Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/A Man In Black/Workshop

"Neutrality"
I'm not sure how to place this under a specific header in the workshop.

This is more a couple thoughts about some of the proposals.

For example:

If an admin is active in a WikiProject, could that admin still be considered "neutral" if there is a need to block someone else who may be involved in that WikiProject? I sincerely hope that the answer can be yes.

So if that is the case, then a part of this would seem to come down to defining what WP:ARS is.

If it's a WikiProject, then a fair chunk of the points about being "involved" would seem to be moot? (Though not all, of course.) "involved" is about a specific topic, I think? Rather than just articles in general?

And if it is decided that WP:ARS is not a WIkiProject, what is it then?

If its participants are typically known to comment a certain way in discussions, particularly WP:XFD discussions, then wouldn't soliciting such a group be a violation of WP:CANVASS, the same way in which we've condemned those who canvass those who are in Category:Inclusionist Wikipedians or Category:Deletionist Wikipedians, or who may have a certain userbox on their userpage (using WHatLinksHere to find them for notification)?

How canvassing can affect consensus, is a crux of some of the issues in this case. And we really need to determine whether WP:ARS does this appropriately. And I would think that this falls under arbcom, since it's about editor actions, not content.

(irc, and wikipedia review, and other offsite canvassing concerns, I'm shying away from questioning, as I don't know how effective a sanction on those may be.)

Like any collaboration between editors may be, ARS has been somewhat effective in helping develop articles that are "under the gun" of the time deadline of an XfD. (AfD in particular.)

But does that benefit outweigh the repeated disruptions, and the civility issues, and the canvassing issues, the 3RR issues, and other "concerning" actions by at least "some" of the editors active in ARS?

I'm honestly not sure, but I'd sincerely like it discussed/reviewed. - jc37 04:44, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Seriously, the best way to avoid any problems is to find another admin to maintain neutrality. If an admin is a part of an edit war or is a party involved in an argument, there is no way anyone would be convinced that s/he is neutral unless the final outcome is totally against his/her motion along the path.(ie. against his/her own actions or argument and supporting the other side instead with no further questions or requirements.)  This is a good practise to avoid conflict of interest, and should be written into guidelines as a common sense.  MythSearchertalk 05:44, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I think you misunderstand.
 * At any given moment a wikiproject may have an innumerable number of discussions ongoing. And just because someone may be involved in one discussion, doesn't mean that they are involved in all discussions, or with all editors in all those discussions..
 * Same goes with any discussions page, whether it be an XfD page or WP:AN/I.
 * And further, just because two people may be in a discussion on one page, doesn't mean that either of the editors is necessarily not neutral to some other page incident.
 * For example, if you and I are in a discussion on a talk page somewhere, that doesn't mean that neither of us could be considered neutral concerning the closure of some other unrelated discussion.
 * Or for that matter, just because you and I may be discussing here, that doesn't mean if, let's say, one of us was edit warring on some quantum mechanics article somewhere, that the other one couldn't/shouldn't block due to concerns of nuetrality. The one has nothing to do with the other.
 * I'm not necessarily saying that this is necessarily the case with AMiB and Ikip (among others), but I definitely think it's something which should be noted and discussed. - jc37 21:34, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I understand what you mean now. Yet I still remain my position of preventation of conflict of interest stance. Unless, of course, one of the users are warned by multiple users and the conflicting admin is only performing the final blocking action.  It is just the same in other aspects, say a teacher should not engage in checking a student's academy dishonesty after the student published an essay saying the teacher did not performed well in educating others. MythSearchertalk 05:47, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * But what about the reverse? If a teacher has given a student a series of warnings, does the student's publication of that essay serve as a shield against discipline? The risk here is that a warned editor can run out the supply of administrators willing to deal with an issue simply by unilaterally involving himself with that administrator somehow. It doubles as a distraction tactic; if the bar for involvement is allowed to be that low and that nebulous, it's very easy to derail a discussion of the editor's conduct with arguments over whether the administrator is vaguely involved.


 * The bar for involvement needs to be clear, so that there's little room for gaming and distraction tactics, and high, to prevent cases where editors are allowed to run rampant because any administrator who would want to become involved is too involved already. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 10:34, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The metric in my mind is simple. If we as admins have been deeply involved in content/policy discussions or disputes, it's flat inappropriate for us to use tools. It is wrong for me to ever use tools in regards to Barack Obama related articles, or say User:MONGO; it is wrong for you to ever use tools in regards to the WP:ARS, or User:Ikip. The level of involvement, while sometimes nebulous, is not in either of our scenarios. I can understand your interpretation may have differed, and still does, but when everyone tells one of us repeatedly that our interpretation is wrong, we need to change, not everyone else, or else we're 100% at fault. rootology /equality 13:21, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * This doesn't clarify the point, though. I wasn't involved with Ikip in any dispute that wasn't me criticizing him canvassing and suggesting that he stop or taking actions short of blocking him to make it stop. Are you say that that is dispute enough to be too involved to take administrative action, or are you saying that there was some other dispute? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 21:01, 29 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Please review as well this Principle, which I just copied over from the Macedonia 2 RFAR where it is passing. This is our standard as I understand "involved admins". rootology /equality 13:33, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Kirill Lokshin might need to recuse
I have not looked at the case fully, but I do feel the Kirill Lokshin needs to recuse himself from this case, because from I understand, this case deals with edit warring as one of its key factors, and Kirill Lokshin did block A Man In Black for a three-revert rule violation back on July 17, 2006, but later undid the block for the reason that the "user has promised not to revert further". This block is being used as evidence here. I think such a block is enough to require recusal. While I will repeat that I don't know the entire case, as an editor who was recently involved in an arbitration case, I kindly ask Kirill Lokshin to recuse. Can somebody please notify Kirill Lokshin of this suggestion? Thanks. — Mythdon ( talk  •  contribs ) 21:45, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I left him a note. rootology /equality 21:52, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you. — Mythdon ( talk  •  contribs ) 21:52, 28 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. I'll ask the clerks to mark me as recused. Kirill [talk] [pf] 14:24, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Debate about what is "involved"
As AMIB seems to feel based on his evidence that he (still) was or is uninvolved toward Ikip, which goes counter to consensus when he blocked Ikip and the standards we typically employ in DR and Arbitration, please review the following:


 * Classification as involved administrators
 * Involved administrators

Thanks. rootology /equality 21:05, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Mekeretrig - sock?
Can we get someone to review this ? He just removed comments by AMIB from the Workshop page. rootology /equality 21:50, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The user has explained here that this was just a mis-click. A review of his other contributions today reflects no cause for concern. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:04, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

User:Odessaukrain
Should anything be done about User:Odessaukrain, which is an alternative account? Ikip used it to respond to AMIB, then publicly disclosed his control by tagging its userpage. Ikip had disclosed its owner in 2007, but the note was removed two months later.

Note that Odessaukrain made several apparently productive edits during Ikip's most recent self-block and that the public disclosure comes a day after AMIB provided evidence regarding Ikip's past sockpuppetry. Flatscan (talk) 03:28, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Timing is interesting -
 * Odessaukrain posts speaking for Ikip 17:08 15 June
 * Odessaukrain removes post to workshop 22:10 15 June
 * Odessaukrain outs self as a sockpuppet of Ikip ]  22:16, 15 June
 * which makes it look that Ikip had forgotten which of his accounts he was logged in under.


 * I know that people should not use alternative accounts while blocked, however I don't know if that applies to tactical self-blocks. pablo hablo. 05:58, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if this will be oversighted like last time. – Steel 08:45, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * ? Have there been other instances of block-evasion using sockpuppets? pablo hablo. 08:53, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't call it block evasion; Ikip is unblocked now and it was only a self-block anyway. But this isn't the first time Ikip has (acidentally?) posted something to this case under the wrong account. – Steel 09:05, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh right, that probably explains the last couple of edits (10 and 11 June) here. pablo hablo. 09:11, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Ikip
If Ikip is using another account in non-disruptive (but overlapping - bilateral relations) ways, is that acceptable to the comittee? I would suggest that you rule on this. Hipocrite (talk) 13:22, 16 June 2009 (UTC)