Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Philwelch/Proposed decision

Arbitrators
Arbitrators active as of the opening of this case:


 * Blnguyen
 * Charles Matthews
 * Flcelloguy
 * FloNight
 * Fred Bauder
 * Jdforrester
 * Jpgordon
 * Kirill Lokshin
 * Paul August
 * UninvitedCompany

There are 10 active arbitrators and none are recused, so the majority is 6.

Morven, Raul654, and SimonP are inactive as of March 1, 2007. As Mackensen was appointed after the case was accepted, he is automatically listed as not participating unless he states otherwise. Thatcher131 18:11, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Two contradictory principles?
It appears to me that the Return of access levels (last sentence) and the Reinstatement (either 4 or 4.1) principles are contradictory. If ArbCom does not vote on the issue of whether controversial circumstances exist, one principle assumes such circumstances exist by default, the other assumes such circumstances do not exist by default. NoSeptember 20:29, 19 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Hmm - I'll take a look at this now. Flcelloguy (A note? ) 23:41, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Principle 1 only applies to desysoppings "while an arbitration case or a request for arbitration is pending", while 4 & 4.1 are not (necessarily) limited to that scenario; they're not really contradictory. Kirill Lokshin 23:45, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with Kirill Lokshin (although I think that number 1 is all that is necessary to resolve this case&mdash;but then again, as the person who proposed it on the workshop, I would think that :) ). Newyorkbrad 23:53, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * We have seen spurious and very weak cases brought to WP:RFAR and cases where an admin can be a very minor involved party to a case. These would qualify under principle 1 in requiring RfA, even if it was obvious to the reasonable person that this was not the intent of the rule. The control of when a Arb request is pending would be put in the hands of anyone who wants to game the system, or random chance. Whenever you make inflexible rules based on a non-action of ArbCom you are bound to see unexpected results. I would trust a bureaucrat's judgment over an arbitrary rule in those cases when ArbCom chooses not to act. NoSeptember  00:04, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Two responses to that: (1) My initial draft has been modified in the Proposed Decision, with no concern from me, to add "unless ArbCom provides otherwise": (2) Admins confronted with an extremely weak ArbCom case typically don't resign at that particular moment, so the eventuality you are concerned about (and which the arbitrators have left themselves wiggle room to deal with) should be a rare one. Newyorkbrad 00:08, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * We are still replacing human judgment with an automated system requiring no participation or judgment by arbitrators. This would not be much different than automating RfA into a strict percentage calculation and cutting out the bureaucrat's judgment there. NoSeptember  00:17, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Not as long as you and I and other editors are around to comment on the pending cases and can post, if warranted, "ArbCom you should realize that if you don't say anything, Foo won't be able to get resysopped without a new RfA. Since that's not fair under these circumstances please fix it." Newyorkbrad 00:19, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * We shouldn't have to alert arbitrators to stop the machine from overrunning someone. We elected arbitrators to make decisions, not watch as decisions are made for them ;). NoSeptember  00:28, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Dramatica
I would strongly recommend that ArbCom reject principle #3 in favor of #3.1, proposed by User:Flcelloguy, per reasons that I've just stated at /Workshop. I request that the Arbitrators reconsider their support of a blanket ban of references to a particular website, and rather that they be guided by the more general principle that harassment is unacceptable, no matter what its source. I would be happy to answer any questions about my reasons for this recommendation. Thank you for your consideration. -GTBacchus(talk) 21:33, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Rollback
Re: rollback: is the committee really prepared to place such strict limitations on rollback? They seem to be beyond any existing explicit or de facto policy, and are in my view unnecessarily restrictive. For example, rollback is often used to revert a large number of edits based on an honest mistake, with no suggestion of an accusation of disruption. The current sentence at Help:Reverting reads, "If you use the rollback feature for anything other than vandalism or for reverting yourself, it's polite to leave an explanation on the article talk page, or on the talk page of the user whose edit(s) you reverted." This is a clearer, fairer, and more practicable directive than banning rollback used for non-vandalism altogether. Chick Bowen 21:03, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't see anything in the principles that conflicts with this, actually. Kirill Lokshin 23:03, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I suppose it depends on one's reading of the phrase "such as" in proposed principle 5. Since the principle mentions only vandalism, misguided editors, malfunctioning bots, and banned users, I saw it as reflecting the idea that rollback is never to be used in reverting good faith edits.  I have used it myself in situations that do not seem to corresond to the principle as stated; for example, to close a mass AfD nomination at Articles for deletion/Shogo Kawada.  My point is, why define appropriate uses at all?  Why not just say, "Use of rollback within a content dispute is considered provocative and therefore disruptive," and leave it at that? Chick Bowen 23:35, 21 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I understand where you're coming from, Chick Bowen, but I think the current wording already states that rollback may be used in these special circumstances. (There are cases where use of rollback on non-vandalism edits is acceptable...) Do you think adding "such as, but not limited to,..." would improve the current wording? Flcelloguy (A note? ) 23:40, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Sure, that would help. But let me just ask--in your view, is rollback acceptable in certain special situations and otherwise not, or is it unacceptable in certain special situations and otherwise up to admin discretion?  I recognize that I might seem to be splitting hairs here, but I think there's a key distinction, and one that current policy is rather vague about.  It matters to this case, in fact--is it arbcom's feeling that Phil erred by using rollback with the intent to intimidate, or that he erred by using rollback outside of its special function? Chick Bowen 01:23, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Unnecessary findings?
In the current voting, the committee is unanimous in determining certain facts about background to the question on the Werdna RfA, but badly split on the conclusions to be drawn from those facts, and no one has proposed a remedy based on any of them. It may be better not to include any findings in the final decision if no conclusions are going to be reached. This was a relatively unusual situation and if a decision with some precedential value for the future isn't going to be reached, there seems to be little reason to publicize it further. Newyorkbrad 19:25, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * The lack of consensus itself on this issue is enlightening to me. Philwelch 07:38, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

My thoughts on the outcome of this case
I'm dissapointed that none of the reasonable proposed paroles were even placed at Proposed Decision for voting, however I'm pleased that the arbitrators didn't completely exonerate Philwelch. Dionyseus 19:49, 6 March 2007 (UTC)