Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Abd and JzG/Proposed decision

Arbitrators active on this case

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Looks good
Stephen, one thing I'd like to see in Purpose of the spam blacklist is a statement that the community may revise blacklist policy, that the finding is just a statement of the current position, not any sort of restriction on future policy development. Jehochman Talk 16:39, 12 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree with Jonathan. Everything seems well written and balanced. Mathsci (talk) 16:47, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

So far so good.
One exception, you might guess: Requests_for_arbitration/Abd_and_JzG/Proposed_decision. There was something like a one-month "unnecessary delay" in filing the RfC. During that time, there was no ongoing disruption, JzG had become quite inactive, and I focused on other work. I did not consider any of the "situations" resulting from JzG's violations to be emergencies, though some were serious for the long term. (ArbComm will not, I expect, address these, they will be dealt with through ordinary process.) I was not, during that period, "noising about" JzG's action while involved, I dealt with related content issues directly, JzG was no longer an issue in that respect. For that time, I had a Notice up at User:Abd/Notices: permanent link.

I know that some administrators watch that page, including some who would be JzG's friends, especially, and I was hoping that one of them would notice it and help him understand what was happening and that this was serious. I did not want to use a noticeboard because of the likely disruption. I am not big on blocking or desysopping anyone, nor on disruption. I have never put anything like this kind of effort into blocking anyone and certainly not desysopping.

However, there isn't anything really wrong with the finding, and I would agree that I should have filed the RfC much sooner. It would not have reduced disruption, though. Repetitive? Yes, I do that, unfortunately. On the other hand, sometimes I have to repeat things before people get it. I don't have a ready solution, except I do try, continually, to address my writing problems. --Abd (talk) 20:41, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

The view from the cheap seats
So, to summarize the disposition of this case: I pity the admin who finds him- or herself the target of Abd's next 2,000 edits. Who knows, it may be me. The back of my neck is prickling, which usually means that someone is combing my administrative logs for red meat. Or maybe it's just tabes dorsalis. MastCell Talk 21:53, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
 * JzG is ostentatiously re-admonished for something he did 5 months ago, even though the original (low-profile, drama-free) admonishment had the desired effect. I think we should be encouraging low-profile, effective resolution of problems and discouraging the pursuit of public spectacles. From that perspective, this case is a huge step in the wrong direction.
 * Abd receives positive reinforcement (or at least an outcome which can be spun into a justification) for his approach to dispute resolution, which in this case consisted of asking a few dozen parents until he got the answer he wanted. The inexorable escalation of this case had nothing to do with "pursuing dispute resolution". If this was about resolving disputes, it would have been over 5 months ago. This is an abuse of our dispute resolution pathway. Failing to recognize it as such guarantees that the abuse will be repeated.


 * Things are not so dire. I have recently met Abd in real life. He impressed me as an intellectual person. I'd urge those who have any doubts to be open minded and tolerant of personal differences. More listening early in this dispute (myself included) might have resulted in a speedier resolution. Jehochman Talk 04:50, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Jehochman. As to listening, I think so. I think that too often, here, we line up politically and don't listen to what we see as being on the other side. That is quite damaging to content, and also to the community. --Abd (talk) 04:58, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Jehochman, I have no doubt that if we could all meet each other in real life, this place would run very smoothly. People are usually much more sympathetic in person than they are online. I'm sure that Abd is an intelligent and good person. The problem, of course, is that we have to find a way to make the site work from behind online pseudonyms. But I do take your point about listening. MastCell Talk 05:46, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd agree with this, especially the "intelligent and good" part...." :-)
 * Seriously, MastCell, I'm not anonymous. My real name(s) are on my User page. And the goal of my work is precisely to "make the site work from behind online pseudonyms. If we can do this, my prediction, much less blocking, much less disruption, better quality articles, and a less contentious community that understands the value of vigorous discussion simultaneously with the value of living consensus. The short of it: while we need better "community," i.e., social glue, we also need better and more efficient process. The status quo burns people out. --Abd (talk) 14:18, 13 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Whoever is reviewing your logs, MastCell, it isn't me, and it's highly unlikely that I would in the future. I don't go around looking for trouble, but sometimes I stub my toe on it, so I look to see what's there. As to your opinion of what this was about, it was about, from the beginning, what I said it was about: admin recusal, and it's clear that there are admins who still don't get it, including, I suspect, yourself. So perhaps there is something in those logs, but, as far as I'm concerned, when this case is settled, which should be quickly, I expect, what happened before isn't the point. The point is going forward. I recommend reading the decision carefully, and following the clarification of policy. See you around. --Abd (talk) 04:55, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The problem is that there hasn't been any clarification of policy. The blacklist issue was specifically tabled as outside ArbCom's remit. The principles on involvement and recusal are word-for-word from previous decisions and policy. The specific findings concern a stale situation in which the admin in question already agreed that he was involved and recused 5 months ago - in other words, not exactly a clarification. I guess that if I felt something useful had come of this case, I'd be happier about it. MastCell Talk 05:51, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not over till she sings; however, it looks like several things have been clarified. Remember, MastCell, two-thirds of editors commenting in RfC/JzG 3 seemed to think that no action was needed, with many considering my disputing JzG's actions to be disruption. I was, it appears, enforcing through WP:DR prior policy. I knew that, I knew the precedents, and this was all dismissed. ArbComm did not dismiss it. So that's a clarification, there is no a bit more clear guidance about what involvement is, but it's still vague; however, we should work on the policy pages to make the matter clearer. Actually, for practical purposes, recusal is very simple, much less complicated than determining involvement might make it in more marginal cases. Essentially, if someone protests, and especially if two people protest, an admin should then recuse.
 * Unfortunately, MastCell, JzG never "agreed that he was involved." Had he done so and recused "five months ago," a huge amount of disruption would have been avoided; my loss of time has been considerable, that of the community is much greater.
 * The Committee has also reinforced what I consider overall rough consensus on the use of the blacklist, and that is a major benefit that will ultimately pay back more content improvement (usefulness to article editors and readers) than what was expended on this case. At the same time, the drawing of attention to the blacklisting process will, ultimately, result in more efficient process, not less. The community should actively assist the blacklist administrators by taking over delisting and whitelisting decisions, not as fixed decisions, but as recommendations that would, presumably, be routinely followed.
 * Further, I raised an issue here which the Committee has not addressed, and it is my hope that it will eventually address it: the concept of narrowing ArbComm cases; this case could have been split into at least three cases, but, in fact, only one of these cases was ripe for arbitration, the other issues may well have been resolved short of ArbComm. ArbComm should tighten up what it accepts, and not allow cases to become fora for the expression of laundry lists of complaints against parties, which, then, create more discussion and dissent. The only issue ripe for arbitration was, in fact, JzG's failure to recuse while involved. Then, a party or others misbehave before ArbComm, sure, they could be subject to sanction without further process, but an editor should go through WP:DR and RfC before having to justify his or her actions elsewhere. Allowing cases to widen invites immature charges and countercharges and wasted discussion. --Abd (talk) 14:43, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

The benefits are social. There was a dispute, and now it is resolved. People hopefully have more confidence that Wikipedia monitors the use of "ops" and holds people to standards. Fairness is hard to measure, but it has value. Anyhow, blame me for starting the case. (Abd, MastCell is one of the most careful and skillful admins. I'm sure he "gets it" about recusal.) Jehochman Talk 12:07, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed. I know of no examples of recusal failure on MastCell's part, and I suspect that if one were found, and s/he were shown it, he'd say "Oops!" Which is all it takes! However, his arguments in this case show something other than understanding of how a sound recusal concept works. It does not supersede WP:IAR, it merely provides guidance as to how to ensure that administrative decisions don't become personal conflicts or maintain them. I gave the example of Iridescent's block of me. Because she immediately recused from control over unblock, she left behind no issue with her needing resolution: whether or not her block was an error became moot. And had she been involved (I don't think she was, in any significant way, under present standards), it would still have been made moot by her recusal, unless she did the same kind of thing over and over. Administrators are allowed to make mistakes. --Abd (talk) 14:43, 13 May 2009 (UTC)


 * You have got to be kidding me. The benefits are social? So, it's like airport security measures....  It doesn't actually make people safer, but it makes people feel safer, and that's a good thing, a social benefit, right? Sorry, I don't feel safer, and I think anyone who does feel safer because some minimum wage guy is rummaging through their suitcase, even though tests have shown that they miss most of the guns and bombs that have been planted in carryon bags to test the system, is living in fantasyland.  But I digress.


 * There was only a dispute because Abd took it upon himself to decide that he and only he understood the principle of "recusal" and that JzG had violated that principle and must be forced to admit that he had violated it, even though the RfC didn't come out in Abd's favor and even though the discussions in the case pages of this case made it obvious that this is not a clear concept, that the question of whether someone is involved or not is not clear-cut, that ArbCom members themselves don't entirely agree on how involvement should be interpreted, nor did they offer any clarification.  When there's something that ArbCom members don't  agree on, that community members don't  agree on, and on which ArbCom has offered no specific guidance, it seems ill-considered to say that it's all better now because people "feel more confident."  I agree with MastCell; nothing has been clarified here, except that Abd has been given the green light to go after anyone he believes "doesn't get it" about recusal, by his definition.  Abd's warning above to MastCell, "it's clear that there are admins who still don't get it, including, I suspect, yourself" raises the hair on the back of my neck as well. I'm not sure who it is that's supposed to feel better, more confident in the system, as a result of this case, but I sure as heck don't feel safer with Abd going through everyone's luggage looking for dirty laundry. Woonpton (talk) 14:42, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Woonpton, if I take this RfAr as some kind of carte blanche, and abuse the confirmation that can be seen here in order to harass administrators, the difference between my ass and grass will be moot. I disagreed with MastCell, I did not warn him and know of no risk to his bit. --Abd (talk) 16:39, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Good advice for Abd
2) Abd is advised to heed good faith feedback when handling disputes and not beat a dead horse. Would this be "Abd is advised to carefully consider good faith feedback"? Which is always good advice. Or am I expected to do what others say I should do, merely because they had good intentions? Beating a dead horse means to me flogging a moot idea or proposal, something not worthy of further consideration, and, of course, I should never do this, it is a waste of time, most of all of my own. --Abd (talk) 05:06, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It strikes me that no dead horse was being beaten, given the admonishment. Viridae Talk 05:49, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I think that's correct. However, my point here is that I have no objection to good advice, and, if only "heed" were replaced with "attend to," or "respect," I'd agree this is good advice. It might be better to make this a general admonition to all involved and all who have commented. For example, defense on and on, at great length, of the possibility that JzG was not involved, when involvement had been claimed and commented upon by many editors since January, when the evidence of involvement was clear and blatant (I saw it in minutes at the beginning of January, when I was completely uninvolved and had a mildly positive opinion of JzG), was, indeed, beating a dead horse. But I'm quite pleased by what has been proposed so far, and this admonition is harmless at worst. --Abd (talk) 14:50, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

1600 admins
Maybe I'm just cranky and need to ban myself from projectspace again, but... can we stop with the "1600 admins"? I'm getting tired of hearing that there are 1,599 other admins out there whom I can lean on for help. There aren't, and it's a bit glib to cite that number, even if you also mention that there are 9.6 million users. How many admins are active? How many of those are willing and able to take on complex disputes and issues? How many of those will follow through? If you pass the 1,600 admins through those filters, I suspect that the number remaining will be quite small. The ferocious burnout rate in the admin corps is largely due to the lack of ready support and the shortage of active admins ready to step up to the plate, so it's a bit frustrating to hear a facile suggestion that there are 1,599 admins waiting for me to tag them in. MastCell Talk 06:05, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if this is the place for such a discussion, but I think the current admin system is broken. I think two alternative solutions should be considered, either make it much easier to become an admin, but also much easier to de-admin someone, or else set the bar much higher for adminship and require a higher level of participation and "professionalism" from the admin corps.  I think either option would be an improvement over the current system. Cla68 (talk) 06:14, 13 May 2009 (UTC)


 * MastCell, the number of admins willing to take difficult actions is low and likely always will be, but sometimes asking others is needed if there is a chance that an admin is either not objective or won't be seen as objective. If an admin is an expert editor in an area, they have the opportunity to explain in detail why action is needed. That explanation would likely be needed on the talk page in any case, so posting in one place and then directing other admins there should work. As for number of active admins, could someone come up with a way of documenting that on a regular basis? Maybe looking at an old version of a stats page at various times throughout this dispute? I agree there are enough inactive admins that the 1600 figure is likely inaccurate. Carcharoth (talk) 08:36, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I think we should be looking at ways to reinvolve those inactive administrators, and I think it can be done with many of them. Reinvolve doesn't mean that they devote their lives to the project, as some admins do for substantial periods, but it would mean that they might add gravitas from their experience, occasionally. Many burned out for various reasons, and some of those reasons could be addressed. Sure, others simply moved on, but if they had enough interest and dedication to become administrators, there ought to be something left there, unless they burned out with a very bad taste in their mouths. Which is true for some, and sometimes that bad taste was from necessary medicine, and sometimes not. Others simply got tired of fighting with what may have seemed like an irresistible tide of crap. --Abd (talk) 16:46, 13 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm glad someone said that. I have been watching Wikipedia, mostly controversial articles involving fringe claims of scientific findings, for more than a year, and whenever I see someone claim that there are 1600 administrators and so it should be no trouble at all to find another administrator to step in to avoid appearance of acting while involved,  my mouth falls agape.  I can count only a few administrators who have been active in these areas in the 17 months I've been watching; even when editors and administrators beg for help on the noticeboards no one else shows up, and even that small group has dwindled significantly over the last year. Woonpton (talk) 17:26, 13 May 2009 (UTC)


 * List of administrators gives over 900 active as of today (based on a minimum threshold of recent editing). Running some quick queries on the toolserver, there are 599 admins who have performed at least one block, protection or deletion since the start of the month, 881 since the start of April, and 1342 since the beginning of the year. 315 have taken at least one action (out of 7936 total) in the last 48 hours. So yes, not all are active at once, but it's still a significant number. At any given time there are dozens of admins online, and that's just immediately. --bainer (talk) 17:36, 13 May 2009 (UTC)


 * But how relevant or useful is the fact that there are hundreds of active administrators, when only five or six of them are ever seen in the areas I'm observing, and none of the other 900 will show up even in answer to urgent pleas for help? When someone complained about the lack of administrators willing to help in controversial articles, an answer given was that administrators are volunteers and can't be forced to work in areas they don't find appealing. Fair enough, but that begs the question: then what can be done about this very serious problem? Obviously the administrator system isn't working, if it works in some parts of the encyclopedia and not at all in others. Woonpton (talk) 17:54, 13 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Stephen, thank you for those figures - I was honestly curious about the actual numbers. In response to Carcharoth, I absolutely agree that admins are responsible for stepping back and asking for outside administrative eyes if they're involved. I didn't mean for this to come off as an excuse for ignoring standards in that regard. On the other hand, I think that the difficulty in obtaining such outside review is substantial, and perhaps underappreciated. I've experienced this as an editor, when an admin riding herd on a particular area has left or stopped adminning it, and no one else can be convinced to step in. It's frustrating. Last year, I had a very difficult interaction with an out-and-out, prolific, hard-core agenda account. It was literally impossible to find an admin willing to help resolve the situation - I tried a series of prescribed venues and actions, and got sympathetic comments like "Oh yes, X is way out of line, and should be topic-banned or blocked," but no one willing to actually step up and handle the situation. Ultimately it went to ArbCom, who (to my everlasting gratitude, no matter what I've said here) handled the case quickly and fairly. Still, it took 6 months and a very exhausting and trying ArbCom case. The point is that even basic handling of the most blatant abusive editing is hampered by a shortage of competent and willing admins. It's outside the scope of this case, I realize, but I guess I feel compelled to belabor the point, because it's an important one. If we care enough to keep good admins from burning out and turning bitter, cynical, and fast-and-loose with involvement guidelines, then we can a) try to make ourselves available to provide outside review, or b) at least recognize the issue as a real one. MastCell Talk 18:03, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * MastCell, we need to address the situation, and I do have solutions to suggest. But meanwhile, in the situation you described, I assume you didn't use your own tools because you could be considered to be involved. As I've written on the Workshop page, if you can't get another admin to do it, WP:IAR suggests that you do it yourself, and if you fear that delay will cause significant harm, I think you should. You would immediately recuse, you would state this in the block notice and in the block record, something like "block as emergency while [possibly] involved, any admin may unblock." The point is that you disclose involvement or appearance of involvement both on the editor talk page, and in the block record, you rigorously refrain from anything that remotely resembles incivility, and you notify the relevant noticeboard, in this case, because of emergency claim, it would be, I'd think, AN/I. And if nobody does anything about it, well, tough. You've done your duty, and you could do it again. It should be a short block, it will expire, I'd say such a block should never be for more than 24 hours. If the project can't scare up an admin to review a block in 24 hours, it's gone, calling all rats, abandon ship. The user will put up, presumably, an unblock template as well, and an unblock decline counts as a review. --Abd (talk) 20:49, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Note that "reviewing a block," with no unblock template, might mean that nobody does anything, which, pending some protest later, affirms your action, as long as you properly notified, it covers you. --Abd (talk) 23:28, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, I didn't act in that case because I considered myself "involved" and not reasonably neutral. In my experience, WP:IAR as a block rationale is uniformly disastrous. I think that the delay caused significant harm to the encyclopedia (at least one solid contributor left as a direct result of the unpleasantness engendered by this agenda account, and the bureaucratic impossibility of actually dealing with it; I seriously considered leaving as well, and it permanently altered my outlook and optimism about this place). On the other hand, I think it would have caused significant harm had I blocked the account myself. There are several accounts editing today who were blocked and/or banned for cause, but because of irregularities in the blocking procedure they were let off the hook. In the end, this is the most damaging outcome - a hastily or questionably enacted block, though justified on merit, is overturned on process grounds, with attendant three-ring circus, and the account in question goes on to more of the same. MastCell Talk 18:23, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * In what I wrote, IAR isn't the block rationale, itself, it is a reason why you could, and possibly should, in an emergency, block even though arguably involved. The situation you describe, though, sounds like one not amenable to solution with admin tools. What it would take, I suspect, is broader community involvement in positively resolving the situation, in maximizing consensus. My own view is that we get our most tenacious disputes from what I'm calling "majority POV-pushing," where a common POV is mistaken for NPOV, and contrary but minority POV is then repressed and tenaciously opposed, instead of being invited to participate in forming consensus. Minority POV-pushing is a problem, but one much more easily resolved; by definition, editors are more available to protect the majority position. We need to develop a stronger culture of respect for minority views, which does not mean handing them the keys to the place. --Abd (talk) 01:33, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't agree with your point about having "more editors available to protect the majority position." It doesn't jibe with firsthand experience. The problem is that minority views often have representation on Wikipedia which far exceeds their representation in the real world or among experts in the field. For example, every reputable expert and expert body agree that HIV is the cause of AIDS. However, it has not been uncommon, historically, for AIDS-denialist agenda accounts to outnumber "mainstream" editors at our article on AIDS denialism. The proportional representation of these views is dramatically and artificially skewed on Wikipedia. The problem is that on the one hand, you have people deeply committed to one pet minoritarian belief, which they pursue to the exclusion of all else on Wikipedia. That sort of single-issue zealotry generally isn't mustered, or matched, by people with a "mainstream" view. I believe the Earth is round, but I don't care enough to spend my next 6 months and 3,000 edits here fighting with an agenda account from the Flat-Earth Society to defend that view. MastCell Talk 17:04, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The problem of high motivation from some fringe advocates is a separate one; so I don't wonder at the experience described. Nevertheless, the minority POV pushing problem is still easier to resolve simply by wider attention, and minority POV-pushing, that is, going beyond what is legitimate from sources, is more easy to detect; it's pushing uphill. But majority POV-pushing is pushing downhill, in line with what most editors will readily agree with, by the conditions of the problem. In the end, if we want true NPOV, the majority must exercise restraint, and remain careful to seek consensus with that horde of Flat Earthers, or else you do end up with 3,000 edits resisting their persistent outrage. Believe it or not, there are plenty of reasonable people who believe in this or that fringe concept, and they know that their belief is fringe and they will not expect it to be given prominence over mainstream views. They just want the article and editorial process to be fair, and to represent that portion of their views which can be verified from reliable source, even if only as attributed opinion identified as not being generally accepted. They know it is not generally accepted and they will not resist this comment. Cold fusion is a difficult case because of the gap between what is being published in peer-reviewed reliable source and what is, indeed, a common perception among scientists in general. So we get editors convinced that cold fusion is junk science resisting the inclusion of material from what would ordinarily be considered reliable source, because it is "fringe," ipso facto. It's fringe because it supposedly supports a fringe view. However, experimental reports are just experimental reports, and one of the problem with fringe research, once a field has been defined as fringe, is that mainstream criticism may largely ceases, and then, if someone "mainstream" reviews the field and concludes there is value, they are quickly identified as "fringe." But not in peer-reviewed reliable source! In pop media. In the end, we make, too often, subjective judgments regarding what is fringe and what is not, without foundation in sources of high reliability. It's tricky to try to consider that a review in a peer-reviewed journal, reporting that replication success for the Pons-Fleischmann effect (the basic excess heat results) had increased to 100% over the previous year (2007) across a number of research groups, is somehow contradicted by claims in 1989 that there had been no replication, or that replication was due to faulty technique or suffered from this or that flaw. There is actually no contradiction there, and later work in the field shows that, indeed, some of the early work was poor. For example, Fleischmann's finding of neutrons was bogus, experimental error, there is no disagreement on that, it's settled. So how do we balance the article? What I've been saying is that it isn't simple. It requires cooperation and working toward consensus. It requires restraint by all parties; and if the "majority POV" insists on pure domination, disruption will continue indefinitely, with new faces replacing the old. In an article with broad attention, the "minority POV" is unlikely to be successful at unfair domination! --Abd (talk) 00:00, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I've replied to MastCell at User talk:MastCell. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:12, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Multiple, unsynchronized definitions of "uninvolved"
OK, I realize I'm well into being a pain in the ass at this point, but I have one additional concern about the proposed findings which seem likely to pass. (It has nothing to do with Guy, Abd, or this particular case, but with a larger issue). It seems to me that we currently have multiple, unsynchronized definitions of "uninvolved" administrators. These include: I see this as a real problem which is going to engender (more than the usual amount of) wikilawyering over "involvement". It creates a difficult environment for admins, as it is unclear which set of standards will be enforced on a given day. Can we invest some effort in synchronizing the various definitions? Obviously, my preference would be to tighten up the wording in this particular case, which seems excessively broad and prone to abuse, but I could be happy with any effort to align these standards more clearly. MastCell Talk 18:13, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Administrators: "Administrators should ensure they are reasonably neutral parties when they use the tools", "if there is doubt, or a personal motive may be alleged, it may still be better to pass it to others where possible." This (the actual policy on the subject) is relatively vague and suggestive rather than declarative, relying on terms like "reasonably neutral" and "may be still be better where possible."
 * The current decision is extremely broad, defining involvement by the presence of any "prior history of conflict with the affected user", and uses much stricter language about borderline cases.
 * Discretionary sanctions take the laxest view of "invovlement" (representative example). To be "involved", an admin must be "engaged in a current, direct, personal conflict on the topic with the user receiving sanctions." This conflicts directly with the principle espoused in this case. Let's say I have a "history of conflict" 1 year ago with someone on a random article, haven't seen them since, and they pop up on WP:AE having triggered discretionary sanctions on an Israeli-Palestinian article. According to the discretionary sanctions, I could legitimately act. According to this case, I could be desysopped for acting.
 * This case certainly doesn't show that you could be desysopped for acting while involved! At least not yet, and it seems unlikely. However, if there is a reasonable appearance of involvement, you should recuse and only act, in spite of this, in an emergency, where not acting will, in your view, cause more damage than an apparently involved use of tools. (This is damaging, in itself, so it's a question of balance.) I can't emphasize enough that if you should find it necessary to use tools while involved, immediate disclosure of involvement, with deep recusal (but not reversal of the action, and "deep recusal" means that you don't debate the action beyond providing necessary evidence to start with, and then only responding to specific questions later, avoiding any appearance of attachment to outcome) makes any possible error of yours moot (unless you are doing this kind of thing all the time, when there is no emergency). Rather, the necessity of the action itself becomes, or should become, the object of debate. Not you and your alleged involvement. If you have not disclosed involvement and have not disengaged, the matter shifts. Then allegations of involvement become important; otherwise there is a weight of assumption that an admin is acting neutrally and properly, which can operate unfairly against other parties. --Abd (talk) 02:09, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The nuances in my own views, on the workshop and to a lesser extent on the proposed decision page, probably complicate the matter still further. The question is whether there are often genuine disputes about involvement-level that cause actual problems (as opposed to unnecessary argumentation four months after the fact), so that we need to put together a task force to clarify the policy&mdash;or can we just live with this being a Potter Stewart "I know it when I see it" type of thing. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:30, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Findings and remedies about Abd
Obviously, it's true that Abd's pursuit of dispute resolution has been long, involved, and dogged, reflected in the finding wording that it "ought to have been obvious to him that the attempted methods of dispute resolution were unproductive." Here's the thing, Abd appears to feel that there is a mess that still needs to be cleaned up, as in a couple of shaky blocks and an unjustifiable placement of a website on the spam blacklist, among other things. I can understand the feeling. I think some of us are wondering when Crum375 is going to undo the mess he made when he admin deleted SV's entire talk page history. Perhaps our wait for him to do so will be in vain.

Anyway, us non-admins should have a reasonable expectation of admins cleaning up the messes that occur when they make mistakes. In this pursuit by Abd of resolution in this matter, I think it could have been resolved if JzG had acknowledge the concerns about his actions and tried to remedy them. Perhaps the remedy would have been to say, "The website is no longer on the en.Wikipedia blacklist, so there's nothing to fix there. I'll undo the blocks of those two IPs which I failed to justify adequately." or something like that. Because JzG was apparently unwilling or unable to do so, I have a hard time condemning Abd's persistance in trying to force a resolution. Of course, if Abd's demands for resolution were excessive, which they might be, although I'm unaware of that if true, then that would be a different matter which would need to be expressed in a finding by the Committee. I'm not seeing that, however. Does the Committee? Cla68 (talk) 03:40, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Cla68, may I say that when I think of dogged pursuit of dispute resolution, your name comes to mind? Maybe you could contrast your approach with that of Abd? I'm also trying to formulate a principle to point out how damaging it can be to leave disputes unresolved. Walking away is fine at time, but not if it leaves a mess behind. Actually, that's a good enough starting point. Carcharoth (talk) 05:42, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * The norm on Wikipedia is to let horses lie where they fall, and that is as it should be; however, where a dispute seems reasonably likely to repeat, documenting the dispute, and, preferably with minimal disruption, attempting to resolve it, can be more efficient. "Minimal disruption" means that efforts at resolution proceed at the lowest practical level, it starts with two editors having a discussion and expands from there where a resolution acceptable to both can't be found. The level of disruption is typically proportional to the number of editors who will see and participate in a discussion. It seems that the Committee is urging me to proceed up through DR more rapidly, and, indeed, when resolution at lower levels clearly fails, deliberate speed is appropriate. An RfC on an administrator, though, is almost intrinsically disruptive in a major way. Until that point, the actions I'd taken over failure to recuse had been low-disruption. People following my edits might think I was all over the place, but the bulk of this was at Talk:Cold fusion or the blacklist pages, and most of my commentary on the blacklisting pages was not about JzG, but about the sites, and I think that reference to action while involved by me was rare, in the two months before filing the RfC. No level below ArbComm has the ability to determine a desysopping, and, therefore, the ability to strongly warn when an admin is resistant. It was a big step, and one hazardous to my wikihealth, and I have a tendency to postpone big steps.
 * It was clear to me by February that low-level efforts had failed, but one possibility remained: that a friend of JzG, someone he trusted, would give him good advice. That hope remained, and it had no specific deadline. I tend to put things off when there is no deadline, especially if they are unpleasant. The deadline that occasioned the RfC was the MfD that JzG filed to delete the evidence file previously used before ArbComm; the file was actually deleted while the RfC was being drafted. The disruption of the RfC and then this case was apparently inevitable; given that, quite visible in hindsight, sooner would have been better than later. I agree with Carcharoth: while letting things go is frequently functional, there are exceptions, and editors should be encouraged to use WP:DR, when they judge that the case is one of them; DR is actually not followed much. I see editors jumping to AN/I with non-emergencies that would be better resolved, and more efficiently, at lower levels, and, increasingly, such disputes should be bumped off the noticeboard, with, perhaps, some assistance provided toward finding consensus. --Abd (talk) 13:25, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Abd's pursuit of dispute resolution
Newyorkbrad made a comment about "noticeboards" in this section. I think an overview of my "pursuit" of the matter may be in order. I'm not going to put together an evidence page on it, just outline it from my memory.
 * I noticed the blacklistings, looked into it, and suggested to JzG that he was involved and should not have taken this action.
 * I looked into the Cold fusion article and became involved there. (Yes, Mathsci, I have a "POV." People who learn about a topic often develop one of those. But I didn't have that POV when I started, four months ago.)
 * In attempting to deal with various related situations, I mentioned the actions while involved. These mentions took place in Talk:Cold fusion and on various Talk pages, on the blacklist discussion pages, and there may have been some mention on a noticeboard. However, what I did not do was to take the issue of action while involved to a noticeboard. I did file a report of edit warring on JzG's part on AN/I, but mention there of use of tools while involved would have been peripheral at best, and not relevant to the main point, which didn't involve use of tools; rather, it was, in my opinion, editorial misbehavior.
 * When JzG filed an RfAr/Clarification over his ban of Jed Rothwell, he did not disclose involvement. I commented there, and was asked to compile an evidence file to substantiate my comments, and I did so.
 * Matters sat there for perhaps a month. JzG did stop using tools with respect to Cold fusion, but that was never my principal concern: my concern was failure to recognize and acknowledge involvement and to recuse. This causes damage, all by itself, by fostering an impression that Wikipedia is the province of self-serving administrators.
 * JzG filed an MfD over the evidence page that I'd presented to ArbComm. I responded to that.
 * I placed a request for friends of JzG to give him good counsel regarding the matter of action while involved, and waited a month.
 * When the evidence file was about to be deleted as a result of the MfD decision, I filed the RfC. (The page was deleted, it has a placeholder now.)
 * I did not spend four months of intense effort pursuing JzG. In fact, I did not pursue him at all; once it became apparent that he wasn't going to respond to direct requests, I stopped posting on his Talk page. I did work on undoing some of the damage done, that has consumed far more time. The stages of WP:DR followed were:
 * Direct negotiation with JzG, several times over specific issues. It's documented in Requests for comment/JzG 3.
 * I requested that JzG suggest an editor he trusts to mediate the issue.
 * I presented argument and evidence before ArbComm, which generated community comment supporting the view that JzG had acted while involved.
 * I filed the RfC, certified by several editors.
 * I've participated here, in this RfAr filed by Jehochman, as a named party.
 * While this was extended, i.e., over four months, it was not intense, until the RfC was filed, leading to this RfAr.
 * It's been said that I was beating a dead horse, that matters had already been resolved four months ago. Quite simply, that's not true. Some matters have been resolved, but only recently, others have not yet been addressed. And the specific actions weren't my concern, nor was JzG's POV regarding Cold fusion, it was failure to recuse when blatantly involved, followed by his denial of involvement. It's my view that action while involved is easily dropped when admitted, but JzG never admitted to acting while involved. He's grudgingly accepted that "perhaps he's not the best person" to take actions with respect to the specific article or involved editors. But he blocked an IP editor during the RfC, apparently based on outside conflict, and removed that editor's mildly critical comment. This shows that recusal is still a live issue, unresolved.
 * As I've said, I have no problem with the findings or advice, but I think that some views have become a bit distorted. --Abd (talk) 04:39, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Can you do a short listing and timetable of where and when you raised this matter. This timetable should cover all times you raised this issue, and in all venues. No commentary. Just links and dates. Carcharoth (talk) 05:48, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Sheesh! what constitutes "raising this matter" isn't clear to me, and without a clear definition and with an attempt to be complete (as requested), this could be a big job, and such a compilation without analysis could be misleading. However, I'll attempt to compile a complete list of diffs where I refer to the issue of recusal failure, specifically mentioning JzG, and then add -- or allow others to add -- commentary, or to add instances I miss. It will take some time. --Abd (talk) 13:30, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It's looking to me like I'm not going to complete the compilation before this case closes. I don't see a problem with being advised to do what I did, or with being advised to not do what I didn't do.... Nor with being advised to do what I failed to do and agree would have been better, and every proposed advice or recommendation is in one of those categories. It does look to me, however, like there are some (minor) misunderstandings of what I actually did.
 * From my point of view, there are two classes of discussions: first, raising the issue of recusal failure in order to address that specifically, or, second, raising the involvement of JzG in work to reverse some of the effects. There is a normal presumption that an administrative action was proper, or at least neutral and uninvolved. While I've argued in many places that admin involvement is actually moot as to the ultimate result (upon review), that review doesn't necessarily take place in an unbiased way if the editors considering it aren't aware of the involvement. So, initially, when challenging the blacklistings, I mentioned JzG's involvement. However, later work on delisting or whitelisting hardly mentioned involvement, if at all. When JzG went to RfAr/Clarification over his ban and block of Jed Rothwell, it was important to mention his involvement, but not so much to resolve that issue, since it was not expected that ArbComm would address this, but rather to negate the presumption of neutrality that was, apparently, coloring initial arbitrator response. That was not, as such an attempt to resolve the dispute over failure to recuse.
 * The attempts to resolve this primary dispute over recusal were actually confined, and were documented in the RfC; there was discussion on JzG Talk, there were my comments before ArbComm in the mentioned case (which were additionally intended to gather some broader comment on the problem, hoping that JzG would get it), and then there was the RfC. This was never taken to a noticeboard, and was not treated as an emergency.
 * That many have the impression of some kind of massive campaign is possibly due to the fact that in a number of places the involvement issue was mentioned as part of my effort to deal with the blacklistings; in dealing with an incident of edit warring, I mentioned the related blacklisting; the edit warring was over the use of a link to lenr-canr.org that had been whitelisted, JzG still strongly opposed its use with repeated reverts, pushing, but not quite crossing, 3RR.
 * I have put up a complete list of my contributions from Jan 1 to midnight May 16, linked from User:Abd/2009 contributions. I did this to make it easy to review the contribs; I can look at each one with a mouse hover over the diff. I would, to give you what you asked for, then edit this list down. It may be days before I can get to it. Meanwhile, color me a bit puzzled as I try to parse the remedies that relate to me.
 * 2.1) Abd is advised to heed good-faith feedback when handling disputes, to incorporate that feedback, and to clearly and succinctly document previous and current attempts at resolution of the dispute before escalating to the next stage of dispute resolution.
 * At numerous times during this process, I received feedback and, where it did not require abandoning Wikipedia principles and policies, altered my work, and I haven't noticed any specific example alleged here where I failed to do this and should have. As to documenting previous and current attempts, how does one do this and where? The RfC documents prior attempts to resolve the issue, and, I believe, clearly and succinctly, but the advice seems to suggest that this should be done before escalating, and the only act of escalation that I took was filing the RfC. The prior attempt to resolve the dispute over recusal took place on JzG Talk, as RfCs actually require. I don't think that ArbComm is suggesting that I should have summarized it all there. What, exactly, would ArbComm have had me do? Was the RfC not succinct? If not, it was not for lack of trying.
 * 2.2) Abd is urged to avoid needlessly prolonging disputes by excessive or repetitive pursuit of unproductive methods of dispute resolution.
 * Sure. But what actually happened was that I postponed escalation, I did not repeatedly pursue DR, nor was what I did unproductive, I am quite happy with the apparent outcome here, and so are other editors whom I respect. Contrary to what some have claimed, my goal was not to desysop JzG, but only to affirm the importance of administrative recusal when involved, which required, in my view, raising the spectre of desysopping. Again, is there any evidence before the Committee that I did prolong the dispute, in the sense of some sort of continual disruption;? Postponing a resolution by allowing time for the possibility of some independent intervention does not, in itself, create disruption. As far as I can tell, the postponement had little or no negative effect; It seems that this finding is a relic of the dead "dead horse" allegation.
 * It would certainly be impolitic of me to appear to be ignoring ArbComm advice, but I truly do not know how to apply the advice in retrospect. The only thing I can derive, as matters stand, is advice that I should have much more rapidly gone to RfC; but user RfC is quite disruptive, and I tend to think that substantial effort should be made to avoid it. I do think that I delayed too long, but, then again, JzG almost entirely stopped editing and I'm unaware of any damage resulting from the delay. The negative comment about me would have arisen regardless.
 * I'm not convinced that it would be worth the time of ArbComm to refine the remedies, and if there is something I'm missing, it can be explained to me later. I do, in fact, listen to feedback, but I don't necessarily "heed" it. I respect it, and, especially, I respect consensus; however, I understand that sometimes apparent consensus is superficial and I'm willing to take some heat to find out if this is the case, as I did here. Two-thirds of the editors at RfC seem to have supported the view that JzG "did nothing wrong," and it is that "feedback" that I was accused of not heeding. --Abd (talk) 04:38, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The userspace essay User:Abd/Majority POV-pushing seems to be a deliberate attempt to justify ignoring consensus. Mathsci (talk) 06:32, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Good example of how beauty is in the eye of the beholder. AGF, Mathsci, don't leave home without it. How about commenting at User talk:Abd/Majority POV-pushing? I copied your comment there. --Abd (talk) 11:27, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


 * The key is to carry forward what others have said, even if you disagree with it. And to find others to check whether what you have written is too long. If what I've asked for (the timetable) will take too long, please just leave it for now. Carcharoth (talk) 06:49, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Here's what I'll do: for my own information and that of anyone interested, I will complete the review requested, but not in a rush, and I see no reason to delay closing the RfAr for it, because I see the most poorly-crafted advice given to me as harmless at worst and, of course, possibly helpful, because I can see through to the good faith intention behind it. The advice about length and possible prior consultation is not practical for ordinary discussion, it would be chilling. However, not uncommonly, I collapse discussions leaving visible an "executive summary," either with the first posting or sometimes later, and sometimes other editors do this for me; if it's done in a helpful way, I generally accept it or even welcome it. Coppertwig is particularly skillful at extracting and summarizing my points. My sense is that the RfC and the evidence I presented in this RfAr were appropriately condensed, however. I did, of course, consult other editors regarding the RfC before filing it, and incorporated their suggestions.
 * The Workshop pages tend to become discussions, and it is in discussion that I can become excessively verbose; I would advise ArbComm against allowing this, but rather to allow the community to "work on" proposals by presenting them as coherent and specific proposals, without history of the discussion, rather, reported in an NPOV fashion from Talk page discussion (and cited to it). The Workshop would then represent a relatively concise summary of what the community proposed, of the various points of view involved. It could then look more like an RfC, with friendly edits of the proposals allowed. At the end, it would have Support/Oppose comments, brief, with each proposal, and proposals with no support would be removed entirely to Talk. I do not think that I was the most verbose editor involved in this RfAr, but I haven't actually measured the sizes of the contributions. --Abd (talk) 13:45, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the discussion on JzG's timeline of blacklisting
Regarding the sentence:

"JzG started a discussion on the English Wikipedia spam blacklist talk page with respect to 'lenr-canr.org', saying 'Adding now, and listing here for transparency', though he added the site to the blacklist less than a minute later."

I know this is a finding of fact, showing the evidence, but I wanted to say that this is nothing really uncommon. If one checks the current version of MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist, one can see several sections where the links are proposed for blacklisting, and which are closed minutes (example, example) ) to days (example) later (sometimes by the same editor; I am sorry to see that all entries I can now quickly find examples of are by User:A. B.), without discussion. Spam blacklisting is not treated in a different way than blocking or page protection, administrative actions which often are done without discussion, or rollback (by many editors). Also, the evidence that I presented shows that it is not uncommon to blacklist 'emergency' entries without discussion at all (in contrast to "This was in contravention to the normal process where an addition to the blacklist takes place after discussion."). Blacklisting is quite commonly done to prevent current, active spam, where e.g. blocking would not reach IP-hopping spammers and page protection would not be a solution either, or where blatant evasions are used (repeated spam, etc.). I see the confusion, but this section feels a bit like incriminating while nothing there is extremely abnormal most there is quite common (the same goes for the '+1'-edit-summary, which is not uncommon either; [6 times plain '+'+number in last 100 edits to MediaWiki:spam-blacklist). --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:06, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Regarding more precise timeline, if I see it correctly:


 * At 2008-12-18T21:13:08Z opening discussion (diff is the third item in api results)
 * At 2008-12-18T21:13:33Z adding item (diff is the third item in api result)

Quick, but with two tabs not impossible. Certainly no time for discussion, but that is with also true with a couple of minutes. --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:35, 16 May 2009 (UTC)


 * This is confusing. Can you explain why Mediawiki talk:Spam-blacklist says: "To request a change to it, please follow the directions at Spam blacklist" and also "Any administrator may edit the spam blacklist." The way I see it, that page is set up for editors to request additions, but for admins to just edit the page? Why then does "Instructions for admins" say "Close the request entry on here using either ✅ or ❌ as appropriate. The request should be left open for a week maybe as there will often be further related sites or an appeal in that time."? There is also the note: "If in doubt, please leave a request and a spam-knowledgeable admin will follow-up" - maybe that is what should have happened here. If there is a disparity between editors and admins, with admins being "allowed" to add without discussion, I certainly don't see that stated at Spam blacklist. Looking at the instructions at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/log, I see that all logged entries are linked to a request, either at 'MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist', or WikiProject Spam, or in some cases I see, to an ANI report. I still see, in all cases, links to a request. If you are saying that some requests are made and acted on by the same admin, with no other input at all, that seems worrying to me. I won't be around much tomorrow, but hopefully other arbitrators will notice this discussion and change the wording of that finding of fact as needed. Carcharoth (talk) 01:11, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

You are right, that can be confusing, let me try to explain what I see as 'the common way I handle and I see other admins handle blacklisting'. First, I am focussing here, as in one of the findings in the workshop, on the procedure of blacklisting, the question if JzG should have recused is separated from that. The guides are a bit out of date maybe from the actual practice, though I believe that the basis is still true. That is a serious concern as well.


 * "Any administrator may edit the spam blacklist" - hence, if there is a clear cut case of spam, or one of the other cases (redirect site, malware site) or other form of 'emergency', then any admin can just add the link to the spam blacklist, there is not a requirement to first request, wait for discussion and then blacklist. Though I would say that for many non-emergency cases it would certainly be preferred.
 * "To request a change to it, please follow the directions at Spam blacklist", that should be mainly for non-admins, or admins who do not feel themselves confident with it, bot who have found a spammer 'bad' enough for the links to be added to the blacklist, but they can't do it themselves. As an admin, I would also here request the less clear-cut cases (e.g. a particularly good link to a reliable source which is used widely through wikipedia as a source, but which nonetheless is massively spammed to many articles by many unrelated IPs and accounts, we had such a case recently).  I would add a discussion to the request, wait for input on how to proceed, or, if the spammer is active, blacklist it for 15 minutes, an hour, just to stop the editors, but allowing for the discussion to proceed.
 * Another use of the request page (and I think the examples I give of the entries by A. B. are good examples of those), is to document the whole case in a request, mention all the related links and editors, mention some diffs of example additions or some spam-pages, some explanation, etc. Also these cases are clear cut, and do not require a discussion per se.  A. B. then proceeds in adding the links, close the discussion, and link in the log to the permanent revision of the request where all data can be found.  This keeps the actual log small.


 * "Close the request entry on here using either ✅ or ❌ as appropriate. The request should be left open for a week maybe as there will often be further related sites or an appeal in that time."? .. hmm, yes.  I think that that would be preferred, but in a week a lot of spam can be added, and malware sites could not be added on this case, resulting in a lot of possible damage.  I think the emphasis should be on the word 'should'.  This is a sentence which in this case might be of interest: was this an emergency and/or clear-cut case?
 * "If in doubt, please leave a request and a spam-knowledgeable admin will follow-up" assumes that one is in doubt (as e.g. with the example I gave above, the particularly good reliable reference which is nonetheless spammed in a really hard way). The addition "- maybe that is what should have happened here." .. yes, but this then would go to the question if User:JzG found this a particularly clear case, maybe he was not doubting.

You say:


 * "I still see, in all cases, links to a request." - no, see my evidence (Requests_for_arbitration/Abd_and_JzG/Evidence), there are several cases which link to 'evidence of actual ongoing abuse', not to a request on the talkpage, WT:WPSPAM or an administrators noticeboard. It involves 6% of the regexes that were added in March, 20 of the added 'groups'.  That should all be examples of cases where there was a type of active spamming/abuse which had to be stopped at that moment (e.g. one of the specific youtube links I added in that period ('\byoutube\.com\/watch\?v=cmdkmm1ohha\b # Beetstra # abusively used, see en:user:94.197.160.54' -> was a new version of a youtube movie, I believe the third or fourth in row and the previous ones were already blacklisted, copyright violation may be involved here), which was abused on a handful of articles by an IP range.  Protecting a high-traffic page like BBC is IMHO not really an option (giving way more damage than a specific blacklisting), the IP was hopping, so a rangeblock for a week would probably also give much damage, and waiting for discussion would give the vandal free play for some time)
 * "If you are saying that some requests are made and acted on by the same admin, with no other input at all, that seems worrying to me." - Here I don't understand. You think that if an admin, knowledgeable in the field, has worked out a spam case, shows many editors and many additions of links to many pages of clear spam sites (porn, drugs-selling (Sildenafil, e.g.), and that abuse is not going to stop, that it is worrying that they adds it after giving the full evidence?  How would that be different from blocking an editor (IP-range) because the editor is vandalising, or protecting a page because the page is being vandalised a lot.  In the latter two cases it can still be discussed (via the unblock or on the respective talkpage) if there was sufficient evidence, but here we have delisting requests or whitelisting requests to catch that.  And I do not see that many cases where the evidence was not sufficient (this is (maybe!) one of the few).  As I said above, blocks and page protections are done without discussion, but based on clear evidence (I hope), here it is not necesseraly different from that (again: I hope).

I see many cases where people say "blacklisting a site does more damage than blocking or page-protection" .. I think that that strongly depends on the site that is being abused. Protecting pages disables ALL IPs ánd new editors to edit the page, quite unwiki like, blocking a range of IPs on a general provider disables ALL these editors not to be able to edit at all. I agree, blacklisting a site should not be done lightly, one should really have enough evidence, and when in doubt, it should be discussed. Blacklisting youtube.com would have disabled 233 edits on the English wikipedia yesterday (I counted 233 additions of youtube.com yesterday in mainspace, user space, template space and category space, on a total of 22105 added links, I know, difficult to trace and prove stats, one would have to go through all thousands (millions?) of edits made yesterday to check), but blacklisting a specific site does not cause wide scale damage to wikipedia! But a vandal can easily vandalise hundreds of pages in an hour (until blocked), and spammers can easily add hundreds of links in an hour (diff, diff - 14 links within a minute; see also other edits by this IP) A lot of sites are not added that often, while certain pages and IP-ranges have way more edits in that same period.

I hope this clarifies a bit further. There is enough basis for a finding of fact, but I think that it now mentions things which are not really uncommon, or which are not strictly policy (or guideline) forbidden. I may try something in the workshop. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:08, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the key points here are that what you describe is classic spamming behaviour - lots of links added in a short period of time by throwaway accounts editing lots of pages either with specific targets in mind, or in a more random fashion. Those are what you might call "obvious" cases, and are unlikely to be disputed. Consider the difference between this and use of a set of links in a content dispute where an account may be engaging in advocacy or POV-pushing. To many people, that is not spam, and requires discussion. The key here is whether JzG is an admin who has experience at dealing with the spam blacklist, or an editor of cold fusion who wanted the spam blacklist used for a specific purpose? What is really needed is a community discussion to figure out where the boundaries should lie for use of the blacklist, and whether the current standards for borderline cases should be adopted or not, or changed. Carcharoth (talk) 06:45, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, yes, most of these cases are really obvious. And I agree with what you say here. This case is certainly less obvious, we are here in a very grey area. The key is indeed wheter JzG is an admin with experience at dealing with spam blacklist issues (I think that he certainly is), and whether his judgement that this was clear cut was correct (that would need further, independent, analysis, I don't think it is as white or black as has been suggested), or that this was really to enforce content (and that is certainly not clear to me).

We will need some discussion about 'how much abuse do we take from an largely unreliable source', noting that in the past perfectly reliable sources were blacklisted because of blatant, uncontrollable abuse (the links in the two diffs above (diff, diff) are to a very reliable source, nonetheless the site was blacklisted for some time to stop the spamming), and there are several examples of typical unreliable sources which are blacklisted for continued abuse/spam, and the fact that they are largely unreliable sources (blog.myspace.com, suite101.com; note: sometimes there are even more problems with these sites). A thin grey line in a very grey area. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:44, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

(.. that was why I had the edit conflict, case is closed, sorry for beating a ... ). --Dirk Beetstra T  C 17:52, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It should be made clear where the grey area is. The blacklisting of lenr-canr.org and newenergytimes.com was not in a gray area, because there was no linkspam, which is defined as large-scale addition of links, such that other measures are insufficient to deal with the problem. The appropriateness of the links is actually not an issue, massive addition is considered linkspam even if every link is appropriate, as the case of Lyrikline.org and the unfortunate User:Lyriker shows ("Lyriker" means "Poet.") Where content considerations can arise is where there is linkspam. How much effort are we willing to put into allowing links to a web site that is usually inappropriate?
 * What the history has shown is that, too easily, the blacklist administrators opted for exclusion, whereas Beetstra has shown that there are alternatives, including the use of his bot. These alternatives do not "punish" legitimate editors, but still prevent the easy addition of most linkspam.
 * My view is that whenever content issues arise, delisting and whitelisting decisions should not be made by "involved administrators," and involvement here includes being a regular blacklist administrator (these tend to have a normal protective position with respect to past decisions by themselves or their colleagues). Rather, community processes should be used. When there is a neutral close of such a process, a blacklist regular may implement it; the reason for allowing this would be that properly maintaining the list is important, and experience with the application of regex desirable. This suggests creating a separate page for delisting and whitelisting requests. There is already the separate whitelisting page, so the only new page here is a delisting page, which could (and should) be combined with whitelisting. I.e., when requesting delisting, an editor should be asked to provide (optionally) an example of usage. If delisting is to be denied, whitelisting could then be accepted with no further discussion as part of the same close; alternatively, if just a specific whitelisting is requested, and discussion develops that shows that blacklisting was actually not necessary, the close could request delisting. All these closes could be made by non-administrators; however, my suggestion is that the whitelisting/delisting page be semiprotected, with a separate page created for requests from IP and new editors; those requests would expire and be archived if no autoconfirmed editor decides to accept the request and take it to the semiprotected page. This would then reduce the need to attend to frivolous requests from spammers. Let the community handle it! And if the community doesn't, well, that would mean that we don't consider allowing link additions from IP or new editors important; but all it would take is for an IP editor to convince one autoconfirmed editor to request the change, and if an IP editor can't find that editor, that does say something about the quality of the request. The page instructions would detail all this, so that everyone would know what to do; the blacklist edit denial message would clearly point to where to begin the process. --Abd (talk) 13:34, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


 * There are other grey area's, Abd. If there was linkspamming there was no grey area.  Linkspam is already since long, long time not the only reason to blacklist, and the legitimate questions here are 'a) was there sufficient evidence of abuse? and b) should it have been discussed and handled by more editors before listing' (a: I am absolutely not sure, b: yes, seen my answer on a).  Both are questions which are not answered in this ArbComm (and may be questions which ArbComm can't answer), or marginally/indirect answered.
 * I think it is better that we proceed further discussion on Wikipedia talk:Spam blacklist/Rewrite, or on Wikipedia talk:Spam blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 13:50, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Results?
I've watched a lot of arbitrations, and this is the first time I've seen a case moving to close without a listing of the principles, findings of fact, and remedies which have passed. In many cases, when a clerk has listed the passing items, there has been some disagreement on one or more of the items, and adjustments made if necessary til everyone is satisfied that the items listed as passing did indeed pass, based on abstentions, juggling overlapping findings, and so forth. It seems odd to close a case before an open agreement as to which findings have passed. Woonpton (talk) 13:53, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Good idea. There has already been discussion, in the closing section, as to whether principle 7 passed. Apparently the arbitrators want either principle 2 or 2.1, but it's not clear to me which, or possibly both. Maybe the arbitrators voting for closure are happy to leave this to be worked out by the clerks after closure. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 14:29, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I just closed the case. I wasn't able to have the list principles as the case went along, as I had no consistent computer access (see the notice on the to of my userpage for more information) . However, in the future, if one or both clerks (both, in this case) have been busy or not around, one can judge on his/her own which are passing (the majority is listed at the top of the page). Coppertwig, as for principle 2, 2.1 supercedes it, and I don't think there was anything in 2 that 2.1 didn't cover. However, situations like that are judged by the clerk on an individual basis.  hmwith  τ   17:54, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, the summary of the case/closure is located at Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard. You can discuss the result here.  hmwith  τ   17:56, 18 May 2009 (UTC)