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====Rama willfully acted against consensus==== |
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2) Rama's action to counter prior consensus was made with full knowledge of the existence of prior deletion discussions (see evidence in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rama/Evidence#2._Rama_willfully_restored_the_article_against_community_consensus,_and_was_aware_of_multiple_%22deletion_requests%22]). |
2) Rama's action to counter prior consensus was made with full knowledge of the existence of prior deletion discussions (see evidence in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rama/Evidence#2._Rama_willfully_restored_the_article_against_community_consensus,_and_was_aware_of_multiple_%22deletion_requests%22]). |
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====Rama cast aspersions==== |
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3) Rama [[Wikipedia:Casting aspersions|cast aspersions]] on the talk page of an article, ANI, and in arbitration proceedings. (See evidence by: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rama/Evidence#When_criticized_for_their_actions,_Rama_engaged_in_personal_attacks_and_casting_aspersions SoWhy], [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rama/Evidence#Rama_has_repeatedly_cast_aspersions Mr rnddude], and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rama/Evidence#1.Rama_casted_aspersions_in_an_article_talk_page IceWhiz]). |
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Revision as of 07:50, 13 May 2019
Case clerk: TBD Drafting arbitrator: TBD
Wikipedia Arbitration |
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Purpose of the workshop
Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at fair, well-informed decisions. The case Workshop exists so that parties to the case, other interested members of the community, and members of the Arbitration Committee can post possible components of the final decision for review and comment by others. Components proposed here may be general principles of site policy and procedure, findings of fact about the dispute, remedies to resolve the dispute, and arrangements for remedy enforcement. These are the four types of proposals that can be included in committee final decisions. There are also sections for analysis of /Evidence, and for general discussion of the case. Any user may edit this workshop page; please sign all posts and proposals. Arbitrators will place components they wish to propose be adopted into the final decision on the /Proposed decision page. Only Arbitrators and clerks may edit that page, for voting, clarification as well as implementation purposes.
Expected standards of behavior
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Consequences of inappropriate behavior
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Motions and requests by the parties
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Proposed temporary injunctions
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Questions to the parties
- Arbitrators may ask questions of the parties in this section.
Proposed final decision
Proposals by User:TonyBallioni
Proposed principles
Role of the Arbitration Committee
1) It is not the role of the Arbitration Committee to settle good-faith content disputes among editors.
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- This is true, though the scope of the case makes clear what the Committee are looking into, and so I'm not sure this principle is needed: "The scope of this case is the administrative conduct of User:Rama. Therefore, anything to do with the content dispute shall be omitted from this case. " SilkTork (talk) 21:55, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
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- Taken word for word from WP:ARBGWE. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:51, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
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Ignore all rules and consensus
2) Ignore all rules and governance by consensus are both central principles of Wikipedia. Ignore all rules allows users to improve Wikipedia in circumstances that established community policy has not foreseen and actions taken under its justification are subject to community consensus. Administrators and editors should not appeal to the ignore all rules policy as a way of imposing their view on a situation once a community consensus has been established.
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- Changed my mind on only proposing one thing. This is a more general principle that I think gets to the heart of this case, and in all likelihood, defining this relationship formally in a principle will probably be the most significant thing to come from this case. I don't particularly care one way or another on the wordsmithing, but I think this captures what the unspoken agreement is on the relationship between these two key principles is. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:02, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
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- This is a good one.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:15, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
- I don't have a reference on-hand, but I'm fairly certain there have been past IAR-related principles that make the point that IAR is critical but is expected to be invoked in balance. Exceptional acts require exceptional claims, etc. etc. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 00:50, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
Proposed findings of fact
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Proposed remedies
Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.
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Proposed enforcement
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Proposals by User:SoWhy
Proposed principles
Tool use in emergencies
1) Only if they have reason to believe there exists a present and very serious emergency (i.e., reasonable possibility of actual, imminent, serious harm to the project or a person if not acted upon with administrative tools) that needs to be dealt with immediately, administrators are permitted to use their tools to overturn a community decision without prior discussion. If an administrator invokes an emergency, they are required to immediately afterwards describe and address the matter without being prompted to.
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- FWIW, since it’s been mentioned below, I never claimed a consensus to salt (or that it was a full weeklong AfD consensus. I closed it under G4 as it was substantially the same, though, I think someone else closing as SNOW or similar would likely have been justified in the circumstances.) Salting was due to the fact that at that point, we’d had an AfD and a DRV, a correctly tagged and if were honest, incorrectly removed G4 that forced opening an AfD and an admin (me) to close it again after people had already commented, and it appeared likely to me that this article was likely to be recreated arguing improvement until people grew tired of AfDing it. Since there was some support in the 2nd AfD and there was both a DRV and a full length AfD behind it, I felt salting was justified as it wouldn’t allow one person to overrule the apparent consensus of the community on multiple occasions. Going off of my proposed principle above, IAR is supposed to be used in conjunction with consensus in circumstances that policy does not foresee and where if put to a discussion would likely be endorsed or at least found reasonable in the circumstances, such as in emergencies. It should never be used as a justification to go against the community’s will. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:12, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
- My other comment here is that even if an admin thinks the situation has changed, they shouldn’t be making a content decision non-admins can’t make. Any admin is free to reverse protection (regardless of what RAAA says, tweaking protection levels without much discussion isn’t unusual as it isn’t usually contentious. This case was different though, as the article Rama cited should have made clear.) One of the concerns here is that an admin made a content call over consensus in two discussions rather than removing protection as an uninvolved party to let someone else create. There is a distinction, and I think it’s why a lot of people are concerned here (also worth noting that I care more about the principles in this case than I do about any FoF or remedy.) TonyBallioni (talk) 21:06, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
- FWIW, since it’s been mentioned below, I never claimed a consensus to salt (or that it was a full weeklong AfD consensus. I closed it under G4 as it was substantially the same, though, I think someone else closing as SNOW or similar would likely have been justified in the circumstances.) Salting was due to the fact that at that point, we’d had an AfD and a DRV, a correctly tagged and if were honest, incorrectly removed G4 that forced opening an AfD and an admin (me) to close it again after people had already commented, and it appeared likely to me that this article was likely to be recreated arguing improvement until people grew tired of AfDing it. Since there was some support in the 2nd AfD and there was both a DRV and a full length AfD behind it, I felt salting was justified as it wouldn’t allow one person to overrule the apparent consensus of the community on multiple occasions. Going off of my proposed principle above, IAR is supposed to be used in conjunction with consensus in circumstances that policy does not foresee and where if put to a discussion would likely be endorsed or at least found reasonable in the circumstances, such as in emergencies. It should never be used as a justification to go against the community’s will. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:12, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
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- Taken from Wikipedia:Administrators#Exceptional circumstances. SoWhy 12:46, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
- I don't see recreating an article or changing an article's protection level as "overturning a community decision", especially when there was no explicit community consensus about whether salting was appropriate. Also, the words "overturn" and "community decision" are not present in WP:ADMIN. Leviv ich 17:04, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
- If the community decided to delete an article and an admin undoes the deletion saying "I don't agree with that", how would you call that? Notably, there is no evidence of a recreation in this case, i.e. a new creation of an article on a deleted subject with new or different content. Instead, there was a reversal of a deletion without any changes to the article itself. As for the last part, you are correct, that part I extrapolated from the policy. WP:ADMIN does not spell it out explicitly but in the spirit of IAR that is the basis for the "Exceptional circumstances" section, any action - including overturning a community decision - can be an appropriate use of tools if the other requirements are fulfilled as well. For example, if a discussion on a talk page leads to consensus to include a certain personal detail in a BLP and an admin is made credibly aware that the living person that is subject of the article would experience imminent and serious harm if that detail is further publicized, we would expect the admin to remove the detail from the article even if it means overturning said consensus (but we would also expect them to explain why they did it without being prompted). Regards SoWhy 18:14, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
- My understanding is that the second deletion was a G4 deletion, not an AfD deletion. G4 is a CSD criteria. So it's a CSD+salt as an ordinary admin action (well within the admin's discretion to do), but not a deletion following a full AfD. In that case, WP:UDP and WP:SALT allow another admin to unsalt and undelete in appropriate circumstances, e.g., when new sources are published, but not limited to emergency circumstances as described in WP:ADMIN. The only community-consensus deletion was the first one, way back in February (and that one was weak consensus, not strong consensus), and there were a significant number of new sources available by April 29 that would have allowed recreation without violating G4. Leviv ich 19:31, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
- G4 allows deletion if the article is recreated without addressing the issues raised that led to the deletion. Yes, other reasons exist to recreate an article but they require an actual change to be made, something that was not the case here. Community consensus was to delete a page on a subject based on and despite the "sources" in the article. The admin action was to restore this article by claiming that the consensus was "wrong", not that circumstances had changed. If Rama had asked Tony whether he'd be okay with them restoring the article to add new sources that would require the prior consensus to be reassessed, we wouldn't have this conversation. We have it because Rama declared an emergency and overturned the decision to delete because they believed the consensus was mistaken. Or, to put it another way: If you can reasonably be expected to first discuss what you want to do, especially if there is an established process (DRV) to handle exactly this kind of request, it's not an emergency. Regards SoWhy 19:41, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
- I read Rama's log entry, talk page, and ANI comments as saying that circumstances had changed (as well as pointing out the original deletion decision was "questionable", i.e., weak consensus, not strong consensus). The deletion decision was from Feb; the G4 was early April; half a dozen new publications had come out since then (explicitly referenced by Rama) and they were coming out like almost every day in the week leading up to Rama's undeletion. That Rama didn't add sources to the article after undeletion may have been due to him being busy responding to the near-instant ANI thread (45 minutes after undeletion) and Arbcom case (2 hours). While Rama has said he was acting in an emergency situation, and I think that perception is reasonable, I'm not sure that we want to say that the only time an admin can reverse a G4 or unsalt is in an emergency situation. That does not seem in keeping with the policies as laid out at UDP and SALT. Leviv ich 20:42, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
- The log entry reads "Evidently notable, deletion of the article is a major embarassement for Wikipedia: [...]". Their second edit to the draft reads "Notability is ridiculously obvious.". As you pointed out yourself, between restoration and Sitush challenging said restoration, 35 minutes passed, which was more than enough time to add more sources if Rama had undeleted the article because they believed that new sources warranted said undeletion. That this was not the reason for the restoration is confirmed by Rama's own statement that they thought "that the deletion process was mistaken" and that the article had "such solid references". Regards SoWhy 07:18, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
- I read Rama's log entry, talk page, and ANI comments as saying that circumstances had changed (as well as pointing out the original deletion decision was "questionable", i.e., weak consensus, not strong consensus). The deletion decision was from Feb; the G4 was early April; half a dozen new publications had come out since then (explicitly referenced by Rama) and they were coming out like almost every day in the week leading up to Rama's undeletion. That Rama didn't add sources to the article after undeletion may have been due to him being busy responding to the near-instant ANI thread (45 minutes after undeletion) and Arbcom case (2 hours). While Rama has said he was acting in an emergency situation, and I think that perception is reasonable, I'm not sure that we want to say that the only time an admin can reverse a G4 or unsalt is in an emergency situation. That does not seem in keeping with the policies as laid out at UDP and SALT. Leviv ich 20:42, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
- G4 allows deletion if the article is recreated without addressing the issues raised that led to the deletion. Yes, other reasons exist to recreate an article but they require an actual change to be made, something that was not the case here. Community consensus was to delete a page on a subject based on and despite the "sources" in the article. The admin action was to restore this article by claiming that the consensus was "wrong", not that circumstances had changed. If Rama had asked Tony whether he'd be okay with them restoring the article to add new sources that would require the prior consensus to be reassessed, we wouldn't have this conversation. We have it because Rama declared an emergency and overturned the decision to delete because they believed the consensus was mistaken. Or, to put it another way: If you can reasonably be expected to first discuss what you want to do, especially if there is an established process (DRV) to handle exactly this kind of request, it's not an emergency. Regards SoWhy 19:41, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
- My understanding is that the second deletion was a G4 deletion, not an AfD deletion. G4 is a CSD criteria. So it's a CSD+salt as an ordinary admin action (well within the admin's discretion to do), but not a deletion following a full AfD. In that case, WP:UDP and WP:SALT allow another admin to unsalt and undelete in appropriate circumstances, e.g., when new sources are published, but not limited to emergency circumstances as described in WP:ADMIN. The only community-consensus deletion was the first one, way back in February (and that one was weak consensus, not strong consensus), and there were a significant number of new sources available by April 29 that would have allowed recreation without violating G4. Leviv ich 19:31, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
- At the time of the re-creation; there was a supposed consensus in favor of the salting which he did not care for.
- That a subsequent DRV, (post-dating the re-creation) finds no consensus as to the issue of salting hardly entitles some degree of legitimacy to the recreation. ∯WBGconverse 18:24, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
- If the community decided to delete an article and an admin undoes the deletion saying "I don't agree with that", how would you call that? Notably, there is no evidence of a recreation in this case, i.e. a new creation of an article on a deleted subject with new or different content. Instead, there was a reversal of a deletion without any changes to the article itself. As for the last part, you are correct, that part I extrapolated from the policy. WP:ADMIN does not spell it out explicitly but in the spirit of IAR that is the basis for the "Exceptional circumstances" section, any action - including overturning a community decision - can be an appropriate use of tools if the other requirements are fulfilled as well. For example, if a discussion on a talk page leads to consensus to include a certain personal detail in a BLP and an admin is made credibly aware that the living person that is subject of the article would experience imminent and serious harm if that detail is further publicized, we would expect the admin to remove the detail from the article even if it means overturning said consensus (but we would also expect them to explain why they did it without being prompted). Regards SoWhy 18:14, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
Reversing another administrator's action
2) Administrators are expected to have good judgment, and are presumed to have considered carefully any actions or decisions they carry out as administrators. Administrators may disagree, but administrative actions should not be reversed without good cause, careful thought, and (if likely to be objected to), where the administrator is presently available, a brief discussion with the administrator whose action is challenged.
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Real world and Wikipedia
3) Wikipedia relies on reliable secondary sources to write articles but cannot avoid being the subject of coverage in such sources itself. While critical coverage of Wikipedia can be a useful catalyst for initiating changes, the project's decision-making cannot be dependent on off-wiki descriptions or discussions of its policies and actions. Off-wiki criticism of a perceived problem on Wikipedia is never in itself a reason to act, especially not against previously established consensus.
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- I couldn't find any previous template to copy from so I wrote my own but if someone knows a case where this was already established, that wording should probably be used instead. I think it's important to make it clear to everyone, on- and off-wiki, that someone's off-wiki opinion on how Wikipedia should work can only be a valid reason to act if it's in accordance to our policies and guidelines as well. SoWhy 12:46, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
- This language suggests that Wikipedia should be written for editors and not for readers. All on-wiki criticism and opinions would be coming from editors, whereas "off-wiki criticism" is also known as reader feedback. We should not ignore off-wiki criticism; rather, the opposite: Wikipedia's decision-making should take into account off-wiki discussions. The encyclopedia is for readers, not for editors. Leviv ich 14:48, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
- @Levivich: I'm unsure why you think so. Off-wiki criticism can be a useful catalyst for initiating changes as I noted. It just is not a reason in itself to make changes. I'd be happy to clarify that proposal if you can elaborate where exactly you see a problem with the proposed wording. Regards SoWhy 14:54, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
- I think off-wiki criticism is reason in and of itself to make changes. If our readers hate what we're doing, we should change. If editors like something, but readers don't, the readers' opinion should prevail over the editors' opinion. Off-wiki criticism is more important than on-wiki criticism, because reader feedback is more important than editor feedback, because readers are more important than editors. That said, I don't see a "problem" with your proposal in the sense that it requires changing, just that we have two different (and maybe diametrically opposed) opinions on the subject. For whom is Wikipedia? I say it's for the readers. So what the media says is more important to me than what editors say at an AfD, because the media reflects popular opinion (our readers), whereas AfDs and DRVs reflect only editor opinion. That doesn't mean we slavishly follow what the media says, but it does mean that we don't think of the media as irrelevant, or characterize responding to the media as being a "soldier of a foreign army" as suggested by other editors on the evidence page. Leviv ich 15:06, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
- While I agree in principle that Wikipedia should serve the readers, I disagree that just because the media says we should do something, we should do it. Most of the credibility an encyclopedia has comes from the fact that it has clear rules and requirements on scope and verifiability. Consequently, if the media says we should ignore these rules and requirements for a certain subject, that might be a reason to reflect whether they are still valid in principle but not to actually ignore them for the desired subject while upholding them for other subjects. Doing so would remove any neutrality from the project, another cornerstone of credibility. So if the media criticizes something, we should indeed reflect whether something went wrong and if it did, fix it because then the reason to do so comes from within as well. On a side note, I think the statement the media reflects popular opinion (our readers) needs a
{{cn}}
tag because more often than not, the media will only reflect a very tiny part of the public opinion and the majority of readers might actually disagree with it. And that brings us to another problem with this line of thinking: If we listen to what the media says, which media do we trust to accurately portray what (a majority of) readers think? Regards SoWhy 15:48, 9 May 2019 (UTC)- "Clear rules" but also no firm rules. Maybe we're not as diametrically opposed as I first thought. I agree we shouldn't slavishly follow the media–i.e., do something just because they say we should–but neither should we ignore the media or consider it out-of-policy to take the media into consideration. "The media shapes public opinion" is a statement with which no one would disagree. You bring up a good point about which media to listen to, etc., and that of course has to be handled on a case-by-case basis. So I'm of the opinion that both on-wiki and off-wiki criticism and feedback should be taken into account, and weighed on a case-by-case basis. That means it's not fair to say that an admin is violating policy by doing something in response to something written in the popular press, and it is possible for an admin to reasonably perceive a public relations crisis that requires emergency action. Whether such a perception is reasonable would need to be determined on a case-by-case basis, which means that in this case, Arbcom should look at whether Rama's perception was reasonable or not. (Which means looking at the press sources, which is why they are not out of scope. But I digress.) Leviv ich 16:16, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
- I would write the principle to say something like, "We write for our readers, and responding to reader feedback is important." Leviv ich 16:27, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
- While I agree in principle that Wikipedia should serve the readers, I disagree that just because the media says we should do something, we should do it. Most of the credibility an encyclopedia has comes from the fact that it has clear rules and requirements on scope and verifiability. Consequently, if the media says we should ignore these rules and requirements for a certain subject, that might be a reason to reflect whether they are still valid in principle but not to actually ignore them for the desired subject while upholding them for other subjects. Doing so would remove any neutrality from the project, another cornerstone of credibility. So if the media criticizes something, we should indeed reflect whether something went wrong and if it did, fix it because then the reason to do so comes from within as well. On a side note, I think the statement the media reflects popular opinion (our readers) needs a
- I think off-wiki criticism is reason in and of itself to make changes. If our readers hate what we're doing, we should change. If editors like something, but readers don't, the readers' opinion should prevail over the editors' opinion. Off-wiki criticism is more important than on-wiki criticism, because reader feedback is more important than editor feedback, because readers are more important than editors. That said, I don't see a "problem" with your proposal in the sense that it requires changing, just that we have two different (and maybe diametrically opposed) opinions on the subject. For whom is Wikipedia? I say it's for the readers. So what the media says is more important to me than what editors say at an AfD, because the media reflects popular opinion (our readers), whereas AfDs and DRVs reflect only editor opinion. That doesn't mean we slavishly follow what the media says, but it does mean that we don't think of the media as irrelevant, or characterize responding to the media as being a "soldier of a foreign army" as suggested by other editors on the evidence page. Leviv ich 15:06, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
- @Levivich: I'm unsure why you think so. Off-wiki criticism can be a useful catalyst for initiating changes as I noted. It just is not a reason in itself to make changes. I'd be happy to clarify that proposal if you can elaborate where exactly you see a problem with the proposed wording. Regards SoWhy 14:54, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
- I'd be curious if something similar to this has been expressed by the Committee before. I can think of one exceptionally long-term editor for whom
[o]ff-wiki criticism of a perceived problem on Wikipedia is never in itself a reason to act
might be worth hearing. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 00:47, 11 May 2019 (UTC) - Perhaps @Levivich: should reformulate and rather says "If our good thinking readers hate what we're doing, we should change". Otherwise, Levivich will be required to obey the injunction: "If our bad thinking readers hate what we're doing, we should change". But this wouldn't be politically correct, would it ? Pldx1 (talk) 10:51, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Proposed findings of fact
Rama failed to follow the administrator policy
1) Rama (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) has restored the article Clarice Phelps without previously or afterwards consulting the deleting and protecting administrator, TonyBallioni (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), and without any present emergency that would have required them to act immediately without prior discussion. Rama has also not initiated a discussion about their restoration, only explaining their reasons after being challenged on their talk page.
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- Follows logically from principles #1 and #2 and the evidence, especially the fact that the news coverage a) was already a couple of days old by the time they acted and b) was never able to do serious harm to the project anyway considering that it merely restated what was already known. SoWhy 12:46, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
Rama is unable to understand the problem with their actions
2) Throughout all discussions about their behavior, Rama has not shown the necessary ability to understand why the way (and not why) they acted was problematic. Especially, Rama has not displayed any understanding that they were acting against the rules without a good reason and that the community objects to administrators acting this way on principle, not because of the subject of the article.
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- Based on their own comments, especially at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rama/Evidence#Evidence presented by Rama. SoWhy 13:25, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
Rama engaged in personal attacks and casting aspersions
3) Throughout all discussions about their behavior, Rama has resorted to personally attacking editors criticizing their actions and casting aspersions.
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- Based on Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rama/Evidence#When criticized for their actions, Rama engaged in personal attacks and casting aspersions, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rama/Evidence#1.Rama casted aspersions in an article talk page, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rama/Evidence#Rama has repeatedly cast aspersions and Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rama#Statement by Rama. SoWhy 07:49, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
Proposed remedies
Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.
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Proposals by User:Iffy
Proposed principles
Administrator conduct
1) Administrators are expected to observe a high standard of conduct and retain the trust of the community at all times. Administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrator actions and to justify them when needed. Sustained or serious disruption of Wikipedia is incompatible with the expectations and responsibilities of administrators, and consistent or egregious poor judgment may result in the removal of administrator tools.
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Administrator accountability
2) Administrators are accountable for their actions involving administrator tools, as unexplained administrator actions can demoralize other editors who lack such tools. Administrators who seriously or repeatedly act in a problematic manner, or who have lost the trust or confidence of the community, may be sanctioned or have their administrator rights removed by the arbitration committee. Administrators should be reasonably aware of community standards and expectations when using administrative tools.
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Reversing actions by other administrators
3) In a non-emergency situation, administrators are expected to refrain from undoing each others' administrative actions without first attempting to resolve the dispute by means of discussion.
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- Copied from the Fred Bauder case. Iffy★Chat -- 13:07, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
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Ignore all rules
4) From the earliest days of Wikipedia, one of the project's central tenets has been "Ignore all rules: If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." Because "IAR" actions are, by definition, taken outside the ordinary policies and guidelines, it is impossible to state in advance when they will be appropriate. However, ignoring all rules is most likely to be warranted when dealing with an unanticipated or emergency situation. Conversely, taking an action based on IAR is less likely to be warranted when there has been a consensus that that sort of action should not be allowed.
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- Copied from the Fred Bauder case. Iffy★Chat -- 13:07, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
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Criticism and casting aspersions
5) An editor must not accuse another of inappropriate conduct without evidence, especially when the accusations are repeated or severe. Comments should not be personalised, but should instead be directed at content and specific actions. Disparaging an editor or casting aspersions can be considered a personal attack. If accusations are made, they should be raised, with evidence, on the user talk page of the editor they concern or in the appropriate dispute resolution forums.
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- Copied from the German war effort case. Iffy★Chat -- 20:01, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
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Proposals by User:Martinp
Proposed resolution
(In a recent discussion somewhere, and arb said they'd love to see in general workshop participation to be less continued skirmishing between parties, and less about wordsmithing principles, FoFs, and remedies and more about the community opining overall how the problem could be resolved. Giving it a try...)
This case is about the how two fundamental pillars of Wikipedia, IAR and consensus, need to coexist. It's not really about administrator misconduct, but rather about dropping the stick where these two pillars mash up to each other.
I'd love to see Arbcom reaffirm that passionately trying to improve Wikipedia and protecting it from (perceived) reputational damage is good, and IAR can and should be used as appropriate. But, as Ton Ballioni writes more eloquently above (principle 2), absent real and truly grievous emergencies, the IAR stick needs to be dropped when there is strong community pushback. And that admins in particular responding to concern about their use of IAR with a battleground mentality is unhelpful.
As to remedies, I'd love to see Rama acknowledge that in retrospect his approach was disruptive, and undertake to not act in this way again. I'd then have solid faith in him continuing to wield the mop, with some sort of pro forma reminder or mild admonishment from Arbcom sufficient as formal resolution. Unfortunately, his current evidence/comment isn't there yet, it's more defensive and explanatory (not wrong per se given how such conflicts go, just insufficient to provide confidence this problem won't repeat). If he remains unwilling to acknowledge something like this, then the admonishment needs to be stronger (for the future health of the community), and possibly accompanied by some sort of "IAR ban" (a topic ban from sidestepping process given his IAR-suitability meter is a bit off...), possibly temporary, for him.
Desysopping seems quite excessive. We do and should desysop admins who are abusive, e.g. wield or threaten the banhammer, or otherwise berate users while waving their mop around; or are hopelessly clueless about mopping responsibilities, or uncommunicative about their admin actions; all especially if there is a pattern rather than one-off suboptimal judgment. That's not the case here. Rama's explanations have been cogent, timely, and well-thought out. It's just his finger has been a bit too jumpy on the IAR trigger, and reluctant to let go.
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Proposals by User:Pldx1
Proposed principles
1-Sleeping Admins
Sleeping Admins are supposed to sleep peacefully, not to break china when awakening from an hibernation period
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2-ADMINACT
- Without absolute emergency, explaining first, acting after is good practice for an admin
- In case of emergency, acting first explaining after is a necessity
- Once the emergency addressed, explaining and facing the critics is a requirement. Acting otherwise only gives the impression that emergency was only an undue allegation.
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3- WP-rules, not external opinions, are the bounds of a WP-admin action
It should be obvious that Wp-admin actions should be done along the WP-rules and community decisions, and should not be done as dictated by any opinion/lobbying from whatever external entity. Moreover an admin should not present an external entity as an independent external entity when obvious COI are present.
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4-Next Proposed Principle
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Proposed findings of fact
1-Sleeping Admins
Admin Rama was a Sleeping Admin (see Evidences). Existence of Sleeping Admins is a failure of the community, not of any individual SA, as proven by Wikipedia:Administrators/2019_request_for_comment_on_inactivity_standards.
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2-ADMINACT
Admin Rama used his tools to revert other admin actions (deletions after 2 AfD and 1 DRV), arguing emergency. But, after saving the world, has never addressed the concerns underlined in these 3 discussions. None of the Navy alleged source, none of the scientific Te-related ORNL alleged source ever names the subject of the article, were we told in these 3 AFD/DRV. Most of the alleged other sources were PR pieces written by PR people in a PR context, were we told in these 3 AFD/DRV. Admin Rama never paid even a lip service to these assertions. On the contrary Admin Rama described these alleged sources as [nearly 30 references by solid institutions, US Navy, ONRL...].
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3- WP-rules, not external opinions, are the bounds of any WP-admin action
At [ANI], Admin Rama explained his actions as an answer to the [undark] article. The [undark] article makes a convincing case that the [Phelps'] article is victim of an unfortunately selective enforcement of notability criteria, and is an embarrasment to Wikipedia
. And referred to press articles about [this] deletion
. When saving the world, admin Rama was not perceiving his action as coming from WP-rules, but as fulfilling the demands of external groups.
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4-Next Finding of facts
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1-Sleeping Admins
Community is trouted for her laziness/unability/failure to remedy the question of Sleeping Admins. This only creates undue work to the Arbitration Commitee.
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2-ADMINACT
For not even paying a lip service to the concerns underlined in the AfD/DRV he was acting against, for not accepting any critics and for asserting he will reiterate his actions, Admin Rama is discharged from his admin tools.
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3-WP-rules, not external opinions, are the bounds of any WP-admin action
For not accepting that WP-rules, not external opinions, have to be the motivations of any WP-admin action, Admin Rama is discharged from his admin tools.
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4-Next proposed remedy
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Proposals by User:Icewhiz
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Editors expected to evaluate prior discussions
1) Editors are expected to seriously evaluate prior consensus forming discussions on Wikipedia before reversing the consensus reached in those discussions. When acting against prior consensus (per IAR, or due to changed circumstances), editors should have firm rebuttal arguments (for IAR) or strong source based evidence of changed circumstances. This is all the more true for administrators utilizing their tools to reverse consensus.
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Rama did not seriously evaluate prior discussions
1) As exhibited in their comments following their action (see evidence points 3,4,5 in [1]), Rama did not seriously evaluate the prior first AfD, DRV of the first AfD, nor the second AfD (the version Rama restored).
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Rama willfully acted against consensus
2) Rama's action to counter prior consensus was made with full knowledge of the existence of prior deletion discussions (see evidence in [2]).
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Rama cast aspersions
3) Rama cast aspersions on the talk page of an article, ANI, and in arbitration proceedings. (See evidence by: SoWhy, Mr rnddude, and IceWhiz).
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Proposals by User:Example 4
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General discussion
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