Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Media Viewer RfC/Proposed decision

11th august 2014?
Is the proposed decision imminent, or did I miss something? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.187.136.5 (talk) 01:55, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
 * There's a note on the Workshop page, which explains the delay - we're hoping to come up with a new date soon. Worm TT( talk ) 07:20, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm clearly in the wrong timezone.... maybe later :-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.187.136.5 (talk) 22:51, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Further postponement
As I just said over on the workshop talk page: "[...] due to ongoing developments and discussions (mainly on meta at Lila Tretikov's talk page and at the [now closed] poll on the German Wikipedia and on the wikimedia-l mailing list), we (the English Wikipedia ArbCom) are considering how best to proceed at this point. A proposed decision against this fast-moving background is not easy (and may no longer be desirable) and in any case is not going to come any time soon. We are aware of the note left by Philippe Beaudette about staff accounts and we are aware of the self-requested removal of local administrator rights by Erik Moeller. I would provide links to all the above, but am a bit short of time right now. We hope to have a formal update/motion by the end of the weekend." Carcharoth (talk) 22:54, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Update: A motion to suspend the case has been proposed: see Arbitration/Requests/Case/Media Viewer RfC/Proposed decision. Discussion of the motion should take place on this talk page (ideally in a new section below this one). Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 01:01, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Proposed motion: Case suspended

 * Please use this section for discussion of the motion proposed by Carcharoth to suspend the case.


 * Why bother suspending, just close it. Do a motion from point 2, and leave it at that. The rest of it is immaterial and outside of Arbcom's scope. It's not as though you're going to block the WMF from English Wikipedia if it doesn't do things the way you want. Employee relations and discipline is the job of the employer, not Arbcom.  Determining whether global cross-wiki policy of the WMF is acceptable is absolutely not Arbcom's job, it is the job of the global community. Opening the case was a serious overreach .  Risker (talk) 02:42, 25 August 2014 (UTC)


 * You are making some pretty serious allegations about the committee's motivations in opening the case, . Care to substantiate them? T. Canens (talk) 18:50, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Do you want me to do that publicly? Risker (talk) 18:53, 25 August 2014 (UTC) Actually, because it relates to in camera discussions that started when I was still on the Committee, I will need to see a majority-supported motion to authorize me to disclose this information. We never did get around to approving a method by which (former) arbitrators could publicly discuss exchanges on the mailing list or other non-public forums. Risker (talk) 19:03, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Considering that this case request started well after you left the committee, I'm quite interested in what private information you have about the committee's motivations in accepting this case, especially as I, for one, never considered the issue you are referring to when deciding whether to vote to accept. T. Canens (talk) 19:15, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Given that I have not publicly identified that issue, I'm not sure how you can be certain of that. Risker (talk) 19:19, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Because I never considered "other discussions that have nothing to do with this case"? T. Canens (talk) 19:48, 25 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Describing Lila's post as an announcement of initiatives to improve working practices was charitable beyond all reason. The discussion at Lila's talk page has made it clear that Lila and Jan-Bart place editors at a lower priority than either the reader or the whims of WMF staff. There's no intent to improve working practices: there's an intent to put a coat of shiny paint on the concept that editors' opinions should be ignored.&mdash;Kww(talk) 03:19, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * This case was not accepted for no reason and WMF's statements do not excuse the matter. ARBCOM should also recall that they were elected to arbitrate on behalf of Wikipedians, not to play nice with the folks in SoMa. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 03:33, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Actually, Arbcom is elected to resolve disputes that the community is unable to resolve by any other means. They are absolutely not elected to "arbitrate on behalf of Wikipedians". According to the community approved arbitration policy, they are not elected or authorized to negotiate on behalf of English Wikipedia or represent English Wikipedia to the rest of the WMF projects/board/staff, and historically when they've stuck their foot in that direction, it's always turned out badly. Risker (talk) 03:44, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * "community approved" refers to Arbitration/Policy/Update and ratification presumably. --MZMcBride (talk) 12:53, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * You are, of course, correct. I was inelegant in my statement. ARBCOM took this case recognizing that the problem needed arbitration. While I'm glad to see the WMF make conciliatory statements, I have doubts that the issues are resolved and closure would therefore be inappropriate. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 22:53, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * The amendments made by the WMF are precisely what we've been asking for &mdash; the question is, will a 60-day waiting period suffice for gauging whether or not these initiatives are actually implemented? Should we instead close this RfAr indefinitely without prejudice against re-opening it later if problems persist? Kurtis (talk) 03:55, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * While I am heartened by Lila's words, & her interest in talking with average volunteers like me, we are not not out of the woods yet. I don't mean to be pessimistic, we are just beginning to avoid a crisis -- & these early steps could falter & everything could continue to fall apart. People at the German Wikipedia are still unhappy & despite everything could decide to fork. -- llywrch (talk) 05:01, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'm going rephrase my objections. (I should have gone to bed instead of stayed up to respond to this.) There are, in essense, three points to this case:
 * Eloquence's behavior
 * Whether the Foundation has control over some or all of the MediaWiki software used by the English Wikipedia
 * And the political angle -- How does this effect the current crisis over Superprotect, which may cause the German Wikimedians to fork?
 * The other possible points, IMHO, aren't as critical. Failure to act on these would only make a mess of things.
 * I think it's fair to say that the ArbCom has to power to sanction anyone for misbehavior on the English Wikipedia, no matter who they are -- a Foundation employee, Jimmy Wales, the leader of any World Power, or even me. The question there is whether Eloquence could have handled the issue more in line with the community standards. (I think he could have, but that's immaterial.) I also think it's fair to say that the ArbCom could say they have no power over the second. (Although I think they do, in certain special cases, but again that's immaterial.) As for the political angle, I worry that if the ArbCom dismisses this case & the Germans fork, sincere communications between the community in the English Wikipedia & the Foundation will be more difficult. One possible conduit between the two -- the ArbCom -- will have discredited itself in the eyes of many English language Wikipedians, by appearing to be on the side of the Foundation. I'd rather see either a decision on this case, or it being suspended for a set period of time. -- llywrch (talk) 20:39, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

}} Risker's out of order harassment is just that. Harassment. Those that want to read her semantic limbo can open the collapse. Risker, you are explicitly warned that your "ArbCom doesn't have juristiction" was nullified as soon as the committee voted to accept. Undo it again and I 'will report you to AN3 for edit warring.
 * Of course it should be closed. It's always been a turkey of a case due because WMF is beyond the scope of Arbcom's remit. NE Ent 09:51, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Close per NE Ent and Risker is more reasonable; but if you suspend, do it by the second motion, no reason to leave more process hanging. Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:24, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment: While WMF's actions and Eloquence's actions are encouraging, this does not handle the behind the scenes voting for themselves of superprotect which even superceedes local burecrat options. Even in it's current form Requests for comment/Superprotect rights clearly indicates hostility and distrust of the foundation. ArbCom is the penultimate branch of the enWP dispute resolution tree (with Jimbo being the final appeal).  ArbCom should move forward since the foundation (and it's VP of Engineering) decided to move forward with a strategy to undercut any consensus that may have formed at a individual language edition by implementing without time to object to the suprerprotect level. Hasteur (talk) 12:39, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Please read the arbitration policy: "The Committee has no jurisdiction over: (i) official actions of the Wikimedia Foundation or its staff; (ii) Wikimedia projects other than the English Wikipedia; or (iii) conduct outside the English Wikipedia."  The actions you refer to are (i) official actions of the WMF through its staff, (ii) occurred in the MediaWiki software, a project outside of English Wikipedia, and (iii) any conduct related to the Superprotect rights occurred outside the English Wikipedia. You are proposing no solutions here, Hasteur, only a sustained frustration. Arbcom can't change global software, and it can't tell the WMF what to do on other projects.  Well, it can try, but it will only highlight how genuinely impotent they are on these issues, and will reduce their ability to command respect and exercise authority on this project.  Risker (talk) 12:54, 25 August 2014 (UTC)


 * We're discussing the suspension proposal here. Your arguments might at most be valid for a closing proposal, but none of them for or against a suspension. --Trofobi (talk) 13:31, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, given one of the proposals is a closing proposal, I think you're pretty much incorrect. Nonetheless, there is no point in suspending a case when the reasons given for suspension (staff username policy and implementation of global processes) are outside of the scope of Arbcom. I think what you're looking for is Govcom, which doesn't exist on English Wikipedia. Risker (talk) 13:42, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Risker, when it's clear that your in the linty depths of the foundation's pocket Striked under duress after threats, I can only surmise that any argument you make is 100% invalid.  ArbCom is the absolute right place for this presentation of concerns by the enWP community in a unified maner.  AN/ANI won't solve this problem because of muckrakers, like yourself, attempting to polish the turd that is MediaViewer to make it shine like gold and argue it into a no-consensus-no-action.  RFCs won't work because the foundation (through it's VP of Engineering) has officially said that they're not going to pay attention to any individual language RFC to not accept the software.  Taking the explicitly hostile action of SuperProtect clearly shows that the VP of Engineering refuses to assume good faith on the part of the enWP community to chose for itself and the flippiant "Cutting the legs out from underneath individual language WPs consensus: Soon" is yet annother nail in the coffin of Engineering's list of failures.  ArbCom is the right place to have a unified "The English language Wikipedia does not agree with these changes and expresses serious concerns about the actions taken in the name of the Foundation." statement.  But go ahead and continue to show how the foundation is pulling your puppet strings, it makes for highly entertaining dance numbers from what  Stricken under threats/duress of clerk I used to consider a highly respected volunteer. Hasteur (talk) 17:08, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I have no idea why you think I'm in the WMF's pocket - I know for a fact that Erik Moeller was rather shocked that I came out on this side of the issue, and he wasn't the only one, given how I've disagreed with other WMF Engineering processes and actions (you might find my posts to Wikitech-L informative) - but given that the RFC that was involved was ridiculously flawed, it's not possible for anyone to say what the enwiki position is here, and so much has happened since that RFC (including the development of WMF positions and policies which are outside of Arbcom's scope) that there's nothing here for Arbcom to comment on. Events have overtaken the faulty RFC, to the point that any interpretation of it is moot. Risker (talk) 17:36, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Tit for tat. Your repeated arguments of ArbCom doesn't have the authority to hear this case over and over again have transcended the levels of misperception, accident, incompetence, and now willful disregard.  I will be happy to strike my 17:08 response when you strike your 13:42 response as the purpose of this section is to discuss the motion, not reiterate the same tired points that have been disproven multiple times by both the community and ArbCom itself. Surely you can agree that since there is no GovCom that the only place that is truly authorized to stand in for the will of the community is ArbCom (since Jimbo could not conceievably be asked to use the Founder's privilege to disagree with the foundation). Hasteur (talk) 17:52, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * We're not in grade school, Hasteur, and I think you're above this sort of behaviour. I agree with Roger's second motion (closing the case). I do not believe that the Arbitration Committee has the authority to do what you are asking it to do: it's something specifically identified in the arbitration policy as being out of scope, and after having spent five years on the committee, and having actively participated in developing that policy, which was ratified by the community at large, I'm pretty sure I understand its limits better than many other users including most people who are commenting here. Nobody's come up with any potential remedies on the workshop or anywhere else that would (a) have the effect you desire and (b) fall within Arbcom's scope. In fact, the closest thing to such remedies as proposed by sitting arbitrators (who I can assume are trying to work within the policy) are already in process. There's no enwiki position here, at least not one you can point to with any certainty. And Arbcom has never been intended to be the "voice of English Wikipedia" to the WMF; in fact, I'd suggest to you that the community has always been highly restrictive of Arbcom's ability to act as a representative voice in that way. Nobody's elected to Arbcom to be that kind of voice.  Risker (talk) 18:01, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Undoing Hasteur's attempt to gloss over his allegations that the WMF is paying me to take this position; as I've told him already, I am absolutely not in the WMF's pocket on this issue, or any other. Hasteur is advocating that the Arbitration Committee take up the role of "Voice of English Wikipedia" in respect of this matter, and I have asked him to retract that allegation, which he has refused to do. Now, let's look at it realistically:  it would be a lot easier for the WMF if Arbcom was the voice of enwiki, because then it would only have to worry about dealing with a single committee instead of a whole community.  The enwiki community, and the committee itself, have eschewed granting that level of authority to the Arbitration Committee, and I think there is good reason for it: there is no way that any 14 people speak for all of this community on every issue. If we want such a committee, we should be developing it separate to this body, and with conscious thought as to its implications.  Risker (talk) 18:37, 25 August 2014 (UTC)


 * You can collapse that all you want, Hasteur, but you still have not refuted my argument. Arbcom had scope in accepting the case to desysop Eloquence, which is now mooted with his resignation of adminship, and the case closure motion meets that. Arbcom has taken on cases several times in the past when it has ultimately determined in some manner that it does not have jurisdiction in whole or in part. More importantly, you have still not retracted your personal attack.  Please do so.  Nobody's paying me to put up with behaviour like yours.  Risker (talk) 18:48, 25 August 2014 (UTC)


 * The arguments given for suspending are missing the point: Neither the "notice of intention" to change WMF account naming, nor Erik's (de)adminship, nor the announcement of plans for future working practice changes have any effect on the current Media Viewer (and Superprotect threat) status. Please keep up working on this, dear ArbCom, don't let anyone belittle your powers and abilities to find solutions for the community. --Trofobi (talk) 13:31, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose. I agree with Trofobi. Nowhere in Lila's post do I see any guarantee that the Media Viewer issue will be dealt with the way it should: that is, taking into account the opinion of the editors. On the contrary there is a tone of authority in her speach which leaves no doubts on which side the power is and should continue to be. Although ArbCom was not created to solve this kind of conflict, it is the very best we have right now. Without it I frankly feel helpless on this. Alvesgaspar (talk) 14:35, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Support immediate closure as moot as proposed by Roger Davies. Möller/Eloquence has handed in his tools, no consensus as to whether overriding consensus of the MV RfC was an office action or not, I'm afraid the arbs will get trapped in a maze without Ariadne's thread. In the meantime, you all consider signing the open letter to the WMF, Möller has asked for more input, trying to disqualify the outcome of the MV RfC because of the alleged low participation, so he definitely should get as much feedback as possible. Kraxler (talk) 15:31, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose suspension. Go back to the first statement in the case, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Media_Viewer_RfC#Statement_by_28bytes . Read carefully his list of four questions.  These questions are about the relationship between WMF and the community in general.  None of them are resolved by recent events.  It's true that questions about Eloquence and about having separate WMF and non-WMF account roles also came up, and are arguably resolved by recent events, but they're nowhere near the whole dispute.  Ken Arromdee (talk) 19:06, 25 August 2014 (UTC)


 * NYB: Regarding this edit, I think you wanted "throats" rather than "threats". --MZMcBride (talk) 00:59, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, I did, thanks (although the original wasn't completely off, either). Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:36, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

60 days from now
So it appears that the motion to simply shelve this case for 60 days is likely to pass, as it is now one vote shy of acceptance. It identifies three factors that the Committee considers pertinent to the resolution of the case. Let's look at what possible outcomes could happen next.

1. The WMF has introduced a new staff user account policy, prohibiting the use of the same account for both work and non-work purposes. With effect from 15 September 2014, staff are required to segregate their work and non-work activities into separate work and non-work accounts, with the work accounts containing the identifier '(WMF)' in the account name.


 * This is a staff policy, and it is up to the employer to enforce it; Arbcom isn't the employer. Otherwise, according to current English Wikipedia policy and the WMF terms of use, provided that a user identifies their "conflict of interest" in certain designated ways (e.g., identifying their employer on their userpage), there are no grounds to take any action against non-WMF labeled staff accounts. To do so requires changes to both the English Wikipedia username policy and the sockpuppetry policy.  Those are policies carefully constructed by the community over the course of years, and Arbcom cannot change them by fiat. (Note - I have no problem with the community as a whole reviewing and revising these policies, and think it might very well be a good time to re-examine the username policy especially to consider not only the WMF staff issue, but also the manner in which we might want to identify "official" accounts of companies and organizations. The German Wikipedia seems to have a fairly effective process that we might want to port here.)

2. has resigned as an administrator on the English Wikipedia. While this does not prevent him holding staff administrative rights on a designated work account, it does mean that as he resigned the tools while an arbitration case was pending, he may only regain administrative rights on his personal non-work account via a successful request for adminship.


 * Well, yes. In fact, I'd suggest the committee consider separating this out and passing it right now, without waiting the 60 days; otherwise, if for some reason Eloquence asked for his admin tools back, it will be up to the bureaucrats to decide whether or not he can have them. (I have no reason at all to believe he would do that.)  This is a pretty standard clause and doesn't need to wait two months.

3. The WMF has announced a number of initiatives aimed at improving working practices. This includes a new software implementation protocol which provides for incremental roll-outs of upgrades and new features.


 * Well, yes, too. But you'll notice this discussion is a global one, not specific to English Wikipedia, and it is not being held on this project.  This is where Arbcom really has some problems justifying their position here. What if a majority of global participants support steps that some or all Enwiki arbitrators don't like, or if global participants disagree with steps that some or all Enwiki arbitrators think is useful?  What actions does the committee have available to it if it doesn't like the process that's decided, or if it doesn't think the discussion is concluded?  Even the current motion is very unclear.  Is there a reason why the Arbitration Committee is not encouraging all editors to participate in these discussions?  Have any arbitrators participated in these discussions and, if so, as individuals or as representatives of the committee?

Arbcom can do better here, and I'm afraid that putting off these questions for another 60 days is unhelpful to any possible resolution. In fact, it's more likely to suggest to those who have the most strong feelings about this matter that there's no point in bothering to try and resolve the situation, because Arbcom will come back two months from now and trash whatever solution others come up with if it is not to their liking. Either deal with them now and have a proper case (I don't think it's worthwhile, but at least I understand the logic being put forward by others on this point), or don't bother. Risker (talk) 15:35, 26 August 2014 (UTC) Revised Risker (talk) 19:07, 26 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Meanwhile, I've created two RFCs, one about WMF staff usernames on the username policy and one about WMF staff being permitted to have both work and volunteer accounts on the sockpuppetry policy. That will address Item #1 of the motion, leaving only #3 unaddressed. I'd still like to hear what the committee would require in order to close the case without further action in 60 days with respect to Item #3. Risker (talk) 23:58, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Speaking for myself only, I'd say that our closing the case in 60 days without further action (other perhaps than precatory ones) is both the hoped-for and also the most likely outcome. It is only in the event that something goes off the rails in the pending and ongoing discussions that we might want to step back in, if there is a useful way for us to do so. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:05, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
 * What would the committee consider as going off the rails? I think it's important that the people who are expecting arbcom to do more here are made aware of the threshold at which the case would be re-opened, so that nobody is labouring under false expectations.  I recognize that it's an evolving situation, but I can't recall a situation where the committee has suspended a case without giving a pretty clear idea of what would have to happen in the interim period, or what would happen at the end of the suspension period. The absence of some sort of "bottom line" just leaves people with hope that you'll reopen the case in two months and go after the WMF if the WMF hasn't done XYZ or has done MNOP. It's not fair to give people that kind of hope if it's really not in the cards.  (And I'm fairly certain those who think I'm being a pain aren't all that happy that I'm playing both sides here. But despite my disagreement with the position of my colleagues on this page, I respect their right to hold those opinions and I do want them to be treated fairly and to be told what the expectations are.)  Risker (talk) 00:42, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Also noting that none of the arbitrators have identified what must happen within 60 days for them to be satisfied that this case can be closed. Only Carcharoth has articulated anything that he thinks still needs to be resolved, and there is no indication that his opinions are shared by his peers. Arbcom is suspending a case with the expectation that a group that is not a party to the case will meet unspecified expectations of the committee in a manner that is also unspecified, and no manner in which to measure whether or not those expectations are met, nor a description of what result can be reasonably anticipated if the unspecified, unmeasurable actions aren't taken. Meanwhile, I see no effort on the part of any arbitrators to try to facilitate any kind of solution here. Given that one of the underlying themes of this case has been allegations of a lack of transparent and/or public communication, one would think that anything Arbcom has to say about this matter is being said publicly and not through any other channels - either by individual arbitrators participating in discussions, or by an appointed arbitrator responding with recommendations generated by the committee. Risker (talk) 21:31, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Noting Community Engagement (Product)/Media Viewer consultation.


 * Risker, I've not had time in the past few days to respond here, so what I'm going to say is going to be quite long (because you and others, but you in particular, have said quite a lot in the interim), so bear with me while I try and work through this and respond to some at least of what you and others have said.
 * As you know, I and others (both arbs and non-arbitrators) put a lot of work into drafting the proposals put forth on the workshop page and in responding to them (in my case, that was many hours of work). To take that and come up with a fully fledged proposed decision is not easy - those arbitrators (current and former) who have actually drafted cases will know that.
 * Bearing that context in mind, the situation I was faced with coming up to 22nd August was that matters had taken on a life of their own, with reams of discussions occurring in numerous locations across Wikimedia projects, and several key matters had changed which would have required making changes and additions to the proposed decision. With hindsight, it may have been better to make those changes and move to voting, but following initial mailing list discussion I decided to put up a motion to suspend the case (to wait and see what transpired). It soon became clear that there was significant sentiment towards closing the case (or putting a sunset clause in to close it automatically), rather than just waiting. It is practically unprecedented for a case that had got as far in the drafting stages as this one had to face that kind of abrupt closure (only the Tea Party case comes close, and that was suspended for a month and then resumed).
 * One of my concerns is that some of the points raised during the case will now get forgotten as people move on (in particular, the admonition that would have been made for admins to not mess with common.js without knowing what they are doing). Some of these points are ones that you pressed hard to have clarified. I am going to try and raise some of them myself outside this case at appropriate moments, but if I don't I hope you will take some of them forward.
 * On the RfCs that you have already started (and thanks for starting those), I hope you get sufficient input to those to actually effect the changes you are proposing (on the username strings, you may find this earlier discussion useful).
 * Looking further afield, some matters appear to have been integrated into policy without any discussion. The English Wikipedia's protection policy has had this section on superprotection added under 'Office Actions'. Should that have been discussed first, or an RfC run? The creation of the 'superprotect' right got lots of reaction at the German Wikipedia because it was used there (I see that use has now been lifted), and there is the ongoing discussion at meta that you refer to, but this is a prime example of a global right being created and granted with little discussion.
 * Again, looking back to an earlier discussion (two years ago), you participated in this discussion (when the Education Program rights and namespaces were created). Those were local rights, not global ones, which may make all the difference, but the points I noticed there were that you said "why it was decided that the creation of a whole new user rights hierarchy without consultation with the community was the appropriate thing to do" and AGK said "the documentation surrounding these permissions certainly needs to be sorted out". This was remarkably similar to the reaction I had when looking into the history and documentation of the 'staff' global rights group. The extent of those rights is poorly documented and one of the things on my list was a note to ask Philippe if he had time to return to update the documentation on meta (the incomplete table of reasons for each global permission was particularly glaring), as well as the documentation here on the English Wikipedia (someone recently on Lila's meta talk page confused global staff rights and 'ordinary' staff accounts [those without the global staff rights] - so clearly the distinction is not as clear as it could be).
 * On the same topic, the German Wikipedia created a template (Vorlage:GlobalGroup) that they have placed on the user pages of those who hold the global staff rights - that might be something that could be done here as well.
 * I do have more thoughts on this bouncing around in my head, but I'll leave that for now and come back to this later. For now, I'll say that the expectation I had for what would happen in 60 days (probably should have been 30 days, but a bit late for that now) was that we would review what would happen and then the still-relevant elements of the draft that I had prepared (with help from others) would be put forward for voting. It seems unlikely that this will happen now, but I hope that what was done on the workshop was helpful to you and others in getting a general overview of some parts of all this. Carcharoth (talk) 00:14, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
 * This would be the draft that has no proposed remedies, right? Believe me, if I'd thought that the creation of a whole new rights hierarchy without community input was in arbcom's jurisdiction, I would have brought a case. Even farther from your jurisdiction are global rights - take that case to Meta for an RFC - or staff rights, which have always been the WMF's to design and hand out, even when they used to do it in dumb ways. We don't even require local admins to flag their accounts, why would arbcom think it had the right to insist that users with a global right have to flag theirs?  It really seems that motions 1&2 assumes that Arbcom has some kind of power to control the short- and longterm global outcomes here (or alternately to try to exempt English Wikipedia from those global outcomes).  Superprotection is here for good, in some form or other; nobody bothers to say this, but bad edits to common.js are most commonly a problem on other smaller projects with few admins, and this is something that's been needed for a long time for other projects. I first heard it discussed before I was an administrator; it's been coming for years. The arbcom of one project, even the "biggest" project, isn't going to get some sort of veto on the outcome of the various discussions at Meta being held with the global community.  English Wikipedians would be spitting nails if an arbcom from another project was accorded that kind of authority, nobody should expect it to be accorded to our arbcom. However, if you guys want to make comments about local processes (e.g., RFCs), this would be the time to do it, and you don't need to wait 60 days to do so.  Risker (talk) 00:48, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Risker, you don't have to respond in a confrontational manner. I took the time to thank you for starting those RfCs (and pointed out some other things), and I may well be the only other arbitrator that bothers to reply to you here. I tried to get across to you the amount of effort put into this case, but you chose to ignore that. Can you not empathise with me on this? I'm not in any way suggesting that ArbCom should require things or insist on things. Is that really what has been underlying all this - some fear on your part that ArbCom would do that? All that would have come out of the case would have been recommendations for anyone to take forward if they wished to do so. You might see that as a particularly useless outcome, but I think that sort of advisory approach does have a legitimate role after there has been a period of sorting through a complex matter and laying it out so things become clearer and everyone is aware of the key points (too often, people end up with different views on something merely because they have read different accounts of the same events). What I was pointing out with the labelling matter was that the German Wikipedia appears to have chosen to label accounts of those with global rights, and that this could be done here (though hovering with the cursor over someone's name shows their global rights in italics). How do you get from that to some power-hungry ArbCom trampling over rights left right and centre? Carcharoth (talk) 01:52, 29 August 2014 (UTC) On edits to the MediaWiki interface/namespace, this RfC on meta on the global interface right ('editinterface') may be relevant.
 * I'm not getting to "power-hungry Arbcom", Carcharoth, but you're really making it very easy for anyone reading those motions to come to that conclusion; I am just very much of the impression that you really have no idea how the committee's decision-making process is coming across. At this point, Arbcom isn't acting in an advisory fashion. Keeping this RFAR open (even by suspending it) is not advisory, it is saying "doesn't matter what you do in the next few months, we're going to pass judgment on it, but we're not going to tell you what we want to see". That's the message the suspended case sends. Sure you can suspend the case, but by doing so, you remove yourself from acting in any advisory fashion; there is an element of coercion in anything you say or do. If any individual arbitrator, or even the committee as a whole (if it can come to some consensus on various points) wants to participate in the discussions, to advise, you folks have to get out there and participate. I have no doubt that your opinions would be considered with due weight, particularly as many of you have already given the issues quite a bit of thought. Sitting and waiting for someone else/the WMF to do something, and then move on, only to get hauled back by arbcom because a few of you have decided there was some sort of problem with what got done, isn't being advisory. And if the committee is unable or unwilling to put its recommendations forward, either because there is no internal consensus or because ...well, I'm going to assume good faith and stick to that... I know that you folks have been spending a lot of time thinking about this matter. That this is where you are at now tells me that all that thinking hasn't led you to any kind of consensus. It's no surprise to me, having worked with most of you for some time.  I'm just a bit shocked that it comes as such a surprise to you.  Risker (talk) 02:21, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Responding briefly here, as we can't go on typing long spiels forever... The assumption running through all this is that the remedies would have taken a particularly radical and GovCom-type form. I can assure you anything I had proposed wouldn't have done. I said above that they would most likely have been recommendations (other than remedies that involved user conduct). I can go into more detail on that, but given that there may very well be no remedies forthcoming I think it would be best if everyone avoids speculating about what the remedies might have been. There really is no point in doing that sort of speculation (it leads too quickly into bad-faith assumptions). I think it would have been possible to bring this case to a reasonably satisfactory conclusion. Those who think the case should never have been opened will, of course, beg to differ. But at this point I think we should just agree to differ and move on. Carcharoth (talk) 14:27, 30 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Well, I was neutral on taking this case, although skeptical as many of the arbs were at the time. As you know, I then spent some bit of time on it, and I do not feel it wasted regardless, it was my time to spend. But if it comes down to "admins should not do things, where they don't know what they are doing" while certainly right and helpful, it's also restating the obvious.  The things from my research that seem less obvious to some users and might be helpful are: users don't own the domain, so there is no point in fostering that fantasy; and it's a WMF governance issue, and Arbcom is not for or about WMF governance.  Some of that clarity for people not inclined to live in fantasy, may have been achieved by this case, regardless of whether there is a "final recommendation" in the form of an unenforceable decision.  A side bit, is the somewhat ironic circumstance in which CONEXCEPT, while recognizing the above reality, is also policy that recognizes that Arbcom decisions are not subject to consensus, and for Arbcom ever to work around Conexcept in the case of the WMF and say 'yes, but' is just Arbcom delegitimizing itself. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:42, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the thoughts, Alan (I hope you don't mind me calling you that). It has been a pleasure discussing these matters with you within the framework of the case. I'm not as sanguine as you about whether the amount of time I put into the case was wasted or not (though one person did thank me in person for it, which was nice of them), but regardless of that I do think having to formally present things as was done here helped to some degree. One thing I hope the case did do (for those following it) is make them appreciate a bit more the scale of the global (Wikimedia-wide) issues, and the need to engage at the global level (on many issues, not just software issues). I also hope that those who spend most of their time on global issues have also come to realise the need to recognise that many people just don't have the time to spend following global venues (e.g. the Mediawiki wiki and the meta wiki; and to a lesser extent Commons) and can be parochial and insular and stay on their home wiki and discuss things there. That is not even touching on the language barrier issues. Breaking down some of those barriers and getting more participation in the right places is not an easy task, and I hope those doing that (I met some of them at Wikimania) manage to achieve that. Carcharoth (talk) 14:27, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
 * And thank you! (That's why you get paid the big bucks, right. :) )  (As another aside, I do not mind regrading the name, although I wonder sometimes if it gives third parties a false idea of an intimacy that does not exist, but if we always worry about third parties, I suppose we would be paralyzed.) Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:56, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

FYI, not strictly MV-related, but surely related to other new software [test] deployments: ANI report and related discussion. JMP EAX (talk) 02:58, 6 September 2014 (UTC)