Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Physchim62/Workshop

Question
PC62 believes he is in the right and backs it up with diffs and such based on his perceptions. Hesperian believes he is in the right and backs it up with diffs and such based on his perceptions. Where do we go from here? Not being involved in the dispute other than reading what has been put forth, both sides believe they are right and each side has supporters that believe their side is right. Could both sides be right based on perception?  spryde |  talk  21:11, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * See my comment concerning bounded rationality. Ultimately all parties are at the mercy of the arbitrators' own conception of reality and rationality, and how those concepts relate to the relevant policies. Mackensen (talk) 01:16, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The Committee applies Remedies based on Finding of fact backed up by Principles that reflect Wikipedia policy, customs and practices. If an user's actions are significantly outside of what is considered acceptable conduct and they do not ever understand it, then we are more inclined to impose harsher remedies. We are not here to give out punishment for prior bad acts but rather to prevent future problems. FloNight (talk) 02:12, 11 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I wrote a long response, below, and ran into an edit conflict .... the ultimate authority here is the community's consensus; however, the community, for various reasons, is not able to coherently voice that consensus sometimes, there is what I call "participation bias." Hence ArbComm exists as a specific body of editors charged with finding consensus in matters of dispute. So if, for example, a host of editors who were offended by some past action of Physchim62 -- perhaps necessary and legitimate -- pile in here with hosts of accusations, the arbitrators can disregard the comments. The comments are not votes. Only the arbitrators actually vote to accept the proposed statements of fact, conclusions, and remedies, and they use supermajority rules, I think.


 * Apparently PC62 does continue to believe that he was right. Hesperian may as well. The problem and issue here is not who was right. It is about the proper use of administrative tools. It appears that the *community* has examined the evidence and seems to have a consensus that the block of Hesperian was a serious violation of trust. Reading PC62's provided evidence and claims, they "convict" him. I don't need to look at Hesperian's claims *at all*. What happened, from my memory and in summary, was that there was a dispute over a template. Hesperian may have improperly edited a template. PC62 used admin tools to protect it; it appears that this was a template that he was personally involved in. That is arguably a violation of policy -- for an admin to use admin tools in a content dispute -- but a relatively harmless one. On the other hand, templates are important, they can affect many articles. Then, PC62 speedily closed a Template for Deletion consideration; that, too, is an administrator action, and he was involved in the issue. Again, arguably improper, but, again, not serious. Then Hesperian protested on the Talk page for PC62 that, while he wasn't really opposed to the speedy closure, the language of the closure was insulting. And he used the term for one particular statement of PC62's, the famous "steaming pile of crap." In this note, it may be relevant, Hesperian noted that he had been an administrator for as long as PC62, so PC62, if he read all the way to the end of the alleged personal attack, would know that he was dealing with another administrator, a person with the trust of the community, not some random vandal.


 * PC62 promptly blocked Hesperian. Now, it could be argued that PC62 was in fear that Hesperian would damage a widely used template, harming the display of many, many articles; this could have justified immediate action; however, then, the basis would not be "personal attack," as he claimed, but rather only protection of a critical template. The fear of widespread damage was not reasonable; it depended upon an assumption of bad faith, and we can see this in PC62's statements in the arbitration. Rather, a likely interpretation is obvious: PC62 was *angry* that his comment had been called a "steaming pile." He retaliated, for a "personal attack," using his admin tools.


 * Basic rule: administrators recuse themselves from using administrative tools in a dispute involving them personally. For an administrator to block a user, without warning, based on some perceived insult against the same administrator (which would never be an emergency), is utterly unacceptable. If PC62 believed that the comment was beyond the pale (he apparently does believe that, sincerely, still), then his proper remedy would be to complain on a noticeboard or to another admin. Another admin could then block if he or she agreed that this was necessary, and, if the second admin was not personally involved, and the evidence reasonable, that admin wouldn't be in any danger of loss of status even if it turned out to be a mistake; the worst likely consequence, even with an error, would be some kind of "talking-to."


 * The entire record is visible, if one cares to look. However, I find that the evidence presented by Physchim62 is, in itself, sufficient to warrant loss of admin tools *at least until he realizes and acknowledges the problem,* which, so far, he has not done. Instead, he charged, here in the arbitration, that the whole thing was a conspiracy to torpedo his election to ArbComm, and he continued to present evidence that he seemed to think showed bad faith on the part of Hesperian. What he does not realize, still, it seems, is that he has proven himself capable of a prolonged assumption of bad faith without proof. (No proof to the contrary, "Assume Good Faith." Not, "If it might be bad faith, it is." His personal involvement, it appears, blinded him to the facts and reasonable inference from them. He, thus, lacks certain personal skills necessary for administrators, most notably the ability to recognize conflict of interest and to avoid using the special powers entrusted to him by the community when he has such a conflict.


 * The true basic policy underlying this is Assume Good Faith. Physchim62, in a series of encounters in this incident, did not understand what Hesperian was doing, and proceeded to Assume Bad Faith. This strikes at the heart of Wikipedia, the glue that holds us together. We may disagree on many things, and, indeed, we *must* disagree, but what makes it possible for us to cooperate is an assumption (not always easy!) that we are all working to improve the project. Failures to assume good faith are common, editors are not routinely blocked for AGF failures; but for an administrator to show such strong and sustained inability to trust another editor -- and even another administrator -- is fatal to the trust that the community placed in him. I have no desire to punish Physchim62, and the remedy most likely to be imposed, as it looks now, is loss of admin privileges for Physchim62. That is not a punishment, though it is regrettable (administrators are a precious and overworked resource); it's essential to protect the community, for whenever an administrator uses his or her tools in anger, there is danger. Anger against a user is a sign that the assumption of good faith has been lost, and it should be a sign to an administrator that he or she should restrain the temptation to blast that sucker out of here.


 * I've been arguing that when administrators block a user, they should apologize, with words like "I regret any inconvenience to you, but it has come to my attention that certain actions of your account may be placing Wikipedia or its editors or your reputation at risk, so I have blocked your access temporarily. You may help clear up this matter by [...], and for assistance you can ...." If an administrator is angry, it becomes difficult to be polite. I.e., civil, and, again, civility is fundamental to our work. (Assuming good faith could mean that one assumes that an account responsible for vandalism is, perhaps, compromised, that the real owner of the account would be horrified. The admin function is a police function, to protect and serve. Never to convict or punish. Properly, administrators should never punish, nor, indeed, should even ArbComm punish, and I can't imagine that even a major consensus of all editors should properly punish. But any and every administrator can and should act to protect the project and the users. That's why they have those buttons. And only those who can maintain restraint in the face of apparent provocation can be trusted with them.
 * --Abd (talk) 02:26, 11 December 2007 (UTC)