Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/AlisonW/Evidence

Workshop
I assume that this case is sans-workshop as it's almost as close to a summary judgement case as we get that's not resolved at the motion level. Is that assumption correct, and in either case, are evidence reviews wanted on this page? Nosebagbear (talk) 11:03, 26 June 2023 (UTC)


 * I have been advocating that the committee not do workshops at all on cases involving the conduct of a single editor. It rarely, if ever, yields anything helpful to the proposed decision and instead tends to serve as an opportunity to beat up on the case subject. Workshops are mostly an outdated concept in my opinion, they were added to arbcom proceeding ad hoc with no basis in policy, as a place for the drafting arbitrators to work on a proposed decision. That role was taken over by the arbitration wiki in 2009, yet the workshop remianed as basically an auotomatic part of every case until about two years ago when the committtee re-examined their utility. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:02, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I am of two minds about this.
 * On one hand, I don't know that I'm thrilled with the idea of the arb wiki being used for anything more than a library of past (private) behavioural info, and a private place to discuss said info. And now that I've said that, I wonder if the private check-user wiki couldn't do double-duty on that score, since arbcom members are typically check-users.
 * That said, arbs are elected, and - just like the arb private mailing list - I think it's good if the arbs can sometimes openly discuss things with each other, without it being under a community microscope.
 * But anything beyond that starts to feel like it undermines transparency.
 * And for another thing: I also don't like that the "proposed decision" page goes "live" the same time as arbs are voting on that page. It feels unnecessarily like "playing with live ammo".
 * Ok, so there are my complaints (smile) - here's my suggested solution:
 * a.) move evidence analysis from the workshop page to the evidence page (or to the evidence talk page, if preferred).
 * b.) Combine what's left of workshop with proposed decision to be a decision workshop page. Have the clerks/arbs post the initial principles, FoF, etc., like normal, but allow the community (including the arbs) to subsequently contribute - not to subjectively "vote", but to help with wording, phrasing, and alternative proposals (but only related to/variants of proposals already on the page - anything "new" can always be proposed on the talk page).
 * c.) Once the time limit has expired on the decision workshop page, the page is then "locked" to further editing (except the arbs), and the arbs then vote upon each (and if negotiated wording needs to happen for voting reasons, then that happens too).
 * d.) Once the voting phase is done, the results are put to the main case page.
 * I like this because it reduces a bit of the bureaucracy, but while it also continues to include the community in the process. - jc37 10:08, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Regarding re-using the check-user wiki: unless there's a need to allow checkusers to see arbitration deliberations, I don't feel it's desirable to eliminate the arbitration wiki. isaacl (talk) 16:04, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Moving case drafting for EN.WP arbcom cases to the CU wiki is a non-starter. CU data is not the only type of private evidence the committee deals with, and there is no need for every single CU on every single project to have access to every piece of private information the committee considers during a case.
 * I am also in favor of transparency, but I can assure you that what goes on on at the arb wiki as regards case drafting is that is just used as a quiet place for the drafters to draft decisions and ask for input from other arbs before posting anything publicly. No decisions beyond wording are made there, and quite often the final decision has additional elements added after the PD is posted, as well as not including proposals that failed to gain support. Personally, I have found that most arbs are willing to at least consider just about any good-faith proposal that comes along during the PD phase. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:29, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Happy to hear it : )
 * Private info is private info, so I'm not sure what arbcom members would have to say in analysis of that info that other checkusers shouldn't see. But as I am not privy to said info, I guess I wouldn't know. lol
 * And I agree, my experiences matches what you say about current good faithed requests..
 * At this point, the workshop page is (mostly) just a pre-decision page. If we merge them together and just alter the timeline to have the vote after the page is locked, I would think that would streamline the process. - jc37 16:46, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
 * The community has approved checkusers to look at private information that was stored by the servers related to user access, and has approved arbitrators to look at arbitrary, privately submitted information from users. I do not feel the community has given checkusers the same mandate with respect to viewing the two types of data. isaacl (talk) 16:57, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
 * In my capacity as a checkuser, I would agree with the comment by Isaacl and Beeblebrox. Putting this on the CheckUser wiki means any checkuser on any project (including stewards) would be able to see this info.
 * It is entirely possible that a case has a party who happens to be a CheckUser on another wiki. This gives that party an unfair advantage in being able to see the proposals by arbitrators before they are posted publicly, and can see proposals that were discussed privately but never made it to the public deliberation/voting stage. Dreamy Jazz talk to me &#124; my contributions 22:36, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for explaining that part about the wikis. I didn't realise that the CU wiki included people from other wikis like the media wiki stewards. - jc37 01:20, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Comment by Beyond My Ken
Regarding Nosebagbear's and Beeblebrox's comments on workshops above, I'd just like to say that I have never understood their purpose, or, indeed, their utility - unless drafting arbitrators perhaps found them useful in some way. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:22, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Also, the evidence so far presented is showing that there really is nothing much below the surface of this case, which is why it really didn't need a full case and should simply have been settled by motion. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:26, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
 * There are cases where they've served appreciable benefits (the medicine/drug pricing one comes to mind), but @Beeblebrox may well be right that for single-editor conduct cases they are a net negative. Evidence reviews I do think can serve a benefit (and evidence summaries as trialled recently seemed liked for the complex cases, according to at least a few arbs - don't know how representative). But evidence reviews also don't need the rest of the workshop process, they just need a consistent place to be - evidence talk is as good a place as any. Nosebagbear (talk) 22:54, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Comment by Lightburst
It sure looks like vandalism to remove cited material wholesale. Kudos to administrators who protect content. The material which Veverve removed was not inaccurate, and not contentious so the removal is not within editor discretion. It requires discussion. As was mentioned the Veverve recently removed a large swath of cited content from an article and another administrator has reverted them. reverted Veverve with this edit summary: please don't wholesale remove cited info in this fashion; this has been challenged on the talk page already.

The block came about from Veverve's removal of cited material and inability to come to discussion. It seems clear that Veverve should be admonished. In December 2022 An administrator blocked an editor for sending Christmas greetings and nobody was suggesting we remove their tools. Lightburst (talk) 23:25, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Comment by Kashmiri
''Comment moved by clerk. Originally a response to Lightburst. &#8211; MJL &thinsp;‐Talk‐☖ 15:46, 8 July 2023 (UTC)''
 * The block came about because AlisonW believed, and still seems to believe, that Veverve's edits were equal to vandalism. It was not for lack of discussion, for she did not even attempt to have a discussion with Veverve. She just labelled them a vandal and blocked. The community rightly took an issue with that (and a few other things, like her insistence that it was not about content). — kashmīrī  TALK  13:19, 8 July 2023 (UTC)