Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Daniel Brandt deletion wheel war

Case Opened on 23:31, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Case Closed on 20:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Please do not edit this page directly unless you wish to become a participant in this request. (All participants are subject to Arbitration Committee decisions, and the ArbCom will consider each participant's role in the dispute.) Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.

Arbitrators will be working on evidence and suggesting proposed decisions at /Workshop and voting on proposed decisions at /Proposed decision.

Involved parties

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Statement by Jimbo Wales
Cross-posted from ANI by the Clerk Daniel Brandt deletion wheel war

I am referring this case directly to the ArbCom to look at possible remedies for all parties involved up to and including desysopping, blocking, etc. I have absolutely no opinion on the actual content question (should we have an article about him? I don't care) but this log is a disgrace.

Different people played different roles. I do not have time to sort it all out today, so I am referring most of it to the ArbCom. I have instantly desysopped Yanksox, though, because he's basically begging for it. I have temporarily desysopped Geni and Freakofnurture pending the ArbCom thinking it through.

Here's the action count:


 * Yanksox - out of process deletion coupled with an insult, 2 deletions
 * Geni - 3 restores
 * Freakofnurture - 2 restores
 * Bumm13 - 1 restore
 * Deskana - 1 delete
 * Doc Glasgow - 1 restore
 * Mailer Diablo - 1 restore
 * CesarB - 1 delete

I know how these things go. Some of the people involved were trying to calm things down. Others were merely trying to cause more disruption and fighting by engaging in inflammatory actions designed to outrage the other side. It is hard to sort it all out. This is why wheel warring is so bad.--Jimbo Wales 22:48, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Statement by CesarB
(comment partially copied from Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Daniel Brandt deletion wheel war)

I do not regret the deletion I did; I had partial information when I deleted (I did not know the problematic revisions had been oversighted, and tought it would be better to keep the article deleted for a bit longer, while they were located so as to be properly left behind when restoring, than to keep the revisions with personal information in the history). I also agree with Freakofnurture's last restore, which was just after mine; Freakofnurture was on IRC, and was told the problematic revisions had been oversighted (after I was told by Majorly, who was the one who had deleted the problematic revisions, they had been oversighted after being deleted). That particular restore is not a symptom of a wheel war; it's merely undoing a mistake on my part (and I fully approve of that restore). I also deleted several redirects to the deleted article (while it was still deleted), and their corresponding talk pages; I fully intend to restore them if/when the article is restored, after the dust settles (restoring before it's all settled would just lead to more delete/undelete cycles). --cesarb 00:07, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Deskana
I'd just like everyone to be aware that when the page was recreated by User:Bumm13, he only restored one revision, that of an IP address, so I assumed that the page had been recreated by an anonymous editor and subsequently deleted it. I informed Bumm13 of what I'd done, and although it wasn't my intention to undo his actions, I was not satisfied that undeleting the article was a suitable, considering there was an ongoing DRV. I wasn't wheel warring.

I would also like to note that ignoring this incident, which I really haven't made my mind up on, there is no doubt that Yanksox has been a fine administrator. I kindly request that the arbcom considers this when deciding his fate, and considers resysopping him with some other sort of rememdy against future incidents like this, as I think desysopping him when some other rememdy could be reached is an awful shame, though a temporary desysopping was a fine precautionary measure. Given Yanksox's recently incivility coupled with this incident, I understand that the arbcom may feel desysopping is totally necessary. --Deskana (request backup)  01:26, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Yanksox
First and foremost, I wish to state two imperative things that this committee should consider:
 * That all the parties listed here, exculding myself, should not have their actions examined because the way that they behaved was motivated by me, and unfortunately (due to time constrants) I was unable to explain at length. Hence, I should be the only person that will face any (if there are any) repercussions from this incident. I also suggest that Geni and Freakofnuture should be immedially resysoped since they did not pose any immediate danger.
 * Secondly, the purpose of this case is to place my actions previously as a sysop and the actions I took on this one day, as opposed to the notability of the Brandt article.

I would also like to comment that while I had admin tools, outside of this incident, I did not abuse the tools and found myself endorsed full heartily by the community. My purpose was always an effort to better Wikipedia. I did not present myself as a serious threat to the project and I believe that I should face two scenarios from the committee in terms of sysophood: regaining sysop status after X amount of time or being required to reconfirm myself by means of RfA. I shall elaborate upon this further in the evidence section sometime during the next few days. Thank you for reading this, Yank sox  03:32, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Bumm13
In no way was I engaged in a wheel war. I merely (rather inefficiently) attempted to restore what I considered to be a unilateral, undiscussed admin action by Yanksox regarding the deletion of the Daniel Brandt article. Once Deskana restored the article, I made no further administrator actions on the article in question. What Deskana has stated sums up my involvement in this sordid matter quite nicely; he also mentioned issues surrounding the GFDL about incomplete article restoration which I had overlooked; that further influenced my decision to abstain from further action regarding the article in question. Bumm13 03:49, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Statement by freakofnurture
I restored the article twice, for very different reasons, as explained at /Evidence. — freak([ talk]) 04:25, Feb. 24, 2007 (UTC)

Statement by Geni
The article was being deleted out of process against known community opinion and discussion was being suppressed. The previous (exact number depends on which ones you include) AFDs have shown that the community does not support the delete of the article. None of the CSD terms not BLP support the deletions. In this case not only was the article repeatedly delete out of process but attempts to discuss the deletion were actively suppressed.

Under those conditions I felt that at least some level of opposition was required.

Going by comments in IRC it appears that Yanksox's mistake was at least partly due to misleading impressions as to what the views of the community were created by off wiki conversations among certain group(s) (heck standard conversation in wikipedia-en-admins could potentially give that impression). I can't prove it but I suspect that at least some of the people leaving barnstars and the like on Yanksox's talk page were among those responsible for the misunderstanding.

Statement by Gaillimh
I had planned to drop a line here to explain my actions, but after UninvitedCompany's gentle nudging, I figured I better get here post-haste :) !

First, I'd like to apologise if my actions caused any undue stress to anyone. I'm aware that my early closing of the DRV only added to the problem of attempting to establish a community consensus. I misjudged the flow of discussion and misinterpreted the DRV has having hearty consensus to endorse Yanksox' deletion. Also, I felt as though the spirit of BLP surely applied and should be dealt with quickly. Of course, I was wrong, as evidenced by how the DRV is going now. I also now realise that WP:SNOW shouldn't really be used in DRV at all, especially with regards to articles that have had multiple deletion discussions already.

If you'll look at the accurate and detailed timeline that Thebainer created, you'll see that I reverted Mark when he re-opened the DRV after my premature close. After being reverted again, I knew that there was obviously not hearty consensus to close, or even delete the article, and stepped away from the DRV; I haven't edited it since (that is, while my early closure was indeed inappropriate given the present circumstances, I don't think that I was "edit warring" by any means, as has been suggested here).

As a "defence", so to speak, I'm relatively new to DRV (I started closing debates just this week) and I misjudged consensus as well as misapplied the snowball clause. In a discussion with Xoloz the other day, I mentioned to him that I wouldn't use WP:SNOW ever again when closing out DRV's.

Again, I apologise to the community at-large for misjudging its directive, and I apologise if anyone was personally adversely affected by this. If you were, please feel free to contact me via my talk page or e-mail so I can began working on making amends! Thanks for reading. Cheers all  gaillimh  Conas tá tú? 20:04, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

= Preliminary Decisions =

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter
This case is a direct referral from Jimbo Wales, and is automatically accepted, per the Arbitration policy.

Temporary injunctions

 * 1) User:Freakofnurture has been temporarily desysoped by User:Jimbo Wales
 * 2) User:Geni has been temporarily desysoped by User:Jimbo Wales
 * 3) User:Yanksox has been tentatively desysoped by User:Jimbo Wales

Motion adopted during the case
Since neither long-term suspension nor revocation of Freakofnurture's admin privileges is being seriously contemplated by the Committee, those privileges are hereby restored.

Adopted by a vote of 7 to 1, 23:55, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

=Final decision= All numbering based on /Proposed decision (vote counts and comments are there as well)

Deletion of pages
1) Deletion policy, Undeletion policy, and Criteria for speedy deletion together provide policy and procedure for deletion and undeletion. Wikipedia administrators are expected to use the deletion and undeletion abilities granted to them in a fashion consistent with these policies.  Administrators who wish to delete articles that are clearly outside the criteria for speedy deletion should list those articles at Articles for deletion or Proposed deletion.


 * Passed 11 to 0 at 20:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Undeletion of pages
2) While undeletion policy permits admins to reverse an obviously out-of-process deletion, discussion is the more appropriate response when there is disagreement. The proper venue for such discussion is Deletion review.  As a general rule, articles listed there are left deleted at least until a strong consensus begins to emerge in favor of overturning the deletion of the article, or are marked as "temporarily undeleted" if undeletion is necessary so that participants in the review can see the article's contents.  Where consensus is unclear, the article should remain deleted until the five-day comment period has elapsed.


 * Passed 11 to 0 at 20:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Expectations and role of administrators
4) In general, Wikipedia's administrators are held to a higher standard of behavior than other users, particularly with regard to principles such as assume good faith and no personal attacks. Administrators are expected to keep their cool and should not use administrator-specific capabilities casually or without thought.  They should lead by example and serve as a model of the proper editing behavior to which other users should aspire.


 * Passed 11 to 0 at 20:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Edit wars considered harmful
5) The essence of an edit war is repeated reversion of an action as a substitute for discussion leading to consensus. Edit wars undermine the consensus-based decisionmaking upon which Wikipedia depends.

The practice of carrying on a discussion in the comment field for edits or log entries is unhelpful and is not a suitable substitute for genuine discussion in an appropriate forum.


 * Passed 11 to 0 at 20:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Ignoring all rules
6) Wikipedia has many policies and processes that affect deletion and undeletion of pages. Where there is strong community support (or minimally, a lack of objections), it is sometimes permissible to sidestep or otherwise take liberties with these process. Those who ignore all rules should proceed slowly and deliberately; act only when informed by any existing discussion, history, or logs; and should be prepared to explain the reasoning for their actions.  If ensuing discussion shows an absence of community support, practitioners of Ignore All Rules should have the grace to revert their own actions.


 * Passed 11 to 0 at 20:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Early closure of discussions based on WP:SNOW is harmful
7.1) The Committee notes that the "Snowball clause" is not policy, and also recognizes that there will be some cases where the benefits of early closure outweigh the drawbacks. However, in general, early closure of discussions on WP:SNOW grounds denies some Wikipedians the opportunity to comment and can lead to escalation due to the lack of a discussion venue.


 * Passed 10 to 0 at 20:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Yanksox' deletion of Daniel Brandt was inappropriate
1) The deletion of Daniel Brandt by was inappropriate.  It was not supported by Deletion policy.  In particular, the article as a whole did not fall under the WP:LIVING guidelines for deletion of unsourced derogatory information, and the article did not fit any of the criteria for speedy deletion.  Yanksox did not engage in a sufficient amount of on-wiki consensus-building or discussion, either before or after the fact, to justify Yanksox' actions under our doctrine of ignore all rules.

Yanksox' subsequent re-deletion of the article without meaningful discussion was also inappropriate, and Yanksox' comments on the deletion log for these and other related actions were unnecessarily inflammatory.


 * Passed 10 to 0 at 20:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Bumm13's undeletion of Daniel Brandt was inappropriate
2) undeleted the article while a deletion review was running 14-4 in support of endorsing deletion.  Bumm13 was aware of the deletion review and undeleted the article anyway, without applying a "temporary undeletion" template or otherwise linking to the deletion review.


 * Passed 10 to 1 at 20:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Gaillimh's early closure of the deletion review was inappropriate
3) closed the deletion review, citing WP:SNOW, while active discussion was underway, and then compounded this mistake by attempting to force closure through an edit war.


 * Passed 11 to 0 at 20:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Geni, with history
4.1), despite being aware of the discussions on the deletion review page, undeleted the article twice rather than participate in discussion. Geni has a history of inappropriate use of admin tools.  Notable misuses have included a protect/unprotect war on an Arbitration Committee election page, an edit war over the site notice, and unprotection of an article listed at WP:OFFICE.


 * Passed 11 to 0 at 20:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Doc glasgow deleted the article inappropriately
5) Despite being aware that the deletion of the article was controversial, Doc glasgow deleted it. As a mitigating factor, Doc was participating fully in discussion at WP:DRV and discussion there supported deletion.


 * Passed 11 to 0 at 20:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Mailer diablo deleted the article inappropriately
6) Despite being aware that the article was being repeatedly deleted and undeleted, Mailer diablo deleted it. As a mitigating factor, Mailer diablo was participating in discussion at WP:DRV and discussion there supported deletion.  Also, Mailer diablo re-created the article with a notice directing users to the deletion review page.


 * Passed 10 to 0 at 20:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Freakofnurture undeleted the article inappropriately
7) While Freakofnurture's first undeletion of the article is defensible based on undeletion policy, this user's subsequent undeletion is not, having been made in the awareness that the article was being repeatedly undeleted and redeleted.


 * Passed 11 to 0 at 20:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Remedies
Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Yanksox desysopped
1) For repeatedly deleting an article in defiance of policy and without discussion, the emergency revocation of Yanksox' administrator privileges is left in place indefinitely. Yanksox may reapply for adminship privileges at any time or may appeal to this Committee for reinstatement.


 * Passed 11 to 0 at 20:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Gaillimh banned
2) For inappropriate early closure of a Deletion Review discussion, and edit warring regarding the same, Gaillimh's editing privileges are suspended for a period of 10 days.


 * Passed 11 to 0 at 20:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Geni desysopped
3.2) For repeated undeletion of an article without discussion and in violation of policy, and in light of repeated related problems in the past, the emergency revocation of Geni's administrator privileges is left in place indefinitely. Geni may reapply for adminship privileges at any time or may appeal to this Committee for reinstatement.


 * Passed 11 to 0 at 20:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Doc glasgow, Bumm13, and Mailer diablo cautioned
4) Doc glasgow, Bumm13, and Mailer diablo are strongly cautioned regarding involvement in repeated deletion/undeletion of pages.


 * Passed 11 to 0 at 20:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Freakofnurture
5) For undeleting an article in opposition to policy and consensus, the Committee believes that a brief suspension of Freakofnurture's administrator privileges would be appropriate. Since this has already occurred, Freakofnurture's administrator privileges have been restored.


 * Passed 11 to 0 at 20:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Log of blocks and bans
Log any block, ban or extension under any remedy in this decision here. Minimum information includes name of administrator, date and time, what was done and the basis for doing it.


 * 20:53, 8 March 2007 blocked  (anon. only, account creation blocked, noautoblock) with an expiry time of 10 days (implementing decision in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Daniel Brandt deletion wheel war)
 * 23:06, 10 March 2007 unblocked  (courtesy unblocking, has agreed not to edit until the expiry of his 10 day arbitration ban)