Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Civility enforcement/Evidence/Blocks

Two questions

 * 1) I'm fairly certain that none of Malleus's blocks originated in discussions at FAC, so why on Earth is FAC used in the example?  How about using the bearpit of RFA instead?  Why is FAC made an example, when Malleus is always helpful there?  We don't need the bad publicity considering the current TCO issues there.
 * 2) Have all blocking and unblocking admins been notified by clerks that their blocks are being analyzed here?

Sandy Georgia (Talk) 03:38, 9 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I think Risker's choice of example venue is rather revealing. Malleus Fatuorum 03:54, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * We don't have evidence of that-- people are busy, things happen, AGF works. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 03:56, 9 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The first one is a good point; I will change that. (I was reading over SandyGeorgia's evidence just before doing that section of the chart, which may explain the selection of venue.) As to the second, I have asked the clerks to notify them; it may take up to a day for this to be completed, as there are quite a number of administrators involved. I will note that this sort of review of blocks is pretty standard for cases where someone is alleged to be disruptive; however, given the breadth of the block log involved, it is probably worth taking the extra step here. Risker (talk) 03:59, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Risker ... much better, makes sense. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 04:05, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure Malleus is "always helpful" at FAC. Kaldari (talk) 23:56, 9 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I believe I have notified all blocking/unblocking admins. Salvio  Let's talk about it! 14:04, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Clarification requested
A question: For "Time between end of discussion and block", does "discussion" refer to the discussion in column 3 or the discussion in column 4? Are you really wanting to know the time between the last "offense" and the block? Discussions which lead to blocks of Malleus commonly go on for long after Malleus is blocked, so many of these would have negative values. Kaldari (talk) 09:44, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Still hoping to get clarification on this. Kaldari (talk) 19:56, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Input
I was requested on my user talk to comment on my 2008 block of Malleus. However, that entry seems to be well filled out, and I don't have anything to add (nor really is a 4 year old block incredibly important to this discussion, I think). So, just noting here that I have seen the request, but don't feel I have much to add to the discussion. &rArr;  SWAT Jester    Son of the Defender  15:33, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * With one exception; I do want to point out that from the matrix on the topic page here, it appears that a great many of Malleus' blocks were reversed well before they were finished. There's at least two conclusions you can draw from this. 1) They were blatantly bad blocks. There may be some of those, but I find it hard to believe that ALL of these were blatantly incorrect. 2) Admins are second-guessing other admins in terms of blocking appropriateness, especially in cases of "borderline" personal attacks. This is a problem. Either we block for personal attacks or we don't. But there's far too much second-guessing going on of admin actions for my comfort. If they were clearly inappropriate, then we should be reversing them, but if they were borderline they should not be -- what's the point of having civility/NPA policies if sanctions against violators are just going to be reversed because they didn't meet some undefinable criteria of being "bad enough"? This part of the issue is not really about Malleus, btw; it's a broader issue. &rArr;   SWAT Jester    Son of the Defender  15:37, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * For the most part, I kind of agree, that there probably isn't much to add to old block discussions. If there is it should go in a new column which is for hindsight.  That being said, I do think there is something worth noting on the old block that Swatjester referenced above.  It is interesting for two reasons.  1) It speaks to my rationale for unblocking and 2) it is material to the actions taken in the past towards Malleus that may have been missed.  Apparently, in March 2008, I co-certified an RfC against Malleus.  I had forgotten about it, but now that I reviewed it, I remember going ahead and co-certifying it even though I wasn't 100% sure of it at the time.  Said RfC has long sense been deleted, so unless somebody was looking for it, they would not have found it.--- Balloonman  Poppa Balloon 16:27, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It's long enough ago that I don't remember the incident, but looking at it, I'm not sure that I get your rationale for unblocking in that case. "block inappropriately applied" was the reason but looking back on it I don't think it was. Did we discuss it at some point before reversing the block? (I often end up agreeing to reverse block decisions myself if a compelling argument is presented for it, but looking back on the situation it's pretty clear to me that Malleus was antagonizing stfortyseven. Maybe I'm missing something here.) &rArr;  SWAT Jester    Son of the Defender  17:11, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It looks like we did discuss it and I stand by the block. Malleus was being uncivil, and it doesn't look like he has stopped years later, which to me fits exactly with my justification at the time. (Going to backtrack from this -- I haven't been following Malleus' edits in the past 4 years, so it's not appropriate for me to make this conclusion. But based on this page, his attitude towards other editors is still a topic of discussion, so take from that what you will.) His actions were driving a user from the project, and a 24 hour cooling off period was far from unreasonable under those circumstances. If a similar incident were to occur again, I'd still be comfortable with the same thing.  &rArr;   SWAT Jester    Son of the Defender  17:10, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * If a similar incident were to occur again, I'd still be comfortable with the same thing. You would still be comfortable making a block today where your involvement was an issue? If that is the case, it does appear that things have not advanced in this realm?  Perhaps that statement of yours should be entered into evidence so the Arbs can issue a finding with respect to INVOLVED? Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 19:10, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Entered into evidence for what purpose? To discuss a 4 year old block that was overturned after a couple hours? Or to discuss a hypothetical future situation that doesn't actually exist? That sounds much more like a threat to me than an attempt to solve any of the actual issues here. &rArr;   SWAT Jester    Son of the Defender  12:50, 10 January 2012 (UTC)


 * For the purpose of ArbCom issuing a finding to clarify INVOLVED (which has been a mess). I am not suggesting they would take action wrt your block years after the fact.  I'm saying that since you still don't consider this a case of INVOLVED, either I'm misinformed, or you are, and the arbs can take this opportunity to clarify for the community.  It's part of the scope of this case, and I'm genuinely surprised that with the benefit of hindsight, you don't see this as INVOLVED, so one of us is way off.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 19:02, 10 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I see, I wasn't getting the point of the capital letters. Isn't it already in evidence though, from the project page? Or is that page not evidence? And I'm not sure that as a formality it's necessary, since the arbitrators, if they want to clarify what "involved" means can simply do so. &rArr;   SWAT Jester    Son of the Defender  01:56, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
 * You said that you didn't understand why we thought it was an inappropriately applied block and that you would do so again. Our point is that it was a very poorly applied block and that if you were to do so again, it would be considered INVOLVED and COI.  I reversed it because YOU should have never made the block.  Trust me, at the time, I thought it was only a matter of time before Malleus dug his own grave and I reviewed your block thinking that he had.  Instead, I came to the conclusion that I had to unblock.--- Balloonman  Poppa Balloon 02:05, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Malleus' first ever block
SJ---Yes, looking over the incident I still think this was a very poor block. On May late May 22 Malleus has some words with ST47 that got a little touchy but nothing overly flagarant. It culminated when MF expresses the opinion that ST47 is heading towards becoming one of the worst admins. (May 22 17:59). Heated words, but I've seen a lot worse. An hour and a half later, you reprimand Malleus for his behavior, but not ST47. Malleus then implies that you were a wikilawyer. (@19:35 on May 22). So 32 hours after he makes this implication, you warn him because YOU find calling people "wikilawyers" is a highly uncivil thing to do. (3:11 on May 24). 5 hours after you warn him about his behavior, he makes 4 edits where he calls you a "petty minded individual" and tells you where you can stick your block. (between 7:36-8:00 on May 24---36 hours after the comments to ST47 and 32 hours after calling you a wikilawyer.) He makes no other edits. 4.5 hours later you block him. That was almost 2 full days after the incident with ST47 and more than a day and a half after inciting you by calling you a wikilawyer. There can be no mistake as to what motivated the block as there were no other edits. You didn't like being called a petty minded individual or wikilawyer. Thus, you should have gotten somebody else to actually perform the block. You were acting with clear COI and misused the tool. You inflamed a situation which had died down more than a 32 hours earlier. If an somebody came to my page and issued me a block warning for something I said 32 hours earlier, I might respond just the way Malleus did. In hindsight, I'm surprised no actions were taken against you---but that was a different era.

Note, in the subsequent discussion after the block. I basically said this block was clearly unjustified. But I still expressed the belief that a full fledged RfC/ArbCOM case could be opened on Malleus. At this point in time, I was watching Malleus hoping to find the case which was egregious enough that he would hang himself and get sanctions taken. Subsequently, I noticed this trend continue. Instead, I started to notice cases where people were taking him to ANI/Blocking him for minor transgressions based more upon his reputation than for legitimate cases. I also started to notice that beyond his personal contributions to the project (GA/FA edits) that people sought him out. While he could be an ass, he showed that he could be a true gem as well. I've asked him for input on several projects and even asked him to play mediator in a content dispute (he sided against me, but I knew that his opinion was an honest one so I ceded the issue.)--- Balloonman  Poppa Balloon 21:26, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Calling someone petty minded wikilawyers, is pretty much the definition of incivility. If we're giving that a pass, well, I don't even know what this community has turned into anymore. &rArr;   SWAT Jester    Son of the Defender  12:48, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * You just don't get it do you?
 * The issue was long dead. It had been 32 hours since he called you a wikilawyer---a term that gets thrown around here like poo in a monkey cage.  I wouldn't be surprised if somebody isn't called a wikilawyer here on a daily/weekly basis---and I would be surprised if any of those incidents results in a block warning.  But you felt the need to issue one 32 hours later despite no additional incidents.  If somebody came to my page 32 hours after I made a parting jibe in a conversation, to issue me a warning block, I would consider it petty.  Malleus expressed that view and you blocked him for scorning you.  You should have let somebody else do it, but honestly, I doubt anybody else would have acted as the issue was so cold.
 * The block wasn't preventive. The initial dispute was long dead.  The only conclusion is that you blocked him in retailiation for his for calling you petty minded---today we'd call that a clear abuse of the tools.  You don't block people in cases where you are involved---an any pretense that it related to ST47 disappeared when you didn't block as a result of calling him a wikilawyer and how stale that situation had become. If this is acceptable behavior in an admin, then is there any wonder that Malleus has developed a jaded view of admins?  And it should be noted how  egregious the first block was.--- Balloonman  Poppa Balloon 20:46, 10 January 2012 (UTC)


 * If you can't admit you made a bad block, Swat, just back out of the page and let it go; this can only get worse from here. And Balloonman, I think I screwed up the details on this in the box. I didn't realize that Mal told him to shove his block before the block was made. I confused the times, apparently. I reverted your change wrt that a day or so ago. My apologies. Lara  04:10, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
 * NP I unreverted your revert ;-) Those times get very difficult to reconcile when the time stamp on the post and the time stamp on the page history can be very difficult.  I had to review the timeline about 3 or 4 times before I had it all straight.--- Balloonman  Poppa Balloon 06:23, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

On second-guessing
In the above section Swatjester comments that "Admins are second-guessing other admins in terms of blocking appropriateness" and that's certainly true. I would like to add, though, that this seems to go both ways. In the Tbhotch episode, for example, in which Malleus was blocked by Kaldari and unblocked by Mkativerata, there are really two ways to look at it:
 * 1) Mkativerata, as an uninvolved admin in the AN/I discussion, made the call not to un block, and Kaldari second-guessed him and decided to block anyway; or
 * 2) Kaldari, as the blocking admin, was second-guessed by Mkativerata, who unblocked.

I favor the first interpretation, as the second interpretation essentially gives carte blanche to any admin who wishes to block for a particular complaint without regard to how many previous admins have looked into the matter and explicitly decided not to block. After all, why should any uninvolved admin bother looking into an issue if they know their judgment will be deferred to only if they decide a block is warranted?

To give another, more recent example of relevance to this case, I happened to be watching AN/I when Malleus was edit-warring with Spitfire to reinstate this comment. Obviously, if Malleus kept doing this, there would really be no tenable reason not to block for either the repeated personal attacks or the edit-warring itself. But it was my hope that if someone would stop by his talk page and reason with him, he might cut it out. So I stopped by, and he did indeed cut it out.

Now, I'm not going to flatter myself into presuming it was my words of wisdom that persuaded him to stop reinstating the comment; it might very well be that he was just sick of the discussion and had no intention of reinstating it regardless. But the point was, as an admin, I made an explicit call to discuss with Malleus, not block him for, his actions at AN/I. That call was present on Malleus' talk page for any passing admin to see.

And yet, Hawkeye7 went ahead and blocked him anyway, with no consultation with the thoroughly uninvolved admin who declined to block for the comments made at AN/I. (This of course assumes that Hawkeye7's statements that he saw the AN/I comments and blocked for them – despite the block rationale to the contrary – are accurate.)

I have seen nowhere on any of the evidence or workshop pages any acknowledgement that Hawkeye7 second-guessed me (much less an accusation of wheel-war against an admin decision I made), because, I presume, an admin decision only "counts" if it's a decision to block. That lack of acknowledgement is precisely what's led us into this cycle of hasty block-hasty unblock. The views of admins who prefer to discuss with someone before blocking them are essentially pushed aside by those who want to block.

I hope ArbCom, to the extent supported by current policy, can make clear that all explicit admin decisions "should not be reversed without good cause, careful thought and (if likely to be objected) usually some kind of courtesy discussion" per Administrators, not just the decisions that happen to add to an editor's block log. 28bytes (talk) 16:21, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't disagree on that; in my above section I was specifically referring to reversing of blocks/bans/other tangible logged decisions. If admins are doing their work properly, they'll see that in the log before they press the button. For things like a decision NOT to block, it's much easier to miss. You raise good points on that, but assuming good faith if I were to be an uninvolved third party observing a dispute, I simply might miss it. In short, the risk in those cases is not bad decision making, but simply not seeing the other admin's decision not to block. Also, presumably a decision TO block should stand on its own; if one admin decides not to, but another decides to do so, that second admin ought to be clearly within policy and have a good rationale for doing so -- since the split decision would imply that it's a borderline case. In a perfect world, everybody comes to the same decision. But that doesn't always happen, and I'm hesitant to place the blame on the second admin to come to the discussion for having a different viewpoint.  &rArr;   SWAT Jester    Son of the Defender  17:02, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Sure, it can be easy to miss a decision not to block; after all, there's not a "didn't block" log to check. Checking the talk page of the editor one is planning to block would seem like a prerequisite, though. (And in the specific case I bring up, Hawkeye7 does appear to acknowledge seeing my attempt to engage Malleus in discussion before blocking him.) The broader problem is that it's not always the case that one admin decides not to block, the second blocks; often, as in the Kaldari block, you have several admins advising against a block. Indeed, if there are a dozen admins that think a block isn't the best way to deal with a situation, and one that does, current practice (though, not, I should note, current policy) is that the one gets to trump the dozen – at least until one of the dozen removes the block, which generates more heat and accusations of wheel warring, second-mover advantage, etc., and eventually we end up here. I think all that can be avoided to some degree with a clear statement from ArbCom that the discouragement against reversal of admin actions in Administrators does not only apply to those considering overriding an admin's decision to block, but to those considering overriding a decision not to block. With, of course, the reasonable caveat that you point out, that blocking admins shouldn't be expected to hunt all over the wiki for such decisions prior to blocking. 28bytes (talk) 17:47, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Am I misreading or misunderstanding, 28, or is there a typo? "1. Mkativerata, as an uninvolved admin in the AN/I discussion, made the call not to unblock, and Kaldari second-guessed him and decided to block anyway; or" Should that be "made the call not to block"? Sandy Georgia (Talk) 19:01, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * D'oh! Yes, that was a typo. Thanks for the correction. 28bytes (talk) 19:03, 9 January 2012 (UTC)


 * One useful datum, which I ran, but only for a couple, would be edits to Malleus's talk page as of the date the admin in questioned blocked or unblocked Malleus. It might be some rough measure of involvement.  Not a very good one, or a complete one.  But possibly illuminating.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:26, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

User:John
There is no space in the table for unblocking admins, so I threw together a list of the contributions I made to this affair for convenience. --John (talk) 21:44, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * AN/I post justifying my unblock
 * Comment at Thumperward's talk regarding my unblock
 * Reply at my user talk to Thumperward's query about wheel-warring
 * AN/I post pointing out Hawkeye's uncivil "koala" comment after reblocking
 * Initial statement to Arbcom
 * Second statement acknowledging legitimate concerns about my being seen as potentially too involved to take admin action.

Moni3's unblocks
I've unblocked Malleus twice, as evident in the table. I included my reasons why in the evidence I presented here, and when that was too long, I offered a shorter version.

If you have questions that my evidence does not answer, or something regarding a different issue from what this case should be answering, please ask. A note on my talkpage may ping me more quickly. Although, that's relative. 24 hours for me is quickly. --Moni3 (talk) 22:41, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Unfilled sections
I started working on this the other night, but classes have resumed, so I am back to very little spare time. I may be able to work on it further on Friday and (maybe) some Saturday, but it would be good if some others could pitch in. Also, there is an error with the timeline in the Swatjester entry. The correct itimeline is in the above section from Balloonman. Lara 04:16, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I've filled in some, but I didn't follow all of the early incidents so I might have missued stuff. Karanacs (talk) 03:46, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

A return from the dead to make a comment
On one of my very rare returns to check this place, I saw a notice about this action, because I was mentioned in the evidence for action I took to unblock Malleus after a block was imposed that I think was partial and unsafe. In my resignation message here: I pointed out the reasons for my resignation: they were because even at that time, there was baiting of Malleus by some admins, when a block was improperly imposed upon him, I reverted it, as is or was allowed. Then my revert was itself reverted in a classic case of a wheelwar. Surprisingly, it was me who was criticized for my actions, and the wheel-warring admin escaped with little adverse comment! When the original blocking admin started to make unacceptable comments about me, I decided that was it! If the admin body as a whole did not see what they were becoming themselves, then I wanted no part in it any longer. So I resigned from being an admin and effectively ended my involvement with wikipedia. The original blocking admin then later made comments about my suitability as an admin, though I note that he was mildly told off for this. The whole set of events seemed to be a case of "Let's get Malleus, no matter what!" coupled with "anyone who supports Malleus must therefore be certain to be somehow unsuited for wikipedia." I am sorry to see that reading through much of this action just now (and being 8 hours ahead of GMT where I now live, it is now very late), it seems that what I feared was happening those years ago is getting a larger problem. DDStretch   (talk)  18:01, 14 January 2012 (UTC)