User:Hans Adler/ASB

__NOINDEX__ I try to demonstrate that Wikipedia's consensus-finding process often breaks down spectacularly due to a large number of editors getting the incorrect impression that the encyclopedia must be defended against pseudoscience, and switch their brains from rational mode to friend/enemy mode.

From :

The first time I ever even heard of Sandstein's existence was when he closed this AfD with a surprise deletion of a newbie's article. It led to this discussion. Actually it wasn't a discussion: As usual when anyone protests one of Sandstein's actions it was essentially a monologue. I have watched his talk page ever since, and it's part of a general pattern. Sandstein always claims to act because of general principles that apparently give him the power to do so even though he is unwilling to point to them in any specific way or argue why they apply to a specific case. That's a cheap trick for revision-proofing his actions without having to make sure that they are sound in the first place. We may not have any written rules that require this, but it is general practice that our admins are open to constructive criticism and engage in a meaningful way with those who think they made a mistake. Without that Wikipedia would be a very different place. Sandstein, on the other hand, categorically denies any discussion on the reasons for his decisions. That would be a problem even if he got almost anything right and his general ideas of the scale of sanctions were in line with what other admins think. But that's not the case. And you can regularly see him turn up at the block reviews of editors he doesn't like, of course denying them.

If an admin is inconsistent in their application of policy, and treats their friends less harshly than their enemies, or gives special treatment to editors based on their positions in a content dispute, then they get into trouble. But there is one loophole that Sandstein appears to be actively exploiting: Be considerably more lenient, or considerably more draconian than almost all other admins. Make sure it is very consistent, and normally just deal with random cases in a random way. And then, when it gets to dealing with your friends, or with your enemies, depending on the character you have established for yourself, just deal with them in your normal way. It's the perfect cover. You just happened to come along when your enemy was asking for a block review and not when your friend did the same.

"I do not believe in cutting anyone any slack whatsoever with respect to WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL, under any but the most exceptional circumstances." Indeed. I guess when he has just blocked a long-term contributor called "William M. Connolley" that is one of those most exceptional circumstances, which then allows him to stoke the situation by referring to him as "the user" and "they". A drama-seeking draconian admin who is interested in nothing but his own ego is the last thing the climate change area needs, so I hope Arbcom will find a way to keep Sandstein out of it.

This is not the first time I am seeing Sandstein do absolutely counter-productive things. (Part of this is of course not being able to admit it later on.) It's totally in character. I have often seen him act like the worst kind of German judge: The lazy self-possessed one. You know, the types who don't bother to actually read the files or listen to what the witnesses say, and then come to a verdict based on prejudice and social class. These types often get things right by accident, and their MO only becomes really clear in the cases when they are obviously wrong. This is a good example of his technique of stirring shit through formal behaviour combined with failure to communicate. I am sure he knows what he is doing to the emotions of his victims, and I would not be surprised to learn that he enjoys the power of doing so while maintaining plausible deniability and thus staying invulnerable.

Here is another example where Sandstein uses his particular kind of unactionable aggression against you. After making your unfair block in August longer instead of lifting it, he wrote: "As an admin reviewing WP:RFU, I have declined this user's unblock request and extended their block for the reason provided here." Note the excessively formal language with which he probably tried to isolate himself from criticism, probably knowing that he did something wrong (as he does seem to have a tendency to turn up at the unblock requests of users he doesn't like) and the use of gender-neutral language to refer to a user with a very obviously male name. This is in contrast to his use of gender-marked language at other times, even when referring to new users of unknown gender. It obviously served to depersonalise you as a mere object of 'administrative action'. Such demonstrations of contempt from a position of assumed power are of course not constructive at all. They tend to lead into confrontations in which his opponents may be seen as getting furious for no reason at all – creating a pretext for additional sanctions. Sandstein has long been a candidate for deadminning.


 * Sandstein is always uninvolved (U).
 * Sandstein is always right (R).
 * Sandstein's actions are often punitive, not preventative, although he tends to disguise the fact. (What I call "revision-proofing".)


 * 2009-05 User talk:Sandstein/Archives/2009/May
 * 2009-09 WP:Administrator review/Sandstein
 * 2010-01 Sandstein plays a role in a short edit war on a protected policy page: Coffee edits through protection to prematurely implement an RfC, Sandstein demands that Coffee self-reverts, Coffee refuses, Sandstein blocks Coffee. (Sandstein had !voted for the change implemented by Coffee, albeit with a caveat.) Block happened 7 min + 6 min after Sandstein's demand.

December/January 2009/2010 AE incident

 * WP:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive53 (sections 1,2,9)

Arbitration cases started (or attempted to start) by Sandstein

 * 2009-05 "Giano II wheel war"
 * 2009-09 "Law's unblock of ChildofMidnight"
 * 2009-12 "GiacomoReturned" (statement only)
 * 2010-03 "Trusilver's unblock of Brews ohare"
 * 2010-11 "MickMacNee"

Ludwigs2's reputation
Ludwigs2 is consistently supporting his point of view with strong arguments. When his arguments turn out to be weak (as in my opinion where he argued for taking psychoanalysis off list of topics characterised as pseudoscience) he is a good loser. When faced with a mix of irrationality, obstinacy, superficiality, ignorance, viciousness and a total refusal to engage in rational conversation, he is not a good loser and should not be.

I thank MathSci for his evidence against Ludwigs2, since it demonstrates how confirmation bias works to keep Ludwigs2's reputation on an abysmally low level.

Ludwigs2 has received two explicit warnings under WP:ARBPSEUDO:
 * It so happens that this warning came with an explicit "This message does not necessarily mean that your current editing has been deemed a problem". I recommend that arbitrators go to the trouble of reading all threads involving Ludwigs2 on Talk:Quackwatch at the time for a clear example of page ownership (much clearer than anything I have seen in the CC case, although I may have missed something) and how admirably Ludwigs2 stayed cool for a long time. I do not have access to the Hufford paper, but I have seen enough remarkable hack pieces on Quackwatch, such as this one, to see that it is not unreasonable to include negative reviews by academics. (By the way, it may be worth examining why we have so many editors who take every negative word about the site as personally as if each of them were the owner.)
 * Sandstein warned Ludwigs2 after the following exchange:
 * Joshua P. Schroeder on Talk:Enneagram of Personality/FAQ: "The RHETI promoters have hired people to test their lunacy, but all they've got is some piss-poor studies that they paid for." (edit was deleted)
 * Cla68 files AE complaint against Joshua P. Schroeder (which led to a 1-year topic ban for JPS by Sandstein)
 * Stephan Schulz: "It's an addition of a Q/A pair to a FAQ. It's also factually correct. While the tone is unsuitable for the encyclopaedia proper, it's within acceptable boundaries for a FAQ on a talk page."
 * Ludwigs2: "'to test their lunacy' is not a factually correct statement - no one involved with the issue has been definitively judged to be mentally incompetent under any legal or therapeutic system."
 * Stephan Schulz: "I'd say both good faith and uncommon sense would suggest that 'lunacy' references the Enneagram technique, not the practitioners. Yes, the tone is one of disdain, although I'd say it's well-considered and justified disdain."
 * Ludwigs2: "[...] I don't know whether you are doing it intentionally, but you are presenting a prime example of the kind of myopic, self-entitled chauvinism that's a hallmark of Wikipedia science mavens. You and JPS are both demonstrating an inability to distinguish between the necessary encyclopedic act of maintaining scientific clarity on fringe articles and the unencyclopedic (and undesirable) act of biasing a fringe article with pure bigotry. [...]"
 * Sandstein, in his warning on Ludwigs2's talk page: "This warning concerns your comment here about a pseudoscience-related arbitration enforcement request. Accusing others of 'presenting a prime example of the kind of myopic, self-entitled chauvinism ...' is a personal attack and is not acceptable."