User:Kevin Gorman/sandbox3

Statement by Kevin Gorman

 * Reaper Eternal is a CU and a sysop. The idea that he sn't familiar with one of arbcom's most well-accepted redlines is silly.  He knew full well what he ws doing, and he ordinary penalties for doing it.  I've heard he's an excellent CU, but that should not protect him from punishment. Reaper's explicit decline to self-revert his unblock of Eric despite the fact that even poorly formed AE blocks require consensus to overturn that is clearly lacking here and despite the fact that he knew it was clearly an AE block makes it even more clear that he needs to be stripped of his advanced tools - he has lost the trust they require.
 * Eric's original block duration should be reinstated ASAP because it was removed outof process. If he wants to appeal it, he can. He hasn't.
 * A 'no action close' - particularly a rapid one - is not an 'enforcement decision' per policy. If it were, anyone could find a friendly admin to rapidly close ae sections about them thus dodging sanctions or people could collaborate to quickly file a AE with an admin arranged irresponsibly off wiki to enforce the harshest punishment possible. If this happened, we could deal with it with a lot of unnecessary drama and desysop cases.  Unless we want a lot of drama, that's a bad idea.
 * A 'no action' close - particularly a rapid one - is not an 'enforcement decision' per policy. If it were, anyone could find a friendly admin to rapidly close ae sections about them thus dodging sanctions or people could collaborate to quickly file a AE with an admin arranged irresponsibly off wiki to enforce the harshest punishment possible. If this happened, we could deal with it with a lot of unnecessary drama and desysop cases. If was an 'enforcement decision' then by policy the discussion could not be reopened, and people could effectively escape arb decisions.
 * Black Kite deserves a trout for closing the AE so early, when so few admins and so many of Eric's friends had chimed in. It was an abnormally short close.
 * Gorilla may deserve a minor trout. If Arb majority view (and I view this as a serious error) is that a no action AE close is an 'enforcement action' then any action taken against GW should take in to fact that that was not at all established when she acted (whereas Reaper knew exactly what he was doing,) that Black Kite had left the AE thread open for an abnormally short period of time, As well as he fact that she was enforcing a reasonably progressive block length.  If in the of arbcom a no-action close is an "enforcement action," then GW wouldve been subject to the same penalties as otherwise reversing such a decision without consensus.  I would suggest picy be clarified that reopening AE threads is not a violation, and is to be encouraged over taking unilateral action.  There's no situation where any sanctions against her should approach those Reaper must face.
 * Issues regarding AE policy - like the appropriate length of time a section should be open and other revisions - can be handled by the community.
 * It should be taken in to account that AFAIK not a single person has disputed that Eric violated his arb ban.
 * Adjwiley deserves admiration for being willing to even consider closing the ANI thread, and has already made the wise choice not to shorten the block. Kevin Gorman


 * Regarding RG:
 * Reaper Eternal closed an ANI section related to Eric
 * I reverted Reaper's close, in part because I thought a closing statement should not contain a clear policy vio
 * RGloucester then reverted my close, saying the close was final
 * On his talk page, RGloucester then stated that I needed to obtain consensus somewhere to revert the close

If RG was an admin, this would've been a wheel war. However, RGloucester's suggestion that I could not possibly revert unless I obtained consensus somewhere to do so (despite being asked for policy or precedent supporting such an idea) comes dangerously close to the harm of a wheelwar. I had intended to reclose the section (and reclosing sections is commonpractice, and certainly doesn't need consensus) with a cmomment something to the effect of 'no consensus, further comments not worth the drama' while moving Reaper's comment to my lower section, in part because I don't think a clear policy vio should be maintained in a major AN closing. It's worth noting that because of his actions, no comment from Reaper was present in the lower section until he woke up, and a clear policy vio (overturning an AE block without consensus) still stands in the closure statement. However, RGloucester's suggestion that I could not possibly revert a closure unless I obtained consensus somewhere both prevented me from doing so, comes dangerously close to a 'non-admin wheel war', and would've been a formal wheelwar had RG been an admin. I believe RG's actions are essentially a 'non-admin wheelwar' - conduct worse than editwarring, but less severe than an actual wheelwar. I still don't think a full case is necessary here, but if one is to be had, I believe RG's behavior deserves examination. Kevin Gorman (talk) 17:10, 29 June 2015 (UTC)