Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Abd and JzG/Evidence

Durova's remark to me (Beetstra)
Durova, you say that there is consensus on the delisting discussion (diff). I still believe, that lenr-canr.org and newenergytimes.com were abused by certain accounts, and that that sort and size of abuse may be enough reason to continue blacklisting, and I suggested to take that into account (something which was not done in my opinion). The people speaking in favour of delisting all cite procedural errors and 'it was blacklisted to control content' as reasons (which may have been the reason, but procedural error is NOT a reason to delist per WP:NOTLAW). I also have, strongly, said that blacklisting as a content control is wrong, and should not be done, blacklisting should be to control abuse. --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:20, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Expanding on this. Pcarbonn was banned on the 15th of December, 2008. User:JzG did cleanup, and blacklisted the site on the 18th (IIRC). Part of abuse control, or was he really pushing his POV? --Dirk Beetstra T C 18:50, 25 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Because the issue of blacklisting policy may be of importance in this case (I'm a bit distressed about how broad it might be -- look at Beetstra's evidence, it's all over the map), I'll point out a problem with what Beetstra is claiming; he's mixing two different issues. First of all, with a normal blacklisting, the kind the list was designed to handle, there is extensive linkspam, the guidelines suggest that all other efforts should be exhausted before blacklisting. If there is a blacklisting like this, then content issues become relevant in whitelisting or delisting requests, because, in the presence of linkspam and a reasonable fear that it will resume, it becomes necessary to balance some content requirement with the danger. However, if there was no legitimate reason to blacklist in the first place, then the blacklisting is an error, and it should not be necessary to establish content necessity to remove it, the default should be a return to normal conditions: no blacklisting. The log page for the blacklist says that unlogged blacklistings may be removed from the blacklist. The JzG blacklistings mentioned in this case were unlogged, and had they been removed, there would have been far, far less disruption!


 * To restate this, minor alleged procedural errors are not a basis for delisting, but that assumes a blacklisting that is legitimate on the face, i.e., there was linkspam. In the newenergytimes.com blacklisting, there wasn't linkspam, there was only the kind of reasonable usage of links that would occur given the prominence of the site in the field (it's high, it's recommended in reliable source, etc.). When Beetstra closed the original delisting request with a decline, he gave content arguments, and no linkspamming had been alleged. Properly, though, he recused himself from considering the later delisting request. I'm puzzled by the length and content of his evidence presented, though. This is stuff for ArbComm? I used "strong terms" in a request to a blacklist administrator? Sympathy for that admin, fine, but what about the user he'd blocked? When I reviewed this history of this user, I practically started crying. The editor, Lyriker, did all this work, cross-wiki, adding links that, as far as I've been able to determine, were all legitimate. Lyriker created an article here on Lyrikline.org, and had apparently decided that links to the site would be a good addition to any article, on any 'pedia, on a poet hosted at that site. So he started adding them. The result, when Hu12 got involved? Everything was reverted, the article was deleted, and the editor was blocked, even though he'd stopped doing it -- apparently immediately -- when warned, and lyrikline.org was globally blacklisted. As de:User:Lyrik, or known associated IP, the editor started removing links, apologizing for having offended, then, midway though an alphabetical list, it looks to me like Lyrik simply gave up in despair and almost totally stopped editing. Lyriker's appeal to the admin here fell on deaf ears. So "totally wrong" is "harsh"? I can think of some pretty harsh things to say now, so I'll stop.


 * To follow up, lyrikline.org is still globally blacklisted, but -- thanks to Beetstra's response to my request -- the English language interface to lyrikline.org was whitelisted here. I was able to get the article undeleted and cleaned up and I have added a few links here plus several at de.wikipedia that had been removed by our linkspam volunteers. I have a list of hundreds of articles here that could benefit from a link to this site. The whole site is whitelisted at de.wikipedia. Admins from there had requested a delisting at meta and it was denied, because of all the "linkspam." That was actually legitimate content, and linkspamming (addition of many links without consensus) had stopped. I did not intend for this RfAr to address the problems with the blacklist, and there is a discussion of why at one of my rare AN/I reports, which shows a bit of my history with the blacklist administrators, and JzG pops in to comment as well. --Abd (talk) 04:19, 26 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Short reply to this, as I am not sure it is wise to pull lyrikline.org into this (though aspects of the case may be of interest here). However, Abd, I believe, strongly, that saying to people that they made a mistake in such a direct way, is not a way forward.  It blocks further discussion.  I am not arguing here if you are right on that point or not (that will be my opinion, and Hu12's opinion), all I am saying is that you were there jumping to a conclusion which did not include everything that is said, everything one should have known before making that statement, or everything that should be read, something that unfortunately happened more with you.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 07:29, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Lyrikline.org is only relevant here because you made it relevant by mentioning one of the first actions I took in that case, as I recall, on your evidence page. If my approach was unskillful, well, I apologize. I don't always get it right the first time; however, on balance, are you sure, Beestra, that this was something worthy of being brought before ArbComm as an example of my bad behavior? Indeed, I can't figure out what you are getting at in your evidence, and it seems you are using the evidence page to explore your feelings, which are somewhat conflicted. I'd recommend going over your evidence and either boiling it *way* down, or redacting it, maybe even withdrawing it, whatever you think best on careful review. As I've stated, I didn't want to bring all this to ArbComm because I believe that whatever differences exist can be worked out far less disruptively, and only brought to ArbComm if simpler efforts fail. But it's your call. --Abd (talk) 16:01, 26 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, this belongs in a separate thread, Abd. I was discussing here Durova's remark, not other points.  For me, lyrikline is not important here, but your way of communicating may be of interest here.  I have not finished with my evidence, either, and it may take weeks before I am, and I may redact it at some point if I wish.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 16:06, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi Beetstra, apologies for coming to this a little slowly: hadn't noticed until just now that there was a talk thread. Basically there are three separate questions here: Wikipedian discussions often get muddled when more than one issue matters, so it's possible that people have talked past each other in good faith for quite some time for that reason. I'll try to make my analysis as straightforward as possible. Third point first: JzG would have simplified things enormously if he had simply posted to one of the administrative boards, given his reasons why he thought these two sites should be blacklisted, and let someone more distant from the dispute make the determination.
 * 1) Was the blacklisting of lenr-canr meritorious?
 * 2) Was the blacklisting of newengergytimes meritorious?
 * 3) Independent of 1 and 2, if any action were to be taken should JzG have done it?

The blacklist iself is a last resort. For example of an unreliable domain that was operated by an abusive editor and is not blacklisted, compare here to this long term abuse report. As of this writing it is linked from 25 Wikipedia pages and should probably be delinked from most of them: among the reasons the fellow got sitebanned was because he mocked up his pet theories on a PDF file to resemble a scholarly journal, and he used sock IPs to insert citations to himself and shift the content of a featured article. But he didn't actually spam his domain, and to the best of my knowledge nobody else spams it deliberately either. The domain just happens to be one of the top Google returns for a search on Joan of Arc and a lot of people don't know how to distinguish a reliable source from an unreliable one.

Every now and then I double check that domain and other problematic domains for overuse. A greater concern is contributory copyright infringement and unreliable citations at music articles. Yet it isn't the owners of YouTube and lyrics sites that insert those links into our articles and occasionally those links aren't copyright infringement. Where we get more deliberate spamming is in the textile arts--where mom and pop outfits (emphasis on mom) often come along and overload the articles with outgoing links. It's seldom that any of them are persistent enough that blacklisting becomes a serious consideration.

Ideally, what I would have liked to have seen happen months ago when I questioned JzG's action a few months back would have been for him to have removed both domains from the blacklist procedurally--just to get the recusal issue off the table--and then we'd sit down and have a talk about what blacklisting standards ought to be. Whatever people agreed upon we'd implement uniformly. So if lenr-canr and newenergytimes went back onto the blacklist then quite possibly some of these other sites ought to go onto it too.

What's been tough from this perspective is to see the recusal issue itself largely overlooked in favor of discussions of the blacklist merits. Recusal isn't a mere technicality: I took Jossi to arbitration because he failed to observe a commonsense understanding of recusal when he weighed in at an arbitration enforcement thread; I took Bishonen to RFAR because she blocked someone with whom she was in a direct conflict; I submitted evidence against Alkivar because he page protected articles that he reverted to a preferred version in order to advance a ban-evading editor's POV. The fact is, very few people have the patience and courage to stand up against that--even when the misuse of administrative powers is obviously deliberate. One would hope that all Wikipedians who care about the integrity of our processes would treat recusal as a serious matter: the chilling effect that results is a very serious concern. Durova Charge! 20:49, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Gee, I thought so too! I would not have dared to stand up against JzG's repeated barrage of arguments' claims that I was beating a dead horse, and choruses of boos from his supporters, if I didn't know that I was standing up for fundamental policy and for what I believe is a silent majority, that often only becomes visible when an issue is finally raised with clarity in a place they can see. Thanks, Durova. --Abd (talk) 21:57, 26 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks Durova for the reply. I agree, and I am (maybe yet) not touching the question if what JzG did was right.  My point in the evidence here, is there are many editors here, including User:Abd and others, who have said repeatedly that newenergytimes.com was never misused/abused, and was not spammed, and that they have not seen evidence for that (recent example of that claim: here), while I have been naming, since my first decline, abusive accounts.  I hence strongly dispute those comments, as they are simply not true, there has been seriously questionable use, and it did not stop years ago or something like that, it has been ongoing, and has included site owners, multiple IPs, and User:Pcarbonn.  I refused the first de-listing request because of those concerns.  The second question indeed that we have to ask after this, if the abuse was of a scale wide and big enough to see if blacklisting is merited (the guideline speaks of 'can page protection or blocking of editors solve the problem', I don't believe so, it concerns multiple accounts (We might call some of them socks (User:Steven Krivit, User:Stevenkrivit, User:StevenBKrivit to name a few), though they were not abused, this seems like not knowing the working of Wikipedia, forgetting passwords, etc.) and IPs, and multiple pages and long time (years!)).  If the abuse is deemed wide enough (and that is a question we need to answer), then blacklisting may be very well be merited.  Those questions however have as yet not been answered, but maybe I am wrong, and are the insertions of the links by Steven Krivit, site owner, all in good faith and not an example of a spam/COI violation.


 * This does not mean that I disagree with the question 'JzG should not have done it himself' (I have stated my opinion on that earlier), 'JzG was involved' (I find that a difficult question), 'JzG was misusing his tools' (depending on the previous question, also difficult), 'JzG was, in bad faith, blacklisting a domain solely for control of content and supporting his own POV' (I see that that is possible, but as even I have not evaluated the full scale of the link use which is there, and JzG may have, I am still assuming good faith on JzG that he did do a analysis of the use of the links, and that he deemed this abuse of such a scale that he thought that blacklisting was the only solution). But if we totally ignore or refuse to see that there has been questionable use/abuse of the links, then the only conclusion we can have is that JzG was abusing his tools to control content and push his point of view.  I think it is fair to try to show, that there has been questionable use (and for me, the evidence shows that there are accounts where their use of the link certainly is questionable), and discuss if this is 'abuse', 'questionable' or maybe even totally fine, and if it is abuse, if it is of a scale wide enough to merit blacklisting.  And my recusal to 'decide' on the second de-listing request does not mean that I am not allowed to inform others of the my view, just as it is the right of the requester (who was also involved in the original delisting request) and others to show their view on the situation.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 09:48, 27 April 2009 (UTC)(inserted a diff as an example, expanded/slight rewrite --Dirk Beetstra T  C 11:21, 27 April 2009 (UTC))


 * Your example speaks of one editor with a COI who inappropriately pushed his link, etc. If it is really only one account, then indeed, per the guideline, blacklisting is not merited (as blocking the account would 'solve' the problem; if after that the account starts socking then the situation may evolve further, but it does not yet have to be a real problem).  I however do feel, that here feelings of socking are already there before blacklisting (though I have said, that I do not think Steven Krivit is abusively socking!), there are some IPs and Pcarbonn.  This looks stronger like several individual accounts, where blocking them alone might not be 'enough', and there are multiple articles involved.  I know that blacklisting is a hard solution (though I believe that it is possible for some cases to be less disruptive than page protection or rangeblocking, it is not the case that blacklisting is the worst thing to do), and my choices or solutions and their implementation would have been different (but they are not questioned here, as they were not performed), and maybe even my refusal to de-list was wrong (and I understand it is questionable, and that is also fine) but I believe my concerns there had merit, and I did assume good faith on JzG's decision and analysis to list it (and I still am trying to incorporate the possibility that JzG did act in good faith in my thoughts).  JzG did not pick up the hint of delisting and going into discussion or just let it be for some time to see how it goes, but that does not mean that another admin (or other admins) should not do that themselves after some discussion (User:Abd knows that I tried that with uofa.edu, I delisted in good faith after another admin added it, we took the test, it partially failed resulting in some abuse, but managed, even the abuse filter we used for some time is now deactivated for over 2 weeks already, though I think that the site is still blacklisted accompanied with some whitelisting).  But here it came down to Abd to persue and persue, because everyone wanted JzG to do it (and I felt in this case inhibited to do it as I, unlike others, do feel the abuse is/was already on a wider scale, and recuse from decision taking on this subject due to this and other concerns).  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 11:49, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure I'm getting all the relavant points of this discussion. Clearly important facets of this conversation are being left out by all this unnessesary truncation and summarisation.  C'mon guys, if you can't get each response above 1000 words, why even post at all? 198.161.174.194 (talk) 17:45, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Abuse of... template links
A brief point about evidence presented by Dirk Beetsra in "Abuse of..." sections. You've used LinkSummary which isn't that useful for arbitration evidence for several reasons: What is needed is a snapshot of links searches, discussions, and the various off-wiki searches either now (with a date and time given), or at the time of the dispute. For example, if a set of links gets cleaned up, one arbitrator could click and think "no links here, what's the problem?", and another (who clicked earlier) could think "goodness, hundreds of links here". Rather than provide an overwhelming list of links, it would be better to 'substitute' the template, explain what each link means and why it is relevant to the case, and/or remove irrelevant links. The key is to explain the relevance to the case - always. With no context for the arbitrators to look at, it will just be too overwhelming. Carcharoth (talk) 17:38, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * (1) The template may change at some future point.
 * (2) The links generated by that template are not permanent diffs.


 * I will at the end remove them and point to permanent revids of certain data. For me they are now useful in creating the evidence and data.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 18:16, 26 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I have removed them now, they were mainly there for own convenience, but I will do that in a different way. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 19:44, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Verifying link addition statements
Is there any way to verify statements like this one? "'Of 272 counted link additions by User:Pcarbonn in Main, User, Template and Category namespace, 54 links additions were to newenergytimes.com (19.8%; second place for his link additions). Of 168 counted additions of newenergytimes.com to said namespaces 54 were added by User:Pcarbonn (32.1%, main user of this link).'" i.e. is there a discussion anywhere where the numbers given here were verified? Carcharoth (talk) 17:38, 26 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I will link to reports, to verify one would have to count by hand. Bigger problem is there, how complete are the reports (they don't go too far back).  I will mention something about that later as well.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 18:17, 26 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I have removed it for now, it would require a rigorous count of every single edit performed to verify it properly. It is a bit indirect evidence anyway, unless I would take a full month worth of edits to mainspace, screen every single one and check the counts to show this preference.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 19:45, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Beetstra, if you'd like help putting it together, you can ask me or others! What you describe could be pretty quickly done. And easily presented without overwhelming your evidence page here.
 * However, Beetstra, WTF does this have to do with this RfAr? Pcarbonn isn't the issue here, period. Whether or not there was some legitimacy to your view that the blacklisting was useful, as reflected in your close here back in January as "declined" to delist, would have been totally irrelevant if not for your own claims about it. While I disagreed with that decision, I was slowly pursuing DR over it and it looks now like a final decision has been made, unless new linkspamming appears, and it's moot whether or not there was linkspamming before. --Abd (talk) 22:13, 26 April 2009 (UTC)


 * No, Abd. The point where I disagree here, is that many editors say that there is no proof of linkspamming, and no proof of abuse of the link.  I do believe that there has been, to say the least, very questionable use of the link, by multiple accounts, to multiple articles and over a prolonged period of time.  One of the issues here is, that JzG gets accused of using administrative tools (the blacklisting being one of them) to push a content issue.  If there is indeed absolutely no proof of abuse of those external links (I am calling references here also external links) then the only conclusion can be 'blacklisting was to control content, not to stop abuse'.  Note that the blacklisting looks like having been performed as a response to the decision of the ArbCom on Pcarbonn (ban decision, cleanup of edits regarding the issue, and blacklisting in 3-4 days).
 * All I am trying to do there, is showing that the argument that there is absolutely no abuse can be questioned, follow up questions then are: is it really abuse, would other methods have stopped it, should JzG have executed them, is the abuse wide enough to merit blacklisting, etc. I am not touching on those questions (maybe yet), I only show this part of the evidence that there are questionable edits out there, and I think it is unfair to completely ignore it.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 09:57, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Semantics, Beetstra. What's "linkspamming?" What is "abuse" of a link? One usage of a link might be quite abusive, but isn't blacklistable linkspamming. A hundred different IP editors, adding links to lenr-canr.org for Cold fusion over a few years, even if the usages were determined not appropriate, isn't "abuse." Remember, the cause of action here was failure to recuse, not "bad blacklisting decision." You might have made a bad decision, or maybe not, but so what? Nobody is alleging you were involved, but only that you considered content issues, possibly inappropriately, and nobody is claiming that you were outside norms in that. It's obvious, other blacklist admins also consider such, and I've stated many times that there is a condition where considering content becomes important. What the community is saying, quite clearly, is that the blacklist is not to be used to control content, only to control linkspam, which we need to define a little better, but the primary meaning is large-scale addition of links, without consensus, and thus not being properly reviewed. Yes, the word "spam" is unfortunate, but that's the term used in MediaWiki. MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. One of the things that should eventually be done is to be sure to counsel blacklist administrators to rigorously avoid incivility when interdicting excessive addition of links, and to guide editors toward how to find consensus on additions. Because spam fighting is considered a battle, it's easy to fall into battlefield mentality. The templates used should be reviewed to make sure they don't make unnecessary accusations.
 * Now, when does content become relevant? When there was linkspamming, and there is reasonable fear that it will be repeated, at levels that would be difficult to handle with lesser measures. It really should be, with a marginal case, enough to test the water, with editors volunteering to watch for problems, if spamming kicks in when a site is delisted.
 * I've written that there was no linkspamming alleged for newenergytimes.com, and nothing you have alleged contradicts that. There were usages of the link. There was an editor who, looking at his links added, added a relatively high percentage to lenr-canr.org. Well, since coming across the blacklist situation, I've begun editing Cold fusion, and, guess what? A high percentage of my links are to lenr-canr.org, except you won't see that, because, due to the blacklist, I have to use nowiki tags to point to what are always, at this point, convenience links so that other editors can see the papers I'm seeing. When you are looking for linkspam, generally you don't consider content, but then you tend to develop an idea that there is some kind of "excessive" usage of a site, which may be true, particularly when it's a flood of links, across many articles. You have acknowledged that nothing rose to the level of linkspam, i.e. sufficiently massive addition of links that blacklisting was necessary.
 * When I wrote that there was no linkspamming with regard to lenr-canr.org, you might question that. JzG, in his "courtesy notice," which, because he's a blacklist administrator, he had already done the deed, and he was trusted, wasn't reviewed until much later, mentioned that the site owner had been promoting it. That could look like an allegation of linkspamming. But if one looks at the examples, it wasn't even links! Rather, Jed Rothwell always signed his IP edits, "Jed Rothwell, librarian, lenr-canr.org," which is a title, not a link. The blacklist didn't stop it. Further, Jed Rothwell never edits the article, since 2006. So the blacklist didn't stop him from adding links to the article! Links were added by other editors, including skeptics, and links were stable and not being challenged when JzG yanked them and blacklisted.
 * So: if there is no sufficient reason to blacklist, content issues are irrelevant. It's pretty simple, Beetstra, and I really don't understand why you have argued so strongly with this. Now, JzG did allege other stuff. Copyvio. Alteration of documents. Fringe. All of these are really content issues, copyvio would only come into play when a site is primarily and clearly copyvio, such that we'd become legally responsible for linking to the site. No registered editor was warned for copyvio, and if the links were truly violating, that would have been an appropriate step. It was just another argument added to the pile, the effect being to confuse editors who bought the arguments without a lot of thought. Folks, this is why it took so long to disentangle this mess (and there are still plenty of loose ends). A whole barrage of arguments had to be addressed, and it took place at Talk:Martin Fleischmann; consensus: link to lenr-canr.org for convenience copy useful and proper, no copyvio concern, alteration of documents charge vastly overblown, not a concern (right now, as a compromise, the link says "unverified copy," or something like that, but this was purely to satisfy all editors participating, there is no particular reason to suspect any alteration), "fringe" not relevant, etc. The reason I'm considered so stubborn is that I am, I'm willing to go ahead -- with proper process -- to challenge an apparent rough consensus. Frankly, I rarely "lose" when I do this, because I don't do it if I don't think that broader and more careful attention will support my position, and even then, I drop most matters, I reserve the effort for serious issues. Like administrative recusal. --Abd (talk) 14:49, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Wait, copyvio only counts when "a site is primarily and clearly copyvio"? So I can link to a copyright infringing page as soon as it's hosted in a website that doesn't normally host copyvio? And it can't be blacklisted even if its primary usage is providing convenience links to copyrighted documents? (Indeed, I see that the recently delisted newenergytimes.com was just used for that exact purpose, see Talk:Cold_fusion) --Enric Naval (talk) 21:59, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * No, that's taken out of context, it was about the blacklist. We don't blacklist sites because they contain some copyvio, case in point is youtube.com. As for convenience links, I had mistakenly thought that NET claims permission for what they host, and I just discovered that they may be, instead, claiming fair use, which seems shaky to me. My edit asserting NET as a source for a convenience link was reverted, I questioned the reversion, but now think it was probably correct. Lenr-canr.org, however, claims permission for whatever it hosts, from authors and publishers, and the claim is credible. Hence, for convenience copies, lenr-canr.org should be fine. It's globally blacklisted, though. NET may possibly have some usage as a source in itself, but I don't have any immediate plans to assert that. Right now it has one usage: there is an article on the organization, and a link there. I found that Cold fusion text was making a claim that wasn't supported by the source cited; the source is copied at NET, and so I added it for a convenience link, and I fixed the text. --Abd (talk) 00:12, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Spam blacklist guideline
Could evidence and workshop proposals about the spam blacklist and discussions please refer to or take into account Spam blacklist, and whether what happened here followed what is stated (or was stated) at that page? Plus other relevant policies and guidelines if applicable. Carcharoth (talk) 17:42, 26 April 2009 (UTC)


 * My plan with the evidence page is to confine my contributions there to tight evidence, with minimal discussion of it. Discussion will take place elsewhere, as appropriate. As to the WP page cited, it's clear that actual practice with blacklisting deviates from what's in the guideline, this case and a few others I've examined show blacklisting based on content arguments; much of the debate this last three months has been over whether or not this is legitimate; I'd agree that some departure from the guideline would be appropriate, but not actual practice as I've seen in a few examples. My opinion was that all this wasn't ripe for ArbComm consideration yet, but the issues were dragged in by others. The arguments in Requests for comment/JzG 3 were not focused on the admin actions themselves, which, for that purpose, could have been ultimately "correct," except for the not-so-small detail of failure to recuse while involved. --Abd (talk) 22:22, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Length of Beetstra's evidence
Beetstra, your evidence was well over the established limit of 1000 words (not including diff links and such), and I've attempted to refactor it to move it within that length. I understand some of your link-related evidence may need further explanation; if I may suggest, please use the Analysis of evidence section in the Workshop for this purpose to avoid increasing the length of your evidence further. Thank you. Hers fold  (t/a/c) 19:55, 26 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Hmm, I know, though I may need to show similar evidence for lenr-canr.org, and may have to include other as well. I will consider putting selections of diffs on subpages or somewhere else, and linking to them from the evidence page.  I generally agree with the edit, though I meant for the IP 'the edits on this wiki', though this is only marginally different.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 20:26, 26 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok, subpages should work fine. Feel free to reword the IP thing as well - with the removal of the link counting stuff, you've a fair bit under now, and I'm not going to worry if you're only over by a little. Hers fold  (t/a/c) 20:27, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Proposed motion that could simplify all this
Please see Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Abd_and_JzG/Workshop. --Abd (talk) 22:54, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Response to Hipocrite's evidence
Eh? --Abd (talk) 17:49, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Response of Abd to TenOfAllTrades Evidence.
When the discussion at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist had been open for two weeks, with a rather obvious rough consensus, and no close, I went to AN and requested a neutral administrator. JzG wasn't mentioned, and the action being "reversed" wasn't JzG's action, it was Beetstra's. Yes, the original blacklisting was by JzG, out of process, but that had become moot because it had been confirmed by Beetstra, who was therefore the last closing admin. In any case, Viridae was apparently the first responder, and closed with the obvious result. It's been alleged that the request was contentious. Blacklist requests often are, with the handful of blacklist admins lining up to confirm the previous decision of a colleague; this one was relatively free of that, by comparison. At the time of close, and including the closer, we had:

Support delisting: Oppose: Recused, arguments mixed:
 * 1) Abd (proposer)
 * 2) Coppertwig
 * 3) User:Dtobias
 * 4) Wfaxon
 * 5) Ronnotel
 * 6) Apoc2400
 * 7) Viridae (closer)
 * 1) Ohnoitsjamie
 * 2) John Nevard
 * 3) Verbal
 * 4) JzG
 * 1) Beetstra (previous closer)

The close was considered a bit at AN. In that discussion, close as delist was supported or at least accepted by MastCell, Verbal -- "it's a shame, but accepts as consensus", then, appears to gain hope of reversal from the old ArbComm finding -- Beetstra (some concerns), Rootology (giving basically my argument), and, of course, myself, and was protested by Jtrainor, same basis as Verbal's discovery of the old case. The AN discussion was closed by hmwith as delisted. No request has been made to relist. There was also discussion at User talk:Viridae, "Your close ..." and User talk:Viridae, "Question". The "Question" section brings up the ArbComm ruling, at the instigation of User:Hipocrite, who is very much involved here. I find it fascinating that editors who are quite prepared to overlook a case of blatant use of tools while involved, are suddenly aghast at a decision they don't like because they can find a weak case for recusal. It's moot. The decision was made and consensus was followed, and Viridae, if he recuses now, what happens? Nothing. If it were blatant, he could recuse by reversal, but then he'd be going contrary to a clear consensus, it's not just there, it's in many opinions expressed here as well: content arguments are irrelevant to blacklisting, except in cases where there is linkspamming serious enough to require the blunt instrument of the blacklist.

I don't know if the ArbComm ruling applies to Viridae or not, but it seems way off point here, it wasn't JzG being reversed, it was Beetstra. JzG's comment was hardly visible in the delisting request discussion. Very little discussion had anything to do with JzG. If anyone believes that Viridae violated the ArbComm ruling, I presume that these editors know where WP:AE is located, I know Hipocrite does, he filed a series of disruptive requests.

TOAT raises an old example that could be another rogue blacklisting. There was no discussion of the listing by JzG on the blacklist Talk page. This was in September 2007, and there was no log file at that time. I don't know the history, but from what little I've seen, I think that JzG may have been involved there, too. Now, I find Adding_entry_without_discussion where this was brought up and discussed. And it appears that one result from this was that the log was created, and, I'll note, JzG did not log his blacklistings this recent incident. Thanks, TOAT, for pointing this out. --Abd (talk) 19:08, 27 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Look at it this way. The end result was reasonable: the link was delisted. One could raise any number of procedural objections:
 * There was no real consensus. Removing Viridae from the equation as the closing admin, the simple vote count you list above is 5-4; more to the point, there were few or no previously uninvolved voices or fresh input there.
 * Viridae shouldn't have closed the discussion, for the reasons mentioned by TenOfAllTrades.
 * From a pragmatic standpoint, a reasonable decision was made. Rather than shout about the definition of consensus, or pursue Viridae to the ends of the earth, let's accept it. I chose to overlook the consensus thing, and specifically decided not to even bring up the issue of Viridae's history with JzG, in the interest of Drama Reduction. I can't force you to recognize the value in not escalating every conflict to the maximum degree possible, but please at least consider it. MastCell Talk 20:46, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, MastCell. We might disagree on some details, about the delisting, but they aren't important enough to discuss now. I agree and follow the principle myself. I only persist when some critical condition requires it, and I believe admin recusal is that, and it needs to start with blatant recusal failure, not marginal. Okay, I'll disagree on the evaluation of the close. First of all, Viridae's opinion can't be discounted, so it's more like 6-4, but the real point is the arguments. The arguments for keeping the listing were all -- with one exception -- based on content issues, whether it was usable or not as a source, etc., and this is a question which has no single answer, it depends on the article; I know, though, that there is a legitimate usage, it's being used now, and the usage was accepted by none other than Verbal, see the See also link placed by Verbal to Cold fusion, which then links to an article I created on New Energy Times. (Should that get AfD'd, then I'd go back to asserting it as an External Link for Cold fusion, and I believe that this position would prevail. It doesn't have to be RS, in a case like this.) The exception was Beetstra's argument, and he really did recuse, and his arguments about linkspam were six of one and a half dozen of the other. What that left us with was no argument for blacklisting! Hence the removal. It really had nothing to do with JzG, that's why the whole recusal thing was weak. Of course, maybe Viridae took JzG's original action into account, but he said that the arbitration didn't apply. He might mean by that that this doesn't have anything to do with JzG. Maybe he believes that, maybe not. Sure, now, we could say he should have given it a pass, though there was no reason for him not to follow the link at AN and start reading.
 * MastCell, there is only one conflict that I have *ever* escalated to RfC, much less RfAr. This one. Are you claiming it's not important? WTF? --Abd (talk) 21:20, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I think you're viewing "escalation" in strictly procedural terms, as in opening a new layer of bureaucratic process. I'm talking about escalation in the general sense: making a situation more heated, inflamed, and contentious than it needs to be. MastCell Talk 22:22, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't know how much of the history here you know. I noticed the blacklistings on Jehochman Talk in early January, 2009. I had no involvement with Cold fusion at all, wasn't aware of the Pcarbonn topic ban, etc. I noticed the lack of discussion and log, looked at his edits of the same day, looked at the article history a little and he was clearly involved, I didn't have to look far.
 * So I questioned the blacklistings, knowing practically nothing about how the blacklist actually worked (politically). I learned fast. All I did was to civilly request JzG to recuse himself, then I pointed out the procedural defects and the defects in substance. He blew it off. A bit later, when JzG repeated earlier blocks of Jed Rothwell, I again warned him about recusal, he blew it off again.
 * At this point, another editor questioned the topic ban JzG had declared on Rothwell. JzG went directly to ArbComm for confirmation as a "clarification." It was outrageous, actually, way premature, but several arbitrators commented supporting the ban, initially. That's what happens with arbitrators don't allow evidence from all sides to be presented before jumping to conclusions. Should Rothwell be banned? I don't know. I don't really care that much, except that he's an expert in the field, and all the information I've seen coming from him is solid, if presented a bit arrogantly. Experts can be like that, they imagine that they know more than the average Wikipedia editor. The decision has not been appealed, because the eleophant in the living room was failure to recuse.
 * I'd asked JzG to suggest an informal mediator. He blew it off. What's next? Well, in fact, for an admin, RfC. I'd compiled an evidence page for my effort (successful, I'd say) to assist ArbComm in rejecting the case, which was very dangerous as a precedent. (Ban someone based on similarity of POV with someone banned.) It sat there for a month or so, I occasionally referred to it in working on lesser, related issues. JzG considered it an attack page, but it was just a pile of diffs, not even developed into serious accusations. JzG MfD'd it, and the decision was to allow a month to file an RfC, then delete if no RfC filed. I didn't contest that decision.
 * But I had a standing request out for anyone to please, if JzG trusts you, intervene, he could lose his admin bit over this. All he has to do is to say "My mistake, I should have done that because I've been involved with the article and in conflict with the editor I banned and blocked, I won't do that kind of thing again." Simple. Nobody did it, or if they did, we don't know about it. I didn't raise the topic over and over. At the end of the month, I filed Requests for comment/JzG 3. Read it! See if it's "inflammatory."
 * It was written as neutrally as I could manage. Editors tried to drag in JzG's famous incivility; I acted, mostly successfully, to persuade them to redact it, most did. I made it very clear what would happen if the issue of recusal wasn't addressed, that this would go to ArbComm. The comments were, as I recall, roughly divided into 1/3 "this was failure to recuse, JzG shouldn't have acted," and 2/3 were divided between "JzG did nothing wrong and Abd should be topic banned" and "JzG shouldn't have done it, but this was two or three months ago and I'm sure he won't do it again, and, yes, Abd writes too much and should be topic banned."
 * Again and again I tried to persuade JzG's friends to prevail on him to fix the problem with a few words. I think there were some efforts at this point, but JzG refused, and still sees the whole thing as a content dispute, he thinks I did all this because I like cold fusion. The record doesn't support that. The fact is that to start to undo the long-term damaged done by excessive anti-fringe POV pushing at Cold fusion, I had to become knowledgeable, and I have the training to be able to make sense of the literature, and, to my surprise, what I thought had been totally rejected, proven to be Bad Science, the very paradigm of Bad Science, twenty years ago, wasn't. So, sure, I have some opinions, but I care more about NPOV and our content and behavioral policies than I do about my own opinions. I'm sure I made mistakes, but I've gone way, way out of my way to try to make all this minimally disruptive.
 * When Jehochman asked me to redact the Desired outcome section of the RfC to make it more palatable to JzG, I did so. And, in the end, I didn't bring the dispute here, though I was, in fact, about ready to file with a narrowly focused RfAr, solely about recusal failure, not bringing up incivility or any of the other possible distractions, and making no complaints about other editors, blacklist procedures, and the rest. If this is "making a situation more heated, inflamed, and contentious than it needs to be," I'm at a loss to see how I could have done it better. Where were JzG's friends when he needed them to give him some good advice? I'd say they were too busy attacking me!
 * What happens with JzG's admin bit is not up to me. My future here doesn't depend on him losing the bit; but it may depend on how ArbComm addresses the situation of recusal. It's obvious that there are some apparently deep divisions in the community over the issues I stumbled across; however, I've also found that the problematic positions, asserted too confidently as consensus, that have been involved here, tend to vanish when examined carefully. To discover this takes someone willing to buck a local majority and insist on dispute resolution. Is that inflammatory? If I'd edit warred, if I'd been uncivil, if I'd been truly disruptive, I'd have been blocked in a flash. As it is, a couple of warnings is all I saw. No AN/I reports, no RfC, and when I'm warned by an admin, I stop pending DR. You do realize, I'd hope, that if editors followed this, it wouldn't be necessary to block them! --Abd (talk) 01:34, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Not getting dragged into this shitfight. When asked how i came to the conclusion I did I gave this explanation:
 * Lack of any evidence the site is being used for spam bfore blacklisting, lack of any evidence of any harm in the site (malware): the reasons the spam blacklist is used. Combined with policy dictating that editorial decisions (usefulness/reliability of the information being contained on the site) should be made by the community, not be circumvented by administrators. Those arguments were not refuted at all by any of the participants disagreeing with the removal. The default position of the spam blacklist is to not have website on it until such time as sufficient evidence of harm being done to wikipedia is provided. Viridae Talk 08:29, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

The only reason I closed that discussion was because its closure was requested on WP:AN - I wouldn't have even known about it had it not been for that notice. Do you really honestly believe this is to do with the arbcom case from a year ago (ignore the closing time, it dragged on forever without activity)? I have certainly waited a long time to continue that grudge if it is... Viridae Talk 22:08, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
 * If you're asking me, I think your decision was fine - it's the one I would have made if I were closing the discussion. MastCell Talk 22:22, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I have corrected Abd's list - he missed inclusion of User:Apc2400 who also supported delisting  The final numbers were thus 7-4 in favour of delisting, with the majority of those in favour of delisting noting a misuse of the blacklist, and with those opposed making content arguments better suited to article talk pages. There's an argument relating to admin recusal issues that I've seen run in a few variations, one of which (I think) is this case, and that is that because of WP:NOTLAW the fact that an administrator had a conflict of interest does not invalidate the actions s/he may have taken. In this case, the argument would run that Guy's blacklisting shouldn't be reversed just because his action may have been taken to advance his position in a content dispute (assuming he had any such conflict). The problem with this line of reasoning is in still leaving the position that the blacklisting needed to be challenged as if it were done appropriately. Surely the logical consequence of a conflict of interest (if established) should be that the original decision be revisted and validated or overturned? As a general comment, I see this as a serious issue relating to administrator recusal that the Committee should address. If administrators knew that decisions taken when they should recuse will be automatically subject to review, they will be less inclined to push the envelope. Recusal issues seem to me to be too often viewed like minor technicalities, rather than as fundamental issues of integrity and propriety. I realise that administrators face serious challenges in dealing with POV pushers and gaming arguments about what constitutes "involved". However, I suggest that there is a danger if administrators respond by equally gaming the definition of "involved", and that is that they start to lose sight of the principle that underlies administrator recusal. EdChem (talk) 01:27, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Abd's list also includes Viridae as supporting removal. If he supported removal, he was not a neutral admin just coming by to close the discussion, as he has stated. I have removed him from the list, bringing it to 6-4 in favor of delisting. This is consensus? Hipocrite (talk) 14:40, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The closer made an independent decision, that's typical of closes. This is a big issue that I won't go into here. Hipocrite, don't edit my Talk page comments, period. I allowed the addition of User:Apoc2400 because it was a friendly change, correcting an oversight. I'm not allowing yours, which was substituting your opinion for mine. Don't do it again. --Abd (talk) 22:03, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
 * No, the closer gauged what other people said. Ask him. But, you and I both know your goal here is to annoy me, so don't ask him and just keep reverting me. Hipocrite (talk) 22:12, 1 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Re EdChem, as far as I read my oppose, I have generally said that I found that the link was abused. I have not said that the content on the site should not be used, and hence that the link is better blacklisted.  And not many have said that.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 14:46, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

"normally requires at least two editors to blacklist"
Re Abd's comment:
 * "Whether or not these blacklistings were "correct" is moot, because JzG was clearly involved, and did not follow process that normally requires at least two editors to blacklist, with the actual blacklist entry not being made by the one proposing."

There's no requirement I'm aware of that requires at least two editors be involved with blacklisting. We certainly don't require that for page protection or editor blocking, both of which are more severe actions. We have mechanisms in place (whitelisting and/or blacklist removal requests) for dealing with mistakes and exceptions. Furthermore, 95 to 99% of blacklistings are undisputed (other than by the spammer). -- A. B. (talk • contribs) 12:25, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Normal refers to actual practice. With an established case, I've seen Beetstra, for example, add or remove a listing without discussion on the Blacklist page. However, the normal practice appears to be that someone proposes, admin disposes, and the close isn't by the one proposing. The someone may be an administrator who could directly blacklist, as with the global blacklisting of lenr-canr.org; there, JzG proposed, and it was granted even though the kind of evidence we normally see was absent, but process was followed (by that time, JzG was under scrutiny over the local blacklisting). Now, I haven't poured over the blacklist additions to verify that someone asked for each one, and because of changes being made as described with Beetstra, it would be quite a task. With a rush of spamlinks being added, immediate addition by an admin, with discussion or notice following, seems efficient. The evidence should be presented, routinely, for a new case. The admin shouldn't be involved. And in the present case, there was no emergency, no listings being added rapidly, there were a few standing links that JzG judged should be removed, clearly based on his opinion of the website, it's content, and the site operator ("kook").
 * Yes, the vast majority of blacklistings are uncontested. Which, by the way, doesn't mean that they are proper. My impression has always been, though, that they are. If A.B. or Beetstra or anyone thinks that JzG's blacklisting was normal, perhaps they should directly say so.
 * The log entries normally point to the discussion of the listing. Thus it's possible for someone concerned about a blacklisting to quickly find the listing and the related discussion. JzG's blacklisting of lenr-canr.org and newenergytimes.com wasn't logged. This led to some substantial confusion over where the site was blacklisted. Ironically, when I looked back to see the delisting by Viridae that did directly reverse a blacklisting by JzG, and found discussion of it, the log was created and required, following meta practice, because of that problem, which was also a listing probably related to JzG's POV. I assume you will recall that, A.B. And thanks, by the way, for all your work on the blacklist!
 * Most blacklisting proposals do not mention content at all, the evidence is all about how many links are being added and by whom. It's known and accepted that legitimate web sites get blacklisted, precisely because of the lack of consideration of content. This has not been challenged by me, it is proper, providing that reasonable standards are followed in the definition of linkspam. The problem I identified is with delisting and whitelisting, which is far too cumbersome and, too frequently, circular. The existence of linkspam should be irrelevant to a whitelisting request for a specific page, from a regular editor, as one example. Instead, request a whitelisting, and you are likely to see a repetition of the linkspam evidence, and there is no way to prove that any page will not be abused, and then content arguments that take the position that external links aren't content, they are fluff, and, as well, the strictest of standards on RS. And the matter never gets discussed at the article, frequently, because the links aren't added to create an edit to discuss. It should be far easier to get a whitelisting, it should be almost automatic. (It still requires an admin to act, but it also requires an admin to protect a page, and I can get a page protected in a flash when it's needed. Minutes.)--Abd (talk) 11:03, 30 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Still, Abd, "did not follow process that normally requires at least two editors to blacklist" is a false presentation and implies a (false) accusation that JzG did something wrong in this process (regarding following normal practice, if he should have added it, and if the proof is sufficient is another question). Many links are added without discussion, just based on (the admins perception) of proof.  There is no process description that "normally requires".  And again, you are pulling 2 topics here which are not mentioned in the opening of the section here, we are not talking about where log entries normally point, and we are not talking about blacklisting proposals and what they mention.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 11:09, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't demand that every i be dotted and every t crossed; consider the substance here. When JzG wasn't being closely watched, he directly blacklisted. Later, when he'd been challenged, he went to meta and requested listing. He's a meta adminstrator, he could have directly listed there. But when there might be some controversy, normal procedure is to request a listing, even if one is an administrator, and let a different administrator actually list. In other words, his request at meta, even if he didn't disclose relevant information, was properly handled. Not his request here. The unfortunate part of this is that, as we could expect to be normal, the blacklist admins are a close and cooperative group, and don't necessarily duplicate investigations.... The upshot for me: let blacklist admins have more freedom as long as they avoid personally blacklisting when involved in the topic, and let a separate process undo possible mistakes. At the end of 2007, because of a direct and possibly involved blacklisting by JzG, the log was established here. JzG bypassed the logging this time, and if you consider this "normal process," something is really off. --Abd (talk) 23:34, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Bainer's evidence
Stephen Bain has added diffs with commentaries by an undisclosed wikipedian (Abd?). He has exceeded the limit for contributions and has given no attribution for the commentaries. I hope that (a) he will reduce this to a wikilink and (b) explain who wrote the commentaries. What he has added is non-neutral. He has not recused as an arbitrator on this case, so why has he given a nod to the biased commentary? This is quite odd behaviour. Mathsci (talk) 17:05, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
 * MathSci, the diffs plus commentaries were put together by Abd and have been reproduced by bainer on the case evidence page from the recent Request for Comment on Jzg. This list of evidence is linked from his Proposed Finding of Fact 4 on the case workshop page and was added with this edit nearly two hours before you posted your question. The reason for the inclusion of the evidence is absolutely clear, as is the source: "Re Jehochman, the list of edits presented in the request for comment shows substantive content participation. I've copied it to the evidence page for easy reference." The actual posting of the evidence begins "This is copied from the request for comment, so it can be easily referenced in the proposals" and was accompanied by the edit summary "copies of material from the RfC, for easy reference in the proposals".  Stephen Bain was wise to reproduce the list in full and to leave all of Abd's commentary intact - irrespective of guidelines regarding contribution limits on case pages - because editing it could easily be seen as endorsing what remains.  The list is simply being used to support the statement that JzG was sufficiently involved to be unable to claim to be an uninvovled administrator.  Perhaps, for the sake of people who are not following the case, he might have added to the evidence page posting a disclaimer indicating that the list is included so it can be linked from the workshop page.  However, there is nothing sinister going on here - Stephen did indicate it is a copy of RfC materials in three places - on the workshop page where it is used, at the top of the evidence section where it is posted, and in the edit summary - so the source is abundantly clear.  By the way, the scare quotes in this talk page section title are inappropriate. EdChem (talk) 20:39, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

(noindent) Oops. I added quotes, now removed, because I had not realised that what I took to be commentaries are in fact JzG's edit summaries. My bad. Mathsci (talk) 03:54, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't have thought that the copy was necessary, in fact, I even considered removing it! However, basic rule: don't irritate an arbitrator. In any case, I look over the section and I don't see "commentaries" other than the very brief introduction, which is purely factual. I thought that I might have added a couple of brackete..d comments, but I didn't see it in the couple of minutes I have to look. If there is some commentary there that shows a POV, please point it out; I think that Bainer would consent to my removal of it. In short, Mathsci, what commentaries? That is simply a list of edits to the article showing the dates and edit summaries, which isn't the kind of information that's easy to pull up and see together. A page that was basically this, before, was called an "attack page" by JzG; that's the evidence page that is mentioned in the RfC that was MfD'd by JzG. When a list of your edits has become an "attack page," maybe it's time to look in the mirror! --Abd (talk) 21:33, 3 May 2009 (UTC)


 * EdChem, just so this is clear: There is no commentary in the evidence Bain transcribed from the RfC. What could look like commentary is just JzG's edit summaries as shown in the diffs to Cold fusion and Talk:Cold fusion, not cherry-picked, the complete record. That this was attacked by Mathsci tells us a great deal, not that it wasn't already obvious. --Abd (talk) 00:48, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure it tells us anything at present, apart from the fact that I made an error. Mathsci (talk) 04:03, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I just wish another party involved here would be so swift! However, what it tells? It shows a quickness to make assumptions in this matter without checking them out. It shows that the evidence wasn't examined closely, because the coincidence of the summaries shown with the actual edit summaries could have been checked with a single click. Were what you thought were my comments biased? or were they fair? Surely to make a decision on the cogency of my claim, you'd have had to check this. You obviously didn't, showing that you are biased. No problem, you do get to be biased, it's not a crime, though some of what we do when we get stuck in bias can be a problem. Based on what must have been your assumption of bias, you then presented evidence and comment about me and my behavior. Surely the judgment of my behavior is related to the cogency of my claims! Obviously, if I cherry-picked his edits and summarized them unfairly, a conclusion that I was harassing him would be quite reasonable! But if not, if the evidence presented was neutral (as it was!), then I'm not the problem and the administrator's behavior was the problem! That still doesn't mean that my behavior is free of blame, but only that to understand my behavior, my actual claims would need to be checked. I.e., if there is a meeting, and I supposedly disrupt the meeting by yelling "Fire!", surely the fact of whether or not there is a fire should be considered and investigated before proceeding with claims I was disruptive! --Abd (talk) 16:05, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * What need for this outpouring of words? Please quietly read again what NYB has written and kindly cease this hypothesising. An error is an error: no need to write a 700 page work of fiction about it. Conspiracy theory is third door on the right, thataway --> Mathsci (talk) 17:54, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Pot/Kettle/Black. NYB? Where? Conspiracy theory? What conspiracy? WTF? No hypothesis, I write what I see. Could be true vision, could be illusion, but it's what I see. You are not the first person to dislike me expressing what I see, and, like too many, it looks like you've rejected it without understanding it. And what I see, many others also see, and they thank me for saying it. And when I'm wrong, they tell me, and show me how I erred. This isn't what you do, Mathsci. You are doing something different, and it's visible, and if you don't like me saying that, I presume you know our process. --Abd (talk) 02:45, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * A word of unsolicited advice: if you want people to be more willing to admit their mistakes, consider being a tad more gracious when they do so. MastCell Talk 04:29, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Abd should look at Bainer's talk page to see how to reply civilly, if at all. The comment by NYB is below this one. He writes "nothing more to do in this thread". Abd, please stop drama-mongering. Why not do some namespace editing for a change? Mathsci (talk) 10:15, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I think the formatting of what Bainer posted made it a little unclear exactly what the section represented. This has now been clarified; nothing more to do in this thread. Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:05, 4 May 2009 (UTC)


 * As I noted to Mathsci on my talk page, I actually copied and pasted, rather than linking, to avoid the surrounding commentary. In any event, I've replaced the links in the proposal on the workshop with links to results pages of a new toolserver tool that displays a user's contributions filtered just on a particular page, a project I've been meaning to work on for a while. It should be mostly bug-free :) --bainer (talk) 09:04, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I suspect you realize, Stephen, how much work this would have saved me! Many hours! Totally cool. Thanks. I would say one thing. The results page should be moved to a WP page, because then (with the right user interface settings) one can see the diffs just by hovering a cursor over them, which is much faster than actually loading them. Note, though, that anyone can see a WP version of the page, missing only the most recent edits, by looking at the RfC, which is cited at the beginning of my Evidence page here. The tool simply does what I did manually and laboriously (though I did use a spreadsheet, it was still a bit tedious.) --Abd (talk) 15:57, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Response to Evidence presented by MastCell
I have neither the time nor the inclination to become involved extensively in this action since, personally, my interactions with JzG have been minimal. I will say that where I was personally involved I believe that I observed first hand evidence of JzG using his administrative privileges while clearly involved in a content dispute. Whether those actions were correct, or not, is irrelevant to this case. That he did so is enough to warrant action.

You argue that JzG has recused himself from Cold Fusion but of course his actions there still stand. Let him undo those actions that are now in dispute and allow other uninvolved admins to take up those cases anew so that the proper level of community scrutiny can be placed upon them without the unreasonable bias in place of having to get one admin to forcibly overturn another's actions. What would be the harm?

JzG's refusal to admit any wrongdoing in this instance, and recusing oneself after the fact is not the same as admitting fault, coupled with the fact that this is the third such action against him demonstrates a pattern of not accepting community feedback even when it is handed down by the arbcom.

You also argue that all of Abd's evidence is ancient history. Well, there is a simple and justifiable explanation for that. Abd was following WP:DR as everyone is supposed to. That takes time. Now you wish to use the fact that he has followed the process that we all agree is the best course of action as evidence against him. I call foul on that point.

Of course JzG knows full well that the spotlight is upon him at the moment so of course he will be on his best behavior, who wouldn't? In that sense one could argue that Abd's "crusade" as it has been called is actually serving the useful purpose of keeping JzG's abuses in check.

Even so, I would even agree with you if it were not for the fact that he has had two other arbcom actions against him and it is generally asserted (if not agreed) that after some time passed and the spotlight was no longer on him that he resumed his patterns of incivility anew. Is there any reason you can offer to suggest that this will not also be the case with respect to his abuse of the admin bit? Incivility is one thing, using his privileged position while engaged in a content dispute is quite another, IMHO.

Indeed, while he may have recused himself in the obvious case of Cold Fusion has he given any explicit indication that he understands why he is being accused of abusing his admin bit and, as a result, given clear indication that he intends to stay clear of any such actions elsewhere on the encyclopedia? If he has I am not aware of it, but if this is his intent then let him simply state as much outright. If he were to do so most, if not all, of those arrayed against him on this point would likely let the issue drop, would they not?

I respectfully submit that a small piece of humble pie should not be that hard for one in a privileged position to accept, again IHMO, whether they believed it was deserved or not. To do so merely for the good of the project by making all this drama go away would be a sign of good faith on his part. He is, of course, free to decide for himself on that particular point.

Don't get me wrong. I am probably as stubborn and proud as anyone involved here. But of course I am not in a privileged position whereas he is, and that makes a difference IMHO. YMMV.

--GoRight (talk) 05:24, 8 May 2009 (UTC)