User:Stephen Bain/IRC proposed decision

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I'm recused on the IRC arbitration, so I'm drawing up a draft proposed decision here in the hope that it may help the arbitrators active on the case to reach their decision.

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

Edit warring
Edit-warring is harmful. When disagreements arise, users are expected to discuss their differences rationally rather than reverting ad infinitum. Revert rules should not be construed as an entitlement or inalienable right to revert, nor do they endorse reverts as an editing technique.

Fuelling the fire
Joining or escalating an existing edit war is as bad as or worse than starting one. Users encountering an edit war are welcome to help resolve it, but are expected to do so by participating in dispute resolution efforts, and not by furthering the edit war.

Disruption by administrators
Administrators act as role models for users in the community. Sustained or serious disruption of Wikipedia is incompatible with the status of administrator. Even if no misuse of administrative tools took place, administrators whose actions are inappropriate and disruptive may be desysopped by the Arbitration Committee.

Edit warring
Multiple users edit warred on IRC channels/wikipedia-en-admins between 23 December and 26 December (UTC) inclusive, namely User:Giano II, User:David Gerard, User:Geogre, User:Ryulong, User:AzaToth, User:Doc glasgow, User:Irpen, User:Betacommand and User:Bishonen (timeline, analysis).

Giano II
User:Giano II (evidence).

Past findings with respect to Giano II
In Requests for arbitration/Durova - three weeks before the matters at hand here - User:Giano II was found to have exceeded the bounds of fair criticism, and particularly, was found to have demonstrated "an unwillingness to resolve disputes utilizing the dispute resolution mechanism." Giano II was reminded "to work towards the resolution of a dispute rather than its escalation within the boundaries of the community's policies, practices, and conventions."

David Gerard
User:David Gerard made significant and extensive substantive edits to IRC channels/wikipedia-en-admins after having extended the page protection on the page from one week's duration to indefinite duration, described the edits of User:Giano II as "blatant trolling", responded to legitimate though angered concerns with dismissive disdain, and made a crude retort towards Geogre (evidence).

Geogre
User:Geogre (evidence).

AzaToth
User:AzaToth baited User:Giano II after the latter warned him not to edit war, rebuffed the recommendations of a neutral user that he withdraw the comments, and later feigned ignorance as to the uncivil nature of his remarks (evidence).

Ryulong
User:Ryulong engaged User:Giano II in a crude user talk page exchange while the two were edit warring with each other, and described the edits of Giano II and User:Geogre as "yellow journalism" and accused them of pursuing a "vendetta" (evidence).

Giano II
is, with the exception of featured article candidacy pages, banned from the Wikipedia namespace for a period of six months.

Tony Sidaway, Bishonen & Giano II
, and  are subject to an editing restriction indefinitely. Should any one of these users make any remarks to any other of these users which are judged by an administrator to be uncivil, personal attacks, or assumptions of bad faith, that user may be blocked for the duration specified in the enforcement ruling below.

Enforcement by block
Should any user subject to an editing restriction in this case violate that restriction, that user may be briefly blocked for up to a week. After 3 blocks, the maximum block shall increase to one month. All blocks are to be logged at Requests for arbitration/IRC.

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