Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Joefromrandb and others

Statement by Floq
I was pinged in MrX's statement, but don't have much to say except: --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:37, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I like and respect both MrX and Joe
 * It really depresses me that it's come to this
 * I agree things shouldn't keep going the way they are, but I'm at a loss for any further productive non-drastic suggestions
 * Sigh.

Statement by Drmies
What Floq says. Drmies (talk) 17:16, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Toddst1
I said this in the last RFAR for this editor and it still applies: At this point, I feel Joefromrandb's chronic and epic incivility and battleground behavior is a strong net-negative on the project. It's not about profanity. The problem doesn't seem to be solvable other than through this channel. Toddst1 (talk) 19:39, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Beyond My Ken
Because AN/I does not seem to be able to resolve this issue, I think there's no choice except for the Committee to take up this case. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:41, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Robert McClenon
Three months ago User:TomStar81 first closed a thread at WP:ANI involving User:Joefromrandb and then posted a Request for Arbitration. I think that Tomstar81’s action was misunderstood. It was thought that he had first closed the thread and so resolved the matter, and then that he changed his mind. What I saw was that he had closed the thread as not resolvable by the community, and so a matter for ArbCom. It was also my understanding that Tom was not so much asking the ArbCom to sanction Joe as to give long serious quasi-judicial consideration to what to do not only about Joe but about editors who taunt and provoke Joe.

I noted that Joe had come to the attention of a community procedure four years ago, a Request for Comment on a User, a procedure that is no longer used, but was closed inconclusively with a reminder to all (not just to Joe) that Wikipedia is not a battleground. In response to the recent filing, User: Opabinia regalis, with the best of intentions, asked Joe whether he was willing to make one last effort to change his behavior and try editing collaboratively. The ArbCom then declined the case. Joe has not materially changed his behavior (and it may have been naively optimistic of the ArbCom to think that he would). It was clear that the ArbCom really really really didn’t want to take on a case that would have no winners and would leave no one really satisfied. However, there is a problem, that isn’t just Joe. Joe is one of a set of highly productive but combative users who have enemies and who are easily provoked (like poking a bear). I proposed that the ArbCom try to craft some sort of remedy for editors like Joe, but perhaps the ArbCom didn’t understand that I was asking them for a solution to a larger problem than Joe, or perhaps the ArbCom didn’t want to solve problems.

Once again, I ask the ArbCom to accept this case, not just to sanction this editor, but to see if it is possible to craft a remedy for controversial editors, just as ArbCom has crafted a very effective remedy, discretionary sanctions, for controversial topics.

The community, which is seldom able to deal with divisive cases, just crafted an experimental remedy for contentious editors in the case of Darkness Shines and C.W. Gilmore, in which each editor leaves a Kelvin wake behind them that the other editor cannot trespass in. This illustrates that occasionally interesting remedies are available to reduce conflict in Wikipedia.

I ask the ArbCom to accept this case. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:37, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Follow-Up Thought
Regardless of whether some sort of expedited enforcement, such as discretionary sanctions, is appropriate for editors who are frequently provoked, ArbCom needs to recognize and address the problem of editors who are frequently and easily provoked. Both of the cases that ArbCom is in the process of accepting involve such editors, and something needs to be done about the toxicity resulting from those interactions. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:51, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Prhartcom
It is an honor to speak before this board. Joefromrandb first ventured onto the article this past summer. Their edits found errors and it was good that the article continued to improve. But with this user, the process was so painful. Their behavior was constantly rude and uncivil. I tried to plead to this user, but only insults and accusations were spit back. Lately, this person has offered this article only disruptive editing, shamlessly fanning flames of malcontent. From my observation, the cumulative edits this person has made are of not much substantive improvement to the article. Further, I recently challenged this person to actually edit the article to achieve what they were was so vehemently arguing about, and they pathetically refused. You see what I am saying: It doesn't matter if we permanently block this user: We are never going to see any real effort of work from this person. Like many others that I have seen come and go here, this person is mostly only able to argue and push the revert button. This person is not an editor. —Prhartcom ♥ 06:06, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Cullen 328
In the recent discussion at ANI, asked for a list of the "lies", and I agreed, adding that an accusation that another editor "lied" needed to be accompanied by diffs, or that the accusation should be withdrawn. Joe committed to providing the evidence promptly but has not followed through although several days have passed. It is common that editors will disagree as to how a source should be summarized, and good faith disagreements of this type should not be characterized as "lies" in the lack of very solid evidence. Since behavior of this type is an ongoing problem with this editor, I support acceptance of this case. Cullen328  Let's discuss it  06:33, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Statement by WBG
@OR&GR:--Joe has never been alerted about the USPOL DS either, per the edit-filter-logs. Winged Blades Godric 12:02, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Mendaliv
I comment only to address the issue of case scope, mostly in response to Robert McClenon's statement above, in which he asks the Committee to consider establishing a discretionary sanctions regime for "controversial editors". Should the Committee accept this case, I believe the case scope should be kept very narrow so as to preclude any such discretionary sanctions.

I say so not merely because of any number of standard objections there should be against the Committee encroaching upon matters nominally handled by the community at large, but also because I believe this would be a genuinely bad idea. One of the areas where the Committee has traditionally acted, and acted quite decently, from the very beginning is in holding full-dress cases to handle controversial, problematic editors that the community more generally could not handle. This is the Committee's wheelhouse, but there are longstanding checks in place to keep the Committee from becoming the general behavioral police on Wikipedia. The case request process, for instance, is precisely to ensure only the most serious problems are brought here, and that with lesser problems, the community needs to handle through community processes.

A general discretionary sanctions regime on "controversial editors"—however we define this—would also not do much substantively. At present, admins have broad discretionary powers to issue blocks for disruptive misconduct, which includes incivility and related problems. Moreover, AN/ANI can enact community sanctions, and though it often has difficulty doing so, that difficulty is in many ways a feature, protecting one of our core principles, that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. One of the most horrifying things I have seen in recent years has been calls to community ban people for being "time wasters". Fortunately, for the most part, the difficulty of establishing a consensus at AN/ANI usually stops such discussions from resulting in a ban.

What a discretionary sanctions regime would do is shift a large number of complex behavioral cases to AE, where the consensus required for sanctions is different. It would also allow appeals through ARCA, which sidesteps the entire case request process, as well as the traditional Committee case proceeding. I find this very troubling, and I don't think it's within the Committee's power to do. Even if it is, I believe it is a very bad idea. As such, should the Committee take up this case, it should explicitly foreclose any possibility of a general conduct discretionary sanctions regime. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 01:43, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Begoon
Notwithstanding Mendaliv's reasoned argument above, I would hate for the committee to lose sight of the most salient point made by RMC, which is that they should consider "what to do not only about Joe but about editors who taunt and provoke Joe", and, in my humble opinion, how much the latter part of that statement causes/mitigates the consideration of the first. There are, of course, two possible reasons that "the community has failed to handle an issue" - one being that there is a genuinely disruptive issue for which the community cannot agree upon a solution, the second being that the community has not acted because the vocal proponents of something being an issue requiring more action have failed to convince the community of the necessity of the further action they desire. They're not binary possibilities, though - and I can see elements of both here. -- Begoon 01:59, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Statement by Ritchie333
Seeing as I've just pinged Joe into a talk page discussion for an article that needs some serious work (and has done for about a decade now), I have to say that he has been a helpful editor who is here for the right reasons. I must have missed the motivation for an Arbcom case and all that's completely passed me by, except to say that called it pretty much perfectly here last time. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  23:30, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Net Negatives and Containment of Damage
I plan to propose the following language in the Workshop (when the Workshop is opened for participation):

Net negatives and containment of damage
A few editors, while intending to contribute positively to the maintenance of the encyclopedia, have a net negative effect, doing more harm than good, typically because of combativeness. In such cases, it may be necessary to consider whether the damage done by these editors can be contained by topic-bans or similar restrictions, or whether it is necessary to ban them from Wikipedia. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:11, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I think you would need to define and then prove with evidence that someone is a net negative. How could that be done? I'm not sure myself. Could a consensus of uninvolved editors make such a judgment? Sure, but then you wouldn't need arbcom. For arbcom to make this statement there would have to be an evidence based process to determine someone's overall effect of contribution. Mr Ernie (talk) 18:55, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Evidence of consistent disruptive behaviour (especially different types - edit warring, incivility, etc) across a range of areas. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 23:27, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes but you’d have to compare the negative with the positive to determine the net. Mr Ernie (talk) 21:58, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Questions
With regard to that principle, I ask User:Joefromrandb and any other parties to the case who they will identify as net negatives. I assume that some of the parties think that Joe is a net negative. Other editors have mastered the ignoble art of taunting Joe. Are some of them identified as net negatives?

If any person is considered a net negative at present, without any restrictions such as topic-bans or interaction bans, can their negative be contained by restrictions so that they become net positives to the project? Robert McClenon (talk) 04:11, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I understand the approach you are taking, but let's not ask editors to identify which other editors they identify as "net negatives." That may be the sort of conclusion that is reached (if not expressed in those terms) at the end of a case, but is an unduly harsh, confrontational, and conclusory way for us to ask editors to categorize one another. Plus, it assumes that the parties (or potential parties) to the case are familiar with the entire history of each other's editing, which in my experience is not generally true. It would be more productive and seemly, I think, to ask whether there are specific editors who have engaged in serious misconduct relevant to the subject-matter of the case, and what steps could be taken to address that alleged conduct. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:13, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

My Thoughts
My thoughts on the situation posed by User:Joefromrandb are as follows: User:Robert McClenon/Problematic Editors.

I think that the ArbCom should consider a two-sided question. First, is Joe an editor who currently does more harm than good? If so, how can his disruption be minimized? Can it be minimized by imposing any sort of limited bans on his involvement in Wikipedia, such as topic bans from areas in which he is disruptive, or by imposing sanctions on editors who have mastered the ignoble art of taunting another editor? Second, are there other editors who do more harm than good because they like to taunt Joe, which is easy and fun but wrong? If so, how can their disruption be minimized? Robert McClenon (talk) 20:58, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

I mentioned limited bans, and interaction bans are a form of limited bans, but I will note that two-way interaction bans are often counter-productive when applied to irascible editors and their opponents, because two-way interaction bans often result in baiting, so that any such interaction ban must be enforced strictly so that the slightest provocation is viewed as the first breach. If proactive enforcement is too much work, then two-way interaction bans don't work. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:58, 3 February 2018 (UTC)