Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Mav v. 168

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Case closed


Evidence page[edit]

Evidence on this matter was placed on the /Evidence page.

arbitrator's opinions on hearing this matter[edit]

  • Well, I'm willing to hear it, if it's not (as kingturtle feared) too old now. Martin 23:18, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
  • I, too, am still willing to hear. James F. (talk) 01:24, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
  • Accept, now that 168 has agree to participate. Fred Bauder 10:42, Apr 20, 2004 (UTC)
  • I'm also happy to hear this if there's any point. --Camembert 15:17, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
  • I, of course, recuse myself. However, 168 will not be able to defend himself if arbitration occurs while he is away. --mav 06:18, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)
  • Sure, let's hear it. --the Epopt 22:12, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)


Current discussion[edit]

Remedy sought by Mav[edit]

For abuse of admin user rights. Either:

  • A statement by 168 that he will abide by Admin rules in the future. I will then nominate him for re-adminship on the requests for adminship page (time should be considered served for his past actions).
  • 168 to remain de-sysoped.

For edit wars:

  • Consider 168's month off as time served for repeatedly reverting article versions in opposition to majority vote on talk page.

Applicable policies[edit]

Protection policy

  • Rule number 1: Do not edit a protected page. If you edit one anyway, please stop when asked to!
  • Rule number 2: Do not protect a page you have edited recently, have been in a dispute with in the past, or where you are in some other way involved
  • Rule number 3: Add {{msg:protected}} to the top of temporarily protected pages
  • Rule number 4: List pages you protect or unprotect on Wikipedia:Protected page

Deletion policy

  • For deleting RfC/168 multiple times.

Revert policy

  • For reverting other users multiple times in the same day in opposition to a vote on the talk page.

Remedy sought by 168...[edit]

What I want is this: I want Mav to acknowledge that what he did was political and to acknowledge that his ideology does not represent the only one that a reasonable, democratic and good-hearted Wikipedian can hold. Up to now he has been acting like God's emmisary. Also, to the extent that Mav actually believed that I was acting in bad faith and was a bad individual, I want him to admit that he was wrong and to publicly apologize to me for not having taken the simple steps he could have taken to achieve a more accurate appraisal of my character and intentions. To the extent he actually believed he was leading a non-biased campaign, I want him to realize how easily this text-based, anonymous world allows bias and how vulnerable he has been to this bias, especially given that he is serving as an arbitrator. Then I would like him to ask others whether they think he should resign. If it turns out that he slanted his representations of me intentionally, I want him to admit publicly what his missteps were and how he thinks he made them, so that his behavior will provide a lesson to others who might try to steer the majority into thinking badly about an individual, and once again stifle the freedom of expression and democratic evolution of Wikipedia guidelines and custom.


Fred Bauder writes below:

  • In pursuit of this, admitedly political, goal 168 engaged in a number of actions which violated customary Wikipedia practices. User:Mav then engaged in a successful campaign against 168 which 168 characterizes as also having a political content.

An accurate statement, I would say, as far as it goes. But it more or less ignores my complaints against Mav. Note that customarily, "customary practices" are not the only practices tolerated here. Also note that a "successful campaign" need not be either customary or tolerable; for example a campaign that is conducted in a negligent and biased way that causes harm, as I believe accurately describes Mav's campaign against me. I seek remedy for this harm and measures to lessen the potential for future harm by similar behavior. 168...

I wonder if somebody - the involved parties or anybody else, really - could briefly explain exactly what is expected of us as arbitrators. What do people want or expect us to do here? Are people looking for someone to be banned or... well, or what? I must admit, it's not very clear to me. --Camembert


See remedies sought by Mav and 168... above. 168...

Comments by 168... on the dispute with Mav[edit]

> Here's my take on things, as far as who did right
> and
> who did wrong and who owes what to whom.
> 
> I think there are a lot of similarities or parallels
> between what I did and what Mav did. I think Mav
> wrote
> at one point that he wanted to make an example of
> me.
> So that suggests to me that, like myself, and
> whether
> consciously or not, Mav was acting politically. As I
> wrote on Requests for comment/Mav, Mav's political
> goal I think is to encourage people to see the
> current
> version of community rules and guidelines as needing
> to be obeyed "to the letter." My goal (to quote a
> recent comment I made to Kingturtle) is to soften
> the
> conservativism here, to get people to see the rules
> as
> evolving guidelines instead of the articles of a
> constitution, to get people to notice the
> inconsistencies between our values and the
> particular
> articulation of certain rules that we have now and,
> in
> particular, to move the organization in a direction
> that enables it to either get rid of or reform
> people
> like Lir, who waste enormous amounts of person
> hours,
> cause enormous amounts of aggravation, scare
> enormously valuable people away, enormously diminish
> the quality of articles and enormously slow the pace
> of the production of a high quality encyclopedia.
> Both
> Mav and I share a more fundamental goal of making
> Wikipedia a better place by reducing the feeling of
> anarchy created by a subset of users. But for me,
> the
> ideology of extreme all-inclusiveness is not
> essential
> to Wikipedia, and so I am willing to use banning and
> protection more liberally than Mav. So in order to
> achieve our shared fundamental goal, Mav and I have
> chosen different immediate goals, which have brought
> us into conflict with one another. In particular,
> for
> Mav to achieve his immediate goal, I must be harshly
> reprimanded for having interpreted the Wikipedia
> rules
> liberally.  
> 
> So Mav acted politically and I acted politically.
> Besides that similarity, we also both may be said to
> have set bad examples for others in the pursuit of
> our
> goals. In order to perceive and portray what I
> initially did as a simple crime and in order to
> portray everything I did in response to being
> prosecuted by Mav and others into additional simples
> crime, Mav had to assume bad faith of me at every
> turn
> and he had to oversimplify the facts and work to
> bias
> people's opinions against me.  To the extent this
> was
> a game of politics, I am a little inclined to say it
> doesn't matter whether Mav sincerely believed me to
> be
> as evil as he made it seem or believe me to have
> acted
> as wrongly as he made it seem to everybody else.  
> 
> The bad example I may be said to have set for others
> is more or less what Mav has said. I am a sysop.
> (According to a strict interpretation) I broke some
> very important rules, and I broke them over and over
> as other administrators told me to stop.
> 
> Yet another similarity between Mav and me is that
> the
> bad examples that we both set were set partly by our
> own free choice. I did not HAVE to stretch the rules
> and ignore calls to stop. Mav did not HAVE to take
> such an interest in my supposed crime and in all my
> subsequent behavior, and he did not HAVE to campaign
> against me in the slanted way he did.
> 
  

So why do I see what Mav did as more deserving of
scrutiny than what I did? Well, I think there are some
important differences that make what Mav did a lot
worse.

 
> Essentially, I think I didn't hurt or commit an
> injustice against anyone, but Mav hurt me a lot and
> committed a lot of injustice against me. We both bad
> examples for others and hindered each other's
> political goals, but only Mav caused hurt by
> (whether
> consciously or not) distorting the truth. Mav and
> other reactionaries like to point out that I
> protected
> a page and protection prevents others from editing,
> but I protected a page that several other admins
> were
> on the verge of protecting anyway. So I was the one
> to
> do it, but it would have been protected without me.
> All my protection did was to attract attention,
> which
> is what I wanted.   
> 
> I think that if I had done what I did initially, and
> if Mav had not not done what he did initially and
> continued to do forever afterwards, then I think my
> reputation would not have been so damaged and I
> think
> I would not have had to take so many actions that
> damaged my reputation. Without Mav's strong voice
> and
> Mav's good reputation presenting an oversimplified
> and
> condemnatory portrayal of what I did, I think that
> perception would not have taken hold in the general
> population of Wikipedians. I think a debate would
> have
> emerged and what I did would be recognized as having
> exposed a conflict between certain community values
> and the rules we have as they are currently
> expressed.
> I think my actions against Lir might have come to be
> seen as not so controversial. I think I might not
> have
> had an army of admins undoing without discussion
> every
> action I performed, so that I would not have been
> involved in revert wars against admins. I think I
> might not have had so many people so willing to post
> oversimplified portrayals of my crimes on a
> Requests-for-comment page prior to any discussion
> with
> me, contrary to the rules. I think I would not have
> so
> many people assuming bad faith of me.
> 

> 168...


Fred Bauder wrote:

"Essentially 168 is saying that he, 168, had good reasons for his violations."

I think we're jumping a step here. What precisely were my violations? Were any violations committed against me? I believe it was not a violation that set Mav against me and led other sysops to commit "violations" against me. A lot of my "bad behavior" subsequent to my initial test of a gray area or my attempt in good faith to stretch one of our noneternal rules was in response to being treated like a vandal. 168.150.238.72 16:34, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Fred Bauder wrote:

"his continuing behavior...seems to appeal for justification of his actions, not recognition that he may have erred."

I don't deny that vindication would be sweet, but I have a more legitimate agenda, which is what brought me back here. I am seeking censure and an example to be made of bad behavior: Mav's bad behavior. I think failing to recognize Mav's behavior as bad is doing exactly what Fred writes that he doesn't want to be doing, namely

"encouraging more actions of the sort that landed us all here."

As to Fred's complaint about me not "seeking recognition that he may have erred," such recognition is Mav's priority, not mine. Mine is that he and others recognize that Mav erred. So you might as well remark about Mav not seeking recognition that he himself erred. I think a lot of people erred a lot by persecuting and scapegoating me, and since to me this is the essence of what was going on, I see it as absurd to spotlight me as the one from whom an admission of error is necessary to set everything aright.

Based on his comment about the encouragment of future actions, I would say Fred and I share a primary goal. Apparently, though, we do not share the same perspective on past events. Perhaps we should all try to reach an agreement about what happened. To start with, we have the two different versions on the evidence page.

168.150.238.72 19:57, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)


"What happened" does not come down to a, by necessity, selected group of facts. By "what happened" I mean an explanation As for the facts, which are certainly pertinent, we've got lots to do with specific acts by me, but my understanding was that there are two accusations being arbitrated here, one of which should involve the facts of Mav's actions _against me_ and the acts of other people against me that were psuedo-legitimized and hence fostered by Mav's acts.168.150.238.72 15:22, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It would be helpful if you could present some evidence regarding something that Mav did. I have found nothing yet. Fred Bauder 15:33, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

Have you even looked at the evidence page? I find your comment offensive, and it makes me want to say the hell with this. It would be more polite to ask me to be specific, if that's what you mean. Here's a condensed sample in accusatory language, since evidently my efforts to be polite and dispassionate obscure Mav's crime.

Mav misrepresents my behavior at DNA:

"during a longstanding edit war" [1] "he has ignored the consensus" [2] "ignoring the consensus...refusing to cooperate" [3],

Evidence of Mav asking the admin who was mediating discussions at DNA (Cyan) what actually happened there:

No evidence. He didn't ask. Cyan can verify.

Mav telling people I've violated rules that don't exist::

(cur) (last) . . 00:42, 3 Feb 2004 . . Maveric149 (putting Ed's note back again; Note that 168 used the auto revert feature to erase it last time; another abuse of sysop user rights)[4]

Evidence that Mav blocked me from pursuing legitimate democratic means to remedy problem at DNA and larger problem of Lir [5],[6]

Evidence of Mav's creation of RfC against the rules. Unfortunately, history doesn't go back far enough [7] [8]

Evidence of people reverting me on principle in the wake of Mav's pariah-making efforts:

  • (cur) (last) . . 15:30, 16 Feb 2004 . . 168...
  • (cur) (last) . . M 15:29, 16 Feb 2004 . . RickK (Reverted edits by 168... to last version by RickK)
  • (cur) (last) . . 15:26, 16 Feb 2004 . . 168... (edits nearly always made without discussion! ("Be bold"). This supposed to be about "what happened"; i.e. a disinterested representation of facts. why mention "rollback"? "deleting" misrepresents me!)
  • (cur) (last) . . 15:23, 16 Feb 2004 . . RickK (168 is repeatedly deleting other people's comments from this page. )
  • (cur) (last) . . M 15:20, 16 Feb 2004 . . Silsor (your own changes to the complaints about you were made without discussion! BTW, rollback is for vandals only.)
  • (cur) (last) . . 15:19, 16 Feb 2004 . . 168... (ibid)
  • (cur) (last) . . M 15:18, 16 Feb 2004 . . Snoyes (Reverted edits by 168... to last version by RickK)
  • (cur) (last) . . M 15:07, 16 Feb 2004 . . 168... (rv reversion that was made without discussion)
  • (cur) (last) . . M 14:58, 16 Feb 2004 . . RickK (Reverted edits by 168... to last version by Silsor)
  • (cur) (last) . . 14:52, 16 Feb 2004 . . 168... (It's inappropriate for someone to revert edits on principle. If the authors of the accusations disagree with my edits, let them say so and say how)
  • (cur) (last) . . 14:48, 16 Feb 2004 . . Silsor (removing your "npov" edits: it is completely inappropriate for you to edit the complaints against yourself. They are supposed to be POV, that's the point. Reply&clarify instead of changing them.)
  • (cur) (last) . . 14:46, 16 Feb 2004 . . 168... (remove bias relating to this page)

e.g. [9]

168...

The RfC page on you was created after several other people tried and failed to resolve the dispute with you on the admin abuse page section on you and on talk:DNA. I then started the RfC page on you by moving the admin abuse talk. [10] Thus it was legal. Either way a great many people subsequently added to your RfC page and on the admin abuse talk page and your desysoping poll. To think that I was the orchestrator of your downfall is absurd - I'm not that persuasive. And the use of the rollback feature, something which regular users do not have, as a tool in an edit war (not being used as a tool to fight vandalism - which is its purpose) is still a violation of admin privileges as far as I am concerned. People have brains for themselves and are not just sheep that follow whatever I say. They decided that your actions were not warranted and it was they that voted to have your sysop user rights removed. It was you and your own actions that brought this onto yourself. You have only yourself to blame - I was not the person who deleted your RfC page 10 times, I was not the one who reverted what 4 out of 5 people who voted for wanted (that is 80% BTW, which is what we consider to be consensus around here - it was your fault that you did not vote - not mine), I was not the one who reverted other people who tried to tell everyone what you were doing. Also, you illegally proposed a poll on Lir (essentially asking whether people think he should be here ? IMO, not a very productive poll) when the RfC process for Lir was ongoing - I just made note of that. If anything that I did was so bad, then why has no one else made mention of it? Do you really think that everyone around here is so dumb? My "pariah-making" efforts was just to document what you did - it is there for people to decide for themselves. Has anyone but you challenged the accuracy of what I wrote? I don't care what your motivations were - I only care that your actions were out of line and should not be encouraged. Your crusade against Lir by using your sysop user rights backfired. Please stop being so bitter and just move on. --mav 08:05, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Discussion by arbitrators[edit]

  • If, and it is by no means certain, I understand the gist of this dispute; it was founded on User:168... being dissatified with the actions of Wikipedia regarding User:Lir and similar disruptive users. 168 desired to
> in
> particular, to move the organization in a direction
> that enables it to either get rid of or reform
> people
> like Lir
  • In pursuit of this, admitedly political, goal 168 engaged in a number of actions which violated customary Wikipedia practices. User:Mav then engaged in a successful campaign against 168 which 168 characterizes as also having a political content.
  • The question I now have is whether 168 is now willing to let problems with Lir and other "problem" Wikipedia users who are nevertheless in good standing be solved using the established dispute resolution process. On an answer in the affirmative I would propose that all that has gone on be considered water under the bridge; 168 be restored as a sysop and that we all move on.
  • This implicitly require that 168 communicate with Lir and similar users regarding specific disputes should they arise, following the procedures set forth in our dispute resolution policy. Thus 168's private policy of ignoring Lir and reverting his edits and other input is excluded. As would "political" actions intented to draw attention to a problem.
  • That Wikipedia users grow frustrated with our rate of progress in solving problems is understandable. What is also evident is that political demonstrations of this nature represent a sort of churning which is very unlikely to produce any butter. Fred Bauder 11:54, Apr 21, 2004 (UTC)

I wonder if somebody - the involved parties or anybody else, really - could briefly explain exactly what is expected of us as arbitrators. What do people want or expect us to do here? Are people looking for someone to be banned or... well, or what? I must admit, it's not very clear to me. --Camembert

I believe 168 probably wants something we can never give him, vindication. What we are about is to consider if Wikipedia policies have been violated, declare they are if they have been, and impose sanctions, keeping in mind that the purpose is not to punish but to encourage users to return with a minimum of fuss to the work of creating an enclopedia. I'm not sure Mav actually violated any Wikipedia policy. Essentially 168 is saying that he, 168, had good reasons for his violations. Thus deserves a pass. According to 168 Mav should have seen those good reasons and not made a fuss about what are obvious violations of policy. 168 seems to ask that we censor Mav. How we would frame such a censoring is beyond me. An exhortation to be sensitive about aggressive change agents is inherently contradictory. Part of the problem is that 168 as a sysop had more rather than less obligation to follow Wikipedia policy, a notion I believe he rejects. In fact I am becoming very pessimistic as I see a lack of insight expressed by his continuing behavior which seems to appeal for justification of his actions, not recognition that he may have erred. The sort of face-saving 168 is asking for is an integral part of mediation, but here in arbitration, the grinding stones of justice produce only findings of fact regarding violations and sanctions for those violations. Although, if justified, we could always declare sympathy with his ultimate goal, but at a cost of encouraging more actions of the sort that landed us all here. The thing is, our policy expressed both by Jimbo, in for example, his removing of the ban on Lir, and in our own decisions is to be relatively lenient with problem users. It is not our policy to engage in a systematic crackdown which would result in long or permanent bans of problem users. We continue to be hopeful that we can craft alternative remedies which reduce the incidence and impact of problem behavior. Fred Bauder 12:12, Apr 22, 2004 (UTC)
As to Mav resigning as an arbitrator, he has recused himself and is not considering your case. As to his great power, he is popular, but by no means does he automatically get his way. Apologies are up to him, I can't imagine a decree requiring him to apologize would be made or that an apology would be much good unless it was from the heart. My advice is let bygones be bygones and if you want to continue to edit on Wikipedia and work as a sysop consider an agreement to use the Wikipedia dispute resolution process in the future when you deal with users you consider problem users. If it doesn't work in practice it can be refined gradually so that eventually it does. Fred Bauder 12:47, Apr 22, 2004 (UTC)
See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Nucleic_acid&diff=2368224&oldid=2368212. This is the edit where 168 removed the protected page notice and continued his edit war with the edit summary, "So desysop me". This was followed by a long series of reversions in the course of an edit war over a matter of very little substance. Fred Bauder 13:05, Apr 22, 2004 (UTC)

Well, quite honestly, I can't make head nor tail of this. As Fred says, we cannot force mav to apologise for anything or "realise" various things. I do not intend to take any further part in this case. I have better things to spend my time on. --Camembert

Ok, so most of the proposed stuff so far is rather dull and uncontroversial (and/or wrong - see Mav's comment on Talk), and I don't think we need to rule on such things. Instead, I'd go for the following (hopefully quite simple):

1 Some of Mav's criticisms of 168's actions were unfair. This may well have been accidental. The committee does not endorse (or condemn) these actions of 168. Examples:
* Mav criticised 168 for abusing the "rollback" feature, but such use appears to be quite common, and not against policy. See wikipedia talk:revert for current discussion on this point.
* (plus any other examples)...
2 Some of 168's actions were against policy and conventions. 168 may well have done some of these things in good faith, believing that they were in fact allowed by policy, or that the relevant policies did not apply or were non-binding, but was mistaken in this.
* Protection of DNA - see wikipedia:protection policy (inc. history around time of protection)
* (plus any other examples)...
3 (Remedy) The status of 168 as no longer being a sysop user is confirmed by the committee. The committee declines to reinstate 168 to sysop status. This ruling does not represent a moral judgement on 168, or an endorsement of any or all of the process by which 168 lost his sysop status. This ruling does not prevent 168 from reapplying for sysop status, nor is it intended to act as guidance to the Wikipedia community as to whether such an aplication should be granted.

Mav's actions may or may not have been desirable, but I don't believe they were against policy or common practice, so that's out of our jurisdiction - a job for the court of public opinion instead. I'm not sure what else the two parties might want us to do (will re-read when I don't have a headache, I guess). Martin 01:31, 23 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Relevant Wikipedia policies[edit]

Proposed findings of fact[edit]

The dispute at nucleic acid[edit]

  • User:168... was engaged in a dispute with User:Lir and others over the language of the articles, DNA and Nucleic acid which resulted in edit wars. It is unclear when the page was protected. At 00:28, Jan 30, 2004 User:Cyan edited the page and may have protected it making the edit comment, "(Since the protected version in the dispute over DNA favours 168, the protected version here will be Lir's)" but did not add a protected message. At 21:12 UTC, Feb 11, 2004 User:Pakaran added ({{MSG:protected}}). [11]. 168 then removed the protected notice and reverted the page to his favored version with the comment, "so de-sysop me" [12]. This was followed by 12 more reversion is the space of 30 minutes until User:Ed Poor stepped in. See Edit history of nucleic acid

Lir's complaint[edit]

168's edits of Wikipedia:Possible misuses of sysop rights[edit]

First poll on desysopping 168[edit]

This is an attempt to gauge the opinion of the wikipedia community in respect to the recent actions of User:168...: User:168... has contravened article protection policy, and this user should no longer be a sysop.

  1. snoyes 06:34, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

User:168... has contravened article protection policy, the actions in were however justified.

User:168... has not contravened article protection policy.

Rephrased poll and its result[edit]

168 desysopped[edit]

Proposed remedies[edit]

Closure[edit]

I move that this case be closed. No point keeping it open. James F. (talk) 04:53, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I'd consider that a failure, but at this stage I don't oppose it. Martin 15:21, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I agree that we have failed in this one, but sadly there doesn't seem to be much chance of us ever coming to a decision.
It's been over a fortnight; I'm closing it.
James F. (talk) 16:27, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)


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