated by a body of users in favor of process wonkery; what an accomplishment! And we have nothing but praise for the other unseemly approach this body of users are going to endorse: if someone changes your block, threaten to block them back and threaten arbitration...or better yet, don't even make the threat and run directly to us, the body, so we can desysop them in style even when you are to blame. Time to give out barnstars for such wonderful pearls of wisdom, and for passing it onto these brilliant administrators like Sandstein who received 50% support from a body of voters...no wonder nothing has gone wrong over the past few years...everything is just fine. :D :D :D :D :D <end> Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:21, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

@SirFozzie, well thank you for clarifying that you value Sandstein over the rest of the Community at any cost. You are not learning your lessons and this is definitely only the beginning; it does not take a genius to work that out. Ncmvocalist (talk) 02:10, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

The Wild West is unavoidable while some admins put cowboy police hats on; the only thing that can be done is to address the inherent cause (and not just because of a sweeping rule which limits itself to a single a outcome). That is, sometimes it is the block which is the cowboy action; simply ruling that the unblock is always going to be the cause is unacceptable in circumstances where suboptimal, merely partially justifiable, or even substandard sanctions were imposed in the first place. Everyone knows Sandstein's history of gambling with his pride, subsequently losing it, and then running here for comfort; this has happened at least once a year now and I'm sure you remember it quite vividly as well. This circus routine, born as a result of an absurdly written rule, needs to change because the circumstances are no longer perfectly identical to the previous two incidents. I'm saying keep the general rule but change the consequences to apply to either blocks or unblocks, rather than unblocks alone. Currently, we are making an unblocking admin pay (and the user subject to the treatment to pay) while a blocking admin who escalates in this fashion does not pay anything unless he has a accumulated a special history of his/her own, and even then, it falls on everyone else to draw that history for you. That is not good enough in this era. You should be willing to review the blocks and unblocks that are enacted in ArbCom's interests, particularly when they are simultaneously said to be in the interests of the Community. Those that are worthy of being addressed in that way should be (they should not be addressed as such merely because of de facto authority handed out by the archaic motion from a previous era). If something is suboptimal, or only partially justifiable, that needs to be said each time because it can, like in this case, form a critical part of that user's history or pattern of decision making. This includes pre-handling, handling and post-handling (including discussing with a peer towards a more sensible resolution than threatening to, or otherwise directly escalating to here). We've tried the present system for several months; it's not working and the heated drama hasn't gone away in the long term. Rather, it is only aggravating a deeper problem. Ncmvocalist (talk) 04:05, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment by Kww

To not undo AE blocks is a bright-line rule. It's bad enough to tolerate pseudoscience advocates on Wikipedia, but having admins that condone the advocacy unblocking advocates without consequence compounds the problem. Comparing Sandstein's history to Dreadstar's is not like comparing coal to lily-white undies, either: here's a discussion of a block based on Dreadstar falsifying a 3RR report. Retaliatory blocking by proxy isn't really much better than doing it yourself, it just muddies the trail.—Kww(talk) 15:13, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment to Ncmvocalist: I'm not saying that I'm particularly happy with Sandstein's original block, and I'm sympathetic to the view that the AE justification was a stretch. It wasn't patently ridiculous, though, making Dreadstar's unblock unacceptable, while Sandstein's block was only questionable.—Kww(talk) 17:31, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment by Arthur Rubin

(I am not "involved" in this incident, but I would be if I were to take action, as I've had negative interactions with Ludwigs2, and — interesting — interactions with QuackGuru. Hence, it would be incorrect to note either that I'm "involved" or "uninvolved".)

I'm not sure this block should be considered an AE block, it looks to me as a simple threat of disruption, which L2 has done frequently. (Both threats, and actual disruption by "shouting down" editors acting in good faith and with WP:COMPETENCE.) ArbCom needs to take this up, either declaring that the block should not be considered an AE block, or specifying a reason why policy that AE blocks not be overturned does not apply. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:33, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment by completely uninvolved Thryduulf

(after edit conflicts with kww and Arthru Rubin) I've not been involved in any way shape or form with this, and I have no opinion regarding whether the block was justified or not. However, the block was made, and it was clear to all concerned that it was an AE block. Whether it should have been discussed first, I have no opinion and it matters little - the fact is that it wasn't.

Given that the block was made as an AE block, and that there is no dispute that it was an AE block, the rules for unblocking have been made clear previously. Per those rules, there are only four scenarios where the block should be removed prior to its expiry:

• With written evidence of permission from the ArbCom
• When there is a clear consensus of uninvolved administrators at WP:AN or other suitable venue
• When the blocking administrator reverts their own actions
• When done by or on the explicit instructions of Jimbo

There was no permission from ArbCom, there was no clear consensus to unblock, the block and unblock were done by different users and Jimbo has not been involved (at least not that anybody has said in this request or on his talk page).

It is clear to me therefore that the strict and clear rules laid down by the ArbCom were broken. It is my opinion that the ArbCom needs to either follow through with the stated consequences of breaking its rules if it wants to continue to have these rules respected and not sacrifice the moral authority it has, or it needs to revise the rules to reflect what it is willing to follow up. A rule that is not enforced is worse than having no rule at all.

What sanctions are required (anything from a formal reminder to one or more specific editors all the way up to desysopping are at the committee's discretion) and whether this requires a full case or a motion, I don't know. Doing nothing though is a sure fire way to confusion at the very least and anarchy at the very worst. Thryduulf (talk) 15:35, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment by Cube lurker

If arbcom acts on this request arbcom should take a well considered (and not just perfunctory) look at all parties. There are obvious reasons that enforcement blocks recieve special consideration. This works both ways. AE blocks should not be reversed lightly, at the same time it's highly important that blocks of this sort be truly reflective of arbcoms intent.--Cube lurker (talk) 16:13, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Comments from HJ Mitchell

This is daft. I would urge the Committee to reject this because there's no reason it couldn't be sorted out between the admins involved. Running to ArbCom every time someone reverses one of your actions is hardly the way to behave in a collaborative editing environment.

On a more general note (without casting aspersions on either part in this case), arbs, I would urge to re-examine the idea of discretionary sanctions and the rules about reversing AE actions. If you want admins to clean up the mess left after big arbitrations cases, you can't tie our hands behind our back and you can't assume that every admin making AE actions has perfect judgement all the time. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:09, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment from Protonk

Speaking as one of the editors who opposed the unblock (albeit opaquely), I think only the most strained reading of that conversation would see an obvious consensus to unblock among uninvolved editors. Even if this were not an AE block, I would expect that Dreadstar contact Sandstein before unblocking unilaterally. As it was at least nominally an AE block, the committee has a responsibility to uphold their explicit promise that reversals of AE blocks will be treated as more troubling than normal block reversals. Protonk (talk) 17:32, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Becritical

Let's acknowledge that Ludwigs' statement was inappropriate. Let's also acknowledge that the block was inappropriate for reasons stated by others above. We have to consider the actual situation surrounding the statement by Ludwigs. This block was not covered by the arbitration sanctions, since the infraction was at AN. If AN is covered under ArbCom sanctions, where do users come to hash things out? You can discuss an issue outside the context of an ArbCom ruling without invoking sanctions. That is obvious: are we going to use ArbCom sanctions for infractions in user talk page discussions too? Because of this, Sandstein's block was not covered under Arbitration sanctions, and Dreadstar's unblock was not reversing an ArbCom sanction. Just because an administrator says that something is under ArbCom, doesn't mean it actually is. There is no reason for other administrators to treat a block which is clearly outside of ArbCom sanction as if it's under ArbCom sanction merely because the blocking administrator invokes ArbCom. Therefore, this request for arbitration is inappropriate; however, you should consider advising Sandstein not to abuse ArbCom sanctions in the future. BE——Critical_{__Talk} 18:56, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Ale jrb

WP:AEBLOCK requires much more significant criteria to be met before an unblock can take place - including a more significant consensus. If a very few editors can get together with repect to potentially borderline cases, and claim that because they think it wasn't taken under AE, they can reverse it without the more stringent requirements, then that defeats the entire purpose of requiring that consensus... and that's for borderline cases, where the extra certainty is even more important!

If a AE block takes place, AEBLOCK must be followed when unblocking - I thought this point was made remarkably clear. In this case, it clearly wasn't followed, and the agreement of those few editors that the original block wasn't appropriate doesn't overcome or surpass that requirement. Ale_Jrb^talk 21:11, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

@ John Vandenberg, "Declining this case does not overturn WP:AEBLOCK." - actually, yes, yes it does. If you make an extrememly clear statement that, in all cases, (un)doing X will result in Y, someone (un)does X, and you don't do Y, then the clarity of the statement is immediately brought totally into question.

Keep in mind that the purpose of AEBLOCK, as I understand it, was to provide a reasonable degree of protection to admins working in that area. If you are going to treat every incident as if AEBLOCK didn't exist (which is what you're doing) regardless, then it doesn't provide any protection at all, and has no purpose.

Note that I don't have an opinion on the appropriateness of the original block, but I do have an opinion on its reversal. Ale_Jrb^talk 21:11, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment from Moreschi

Speaking as an admin who has done ridiculous quantities of Arbcom enforcement work in my time, I find the entire ethos of WP:AEBLOCK rather troubling. In my various absences from the site I've missed large chunks of drama, but I was around when discretionary sanctions initially began to be applied, and the whole point of them was for arbcom to delegate authority to administrators they had previously reserved for themselves - at least as far as certain troublesome topic-areas were concerned.

Given this, I see no reason why areas subject to discretionary sanctions should not be dealt with in the usual manner. If you find a grossly bad block (no comment on this one, BTW), you normally would overturn it - and no, that is not wheel warring, that is BRD applied to sysop work, as it should be. Administrators should be free to use their own intelligence without fear of arbcom jumping down their throats; by establishing discretionary sanctions, ArbCom has effectively said "hands off now, we leave this to you". There are also various logistical problems with the policy as it stands - ArbCom will not normally respond quickly enough to enquiries before anything but a lengthy block expires (or this was the case historically, anyway), and as for community consensus - good luck divining anything of the sort at the dramaboards, with partisans from all sides jumping in like rabid wolverines. Sysops should be encouraged to actually talk to each other and work things out between themselves, and only if lengthy discussion proves absolutely fruitless should the rulings of higher authority be sought. Moreschi (talk) 21:35, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

• Having read through some more threads, it does appear as though the block was bad and the reversal correct in the spirit of the blocking policy, if not its letter. This is not a huge deal - bad blocks do happen - but can we please, please avoid 4 weeks of painful melodrama in a full case and encourage sysops to talk to one another, for a change. Moreschi (talk) 21:59, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
• From memory, I do also think that Ncmvocalist's comments have a good deal of merit, and arbcom should bear them in mind. Moreschi (talk) 22:03, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment by uninvolved Johnuniq

This has nothing to do with Ludwigs2 or Sandstein—the issue concerns what happens when an admin places an WP:AEBLOCK. Should a second admin who is aware that an AEBLOCK is involved be given an AGF get-off-free card when they overrule the blocking admin? Even if (that's if) the blocking admin in this case is wrong and the unblocking admin is right, ArbCom must defend AEBLOCK with suitable sanctions. Failure to act means that AEBLOCK is meaningless and future enforcement blocks can be undone without concern. The point of AEBLOCK is that there must be a clear consensus before the unblock. Johnuniq (talk) 21:59, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

@WJBscribe: AEBLOCK merely requires adequate time for a consensus to emerge before unblocking. If an admin mistakenly applies AEBLOCK, a consensus to that effect would emerge at ANI within a few hours—the admin wanting to unblock simply has to wait (and if they will be absent, they can forget the issue because another admin will unblock once consensus is clear). If the block is so egregious that unblocking cannot wait for half a day, the blocking admin will be sanctioned in due course. No benefit will come from an admin choosing to override the blocking admin now. Johnuniq (talk) 23:22, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment by WJBscribe

Reading some of the comments above and below, I think ArbCom does need to clarify the scope of WP:AEBLOCK. As I understand it, a block is not an AEBLOCK just because it is described as such - it must actually be an AEBLOCK, i.e. a block of someone who has violated an AC decision or sanctions imposed upon them. If they have not done so, then the block should have no special status simply because it is claimed to be an AEBLOCK by the blocking admin. If an AEBLOCK is a "bad block", then surely it cannot be an AEBLOCK at all and should be overturned as any other bad block should be - boldy and decisively to restore the status quo. No more consensus should be needed than for any other unblock.
In this case, the question of whether Dreadstar was correct in determining that Sandstein's block fell outside the scope of the sanctions cannot be divorced from the issue of whether he was right to unblock, as some are seeking to do. WJBscribe (talk) 23:01, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Dreadstar

First, my apologies to ArbCom, I certainly did not intend to flout their rulings, this is the very first time that I’ve overturned a block even purported to be AE-related, and certainly my last one without bringing it to ArbCom first to avoid even the appearance of disregarding their rulings. With that said, I’m unclear on how WP:AN falls under the ArbCom Pseudoscience restrictions. My comments [9] [10] [11] were meant to convey that I didn't think this was a Pseudoscience ArbCom situation as Sandstein did, but a behavioral issue outside the remit of AE. I think this comment is an excellent description of the issue at hand.

Consensus is not just a headcount, in reviewing the comments on AN, it appeared to me that there was clear consensus that the block was bad and should be overturned. This was bolstered by the comments and timing of the blocking admin who did not adequately describe what the problem comments were; compounded by giving a ‘two hour after next edit’ time frame for Ludwigs2 to respond - which was not followed by Sandstein - then when Ludwigs2 did respond with a query as to what the problem comments were,[12] the blocking admin declined to answer that question, and instead immediately blocked the user. (Ncmvocalist describes this succinctly here: [13] )

This entire situation seemed outrageously unfair to me, and to top it off, the blocking admin disappears and does not respond to the post-block comments made on Ludwigs2’s talk page or the objections raised on AN, only finally showing up to file this RFARB seven hours later.[14][15]

All the commenting editors on AN, with the exception of Sandstein, Ludwigs2 and QuackGuru, were uninvolved in the actual issue, which was Ludwigs2's statement about QuackGuru. This was not a content dispute or a dispute that directly involved other editors. The issue is not pseudoscience, but a comment made by one editor about their potential behavior towards another on an appropriate noticeboard. As Sandstein correctly points out it was criticized by five editors at WP:AN: Hans Adler: [16], Short Brigade Harvester Boris: [17], TFD: [18], SlimVirgin: [19], Xxanthippi [20], plus one more on Ludwigs2's talkpage, GoetheFromm: [21]

I think that Sandstein was rushed and sloppy in his comments and follow-up block, Sandstein should have clearly explained the situation as I did here: [22] Unfortunately, he did not. The block was not even properly logged per the Pseudoscience Arbcom decision: [23] [24] Why was there such a rush to block? And, indeed, I should have left a note on Sandstein’s talk page, that won’t happen again. Perhaps I should have given the AN discussion more time and waited for more consensus, but these things can be nebulous.

The problematic comment by Ludwigs2 was made on the AN noticeboard,[25] not on any pseudoscience talk page, so it seemed quite a stretch, if not an outright bogus claim that the block fell under AE. Although remotely and tangentially related to pseudoscience disputes, it was really about behavior on AN. I also did not perceive Ludwigs2's comment to be a real threat, but I could understand how others might interpret it that way, which is why I phrased it thusly: [26]

I believe a simple pre-block discussion by Sandstein with Ludwigs2 may have defused this situation entirely. My own intervention calmed the situation quite a bit, and led to a positive outcome and path forward.[27][28] I believe that’s what we want in situations like this. Dreadstar ☥ 00:00, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment by 2over0

Disclosure: I edit heavily in the pseudoscience topic area, and find both QuackGuru and Ludwigs2 at times frustrating as collaborators. I find it refreshing that the block/unblock comments at AN do not break down along traditional battle lines. Unless some pattern (presumably as a percentage of admin actions) can be established, or one of the parties is shown to be too involved to act, I think that the best course of action here is probably to pass Casliber's motions and put this behind us.

More importantly, though, I would like to request clarification from ArbCom regarding whether the original comment is properly covered by the discretionary sanctions, as there seems to be some confusion on the issue. It has always been my understanding that the various sanctions cover topics rather than pages. To wit, if editors clearly and directly carry a dispute from Talk:Pseudoscience to another page, the sanctions should continue to apply. Magnet is not usually covered by ARBPS, but a dispute carried from Magnet therapy would be just as disruptive there as at the original article; similarly, incivility at usertalk or AfD would be covered if directly stemming from a pseudoscience-related dispute. In the case of BLP, broad applicability is absolutely clear. I am on-again-off-again involved in patrolling AE, and would greatly appreciate some guidance before I misinterpret the community standards. - 2/0 (cont.) 01:12, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

In defense of Ludwigs2 (2over0)

Ludwigs2: if you do not think this is useful or accurate, please delete.

In my experience working with Ludwigs2, I have come to the conclusion that he approaches talkpage posts in the manner of realtime conversations rather than posting completed thoughts. He approaches consensus by dealing iteratively with small pieces and feelers that may bear no fruit in the assurance that any other points will bide until they can be dealt with; I am reminded of my courses in philosophy. I continue to have a vast respect for Sandstein's judgment at AE and elsewhere, but I think that in this instance there has been a misinterpretation of the response to the original notice. Reading it in that light, it does not appear to be a recalcitrant refusal or a promise to stick to his guns at any cost, but rather as just one small step in an extended process of working things out. - 2/0 (cont.) 17:10, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment by Heim

I would urge the committee not to make this a "he broke the rules, we grill him" situation. It was clearly a controversial block and many have disputed whether it really fell under AE at all, and furthermore, Dreadstar's said he won't do it again, so taking a case just to desysop him (which seems implied in some arbs' accept votes) would be yet another case of the committee taking its unhelpful "Da Rules" approach. Clarification on when an admin can claim AE status for a block would be a good use of arbitration, more useful, in my view, than looking at the behaviour of the parties here. And if we must look at behaviour, I think we need a fair look at all parties. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 04:30, 10 March 2011

Comment by Timotheus Canens

The way I interpret WP:AEBLOCK is that the protections it provides attach to a block as long as (1) it is claimed to an AE block and (2) there's some colorable basis, grounded in the cited arbitration decision, for the block. To interpret it as WJBscribe does would essentially deprive it of all meaning - a "bad block", in the opinion of a single administrator, can be "boldly and decisively" overturned; a block that is not a "bad block" in the eyes of any administrator can only be overturned by consensus - but if no administrator thinks that it is a "bad block" there's no realistic chance that there will be a consensus, clear or otherwise, to overturn it.

On the substance of this request, I concur with Thryduulf and Ale_Jrb, and I agree with Sandstein as to the general question of applicability of discretionary sanctions and similar provisions to WP:ANI, without expressing any opinion on whether Ludwigs2's comment in this case falls inside WP:ARBPS. I disagree with Ncmvocalist that any change to AEBLOCK is necessary. Despite their repeated aspersion casting at Sandstein, both in this request and in some other previous discussions, Ncmvocalist has inexplicably failed to bring this allegedly long-term improper behavior to the attention of the committee or the community via the proper channels. As far as I can tell, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Sandstein seems to be a redlink. One of the greatest virtues, in my opinion, of the current version of AEBLOCK is that it provides a degree of finality to AE actions, which are generally made in the most divisive areas of Wikipedia - only these areas would have undergone arbitration, the final step in our dispute resolution process. Thus it is essential that disputes over AE action be (1) kept to a minimum and (2) resolved in an orderly manner. The current version has both of those benefits. Ncmvocalist's version has neither. Of course, the present system may be occasionally and marginally unfair to some editors, who received a stronger sanction then most other administrators would have imposed, or who had to wait while a discussion comes to a consensus to unblock, but occasional and marginal unfairness, I think, is an acceptable price to pay for the much-needed finality, at least in cases where arbitration is necessary. T. Canens (talk) 05:56, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

@Ncmvocalist: Did I say I would have blocked Ludwigs2? All right, to be clear, if it were up to me, I would simply have asked for a refactoring, but it was not, and what I would have done is irrelevant to the question at hand. Please kindly refrain from misrepresenting my comments. And the said administrator review you referred to has 15 editors who opined that "Sandstein's approach to what he perceives as disruption is adequate overall", which, of course, you conveniently forgot to mention - not to mention more than 50% of voters who bothered to express an opinion thought he should be elected to the committee on the most recent election, which does not seem to be the kind of massive community discontent you appear to be portraying. (I should confess that I have conveniently forgotten to mention that every single one of those 50%+ of voters are either uninformed, misguided, just plain dumb, or Sandstein himself.)

I don't know if the current process is sufficiently orderly for your taste - of course sometimes it does fail, and perhaps we have different perceptions on how large that failure rate is; it is sufficient for me that your alternative will generate more disorder. "We must do something. This is something. Therefore we must do this." is a logical fallacy, not a valid argument.

As to my "noted absence" from some discussion that you didn't even bother to name, and which I have no idea about, I was not aware that I must review every single noticeboard thread that exists. I am also, sadly, "notably absent" from a large number of other noticeboard threads. Perhaps you can provide a list so that I can add a belated disclaimer to each that my absence indicates no view on the question discussed in the thread, something that I had foolishly taken for granted until moments ago?

I'll pass over the "experienced peers" part, since I'm not quite sure how you arrived at the conclusion that HJ is more "experienced" than me with respect to AE. Perhaps the new definition of "experienced" is "people who agree with Ncmvocalist"? In that case I freely confess that I'm "inexperienced" and will probably remain so for the foreseeable future. T. Canens (talk) 08:51, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Because when someone say "I suggest you read what your experienced peers are saying on a practical level instead of having such unrealistic optimism on theory alone", they are obviously not suggesting that "your experienced peers" are more "experienced" than the one allegedly "having...unrealistic optimism on theory alone". My grasp on the English language must be faltering quite a bit. Feel free to present my position in whatever way you see fit, then. Go ahead. Not that you need permission for it. T. Canens (talk) 15:23, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Statement by the named Xxanthippe

The block by Sandstein violated the principles of natural justice and due process. In all jurisdictions of the English-speaking world the accused is given a clear statement of the charges against him at the start of the trial. Ludwigs2 was entitled to similar consideration, whether or not other editors, found the charges to be "clear". Sandstein invented his own process and then violated it by blocking before the end of the period he granted. Process was violated and accordingly the block was void. Also the penalty was disproportionate. Bringing the matter here seems petulant but I don't want anybody to be desysopped. Arbcom should be addressing the substantive issue: the obstructive editing of the Pseudoscience article by QuackGuru that editors as disparate as Ludwigs2, Mathsci and myself agree on. Finally, although I was named by the plaintiff, I was not told that the Arbcom debate was taking place. Xxanthippe (talk) 08:42, 10 March 2011 (UTC).

Statement by uninvolved Count Iblis

I think Ncmvocalist's arguments should be seriously considered. The very specific issues of this case should not be the main focus of the ArbCom case. Rather, one should take a general critical look at the AE system and then improve the system. If the Arbs think that this is against the rules under which ArbCom operates, then I refer to this policy. Count Iblis (talk) 14:40, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment by SlimVirgin

I hope the Committee won't take this case, because it's a mountain out of a molehill, largely of Sandstein's making.

Ludwigs2 posted to WP:AN for help with QuackGuru's editing at Pseudoscience and its talk page. He argued that attempts to ban QG had failed, so would people please help deal with his editing, because QG is a difficult editor to work with. In his frustration, Ludwigs expressed himself too strongly in the last paragraph of his post. [29] Sandstein responded that AN wasn't the right place for dispute resolution (which is surely false; it is indeed one of the right places), and asked Ludwigs why he should not be blocked for his remark. [30] [31] He blocked Ludwigs 90 minutes later for 72 hours, [32] after Ludwig asked for more information from Sandstein instead of withdrawing the comment immediately. [33]

Regarding the block being overturned, a key point is this: it did not fully register with me when Sandstein posted about his block on AN [34] that he was doing it as an AE block that must not be overturned, even though he did refer to the pseudoscience case in his statement. If it didn't fully register with me, there's a good chance Dreadstar didn't register all the implications of it either. I don't think he has dealt much with AE, if at all.

It also wasn't immediately obvious that the block was appropriate as an AE block. It was only distantly related to AE rulings; it was unnecessary; and it served only to stoke drama. If such a block can't be overturned until there's clear consensus from entirely uninvolved editors, a good chunk of the block period could pass before that's achieved, especially when it's unclear what entirely uninvolved means. For that reason, admins claiming AE protection for their blocks have a corresponding responsibility not to hand them out frivolously, and not to stretch the definition of AE to cover any block the admin wants to firm up. AE shouldn't be used as a trump card to make it harder to correct admin actions.

I ask ArbCom to draw a line under this by reminding admins not to impose AE blocks lightly, and not to overturn them unless the consensus to do so is unambiguously clear. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 14:05, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment by Tarc

Well, Trusilver was rightly desysopped for undoing an ArbCom block last year so if you really wish to follow the letter of "the law", then that's the way to go. I think what needs to be looked into here though is whether or not categorizing this as an "AE block" was appropriate in the first place. Tarc (talk) 14:17, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment by Will Beback

I have no comment about the block or unblock. However if the ArbCom chooses to look at the broader matter of discretionary sanctions and AE then I'd like to comment on that issue.

Editors involved in arbitration spend considerable time collecting and presenting evidence, which the ArbCom presumably spends considerable time and attention reading and analyzing. But instead of imposing carefully reasoned remedies on the actual participants, the resolution is often to impose a topic-wide discretionary sanction on all editors, present and future. This shifts the responsibility of deciding which users need to be blocked or topic banned to AE. Admins at AE have far less evidence and less opportunity to discuss an overall case than ArbComs members do. Discretionary sanctions threaten any editor who participates in a sanctioned topic and may be counter-productive by discouraging the participation of disinterested editors. I urge the ArbCom to reduce the reliance on discretionary sanctions, and to rely more on specific remedies tailored to the problems found in the evidence presented during the ArbCom cases.   Will Beback  talk  21:59, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment by Short Brigade Harvester Boris

What a farce.

Begin with two editors who could most charitably be described as "difficult." Fold in one admin widely known for his heavy-handedness. Leaven with an enforcement regime that institutes a first-mover advantage for blocking admins almost without regard to merits, give a light dusting with an admin having a sense of fairness and proportion, and bake in a hot noticeboard until everyone goes into a tizzy. Result: one mountain out of a molehill.as I now see SV already has stated

In other words, this was an unfortunate confluence of individuals and circumstances that hardly merits the attention of Arbcom. The only issues even vaguely worth addressing are how far admins can stretch claims that they are acting under an AE regime (it seems to have been almost an afterthought on Sandstein's part), and whether giving AE blocks the status of religious edicts is really such a great idea.

Comment by Franamax

Risker's acceptance comment got me thinking, sorry if this sounds cynical. If the scope of this case is to be widened to "ALL" parties, then it should be either simplified or split. There are four separate "cases" here, each independent of the other, divided equally into two "themes".

• Editor behaviour
  • QuackGuru adopts an approach unresponsive to changing circumstances, accompanied by reverts
  • Ludwigs2 adopts an approach which projects an air of superiority, and openly discusses and uses various "tactics" to acheive their aims, which tactics could be viewed as disruptive editing modes.
• Administrator behaviour
  • Sandstein works heavily in the AE area, perhaps making overhasty or flat-out wrong decisions (and I'm pretty sure that for each AE action Sandstein has ever done, at least one editor feels they were completely and absolutely wrong) Seemingly, they also did a block-and-sleep, which is never good.
  • Dreadstar unilaterally overturned an AE block, provided minimal explanation, blanked the thread on their talk page and went away, seemingly doing an unblock-and-sleep. Suggestions have been made also that D may be "pro-pseudoscience", though I've not found any evidence for this. If true, then there would have been even more serious misuse of tools.
  • And the big question, how do disputed AE blocks get resolved, what are the thresholds to overturn?

But only half these "cases" need to be examined. If it's "Sandstein/Dreadstar", then the other two don't matter, they can be dealt with through a proper RFC/U process first. If it's "QuackGuru/Ludwigs2", then whatever the admins did won't matter, because L2 has successfully carried his tactic of making a threat at AN as a means to get QG in front of ArbCom. If that tactic works, who cares how the admins or the community deal with it? It works. Franamax (talk) 23:20, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Comment by BullRangifer

I'd like to second the comments made by Kww, Arthur Rubin, Franamax, and Elen of the Roads, among others:

• The behavior of both QuackGuru and Ludwigs2 is often problematic. QG is generally a scientific skeptic, but gives them a bad name because of his abominable editing tactics. (I say "generally" because he has been known to suddenly change "sides" and aide fringe editors in gross policy violations, just because he wasn't getting his way. He did this a few years ago as a revenge/sabotage/scorched earth tactic. Very odd!) Ludwigs2 often sides, usually in tandem with Hans Adler (twins?), with pushers of pseudoscientific POV, although they often have some good ideas and can be collaborative and constructive when they aren't carrying a grudge, so I hesitate to consider them to be pushers of such POV. They are just enablers. QG engages in stonewalling and IDHT tactics which have often caused many months of disruption over a few words. I am still amazed that it hasn't been possible to get him banned for a very long time. Ludwigs2 uses very intimidating and threatening tactics backed by an attitude of (false) superiority, even promising/threatening to cause sustained warfare if he doesn't get his way "because he's right", and he does it. It's not a careless or idle threat. This isn't the first time.

• Elen of Roads and others make the final and most important point of relevance here, one that must be dealt with very clearly and definitively:

Since when can an admin violate the clear brightline decision to not overturn another admin's block? This must not happen! The rightness or wrongness of the original block shouldn't even be a factor in this decision unless there are clear signs that (1) the blocking admin's account has been hijacked or (2) they have suddenly become completely insane, clearly proven by other edits than the block. That is not the case here.

I suggest that ArbCom keep this very simple by cutting to the chase, ignoring everything about the various problems with various editors and the circumstances of the original block, and only addressing the last issue. Make an example here. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:04, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Statements made after the case has been opened

Comment by Piotrus

I am not familiar with this particular case, but I am quite familiar with AE inefficiencies. The problems have are many years old, and can be in my experience briefly summarized as:

• "admin lottery" - rulings are not consistent and depend on which admins take interest in the case
• "each problem is a nail" - if the admins decide that the request is actionable, too often they'll prefer a simple "block" or "topic ban" solution, where a less strict sanction (warning, 1RR/civility/interaction restriction) would be sufficient.

Very roughly, I estimate that those problems are 1) a result of admins dealing with similar problem for years, and burning out, thus preferring simpler solution based around "making examples" and "putting God's fear into" all concerned and 2) dominance of US legal/juristic mentality, which (roughly) loves to deal with technicalities (letter) of the law rather then the spirit, and prefers sanctions (imprisonment) rather than more tailored sanctions (community work, etc.).

Solution is relatively simple: think if a sanction can be tailored to the case, restricting editor from the very specific area of focus, but in a way that allows him to constructively edit elsewhere. Topic bans are often enough, blocks are rarely necessary. 1RR/0RR/civlity/voting restrictions are usually better than broad topic bans. And so on.

I invite interested editors to read my mini-essays on:

• On the spirit and the letter of Wikipedia
• On why good admins don't exist
• On why so many admin heads are seen sticking in the sand when push comes to shove
• Advocates needed
• On why the little editor doesn't matter (but should)
• When to use the banhammer - and when not to: a simple math

--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:46, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Clarification request: Arbitration Enforcement sanction handling (February 2015)

Original discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Initiated by Ncmvocalist (talk) at 18:47, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Case or decision affected

Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Procedures#Standard_provision:_appeals_and_modifications

Arbitration Enforcement sanction handling arbitration case (t) (ev / t) (w / t) (pd / t) (principle 3.1.2 - Deliberate and careful use of discretionary sanctions in particular)

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

• Ncmvocalist (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (initiator)

Statement by uninvolved Ncmvocalist

My first request for clarification concerns the AC procedures - standard provision for appeals and modifications. In particular, the section entitled "Modification by administrators" in the following situation:

1A) An administrator X blocks an user for a period of time after reviewing a complaint alleging a breach of a topic ban (which was imposed as a case remedy). After the block has expired, administrator Y imposes another block of the same or a longer duration for the same complaint (and where there are no further breaches). Administrator Y did not obtain prior affirmative consent/agreement from administrator X, or at AN, AE, or here, for imposing the further block. Can the committee please confirm in those circumstances whether administrator Y's further block would be considered a modification of administrator X's block, and that such an action is unauthorised?

My second request for clarification concerns the AE sanction handling case (principle 3.1.2 - Deliberate and careful use of discretionary sanctions) in the following situation:

2A) An administrator X refuses to block an user after reviewing a complaint alleging a breach of a topic ban (which was imposed as a case remedy). Other administrators opine on the issue at AE and there appears to be division regarding the appropriateness of any block (and the appropriate duration for a block even if it is agreed). Administrator Y unilaterally imposes a block (where there is clearly no pressing need to), and did not obtain prior affirmative consent/agreement from administrator X, or at AN, AE, or here for imposing the block. If there is a division in opinion at AE regarding the appropriateness and duration of a block, has the committee indicated to its admins that they can unilaterally impose a block anyway? Does principle 3.1.2 only apply to discretionary sanctions? Or does that principle apply to requested enforcement of case remedies too?

I have listed 1A and 2A above only, as I may have a follow up under each. Thanks, Ncmvocalist (talk) 19:12, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Sigh!

I think it's embarrassing that AE admins were responsible for attempting to derail this request into one about Eric Corbett (talk · contribs), when this request is really about (as the name of the case suggests): Arbitration Enforcement Sanction Handling. One of the main parties to that case was AE-active Sandstein (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), and it's disappointing to note that Sandstein's problematic behavioural patterns seem to continue, and that too in the name of Arbcom.

The community elected the committee, not Sandstein. Even if for some bizarre reason you want Sandstein to remain entitled to keep up his repeated wikilawyering, his overly bureaucratic approach and his OWN tendencies at AE (be it as far as the noticeboard requests or actions he takes at those requests), I think the community is entitled to hear that from you directly, rather than his comments on arbitrators 'deliberate intentions'. Alternatively, if previous reminders or indications have not worked for him to change his approach to be more consistent with what is expected at all levels, maybe something else needs to be tried.

Even here, I am concerned that Sandstein appears to improperly suggest that:

1. I am filing an appeal on behalf of a certain blocked user (Eric Corbett) but have concealed it in the form of this request;
2. I've filed this request to circumvent the appeal procedure, and thereby game the system in relation to Eric Corbett's block; and
3. I and several other users are (a) friends of Eric Corbett, and (b) therefore incapable of assessing when enforcement is appropriate and necessary.

For the avoidance of doubt, those suggestions are false accusations made in bad faith without a shred of evidence (except possibly the bit about "other users" being friends of Eric Corbett as I don't know how accurate that is. Still, Wikipedia is not a battlefield even for this type of thing.

I do wish the arbitrators would find a more effective way to tell Sandstein to cease engaging in such needlessly problematic conduct. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:19, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

@Roger Davies: Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me you are saying principle 3.1 of the case only applies to discretionary sanctions, and does not apply at all to requests to enforce individual editor topic ban case remedies enacted by the committee. That is, in the 2A hypothetical, you are saying that even if uninvolved administrators (plural) opine and determine a breach of a topic ban in 2A is minor that it does not warrant a block (or that a block is going to be ineffective), it doesn't matter; any admin who wants to block and first imposes a block will have a supervote. Is that correct? And is that what you want/wanted? Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:48, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Note

Risker (who was an arbitrator at the time of the case) has noted today that Roger Davies seems to have surprisingly forgotten why a certain principle was added in an older arbitration case. That appears to be happening in respect of the principle in this case also (and of course, I invite Risker to correct me if I'm wrong or provide more detail about the principle in this case, as she was also an arb when this principle 3.1 was unanimously passed with Roger's **unreserved** support). The principle says because of the priority given to enforcement of arb sanctions..."When it is not entirely clear whether a sanction is appropriate, or when an administrator knows that there is a division of opinion regarding whether a sanction is warranted, and there is no pressing need for immediate action, it may be best for an administrator to raise the issue in the discussion venue for Arbitration Enforcement and seek a consensus, rather than to act unilaterally." [emphasis added]

I'm pretty sure I've been patient and brought this up in a very reasonable way, given there were a lot of ways this could have otherwise been raised. I also did think the 2A situation has been expressed clearly in my comments here (indeed, Thryduulf's comment accurately summarises the situation I am seeking clarification in relation to, and what the principle intended to address). Unlike the example in Roger's comment which may have been contemplated in initial AE design, the situations like what I've described in 2A have gradually arisen in more recent years because of a few very specific AE active admin who have not got the message fully, or who are often being misguided (perhaps by users with their own agenda). Please effectively address it.

I can't even imagine how the case principle I just quoted (or the AC procedures I linked to above) seriously intended to deliberately allow an admin to unilaterally impose a block even if the block is against already-formed consensus not to block (that is how I interpret Roger's statements too). I thought the idea is to reduce the number of unnecessary appeals and not force them to become a much more regular and frequent feature. Also, when a consensus is clearly desired by the admins in the first instance who are still reasonably discussing the best way to handle the request, I don't believe this principle or the procedures intended to (as Roger's statements suggest to me) deliberately let an admin make a unilateral block and cut the desired discussion off where there were no genuine supervenient circumstances requiring that action. I really don't see how that approach is ensuring priority enforcement actions are taken carefully in the first instance where possible, or are helpful especially in those situations.

Perhaps more discussion and views are needed. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:49, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

After countless genuine attempts have been made to convey the essence of "spirit versus letter" (or that a narrow view is not likely to resolve matters) to an AE admin here over the years, responses even as of today leave a clear indication that issues will persist in the future too. Seems such a pity too, but I can't help but wonder what will eventuate next time. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:12, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Statement by IP

I feel it's worth noting that the situation described in 2A just played out in a recently closed AE request (it's still there but hatted). I assume that part was unmentioned in the hopes of avoiding a dramastorm, so I won't name it directly. That said, I consider it valuable context that arbs should be aware of and review. 204.101.237.139 (talk) 18:26, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Since the dramastorm came anyway (sorry, Ncmvocalist) I will comment on the AE after all. Despite the criticism, I have found that Sandstein goes out of his way to accommodate other admins positions at AE. Most commonly he will state he disagrees with something but will not stand in the way of consensus. I have also seen him full on defer to other admins who disagree with him at AE when closing a case. His actions in the related AE surprised me. I think this is the first time he has pushed through his preferred action in the face of what was arguably a developing consensus for a simple warning. I'm not saying he was wrong, Sandstein is usually technically correct (the BEST kind of correct!), but it is curious that he would act... Out of character, I guess? I'm not sure how best to describe it.

to Roger, would you consider closing an AE request with no action an administrative action? It does not require use of the tools, but it is something only an admin is allowed to do. If so, does it enjoy the protection of other AE admin actions? So if, for example, HJ Mitchell had closed the case with a warning, would Sandstein need a "clear and active consensus" to block instead? I ask that you consider these scenarios seriously because it appears to me Arbcom is inadvertently creating a race to action in contentious cases where you are intending "deliberate and careful use". 204.101.237.139 (talk) 16:11, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Floq

I'm glad to see this has been asked already, I was about to. I think the answers so far to 1A are pretty reasonable and uncontroversial. I'm more interested in Arbs' answers to 2A. Normally, an admin can take unilateral AE action without waiting for a discussion, and then the normal AE rules apply to reverse that action: unlike a normal admin action, consensus would be required to overturn the AE action. However, when a discussion is already underway, and there is no consensus on the blocking (or a preliminary consensus not to block), it seems unfair to unilaterally make the decision to block, and then insist on a new discussion to overturn it. If it really is acceptable to do that, could not an admin with an opposing viewpoint decide to "officially warn" someone, or block them for 1 second, and then close the AE request, preventing any further blocking without a brand new discussion? (I'm not advocating that, of course, just pointing out that it kind of follows from the answers to 1A). AE enforcement is meant to streamline things, but in the scenario described above, it's being used instead as a trump card. It shouldn't be. If there is an ongoing discussion at AE with differing viewpoints on blocking among the uninvolved admins, an admin shouldn't wade in and block before a consensus develops. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:59, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Short comment from Collect

The principle of "do it first so the other admin will be wheel-warring" has been discussed before, without any solid answers. Zugzwang is a rough equivalent. Why not recognize that valid issue raised by Floq above - and issue a sua sponte dictum that blocks should generally require the initial input of (say) three admins in order to have standing against a simple reversal by another admin? Thus reducing the value of "first move wins." Collect (talk) 20:46, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Observation by TenOfAllTrades

While the IP has alluded to it, I'm going to make it explicit. This is another damn "hypothetical situation" thread that's actually not at all hypothetical, and like it or not the Arb's responses are going to be read in that context. Yep, it's another damn Malleus/Eric Corbett thread: link to discussion, closure.

Unlike most threads involving Eric Corbett, it was dealt with in a reasonable amount of time, after a reasonable discussion, and resulted in a reasonable final decision that wasn't followed by a firestorm or wheel warring. The ArbCom should be very cautious in how it approaches the question in 2A, in that the question seems to be exploring ways that an ArbCom decision to impose discretionary sanctions can be nullified by a single admin. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:14, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Passing comment from Harry Mitchell

I was one of the admins who opined against a block in the "hypothetical" scenario. I disagree with the block for reasons I've stated elsewhere (mainly that it is based on an overly literal interpretation of the remedy with no regard for its spirit), but at the end of the day AE cannot afford to become deadlocked like ANI whenever a big name is involved. The solution? More objective, level-headed admins at AE. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:49, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Sandstein

As the admin who made the block discussed in the second question, I'm offering the following comments:

• This looks like an appeal in the guise of a clarification request, and an attempt to circumvent the Committee's rule that appeals are heard only if they are made by the user who is the subject of the sanction. Because that user has chosen, in this instance, not to appeal the block, and the user asking the question is not in any way affected by this situation, there is in my view nothing that needs – in the sense of an actual controversy awaiting resolution – to be clarified.
• On the merits, I'm of the view that any discussion among admins or others about an enforcement request does not prevent any admin from taking, or not taking, any enforcement action they deem appropriate.

• First, the rules about enforcement actions (as well as discretionary sanctions, which are not at issue here) do not envision or require any form of discussion among whoever. The only exception is the case mentioned in the question but not at issue here because no discretionary sanctions are concerned: "Prior to placing sanctions that are likely to be controversial, administrators are advised to elicit the opinions of other administrators at AE". Even this does not require admins to follow or look for consensus, but only advises them to listen to the opinions of other admins (which they may then choose to disregard). As far as I know this was an intentional decision by the arbitrators who drafted these rules. Any discussion that does occur is merely an aid for coming to the right conclusion, but it is not envisioned by any rule to be a consensus-forming process. Discussion and consensus become relevant only at a later stage – in an appeal, either to the community or to administrators.
• Second, as has been mentioned above, requiring admins not to act in the absence of a consensus to act would have two effects that would severely impair the effective enforcement of the decisions made by this Committee. First, sanctioned users who have many friends, as seems to be case here, can block enforcement just by having enough people show up that any consensus becomes unfeasible to establish and timely action impossible to take, as is regularly the case on community noticeboards. Second, this would in effect compel admins who are interested in arbitration enforcement to take action as soon as possible without waiting for discussion, which would likely impair the quality and acceptance of enforcement actions, and by extension the effectiveness of this Committee's decisions. I would prefer that not to be the case, because I think that the discussions among the admins who regularly work at AE are often very helpful.  Sandstein  08:31, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

with regard to your first point, I hope you do not mean to imply that an admin may act against known consensus. DGG ( talk ) 03:34, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

No, that would be pointless because an admin acting against known consensus would have to expect their action to be overturned on appeal. What I mean is that I read the existing rules to mean that admins are neither expected not required to wait for or act only based on consensus. If and where the Committee expects admins to look for consensus instead of enforcing ArbCom decisions on their own initiative, they should be clear about it and tell us so in the rules, which is currently not the case.  Sandstein  09:23, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

@Roger Davies: Thanks for your advice concerning a de minimis rule. If it is indeed the view of the Committee that violations of ArbCom decisions that are considered less severe according to some standard should not result in enforcement action, then the Committee should articulate this standard explicitly. I currently work on the assumption that if you topic-ban somebody from "X, broadly construed", this means that you expect this editor to be blocked in each and every case in which they make a X-related edit outside of the policy exceptions, no matter what the circumstances may be. If that is not so, then you should tell admins which criteria they should use to decide whether or not to take action. I caution, though, that this (and any added consensus requirements) may have the effect that your sanctions against popular and well-networked users may be enforced much less effectively, if at all, than your sanctions against other editors.  Sandstein  09:23, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

@Newyorkbrad: I appreciate your input, and in most routine AE cases, such as applying discretionary sanctions to run-of-the-mill nationalist propagandizing, there is indeed a broad range of possible admin responses. But when the Committee directly bans a particular user, the only enforcement approach that works is, in my view, a zero-tolerance, black-and-white one. That's because it's the Committee's job to make these kinds of hard decisions and to assume the responsibility for them, including for how broad the sanctions are phrased. Expecting enforcing admins to exercise some degree of discretion is just a form of passing the buck. If you choose to topic-ban a popular, well-networked user with many friends, you must expect - as has happened in this case - a degree of drama or even harassment to occur in each case of enforcement, no matter who takes action or how. I think it's not fair to expect the admins who volunteer to enforce your decisions for you to take shoulder this load by claiming that it's up to the admins to exercise some sort of discretion that no policy provides for. Instead, the Committee should assume its responsibility and say, yes, we decided to ban this user, broadly construed and so forth, and we (and not the admins) are responsible if they are blocked whenever they do something topic-related, no ifs and buts.  Sandstein  11:23, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Rich Farmbrough

It seems to to me that the "first mover advantage" is a long-standing Wiki problem which has been dealt with traditionally by consensus and discussion, and application of policy.

The rule making AE non-overturnable effectively gives a form of absolute power to the Admins who frequent AE, which has been abused, just as the absolute power of checkusers has been abused (and historically, almost every other form of power, both absolute and otherwise).

So the instant problem of Sandstein's "overly literal interpretation of the remedy with no regard for its spirit" - and indeed his history of such narrow and binary interpretations, not unusual amongst the Wikipedia demographic, really pales into insignificance with the systemic problem that we have created of non-overturnable admin actions. It would be better, if still not ideal, if these actions were subject to normal community scrutiny.

I understand, of course, that the idea is to prevent an infinite regress. More important though is the inequality

$Community>Policy>ArbCom>AEdecisions$

The current arrangement breaks this in no uncertain manner.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:30, 28 January 2015 (UTC).

Statement by Risker

I was pinged to comment here. I do indeed remember both this case, and the early stages of the discussion about revisions to the discretionary sanctions process that were made, in part, as a result of that case. The clear intention at the time was to address the fact that AE seems to attract administrators who like to mete out sanctions regardless of the state of the discussion of a request (i.e., to sanction even in situations where a preponderance of administrators do not believe a sanction is appropriate) or just as seriously to interpret the "consensus" of administrators as supporting sanction even in situations where almost all other administrators would say there was either (a) no consensus or (b) a consensus not to sanction. Arbitration enforcement is in some ways even more powerful than arbitration decisions themselves, because at an arbcom case there must be a clear majority supporting a sanction before it can be placed. My read of the two situations described above is as follows:

• 1A) is a clear superimposition of the second administrator's decision, overriding the first administrator's decision. This is not acceptable and, if there have been prior warnings, could easily lead to desysop or other sanction such as restriction from participating in any way in arbitration enforcement for an extended period (Arbcom seems to be big on the "don't appeal for a year" position right now, which would be sufficient).
• 2A) If multiple administrators have opined and there is no really clear consensus for applying sanctions (or no clear consensus on what sanction should be applied) then sanctions should not be applied. The assessment of consensus should, ideally, be done by an administrator who has not participated in the discussion of the request. (The reasonable parallel would be XfD.) Administrators who regularly apply sanctions when there is no clear consensus are also subject to the sanctions mentioned above. It is not helpful to have hardliners applying sanctions that don't have at minimum more than a majority support of uninvolved administrators, either for the reputation of AE itself (it's not appropriate to have a situation where it doesn't matter what others say if Admin Y is going to do what they want anyway) or to ensure that there is a multiplicity of administrators participating.

Those were the intentions at the time of the case, and in the early discussions for improving the procedures. Hope that helps. Risker (talk) 07:28, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Lightbreather

If this is meant to clarify a situation like the recent Sandstein/Eric Corbett brouhaha, Ncmvocalist's 2A) should say:

On a talk page, not Arbitration Enforcement, An administrator X refuses to block an user after reviewing a complaint alleging a breach of a topic ban by editor A (which was imposed as a case remedy). The complainant then goes to AE. Other administrators opine on the issue at AE and there appears to be division regarding the appropriateness of any block (and the appropriate duration for a block even if it is agreed). Administrator Y unilaterally imposes a block (where there is clearly no pressing need to), and did not obtain prior affirmative consent/agreement from administrator X, or at AN, AE, or here for imposing the block, although admin X admitted at AE that they misread the topic ban the first time and now agree that editor A did in fact violate their ban, and that "another administrator would certainly be justified in [blocking] per the topic ban's stipulation that [editor A] refrain from discussing the ... topic."

The decision to block wasn't unilateral because Guettarda agreed that EC had violated his ban.[35]

Principle 2.2.1 applies here: Administrator's are not perfect. Go Phightins! acted quickly (5 minutes[36]) after I asked for admin help[37] at WT:WER, as did NE Ent (3 minutes[38]) after I asked a second time,[39] otherwise they might have realized that EC really had broken his topic ban and simply removed EC's comments per the GGTF ArbCom Remedies, which is all that I asked for, before I went to AE.

If admins were perfect, Go Phigtins! or NE Ent would have either removed the comments as I asked, blocked EC (which I did not ask for), or started a discussion here at AE, per Principle 3.1.2. --Lightbreather (talk) 21:39, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Hell in a Bucket

For User:Lightbreather's concerns of casting aspersions please see the section below where I have provided the requested evidence. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 23:46, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Gaijin42

While I see the point of those that say that DS has never required consensus, I think its important to distinguish the difference between not requiring a consensus to do something , and doing something in spite of consensus to the contrary. If an admin sees something requiring immediate unilateral action, they should do so. but when they are aware of pre-existing consensus to the contrary, or at least significant debate, then the unilateral action can seem WP:POINTy. Obviously there is a gradient there and lots of grey area about what would be acceptable vs what would not be. Certainly no action/sanction required in this "hypothetical" but some guidance about the gradient could resolve potential future issuesGaijin42 (talk) 23:02, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Mrjulesd

Since this seems to have been instigated by a particular case, and there has been much discussion about it, I would like to make a point about said case. No appeal I saw was made against the block, except for a frivolous suggestion to have the block extended by a day. This suggests that the defendant felt, at some level at least, that the block was justified. If I was subject to a block I felt was unfair, I think I would make an appeal for the case to be examined, to continue editing, but also to try to prevent injustices in the future from occurring. If I felt the block, and the duration of the block, was at some level justified, I would probably not bother. --Mrjulesd (talk) 12:52, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Statement by Newyorkbrad

Now that I've left the Committee, I don't plan to comment regularly in these threads; and I have nothing to say about the specific disputes surrounding this and other pending requests, other than that they are the sort of infighting I'm glad not to be responsible for policing any more. My only purpose in commenting here is to respond to the comment from Sandstein about his approach to AE, because while I respect his dedication and sincerity, I have a different view.

When as an arbitrator I voted to topic-ban an editor from a topic, it was with the intention that that editor should steer clear of that topic, because his or her participation in that topic was unhelpful to the encyclopedia or the community or both. Blocking is, in many cases, the appropriate response when an editor intentionally disregards a topic-ban, and I have always appreciated the work of the admins on AE and elsewhere who enforce our decisions, including with blocking where necessary.

That being said, speaking only for myself, when I proposed or voted to topic-ban an editor from X topic ("broadly construed" or otherwise), it was not my intention that "this means that [I] expect[ed] this editor to be blocked in each and every case in which they make a X-related edit outside of the policy exceptions, no matter what the circumstances may be." (Emphasis added.) As I said, in many, perhaps most, cases an editor topic-banned from X who edits on X should indeed be blocked. However, enforcement of ArbCom sanctions, like sane enforcement of anything, requires the guided exercise of judgment and discretion. No matter how carefully the Committee crafts its remedies, there will always be borderline cases in which editors and admins can disagree in good faith as to whether the topic-ban applied. (It is not possible even in theory for any decision to anticipate every possible application of a remedy or every borderline situation that may come up.) There will be instances in which an editor may believe in good faith that his or her edit was permissible, and when told it wasn't, will accept the ruling and sin no more. There are editors who faithfully abide by a topic-ban for a long period of time, making useful edits in other areas, and then stray in an isolated instance.

An approach of automatically blocking every such editor in "each and every instance ... no matter what the circumstances may be" may have the advantages Sandstein urges. These are, if I understand him correctly, that discretion and subjectivity in the enforcement process are reduced, and that sanctioned editors will steer clear of boundary-testing. Those may be valid arguments for not giving already-sanctioned editors the benefit of the doubt when they are causing problems. But there are also disadvantages to automatically blocking without considering the circumstances, including the creation of a culture where minor, fleeting, and relatively harmless transgressions become the subject of lengthy debate and controversy, compounding the "battleground" atmosphere that has often led the Committee to impose sanctions such as topic-bans in the first place.

These are general thoughts borne of experience, not focused on any specific block or case, and of course everyone else's MMV. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:37, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitration Enforcement sanction handling: Arbitrator views and discussion

• Regarding 1A, the key part of your scenario are the words "After the block has expired". Once the block has expired any further blocking, for any cause, is a new action. I suspect that in most circumstances this second blocking would be very ill-advised and possibly a bad block. There exists the possibility that the second administrator is in possession of new/additional information (which may or may not be publicly shareable) that justifies the action, so I am not going to say it will always be a bad block. Your question 2A requires more thought before answering. Thryduulf (talk) 01:09, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Regarding 2A, contrary to how I interpret Roger's statement, I see choosing not to act is as much a part of the role of an administrator as choosing to act is. If there is consensus that a block is not warranted then that should have the same protection as consensus to block does. If consensus is unclear then absent an emergency situation or being privy to private information (both of which would need to be explicitly flagged as such) then no single admin should issue a block until it is clear that a block does have consensus. A useful analogy for me is that an admin closing an XfD as "keep" is acting in exactly the same capacity as if they were closing it as "delete", even though only one outcome requires using the administrative toolset. Thryduulf (talk) 22:19, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
• Concerning 1A, I tend to agree with my learned colleague. As a general rule, I'd say that once an administrator has imposed a discretionary sanction on an editor, said sanction should not be modified in pejus (i.e. should not be made harsher) in the absence of a. the imposing administrator's consent, b. a consensus of uninvolved editors or administrators, b. arbcom's authorisation or d. supervenient circumstances justifying the increase. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 15:28, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Concerning 2A, both the imposition of discretionary sanctions and the enforcement of an ArbCom-imposed restriction do not require consensus; any admin may act without having to go through AE and without having to seek consensus. That's the point of arbitration enforcement, after all: to have the means to stop disruption quickly without getting bogged down in long discussions. Seeking consensus (and, of course, following it) is merely advised and not made mandatory. It's certainly possible to argue that acting without seeking prior consensus and acting against an emerging consensus are different things, and I agree, but this distinction is not supported by policy at the moment. That said, an admin following best practices, for instance, would not have blocked in the circumstances, but the block is neither an abuse of power nor invalid. Of course, should a sysop make a habit of acting against consensus, arbcom would consider asking said admin to stop doing enforcement.

    Concerning what constitutes an admin action, well, this is trickier. In general, declining to act has generally not been considered an admin action and, so, another admin may decide to act without violating the prohibition on modifying someone else's action without consent or consensus. At the same time, an admin who decided to impose a 1-sec. block to prevent others from imposing harsher sanctions would clearly be trying to game the system and could probably be sanctioned himself. My personal feeling is that the only action which qualifies as admin action, in these cases, would be closing (and hatting) an AE thread without action.

    Finally, concerning the issue of de minimis, yes, Sandstein, admins are allowed to exercise their best judgement when enforcing an arbcom-imposed restriction; sometimes, a block will be needed, others a warning will suffice and others the violation may even be too inconsequential to warrant any action and could even lead to a boomerang on the OP. We trust administrators, that's why we have tasked them with enforcing our decisions, we don't want you to become automata. Your common sense is valued. Salvio ^{Let's talk about it!} 10:50, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• This is perhaps the least hypothetical hypothetical I've seen in a while. Blocking after a prior block has expired strikes me as double jeopardy in the absence of either a fresh violation, or a consensus of uninvolved editors that the editor actually needs a harsher block (the situation that comes to mind readily is a community request for an indefinite block/community ban.) But in most cases, if the block "fixed" the issue and there are no new violations, blocks are not punishment, and the discretion of the first administrator likely should be respected. Courcelles 23:23, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
• Placing a fresh block for conduct that has already been dealt with - at least on the face of it and absent a rationale from the second admin - seems to me to be gaming the prohibition on modifying another administrator's blocks. On the second question, what distinguishes administrative actions is use of the tools or making an action explicitly reserved for administrators. A refusal to act cannot therefore be an administrative action as no administrative action has taken place. As a hypothetical if a bunch of people are hurling abuse at each other and furiously edit-warring, and - for whatever reason - an administrator explicitly refuses to act in respect of any of them, are each of them immunised against blocking? The common sense answer has to be "Certainly not".  Roger Davies ^talk 09:13, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
  • @Thryduulf and Ncmvocalist:. The point here I think is that AE is designed as a streamlined summary process and has never required collective decisions before admin action. This is how it should be. It enables admins to act swiftly and decisively when the need arises, by authorising admins as individuals. They can ask their colleagues what they think but they're not bound to take those opinions into account. There is no supervote because no vote is taking place. The enforcing admin is entirely responsible for their action and if they get it seriously wrong (or make strange calls frequently) they may be subject to sanction themselves. This will sometimes lead to actions which are controversial and sometimes heavyhanded but the issue then is whether the admin action was reasonable (and the DS procedure sets out guidelines on this) and not whether there was consensus for it.  Roger Davies ^talk 09:29, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Sandstein What you say is true though I find it wearying that once again a borderline call has been made and once again you are the instigator. Perhaps you might consider writing "de minimis non curat lex" on a post-it note and placing it prominently on your monitor?  Roger Davies ^talk 16:49, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Ncmvocalist I'm not quite clear what Risker has got to do with this (but for information I replied here). Anyhow, to the substantive point. The text you quote comes from the 2011 case on Arbitration enforcement. Since then we've had a major six-month public review of DS. It doesn't talk about reaching consensus before a decision but it does include an extensive new section, "The Role of Administrators", advising administrators about when to act and when to not act. Whether or not, in this instance, that advice has been disregarded is an altogether difference matter. So, to turn back to the consensus issue, I still it's wise to obtain consensus but it's not compulsory.  Roger Davies ^talk 17:29, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
• I agree with my colleagues's views on 1A - there would have to be something new or overlooked to justify a 2nd block. The phrase 'supervenient circumstances' is a great description but I'd warn against reading our article Supervenience. As for 2A, I'm not convinced it can be answered as a hypothetical question - and I'm not convinced that ArbCom trying to specify an answer wouldn't be micro-managing, rarely a good idea. I'd perhaps be willing to opine on a specific situation. And I like Roger's example. Dougweller (talk) 19:55, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
• I agree with Thryduulf about 1A. There would need to be something additional, and in a possibly uncertain case like this it would be very wise to seek consensus first. Otherwise it would facilitate administrator-shopping, and one point of arb enforcement is to avoid this. I also agree with him about 2A. Within the structure of arb enforcement, this is an admin action, and over-riding it would require prior consensus. Otherwise this too would facilitate administrator-shopping. As for the original block that set this off, our discussing this would need to be separate. DGG ( talk ) 01:17, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
• To 1A, I think that it's generally common courtesy to discuss an issue with the other admin when one is considering modifying their action, especially when nothing new has taken place that changes the circumstances since that admin made their decision. Whether such an action would be justified depends on the circumstances, and I'm hesitant to give definitive answers to a wide hypothetical, but I think once an action has been decided and taken, it shouldn't be modified without a very good reason, and "I would've done differently if I'd made the call" is generally not in itself sufficient. The point of having admins is that we should be able to trust them to evaluate individual situations and exercise good judgment, as no two scenarios will be exactly the same. To 2A, arbitration enforcement actions are intended to be undertaken by a single administrator, and that admin takes full responsibility for the action. Preexisting consensus is not required, but good judgment is. If several other uninvolved admins, or uninvolved editors in good standing, are objecting to a sanction or have explicitly declined to place one, that doesn't prevent someone else from doing so, but it is at minimum incumbent upon an admin placing a sanction to carefully consider the objections others made before doing so. If the editor who has been sanctioned does not believe there would be a consensus of admins for the action in question, that editor may appeal, and at that point, consensus of admins (or arbitrators, if the appeal reaches us) would be measured during the appeal. The fact that the editor in question here (we all know that this hypothetical isn't too hypothetical, I believe) chooses not to take advantage of the process doesn't change what the process is. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 11:55, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
• The eventual action is of course appealable and beholden to consensus. An administrator, if they see a consensus against applying a particular sanction, they ought not apply it because presumably such AE an action would be undone. However, if there is disagreement, and an administrator is confident in an application, I'm hesitant to say they cannot just becuase it's possible there will be consensus against them. The onus definitely relies upon individual administrators. I'd advise that in areas where a consensus is in the process of forming, or has formed, against the administrator action, due caution and restraint be advised. NativeForeigner ^Talk 07:56, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
• As for "broadly construed" I understand that to mean that it refers to the breath of the topic area -- that a ban from , say, articles on comic books would also include articles on the history of comic books, because normally the same sort of problems would arise. It does't mean that a very minor purely technical violation should necessarily be sanctioned. I recognize this as a possible problem -- there have been instances of an ed. first making a purely technical edit, followed by one that is a little more substantive, and so on. An admin is expected to judge the situation, and see if a pattern is developing that needs to be stopped. DGG ( talk )
• The only comment I am going to make is: there has never been the requirement of a consensus to use DS and I strongly oppose the idea of requiring one. --Guerillero | My Talk 21:54, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I do not agree. There is no requirement for prior consensus, but all admin actions are based upon the assumption that they would have consensus. This is especially true of the particularly drastic ones at DS. Especially because they require an explicit consensus to reverse, it is reckless for an admin to use these without being quite sure that what they are doing will be considered the correct course by the community. It is irrational to say that the committee deals with enforcement by letting anyone give sanctions at their own pleasure. Rather. the committee elevates on the assumption that others will give sanctions properly. For any admin in any circumstance to take an admin action without a good faith belief that it will have consensus is pointy at best, and a abuse of discretion at worst. As an admin, I have always thought that this was implied by the policies on these sanctions just as they apply everywhere else. DGG ( talk ) 06:01, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

• I will not support amending AE as requested. AGK [•] 23:49, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
• The first part seems to be easily answered, so I will defer to my colleague's comments on it. As for the second one, my opinion sits where NativeForeigner's does. If an administrator is confident, acting in good faith, and has a basis for making the block, then I wouldn't say it should be prohibited. Sometimes some administrators see with more clarity than others on stations, sometimes not. If there really is concern about it, accountability via ArbCom is an option.

As for whether refusing to act is an admin decision, we are reading too much into the wording. Admin action would be closure of an AE thread in my books, not just opining there. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 07:25, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.