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• Post all new sections under a new header at the bottom of this page, not at random. If you make it clear you ignored these instructions by placing it elsewhere, I am likely to ignore your request in turn.

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Contact

I recently sent you a message through your Misplaced Pages email. Please keep an eye out for it.

Thank you for your time,

Craig

Answered by email, timestamping for bot archival. Seraphimblade 21:28, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Sigh

Hi, it's been a while, hope you're well. Regarding this edit, it's my postion that pointedly ignoring the victims (including myself, twice) enables the bullying behavior. Please see for instance User_talk:Worm_That_Turned#I_know_you.27re_busy.2C_but_.... I know that's not your intention ... and no matter what anyone does, I'll be fine, but then, I have a strong and secure position here. Other victims aren't so fortunate. Please at least use wording that doesn't give the impression that you're not sure whether this happened more than once. - Dank (push to talk) 03:14, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

I personally believe that there's more than once, but I chose the most obvious and indisputable example. I did use the wording "at least one occasion" to account for that. Quite honestly, once is one time too many. Seraphimblade 03:18, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Okay, if I understand you right, there was some debate, and you believe it happened more than once but you don't want to press it. Believe me, I'm not looking to get my name up in lights in this or any Arbcom case, but it's just depressing that Arbs can look at the evidence, including "I see, you're the dishonest cunt I always thought you were", and shy away from considering that an instance where he called me a cunt. Perhaps they think I provoked it or deserved it; if so, I wish I had been given an opportunity to rebut that impression. Well, hopefully, it's not important to the outcome. - Dank (push to talk) 03:26, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

It is certainly not my opinion that you provoked or deserved that. Seraphimblade 05:57, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

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• MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:45, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Inflammatory language

Seraphimblade, I have removed my previous post here, and I would like to publicly apologize for posting it. I have several reasons for removing it. For one thing, I now believe the reason you have not removed it yourself or one of the other arbs has not removed it is because of the ongoing case, so I am now the only one who *can* remove it. Also, I find this edit offensive, as I found the edit it linked to offensive. Two offensives do not add up to one inoffensive. I also do not know where you edit from, so I do not wish to create any NSFW issues for you.

I understand there might be good reasons for your edit, but I am requesting you remove your own edit as well. If you have not yet looked over the Reeves v C H Robinson case, I would recommend it to you. The article is NSFW, but the objectionable language is below the fold when you open the URL. The language is necessary to understanding the case, and how the two women involved in the situation had to either change the situation or leave their jobs.

I hope you can understand how difficult I found it to return from the hospital and find not only that there were unanticipated findings for me in the proposed decision, that had not been discussed during the workshop phase, but that my watchlist was flooded with heading after heading containing this inflammatory word, at a time when I was in need of narcotics and rest, but NYB was pressuring me to respond quickly. I believe the barrier to participation that the use of this word represents for editors more than makes up for any loss of preciseness if the word is not specified. —Neotarf (talk) 19:49, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

While I understand what you're saying, I'd ask you to consider that both the article you linked me to, and the court decision itself, used the explicit and uncensored term rather than dancing around it. While I'm always loath to compare ArbCom to a judicial process, I would say the use of the term in the PD is much more closely analogous to the court ruling than the actions of the coworkers. I do appreciate your apology, and also want to make clear no offense was intended by my proposal. Your posting was hardly the most venomous thing that's been slung at me on this page. While everyone participating in the case right now is well aware of exactly what term is at issue, these cases are long term records, and someone reviewing it a year or two down the road may have no idea. Seraphimblade 20:41, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

One issue addressed by the court case in the article, that has been repeated frequently on WP as well, is the assumption that it is fine to use gender-specific slurs as long as they are not addressed directly *to* someone. The court case makes it clear that is not the case; the issue they found relevant was whether being in the presence of the hostile language was a condition of employment. I believe the finding you introduced makes that point as well. In the situation of the link I gave you, you had the choice of opening it now, opening it later, or not opening it at all. No matter your choice, you would still be an arb tomorrow and still participating in WP tomorrow. In my situation, I was named as a party to the case, and had little choice whether to participate, and when. And even though I stated that I wanted to have time to go through the diffs, and look for some diffs of my own, the voting still started without my evidence. The people who presented diffs against me have been collecting them since September; I had only a few hours to prepare.

If the committee wants to make the terminology clear for the long term record, the most valuable place to do that would be on the case page, where the final case decision will be posted after the case closes. Some considerations for doing that might be that it be "below the fold", where someone will have to scroll down to see it after opening the browser, and that it not have an element of surprise or unexpectedness, by placing an NSFW sign (which I honestly think would be overkill here) or some indication in the headings that indicate some "offensiveness" of the material under it. I would also like to see the word in question encased in "quotations" (not sure whether this is recommended by the WP:MOS) as recommended by the MOS.

It might also be informative to have the committee record the reasons for what they did, and what issues they tried to balance. Using the word while the case is in progress I think creates a "chilling effect" on the proceedings, especially if it is done by someone in a position of authority or public trust. As you may have seen on NYB's talk page, I had to step away from the keyboard and go outside for a while. This is the whole point of "provocative" language, is that by "provoking" it raises the temperature of the discourse and changes the possibilities for productive deliberation. And that's the whole point of course, to throw an adversary off balance. Regards, —Neotarf (talk) 22:39, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Gentle

Gentle, supportive, collaborative, entertaining, - you guess of course about whom I said that. He (and a few others) retained me - a woman - for Misplaced Pages. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:18, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Believe me, I don't think Eric to be a bad person. If people do nothing but bad things around here, they get swiftly indeffed and no one bats an eye. It's these types of hard cases that really get difficult. Seraphimblade 20:36, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

I like your approach on the talk. I hope you don't mind mine (earlier today). I remember that a year ago a friend was almost banned, who went on to write 30 DYK articles and win an honourable mention from JW. He was "saved" by one arb changing his vote. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:50, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Feedback from reg editor

• "Quite honestly, once is one time too many. Seraphimblade Talk to me 03:18, 15 November 2014 (UTC)" Words by themselves are neither good nor bad. It's the intent behind their use. (That idea isn't new. I heard George Carlin say it best. He was a very intelligent guy. )

  I really don't understand your conclusions and actions, "quite honestly", they seem very shallow to me. (For example, how is "cunt" as a name-call, any worse than "Dick" or "asshole"? To me I hear the identical insult. The fact that a crowd of people might say "but but but that word, that word ... is worse than all the rest" ... how does that become an actionable fact?! Just because a crowd says the sky is falling, doesn't make it true. Now, if one would want to look instead at intention behind use of any particular word, then wouldn't that be where a case would be made or not, re whether extreme incivility were present or not!? The deal is, to banish a word would not be thought of as a very intelligent plan ... neither by G. Carlin, nor the English-speaking world as a whole . So I really do not understand the choices you have already made, that they are wise ones.) p.s. I don't expect a reply really, since I really do not want to open a discussion point that has already been debated elsewheres numerous times with differing depths. I guess I'm wanting to render my dissatisfaction with the direction you have proposed and acted on ... since if your view wins the day on WP, I know I'm gonna feel sickly every time I think of putting fingers to keyboard and doing any edit work on articles in future, and I do not look forward to that time. Sincere, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 07:33, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

• I don't know how you're going to receive the above, of course I like it to be in the spirit it is given (request to reevaluate your thought process and decisions/actions). That aside, for the heck of it, consider this ... Let's say WP software was smart enough to bleep out "cunt" and replace it w/ "****" each and every time it was used as an insult on the WP. And leave it alone where appropriate (e.g. in Talk or article about the word, etc.). Three questions: 1) Do you think you'd be proposing banning Eric Corbett because he used/wrote "****" insult? 2) Do you think Eric Corbett would quit WP in frustration, because some word(s) he wrote (or others write) is being bleeped by WMF software upgrades? (The latter Q is entirely hypothetical and anyone's guess, but my guess, is that he, Eric, wouldn't be too perturbed about being "censored". Life goes on. Everyone is happy & contented. 3) Don't you feel bad, for recommending what would effectively be a permanent ban on a highly productive editor, only because WMF software isn't yet up to snuff and sophisticated enough to do the above?! (Because if you aren't, I think you should be.) *End of thought-experiment* Cheers, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 08:01, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
  • I don't think an arb should be asked to publicly deliberate on these issues at the moment, and I'm sorry to jump in here, but the following is relevant (from my comment at the decision talk): 'every fluent speaker of English knows that "cunt" is the most taboo word available, and we also know that many editors find its gratuitous use to be offensive. That tells us that such words should not be repeated in areas where they are unwelcome'. Therefore, the question of whether a string of letters should be a problem is not relevant.

    Having said that, I want to observe that there has never been a systematic approach to dealing with the problematic behavior—sanctions handed out by individual admins are often over-the-top or based on a misunderstanding of what occurred, and that leads to unblocking with much drama. The proposal currently at the bottom of the decision talk would provide a systematic and reasonable procedure. Johnuniq (talk) 09:47, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

• I think my time would be better spent looking for the best solution to this issue than addressing hypotheticals extremely unlikely to ever actually happen. Seraphimblade 17:30, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

  See, I had thought your proposed solution & !vote were already your best idea for solution. (Glad to hear it wasn't. How about redacting that destrucive proposal/!vote then!?) Sincere, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 08:11, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

GGTF decision talk hat

I understand you wanting to stop to the "bickering" that broke out. Nevertheless, hatting the thread hides my original post from view, thus effectively covering up the important issue it raises about the application of a key principal underlying the eventual decision(s). Would you be willing to redo the close using, say, the archivetop/bottom templates so that my comments are at least allowed the same visibility as others all over the page that don't even begin to address the relevant topic? Writegeist (talk) 03:47, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Your concern is noted, but I see no purpose to reviving the thread. Seraphimblade 04:35, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Keeping it under your hat eh? It's curious that you say you "see no purpose to reviving the thread" when you know perfectly well that I did not ask you to revive the thread. I asked you to reclose it without hatting, to leave my opening post visible. As for the purpose of closing the thread by this method, I made that crystal clear for you.

I note you're an arbitrator active in the case, and that you voted for the proposed decision to siteban Eric Corbett. So it's interesting that you insist on using your hat to cover up criticism of the way the arbitrators constructed the foundation for the decision(s) regarding him; that is to say in a way that disregards one of your agreed principles and serves only to prejudice the decision(s). Writegeist (talk) 18:16, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

iar redaction request

Would you mind if I dump this warning out of the log? Briefly, Darkness Shines has been identified as a sock, TopGun feels like they got a raw deal, and there's sort of a vague consensus at Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard#Reversing_of_warning.2C_past_sanctions_and_past_blocks. I don't think it matters in the big scheme of things one way or the other but it matters to TopGun and don't see any harm. NE Ent 02:41, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

As that is currently under discussion at AN, I would prefer to avoid any unilateral actions during the course of the discussions. The discretionary sanctions process does provide for an AN discussion to be able to reverse sanctions, but that would require closure on the discussion as such. As I placed one such sanction, I of course would not close it, but will defer to the finding of the person who does. Seraphimblade 04:59, 24 November 2014 (UTC)