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Notes

{{subst:User:Alison/c}} {{subst:W-screen}} Misplaced Pages:SPI/CLERK
ArbCom election watchlist:

Note to self: Research Laura Muntz Lyall (or persuade one of the Riggrs to do so), consider writing an article about the Forster Family Dollhouse in the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Some day.

Notes for AFT: call to action stats, numeric conversion and newcomer quality - very technical quality assessment Nov-dec 12 q4 report

Messages below please

Adam Lanza

I think your closure of this thread may have been premature. If you read carefully the article published in The Harford Courant, it says that "investigative authorities" released Lanza's Misplaced Pages name (and other names such as gun message boards and gaming chat rooms) to the Courant reporters. The reporters than looked up this name on Misplaced Pages and reported what kind of edits he had made. The reporters did not release the username, however, probably because they have not seen the evidence for the username, and so they are maintaining it as purported, which is what good journalists do when going on reports from authorities. None the less, we can in fact verify in a reliable source that investigating authorities say that Lanza used Misplaced Pages to make certain kinds of edits on certain dates. I guess this is now a content issue whether to include that information in the article. However I agree since it's still purported from semi-anonymous sources it's not strong enough (yet) for any bureaucratic review of the username. Most likely though since authorities are already releasing this information to the press more details will be forthcoming. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 15:18, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually, the newspaper is very carefully using the words "alleged" and "authorities believe", without naming the persons making the allegations or identifying these "authorities". The article is not evidence, it is gossip. If there is a basis in fact to them, then that will come out during the public inquiry into the deaths, and will be testified to. There have been numerous times over the years that someone at the very distant edge of an investigation provides "information" that is later found to have been a fantasy based on one factoid that they might have access to, and that is exactly why Misplaced Pages does not include these kinds of reports. More importantly, the bottom line on whether or not Lanza edited Misplaced Pages is that there is absolutely no way that it can be verified. IP information is wiped 3 months after the logged event. Is it possible? Well, sure - millions of people have edited Misplaced Pages at one time or another, and there are over a million registered accounts, the vast majority of them not linked to any "real world" identity. But it's also just as possible that those accounts were operated by one of the millions of people who are fascinated with real crime; we've always had lots of them around. Risker (talk) 15:57, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

That's an interesting opinion, none the less The Hartford Courant - the largest newspaper in Connecticut and oldest continually operating newspaper in the United States - is a reliable source, and reliable sources often do not name sources as a matter of journalistic integrity for any number of very good reasons. Journalists have been sent to prison for not revealing sources, it is standard practice for journalists to protect the source (for whatever reason). To call it "gossip" on those grounds is a perversion of how journalism and the press works. The question is if The Hartford Courant is a reliable source or not, and clearly it is. Now, we don't need to report the absolute truth on the matter, we just report what the authorities are reportedly saying. Your speculating that "there is no way it can be verified". We have no idea what information the authorities have access to, for example consider home computers, friends and family testimony, and any number of other lines of evidence that would reveal his online activities. So yes, it could be possible for authorities to figure out his Misplaced Pages account, and a reliable source confirms the investigating authorities have indeed done so. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 20:38, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Well see, that's the problem. The authorities aren't saying it, someone is telling this newspaper that they're saying it. The authorities themselves are mum on the subject. And I'm afraid that you've fallen into the trap of thinking that big or old newspapers don't run with the flashy story because they're big and/or old. If the authorities say it, then there would be a named source. Otherwise, it's just "someone close to the investigation" that could be anyone from the lead detective to the spouse of the person cleaning out the trash bins. I think perhaps you're a bit overly idealistic about the press, and I'm sorry that the ideals generally turn out to be not quite true. I'm sure you know the old saying about making sausages.

It is likely that the authorities have found items of interest on Lanza's computer, although I'd be rather astonished if he hadn't wiped his browsing history a few times in the ensuing years; heck, it's done automatically by some browsers, and with others whenever they upgrade. I'm not discounting the possibility that those who are examining his behaviour have made various links, whether based on hard or soft evidence. However, those authorities have not released the information. I'm sure they will at some point. This isn't the point. Risker (talk) 21:06, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Well there are two levels, first would be direct information from the authorities, a primary source; the next level would be a secondary source that reports on information from authorities. Misplaced Pages is a secondary-source based encyclopedia. We trust secondary sources, unless there is credible reason to distrust the source on that particular story (or the source as a whole). It's all in how the Misplaced Pages entry is worded and framed. So long as it reflects the source, no problem (ie "Authorities reportedly said.."). The source does say directly the "authorities" and the "investigators". In any case it's pointless to debate further: I read the Courant article more closely and a later paragraph says authorities have not linked Misplaced Pages to Lanza, which is the Courant's own investigation, but the authorities are now looking into Misplaced Pages based on the Courant's findings. So yeah, dead subject now, at least in terms of Lanza = Misplaced Pages. Will wait until new information comes out from the authorities and available in a secondary source. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 14:55, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Asking your perspective on the mailing list

I'm trying to figure out what the right approach is to Misplaced Pages talk:Arbitration Committee#You've got mail(ing list). What are your current thoughts about it? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:27, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll read what you said there very carefully, and respond there. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:20, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi!

Hi Risker! Legoktm (talk) 05:13, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

ygm

you have an email from me. — Ched :  ?  20:36, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks

Hi Risker, a personal note about your latest feedback - I have spent some time now just collecting and filing bugs for users, but did not actually sort them. Although I think everybody has the temptation to shout to devs "you'd better solve it quickly because that's _my bug_! It's the most important evah since _I_ filed it!" (at least, sometimes I do :p ), I do welcome your comment as a suggestion that reviewing priorities is something I should add to my tasks, the sooner the better, although the difference between "bugs for the software - bugs for the community" shall be very hard to understand; to me everything is being done for the community, although I see it might not look like it. Have a nice day. --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 13:27, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Deletion of Chernobyl packet

I am alarmed to see "(G12: Unambiguous copyright infringement: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/C/Chernobyl-packet.html)" in the deletion log for Chernobyl packet. The Jargon File has been an important source for Misplaced Pages since its beginnings, as you can see from Template:JargonFile; the copyright statement of the Jargon File says:

This document (the Jargon File) is in the public domain, to be freely used, shared, and modified. There are (by intention) no legal restraints on what you can do with it, but there are traditions about its proper use to which many hackers are quite strongly attached. Please extend the courtesy of proper citation when you quote the File, ideally with a version number, as it will change and grow over time. (Examples of appropriate citation form: "Jargon File 4.0.0" or "The on-line hacker Jargon File, version 4.0.0, 24 JUL 1996".)

But you seem to have deleted this page, citing "unambiguous copyright infringement", because it was copied from the Jargon File. This was an error. Please undelete the page, and if this template was missing from it, please add it.

Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 08:14, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Interestingly, I made a point of trying to find some sort of copyright statement at JargonFile before deleting, but couldn't locate anything. It certainly didn't have that template on it; in fact, it was unreferenced, and based on the content I wasn't sure whether it was a term actually used in the industry or if it was a neologism that had little use. I'm still not sure about that. I won't be able to look at this further until next week at least, and possibly longer. If you'd like to take it to deletion review, I would have no objections. If you would like, I am willing to (temporarily) transfer the content to your userspace for referencing and proper sourcing of the content, although I do think the question of notability should be addressed, and that it might actually belong as a section of a summary article on a more general topic. Risker (talk) 14:12, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

I wonder if Eric's removed the non-copyright statement from the latest version of the Jargon File? Sneaky weasel. I don't think it's particularly new, but it's not widely used either — broadcast storms are a fairly rare problem these days. I think you're right that it should probably belong as a section of a summary article on a more general topic. Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 16:04, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

I was unfair to Eric: still has some version of that statement. It's just not easy to find. Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 16:06, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Just wanted to say ....

I saw your statement at the Arbcom case page re: INeverCry and for talking WMF into letting us opt out of VE - thank you. Yngvadottir (talk) 13:16, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Yngvadottir - I was one of many who participated in the discussion (most of it can be found on the Wikitech-L mailing list), and most of the credit should go to the developers (both volunteer and staff) who were able to make a very good technical case for stepping back, in addition to the case made by the community. I don't really think some of the social implications of ignoring a strong consensus really occurred to the WMF at the time that they were rebuffing community wishes with respect to VE; I'll make a point of trying to discuss that further with some of the leaders when I am at Wikimania. Risker (talk) 14:18, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Articles deletion

Dear Riscker,

I apologize for the inconvenience, but have no other way than appealing for administrators’ help recover a deleted article.

I published a film article entitled Drits (Derivas), a film by Portuguese director Ricardo Costa. It is the second film from an autobiographic trilogy, Faraways. The article was kept untouched by several months. To my surprise, it was recently eliminated and redirected to the director’s page with no discussion. I undid the redirection, but saw the article was proposed to deletion. Reason: independent, verifiable, secondary resources. I argued that the article couldn’t have but primary sources (the producer’s ones) as it is an upcoming film, like many others listed at upcoming films. A film that has not yet been premiered or distributed may not be commented. Besides, none of the films so listed has ever been deleted or even contested.

At last, in discussion, user User:reddogsix proposed that the article should be renamed to Drifts (film) or similar, and at the same time put at the disambiguation page of Dritf this reference «Drifs, unreleased film by Ricardo Costa (filmmaker). I created a new page for the same article entitled Drifts (Portuguese film). As the semantic root “drift” seemed to be the problem, I replaced the article name to Derivas (Drifts) and published it once more with some improvements. As a result, the article was fast deleted and I blocked for three days.

In the meantime, a new article about the trilogy was published: Faraways, which was proposed to fast deletion as well by the same user, User:reddogsix.

Although unreleased, although having no reliable secondary sources, Drifts is unquestionably an outstanding film for its uniqueness and characteristics: autobiography, comedy, docufiction, metafiction in one. I guess that “outstanding” may be a synonym for “notable” in such cases and that articles like this shouldn’t be deleted without previous cared analyses: important information may be lost.

This sequence of interventions is clearly a personal attack by User:reddogsix, supported by two or three user friend. It has no other explanation. It contributes in nothing to improve articles quality. Mists article, which I created on 10 September 2010, is the latest example. The article structure was unreasonably modified, loosing clarity and useful content.

NOTE: sent to 30 administrators.

Thanks for your attention, User:Tertulius 22:09, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Hello|salam|سلام

Hi I'm Persian Misplaced Pages users. Complain I'm a bureaucracy and a user. They did not respect the rights of others., Please investigate this issue. I could tell you what is my problem? (Translated by Google Translate) ((Note: I'm sorry if I do not speak good English because my native language is Persian))--Boyabed (talk) 08:46, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

wishing

wish you would have had time to talk to me. I had bunches to to tell ya. All my best, — Ched :  ?  03:28, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

You've got mail. Risker (talk) 03:52, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Tea Party movement case

I received a notice from Callanecc today that there was a proposed motion on an ARBCOM case that affected me. Penwhale notified me of the case 16 July. I did not reply because no comments were made about me. AGK, Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs and Silk Tork have voted to ban me. Could you please explain why I am part of this case. TFD (talk) 05:12, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Consensus and the WMF

You mentioned last week how hard you had worked trying to get WMF to understand the nature of consensus when it came to Visual Editor. In about a week, we are going to need to do it again relative to Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/Default State RFC. Do you think you will be ready and willing to explain just how rare it is to see that lopsided of a response in an RFC (and how vanishingly rare it is to see "Per Kww" used as an argument)?—Kww(talk) 20:56, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

A week from now I will be looking Erik Moëller in the eye in person and explaining this, Kww. But you really need to get that advertised in a lot more places: watchlist, noticeboards, mailing lists, Signpost, etc. That is what the Germans did, and we can see their success. Risker (talk) 22:07, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

MediaWiki talk:Watchlist-details#Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/Default State RFC.—Kww(talk) 22:39, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Re: linking wikimedia-l, just find the appropriate message in here http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l - I find "thread" or "date" are best for searching. I suspect you're referring to this message. HTH. –Quiddity (talk) 21:05, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that's the one! Thanks, Quiddity. Risker (talk) 21:36, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Risker, et al: If we want a more noticeable RFC, one can manipulate the SiteNotice to show a message to i) everyone, ii) IP editors, or iii) logged in users. I believe the last option to be a more... logical one at this point since it's already on the watchlist notice which is geared towards logged in users. Killiondude (talk) 22:13, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

I think that would be a good suggestion, Killiondude. I am hopeless at these sorts of things (the VisualEditor is designed for people like me!); are you able to do it? Risker (talk) 22:16, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Done in these three edits. Killiondude (talk) 22:23, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Killiondude. Now you're going to think I'm fussy - any chance that it could be put in some sort of divbox with borders and maybe a pretty background colour? (Or even an ugly background colour...) Some bolding, perhaps a bigger font...okay I'll shut up now. :-D Risker (talk) 22:42, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't think you're fussy. :-) I went slightly conservative because such a widely seen message can create complaints. I just added a box around it with some background color and a bigger font size. Hope that's good. :-) I'm not terribly great with HTML, so more complicated stuff might require others' help. Killiondude (talk) 22:55, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Killiondude, it looks just fine to me. I appreciate your help. Risker (talk) 22:58, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

We apparently need consensus to ask for consensus. My edits have been reverted. I'm on a mobile, but you can find the appropriate pages by the different from earlier. Killiondude (talk) 06:48, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

In the five hours or so that the site notice was up, it led to about 100 editors leaving an opinion in the RfC. It was clearly effective. I've suggested restoring it. See MediaWiki_talk:Sitenotice#Remove_VisualEditor_default_state_RFC_notice. (I have also added a pointer to that discussion on the RfC talk page.) Andreas JN466 14:40, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Already commented, and also pinged the admin who did it. I have yet to see a site notice that achieved "consensus". Most of them are put up by admins without discussion. Sheesh. Risker (talk) 14:42, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Strange Dutch messages

No problem with the screenshot. Yes, I have my default interface language for Misplaced Pages set to Dutch. They really shouldn't be using that to decide what language you get notifications in.—Kww(talk) 01:19, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Kww, I've passed the screenshots on to the powers that be, and pointed to your message here. Obviously they should be set to the language preference set to the recipient's. Risker (talk) 01:25, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Welcome to The Misplaced Pages Adventure!

Hi! We're so happy you wanted to play to learn, as a friendly and fun way to get into our community and mission. I think these links might be helpful to you as you get started.

• The Misplaced Pages Adventure Start Page
• The Misplaced Pages Adventure Lounge
• The Teahouse new editor help space
• Misplaced Pages Help pages

-- 19:54, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Reduced activity for the next two weeks

I am about to get on a flight heading to Hong Kong to attend Wikimania, and thus will have very limited availability while traveling, and reduced availability while participating, and doing the touristy things. Thus I will be inactive on any matters that I have not yet commented on, but will remain active on those I have commented on. Risker (talk) 21:28, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

You've got mail!

Dusti 18:45, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Nice to meet you this morning in M104!

Hello! Here is the location of the City Gallery which I recommended if you are interested in urban planning at all. The exhibits are a bit family-oriented but the documentary film on the upper floor is a good rundown of HK geography and urban history and a nice way to get some aircon if you're walking around Central anyway. The yum cha (dim sum) at the City Hall restaurant is also good, although more expensive than elsewhere. Quite nearby is the famous HSBC building with its lion statues pockmarked with shrapnel from when the Japanese invaded. Enjoy your visit! Citobun (talk) 08:08, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Hello Citobun! It was a pleasure to meet you and your colleagues the other day at the University. I had the great pleasure of spending Monday afternoon at Sai Kung. The beauty of the harbour and the surrounding green hills and islands is a side of Hong Kong that tourists will often miss. We went to the Peak yesterday (the skies were so clear!) but as some of my companions were wearing down a bit (having just arrived from North America yesterday morning), we decided to cut things a bit short in the afternoon. I've now had the pleasure of seeing the harbour light show twice in a row, though. I'll probably do some more traipsing around today, after popping over to the venue. Let's hope the rain holds off. Risker (talk) 23:25, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Glad you enjoyed Sai Kung! Coincidentally, I like that place, too. Who'd've thunk. B-) Heimstern Läufer (talk) 12:25, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

OTRS ticket 2013080110008675

Will you take a look at 2013080110008675 and then leave a note on that ticket with any thoughts on how to best approach this one. You appear to the be the one who issued the most recent block, so I'd like your insight into it. Please keep the discussion over there to protect privacy. Thanks! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 04:08, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I've left a comment. <sigh> Thanks, Joe. Risker (talk) 04:32, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

2012 CU/OS appointments

Hi, while noticing the amount of questions that have been asked this year and thinking that I didn't have to answer such tough questions last year, I went back to the 2012 CUOS comment page, and was suprised to find Foxj not on it, but in the list of the appointed oversighter. I found this edit by you removing him as he apparently retired, while he was subsequently appointed regardless. Do you happen to remember if there was any public discussion of this? I of course understand if given the time since nothing springs to mind, and it's really not that important :) My main question is whether he should be re-added to that page given he must have later un-withdrawn, what do you think? Snowolf 09:56, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi Snowolf - I did indeed originally withdraw myself from consideration, but later unwithdrew (in person, as it happened). While I realise this is completely unorthodox we at least verbally agreed it wasn't so much so as to invalidate my candidacy. I'm happy for my nom to be reinstated onto that page. — foxj 22:21, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

I've now fixed up the pages to reflect that. Sorry for the confusion. — foxj 22:26, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

For reference, it appears that the Committee agreed that since Foxj's candidacy was available for community comment for the same length of time as the other candidates, it would be no issue to consider the last-minute resumption of his candidacy. NW (Talk) 23:43, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

what's in fact motivating my concern about oversighting

"I suggest you're working to try to find a way of finding out what a specific suppressed edit says, but trying to draw in the community under false pretenses."

I have, of course, been accused of bad faith before but this case is quite unusual in terms of how rebuttable your presumption is (although it's also quite remarkable that it's an ArbCom member that's making the assumption). Please take a look at the Talk page of the article the edit to which was suppressed. Do you see the link to the Daily Mail in the "This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations" section? Do you see the boxed sentence in the Misplaced Pages screenshot that appears in the Daily Mail article? Would the "specific suppressed edit" look anything like that? Note that it also appears word for word in Slate and la Repubblica (albeit in Italian in the latter case). Now it's nonetheless possible I didn't see these media articles, never mind that shortly before the suppression I was the guy who found and added the photo to the article such that it could be reasonably presumed that I was following article developments closely. But take a look at my comments on that Talk page and I think you will be compelled to concede that it is IMPOSSIBLE that I did not know what the "specific suppressed edit" said.

"... the suppressed edits contained libellous information ..."

Even if they did policy says there must also be "no editorial reason to keep the revision" and there happens to be a very good editorial reason here and that's that, as I told the oversighter at the time, "The specific oversighted material (Misplaced Pages edits) is already in the media.... The whole point of the oversight tool is to prevent Misplaced Pages from getting out ahead of reliably sourced material. Now that Misplaced Pages's behind, the fact that the tool is still being wielded shows that whoever is using it is using it more expansively than it was intended to be used." It was, in fact, another editor (not me) who first challenged the oversighter (after an ANI discussion was closed before many of us could participate), saying "The talk page describes why this edit history should be restored. I have referred the whole mess to the Arbitration Committee, since that's the only place to appeal this kind of administrator censorship." At the ANI discussion, another editor stated "there is hardly any pressing need to keep the edits hidden. Of course, we could rev-del them again, but given the fact that they have already attracted media curiosity, that would likely end up looking to the outside world more like an attempt to whitewash or cover up things than like a legitimate act of protecting the article subject." Another editor agreed, saying "Leave these edits publicly viewable and quit trying to convince the media that Misplaced Pages is part of the Soviet Union." Note also that it was an admin who first revealed the material to the rest of us in order "to preserve historical record" and added that "I strongly believe that we have a responsibility to be transparent about the article history." Another editor agreed, saying "preserving the historical record on article... is valuable." Another editor stated " cannot really be reproached for his actions" and yet another said "there's no abuse of tools by ". Jimbo Wales weighed in to say, "I certainly don't think should be reproached... I do think it is a good case to examine philosophically in an effort to clarify and strengthen policy." The bottom line is the oversight action here was contrary to the community consensus and we don't know how often the community is being defied because the community is being kept in the dark.

"... you're being brutally unfair to people from the WMF or the Board (or even by throwing around my name without talking to me directly) when you expect them to give an informed opinion without any background on the specific situation."

May I remind you of what I said before you wrote this: "my current interest is in not reviewing a particular historical action..."? With respect to the WMF and the Board, I wanted to find out if the claim that "oversight matters... are subject to the WMF privacy policy and nothing else" was true or not. Answering the question does not require "background on the specific situation" beyond making it clear that the privacy of a Wikipedian is not at issue because it is a general question. With respect to you, I reckoned you could jump in, should you so choose, and verify the accuracy of my recollection of the oral exchange at Wikimania without endorsing my conclusion that "The bottom line here is that there may be a WMF oversight policy that applies, but that's not the same thing as the WMF privacy policy." I might add that the oversighter here stated at the time and in the context of the "specific situation" that "The other oversighters and the Arbitration Committee are all aware of the situation." Are you now saying that the oversighter was incorrect here as you, as a member of ArbCom, were not, in fact, made "aware of the situation" at that time?--Brian Dell (talk) 19:19, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

I've taken my time in responding to you, Brian Dell, because I remained so very disappointed in the way you've portrayed this situation when the evidence is quite different, and I don't want to be accused of bad faith anymore. I will accept that you really believe what you're saying. I was in the room when you asked those questions, Brian; it was obvious that you were trying to get someone to make a generalized policy statement based on a specific incident. You may not have realised that your statements and questions were focused in that way, but that is the reason that nobody was willing to give you a "straight answer". Let's boil this down to the facts.

• An IP edit was made that was a clear and obvious BLP violation: it contained unsourced negative material about a living person. That edit was reverted. The article was then deleted as A7.
• The article subject reached the threshold of notability 10 months later, and a new article was created. The old article was undeleted, but nobody looked at the content of the edits in the original article to identify the major BLP violation. I would suggest the onus is on the undeleting administrator to review content that was previously deleted before undeleting it, specifically to ensure that there are no BLP or other violations; in this case, we're only talking about a handful of edits, one of which included an edit summary specifically pointing out that it was removing libellous material. This is even more important when dealing with older articles that may have selectively deleted edits in their history, even before they were deleted completely; that's how we used to deal with a lot of stuff back before revision deletion, when the old "oversight" tool caused irreparable harm to the database and was irreversible. Those "individually deleted" edits aren't clearly delineated in the deleted article history, which means the only way of identifying such edits is diff-by-diff review. I do agree, however, that this principle is not enshrined in written policy.
• Even to this day, there is not a single reliable source independently making the claim that the IP editor made. (There are lots repeating the IP editor's claim by directly referring to it, but that is not the same thing.) Thus, that edit remained a major BLP violation because there was (and is) no reliable source saying the same thing that provides any other information aside from the IP editor's words. The nature of the content is libellous and unverified. It is appropriately oversighted (and yes, there is no question in my mind that it met the criteria for oversight - because it's still libellous and no source has ever independently made the same allegation).
• In not a single one of the discussions that I have reviewed over the last several days can I find the quote "oversight matters... are subject to the WMF privacy policy and nothing else". You've not provided a link to it anywhere, either, as far as I can see. People don't want to defend or reject an unsourced statement made by someone they don't know in a context they aren't aware of, and that is why you've never received a straight answer. So, let's see the link so I can read the entire related discussion. Then, and only then, could a proper response be made to the quote you've attributed to Beeblebrox.

You still have not identified why you think that the removal of a clearcut BLP violation that otherwise meets the criteria for suppression should be unsuppressed. There is no pressing editorial reason; just because other organizations decide to repeat the BLP violation doesn't mean that we should make it publicly accessible on this site. So....where are we now? Risker (talk) 04:58, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

re that particular claim by @Beeblebrox I did not previously provide the diff because it seemed not unreasonable to me to assume that you, as an ArbCom member, were following this month's ArbCom Case statements, and, more importantly, because I did not want to be accused of "outing" the oversighter in another location like this page given that, evidently by design, the community cannot normally trace any given oversighting action to any particular oversighter. This doesn't mean that I agree with oversighter anonymity, of course. Accountability on Misplaced Pages ought to take the form of a mutual "glass house" instead of a hierarchial Panopticon where the actions of ordinary editors are subject to surveillance and review but we ordinary editors not only cannot watch our watchers in turn but get growled at or presumed to be acting in bad faith if we express an interest in what's going on behind the curtain. Editors who have powers that "ordinary" editors do not have should disclose those powers on their userpages, in my view, and anyone who refuses to give their legal name to the community should not have privileged access to the non-public information of other editors.

In your recounting of the "facts" here you've again made a incorrect presumption about what another editor knows or has done that can be fully rebutted. In this case it was about the "undeleting administrator" whose Userpage I linked to above. This admin did NOT neglect "to review content that was previously deleted;" there was no automatic undeleting of the original article, it was a couple of days and close to 200 edits later before an admin exercised his discretion to restore the full history. In the admin's own words "The article was deleted under A7 once upon a time. Obviously, A7 is no longer applicable, so I revived the historical revisions. The... edits were properly viewed as inappropriate at the time, but now they are of great interest and no longer a BLP issue. I would think, maybe even of interest to the FBI, who knows. Since we are a reflection of the national discourse on this topic, I strongly believe that we have a responsibility to be transparent about the article history, so barring a policy reason against it, I undeleted the revisions. I see no problem with having done so." Several of us agreed with this view, albeit with the caveat that rather than assert absolutely no "BLP issue," simply state that any incremental damage to the article subject's reputation after all that had become part of the public record by that time was easily outweighed by the public interest in the transparency of a Misplaced Pages article's history. The fact news media reported on the revealed article history is evidence of both this public interest and the media's belief in the legality and propriety of publicizing the material.

If the only people with the power to review oversighting are ArbCom members, I would hope that they would appreciate the fact that the community can review ordinary reversions but cannot review oversighting implies that a significantly higher standard should apply when oversighting material as opposed to simply removing it from an article. Take a look at Misplaced Pages:Office actions and some notes on their actions and you'll see notes like "The history remains intact." Frankly, I fail to appreciate why ALL oversighting not related to editor privacy cannot be left with the non-anonymous professional lawyers in the WP:OFFICE. At Wikimania I felt I got a "straight answer" from this group when they indicated to me that these "office actions" were and/or should be minimal (e.g. on the order of just once every few months) and limited to precisely enumerated conditions, since I felt that they shared my perspective in terms of what this is ultimately all about as opposed to adopting the view of an oversighter (and an ArbCom member, neither or whom are libel lawyers to my knowledge) who seems to think that these sorts of actions should be relatively common and discretionary.--Brian Dell (talk) 14:19, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Okay, now we're getting to the heart of your issues. If you want to make it mandatory for holders of advanced permissions (i.e., checkusers, oversighters and stewards) to publicly reveal their legal identity, that is something to take to Meta and to discuss there with a global perspective, as it would require a major change in policy. The applicable policy is wmf:Access to nonpublic data policy, but since the foundation wiki has restricted access, it would be better for the discussion to take place on Meta, where the entire community can participate. This needs to be a global policy.

I'm truly shocked that you'd think the news media repeating unsourced gossip has anything to do with the appropriateness of any edits on English Misplaced Pages. Seriously, Brian, if that original edit had not been on Misplaced Pages, we would never have allowed mention of that article on this project. We sure has heck wouldn't have a fancy banner on the talk page of the article pointing the world to it. Actually, why *do* we have a banner on the talk page of the article? What kind of self-aggrandisement is that? Why are we using article space to brag about having vandalism edits on our project publicized in the international media? Our sense of self-importance overrides any kind of common sense.

The people who review concerns about oversighters on this project are the Audit Subcommittee, a six-member panel made up of 3 community members and 3 arbitrators. You've been pointed to them on several occasions. You have not taken your concern to them. I do not understand why you would take your concern to the WMF board of trustees before talking to the AUSC. It's kind of cart-before-horse to go to the Board before even discussing this in any kind of English Misplaced Pages forum or gathering facts (and properly sourcing them - I had to go hunting for the quotation you put in your most recent statement, would adding a link really kill you if you're making direct quotes?).

I think your idea that "non-anonymous professional lawyers" taking over suppression has about zero chance of succeeding. I have no idea why you're referring to WP:OFFICE actions when absolutely nothing involved in this situation was done under WP:OFFICE, which operates under a different principle. Sure you got a straight answer from them, but it's kind of like pointing out that my vegetarian neighbour hasn't eaten meat this week when we're talking about how to best roast a chicken: not relevant to the discussion at hand. What I don't understand is why in heaven's name it has taken almost three weeks, multiple discussions, and a whole pile of casting of aspersions, to finally get down to what you really want, which is having WMF staff lawyers take over suppression of edits that don't directly relate to the privacy of editors. I had no idea this is what you were after.

So, you know what the edit says, and I'm deeply saddened that you cannot see the difference between the information that is very well sourced in the article, and the content of the edit you seem to believe should be suppressed. I'm at least equally concerned that the undeleting administrator seems to also not see the difference, and has illustrated such a poor understanding of WP:BLP. That's actually quite sad. 15:12, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

You incorrectly assumed that I was ignorant about something (the content of a suppressed edit) and I came here to correct the record, seeing as you based a charge of dishonesty on my part ("trying to draw in the community under false pretenses") on that incorrect assumption. In your reply to me you then incorrectly assumed that another editor (the undeleting administrator) was ignorant about the exact same thing! I'm not going to make any assertions here about just what caused you to make that incorrect assumption the second time, but I will just suggest that IF it didn't occur to you that a Wikipedian might have deliberately leaked the article history because you couldn't believe that it was possible for anyone who was aware of the material to just be satisfied with it having been deleted from the article and not also call for someone to anonymously apply an eraser to the article history, you may wish to open your mind to that possibility. Your refusal to acknowledge that this matter fell into a grey area where reasonable people could disagree (e.g. you're "shocked" that I think we should defer to the editorial judgment of news sources like Italy's largest circulation general interest newspaper with regard to what is in the public interest and appropriate for disclosure as opposed to just substituting our own judgment) wouldn't matter so much if it wasn't comitant with a series of statements about the motivations of others, starting with accusing me of trying to deceive the community, continuing by claiming as a "fact" that the leaker leaked out of negligence instead of out of conscience, and finally by suggesting that that banner on the Talk page is there for reasons of "self-aggrandisement." There was, in fact, a discussion thread on the Talk page about whether the banner should be there. Nobody suggested that it remain in order to show how important Misplaced Pages is. Here's the alternative explanation: the banner remained there after community review because the community did not agree with you and the oversighter with respect to the need for a coverup. I respect your view that a residual libel issue may remain even after the public disclosures about the article subject prior to the leak; we could agree to respectfully disagree if you in turn respected the legitimacy of arguing that hiding the article history comes at a cost to transparency instead of calling those of us motivated by a transparency interest by turns deceitful, negligent, or motivated by a "sense of self-importance."

It is, in fact, out of respect for your view that there is a pressing need for secrecy that I have declined to provided links or diffs. I didn't link to the leaker's statement as it was hidden by @Rschen7754 (contrary to the clear instructions on the hiding template that it "should never be used to end a discussion over the objections of other editors, except in cases of unambiguous disruptive editing") with instructions to "Back away." And's it's partially out of a good faith assumption that Beeblebrox was telling the truth when he claimed that "The other oversighters and the Arbitration Committee are all aware of the situation," that I have not bothered to try and draw the attention of any ArbCom Subcommittee to this particular case. My concern, as I've said repeatedly, is in fact broader. Since the so-called "community members" on AUSC are not, in fact, elected by the community but are admins appointed by ArbCom I cannot stand for election as a community member on my transparency platform but if you think there is a chance I might be appointed by ArbCom I would endeavour to satisfy the prerequisite of becoming an admin.

One final note: the WP:OFFICE says the "vast majority of cases" it deals with concern "libel, unjustifiable invasion of personal privacy, and copyright infringement." If non-editor-privacy related oversighting operates under a principle that is distinct from addressing defamation, privacy, and copyright infringement issues, I'd be interested in just what is that distinct rationale for supplementing the WP:OFFICE with a group of anonymous libel and copyright amateurs who operate in the shadows (this is observing a fact with regard to professional accreditation, not "casting an aspersion"; expertise would be less of an issue if these people were not granted powers that are not only denied to the rest of us but are wielded in secret). Could that rationale be in turn distinguished from a rationale which held that the WP:OFFICE interprets its mandate to go over the heads of the editing community too narrowly and conservatively? (oversighting of "potentially libellous information" used to be limited to cases where "the subject has specifically asked for the information to be removed from the history." When this limit was removed in November 2009, one oversighter said it should be removed because "This what I've been doing all along... has enough work to do." In other words, the limit was being routinely ignored by oversighters anyway and there was a desire to take over and expand the number of OFFICE-like actions).--Brian Dell (talk) 13:09, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Actually, Brian, I'm completely confused why you keep referring to WP:OFFICE, a rule that applies to WMF staff only, when the applicable policy is Misplaced Pages:Oversight, something that has been pointed out to you on numerous occasions. The two are used for completely different reasons. Perhaps looking at the history of the AUSC and the appointment of users to CheckUser and Oversight will help you to understand why things are the way they are. We held community elections in 2008 and 2009 which worked out fine. However, when we moved to using SecurePoll for the elections at the request of the community, there was insufficient support for any candidate save one at a time when we desperately needed additional CU/OS. More importantly, there was almost no negative feedback on any candidate whatsoever, so the reason(s) that these individuals did not succeed was completely unknown. We had nearly the same experience for AUSC. When there is an election as part of the process for appointing individuals to CU/OS (and thus also AUSC, which comes with access to these tools), they have to have at least 70% support; that's a WMF rule. It's a pretty hard threshold to meet using SecurePoll, as can be seen by looking at Arbcom elections since we moved to SecurePoll. I'd be in favour, if the community was interested, in returning to open public voting for CU/OS/AUSC in the way that it was done in 2008 (i.e., vetting by Arbcom, names put forward to community, success dependent on community results barring major issue). You cannot stand for the AUSC because the WMF decided (over the objections of the Arbitration Committee) that only administrators can hold CU or OS permissions. We tried and were unsuccessful in changing that; in fact, there were non-administrators appointed to early iterations of the AUSC.

There was pretty broad notice of the m:Oversight policy discussion of 2009 you point to, and the section that you point to was supported by every single commenter. I wouldn't take one particular person's perspective as being any more or less relevant than another's, but would look at the entire discussion there. Keep in mind that the discussion took place after all WMF projects finally had access to the suppression tool and the use of the oversight tool was being deprecated. The suppression tool allows much finer handling of removal of material and also leaves a clear trail in the history of the page. The oversight tool literally removed the edit from the database, thus messing up the page history. (Not trying to be pedantic here, but the history of these things is relevant to how the policies developed over time.)

I guess we're just really going to have to disagree about the degree to which the undeleting administrator had a responsibility to review the edits he restored. WP:BLP has an entire section about the responsibilities of undeleting administrators restoring material deleted as a result of BLP. In this case, the deletion was an A7 (which is only indirectly related to BLP), but more importantly there is an obviously concerning edit summary that clearly flags a BLP issue. Just think, if the undeleting administrator had reviewed that edit and recognized the BLP problem that is there and not undeleted the two edits involved, we'd never have spread those BLP violations all over the internet, they never would have become the topic of widespread media gossip-reporting, and we wouldn't have had to have this discussion. Please note again, that those mainstream media sources see the story as the fact that someone wrote xxxxx (which they glady reproduce) on Misplaced Pages, not that they have any indication that xxxxx is true. This is how MSM gets around libel claims. You've been working here for a long time, and I'm surprised that you've not noticed this before. Risker (talk) 13:31, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

If one looks at the "entire discussion there" as opposed to "one particular person's perspective," I'd note that 1) although "in de-WP, we take the policy very serious and I don't oversight things that are not asked for by the subject" is not explicitly an "oppose" it should not be characterized as a support 2) several of the commentators are oversighters giving an opinion about the appropriate breadth of their own powers and 3) the dominant argument for removing the limit was that it was being routinely ignored anyway (e.g. "most oversighters I see do this already anyways", "clearly a case of the page lagging behind the practice"). I keep referring to WP:OFFICE because I'm talking about what ought to govern hiding revisions as opposed to what does govern. Re "Just think, if the undeleting administrator had reviewed that edit..." I've pointed out to you that the undeleting adminstrator in this case DID review the edit and you continue to mischaracterize our fundamental disagreement over transparency as a disagreement about something else, this time over the responsibility of an undeleting admin to look at what he or she is deleting. The information "spread all over the internet" in this case because the undeleting admin thought it's Misplaced Pages's job to disseminate information instead of hiding it! Again, there was no negligence there. With respect to your understanding of libel law, I'd point out that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act applies to Misplaced Pages such that not only does Misplaced Pages have just as much power to "get around libel claims," it has even more than media outlets that cannot rely on Section 230 (contrary to your assertion here, the MSM cannot avoid a libel charge just because "someone wrote" it, rather the conditions of Innocent dissemination would have to be satisfied), but given that you attended the Wikimania session where the Foundation legal team pointed that out as a rationale for keeping Misplaced Pages's servers based in the U.S., I would just be advising you again what you've already been told. The fact that you're exaggerating Misplaced Pages's liability here illustrates why I think oversighters should know libel law or at least be accountable to someone who does.--Brian Dell (talk) 16:05, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Brian, if you would like the entire WMF community to take on the WMF's WP:OFFICE policy as the correct one for oversighting, having a discussion on my talk page isn't going to help you. Oversight is not about liability, although it may be one small element of it. It is about being a responsible community. It's not Misplaced Pages's job to disseminate never-substantiated smears about its article subjects, it never has been, and I pray that it never will be. Pretending that our purpose is to let everything that anyone says about anyone on this incredibly open website is so far from our objective that I'm lost for words. You may not have noticed back in your early days of participation here, before the suppression tool was available, how frequently administrators would do "poor man's oversight" on articles, and you wouldn't be able to notice it because it involved a large number of manoeuvres that broke up the article history and split off deleted revisions into another page, which was in turn deleted again. Today, you can see that something has changed. That's a lot more transparent than how it was done up until 2009. The odd thing is that it was probably being done even more frequently then than it is now. There's no way to know, of course: all of that stuff was logged very obliquely and only admins can see the deletion logs, and the complexity of multiple page moves and merges to chop up the history means they're impossible to reconstruct. Again, I'd say that the admin had no business undeleting edits that were clearly marked as libellous until he could satisfy himself that there were reliable sources that said exactly the same thing. The WP:OFFICE mandate usually involves legal action directed specifically at the WMF itself, and has little if anything to do with oversight. Risker (talk) 16:16, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

"Responsible" to whom? You haven't acknowledged any stakeholders here besides the subjects of biographies. How about to government or corporate interests? The FBI once requested that the resolution of its seal hosted on Wiki servers be reduced because it enabled counterfeiting and the FBI was quickly told to get stuffed, one commentator stating what I believe is the typical view in the community that "if we give into things like that too much, before we know it we will have BP knocking on our door about all the things they don't like." To date I haven't been complained about the fact that the Oversight Policy has nothing to say about trade secrets or national security secrets because I've been around since before there was a BLP policy on Misplaced Pages and seen the reach of BLP grow and grow relative to other policies such that I know which way the politics blow around here in terms of who most Wikipedians think is owed an obligation of keeping something secret and who isn't. But solicitude towards an exclusive class of article subjects has been taken yet further by broadly authorizing a select group of appointed insiders to go through history logs and hide material and tell any ordinary community members questioning them that "oversight matters... are not, in fact, subject to consensus." I wish we could just agree to respectfully disagree but it doesn't look that you are amenable to that, an example of your attitude being reflected in your dismissal of Canada's largest circulation newspaper, the Toronto Star, as a "gossip" rag because the Star printed material you think should be hidden.--Brian Dell (talk) 05:32, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Oh, the Star has published lots of gossip; they even have a couple of gossip columnists. And no, I'd not consider those columns to be a reliable source for anything, any more than I'd consider the Daily Mail to be a reliable source for half the stuff on its front page - and I'm pretty sure you'd agree about the Daily Mail. Yes, we have a responsibility to ensure accuracy and reliable sourcing for our article subjects, in particular living people, but not exclusively. I'm really saddened that you can't see the difference between the FBI asking to have its seal in a less high-quality image, and insisting that "transparency" (for some value of the word) requires us to maintain unsourced negative information about living people in full public view in our articles. Shall we also keep the suicide threats and the life stories of physical/mental/sexual abuse in full public view too, for "transparency"? Shall we keep the full personal details (often right down to date of birth and exact geographic location) of 10-year-olds publicly viewable for "transparency"? Or is it enough transparency to ensure that any editor or reader looking at the page history can see that something was removed, instead of the old way where nobody knew what edits were missing and where they went, with edits misattributed to other editors? Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia. How does keeping unsourced negative information in public view fit in with the mandate? I do actually understand where you're coming from. I just have seen far too many examples of abuse of such information to pretend that article subjects deserve any less protection from such abuse than Misplaced Pages editors do. And I'm pretty sure that if someone was to go to your user page and insert grossly negative information about you in some way (or create an account named " raepes babies and eats their bodies afterward", or says something similar in an edit summary), you'd really prefer for it not to be immortalized into eternity. Risker (talk) 06:09, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Chelsea Manning

Hi Risker, SlimVirgin has asked me if I would revert an inappropriate edit through protection on Chelsea Manning. Would you mind if I did so? (I saw your warning on the talk page yesterday.) Mark Arsten (talk) 17:27, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

You saw it, and then you decided not to heed it. I was just writing up the block message I plan to post on your page, and that of the other two administrators who decided to edit through protection. The edit you made was not uncontroversial, and in fact was being opposed on the talk page of the article. Risker (talk) 17:34, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Admins are still editing this page. I have no idea if they are doing it via "edit requests", but I find it somewhat unfair that simple requests like fixing a misspelling are falling on deaf ears while others are making pronoun changes, which seems to be part of the reason this article is locked down in the first place. Am I missing something? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Two kinds of pork (talk • contribs) 22:04, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, full protection expired some hours ago, so it is no surprise administrators and other editors are now editing the article. As best I can see, the edits done whilst the article remained under full protection were subject to discussion on the talk page. Risker (talk) 22:32, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

My mistake. I didn't realize the protection expired.Two kinds of pork (talk) 00:41, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Chelsea Manning

Hello. There is currently a discussion at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. — ΛΧΣ 17:59, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

The speed with which your blocks were overturned demonstrates quite well how out of touch with the community you have become. I suggest you walk away from Misplaced Pages for a while before causing any more unneeded drama. Mark Arsten (talk) 19:32, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

The speed with which my blocks were overturned demonstrates quite well how administrators will violate even basic rules of engagement (e.g., not taking admin actions on discussions in which they participate) just so that they can protect their perceived rights. Risker (talk) 19:38, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

I see some irony in Arsten's "the speed with which ... " argument, and agree with Risker's assessment of the situation. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:15, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

You two have a lot in common... but thankfully the community has thoroughly rejected you. Perhaps a preview of this year's Arbcom election? Mark Arsten (talk) 22:00, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Heck, even I did not support reblocking, and would have unblocked you directly had Ched not beat me to the buttons. And no, the community didn't thoroughly reject my position. Discussions on ANI that end within an hour with an involved admin taking admin action are tainted at the best of times, and the fact that most of the supporters of unblock are admins (many of whom have worked at the edges and some of whom have been sanctioned in the past) is by itself a sign. Notice now that latecomers to the discussion are considerably more supportive.

For the record, I have no intention or desire, after five years of being treated like something to be scraped off the bottom of one's shoes, to run for Arbcom again. I won't say anything more for fear of dissuading qualified candidates from running. But this sure as heck wasn't done because I wear an arbcom hat. Risker (talk) 22:10, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, I guess the best thing for me to do now is to drop the stick. Have a good weekend, Mark Arsten (talk) 22:17, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear that ARBCOM has been such a negative experience. I think of it as the last court of appeal for intractable problems. But any time tough decisions have to be made, there are going to be people who think it's too lenient, those who think it's not tough enough and a few who believe it was the correct decision. Liz 15:34, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

The experience of being an arb is bad for virtually all arbs. PumpkinSky talk 18:35, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Ahhh ... ok

I see that you are not in disagreement with me on the unblock - whew, glad of that. I was typing up a post and had an (edit conflict) with you. Hopefully I've explained my unblock to everyone's satisfaction; although I have no comment on the "wiki" situation regarding "Manning" as I have not been following it. — Ched :  ?  18:33, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Also, I have not looked at the other blocks, and only happened across this while I was on a break; so I won't be involving myself in those. I'll let you (or others) follow-up on that as I need to get back to R/L. — Ched :  ?  18:36, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Admin's Barnstar
	You and I are on the same page when it comes to admins responsibilities on fully protected articles. Even though the blocks were reverted, your actions have at least brought this long standing admin abuse problem to the discussion board. Good job. JOJ 02:22, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much, JOJ. Risker (talk) 05:40, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't know all the details of this recent drama but I'm certainly in agreement with the principle that Admins should follow the same rules and procedures as everyone else and if they violate them they should receive the same consequence as anyone else. Thanks for standing up for the principle of equal treatment.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 13:24, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't know the details either. I think two things could apply here but I am not sure which in this case: 1) admins should be held to the same AND higher standards (which begs why AC won't valid admin abuse cases) and 2) blocks should be justified and when they're not it makes wiki even more the den of total dysfunctional insanity than it already is. PumpkinSky talk 14:35, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

A word of support from me too. I think Risker did the right thing in this particular issue.--Jetstreamer  23:44, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I wanted to add another word of support. The trend of admins to consider themselves super-editors is troubling, and needs to be confronted to make folks reconsider doing things like this (or worse.) Edits made to a protected page without discussion are very obviously controversial (as was later evidenced by the ANI thread.) --Noren (talk) 04:21, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Which is why AC should have taken all the admin abuse cases it's been turning down. PumpkinSky talk 18:36, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

The emerging pattern is that admins get desysoped and regular editors get banned. Hardly a symmetrical form of punishment. Eric Corbett 19:18, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

That's true only if AC takes the case, which the pattern is they don't, they let the repeatedly abusive admin run and hide for awhile til the storm is over then the abusive admin goes back to his old patterns. PumpkinSky talk 19:22, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

True, but the problem behind that is in the definition of abusive. For non-admins it means using naughty words, or expressing unpopular opinions, whereas for admins it involves some kind of misuse of their toolkit. Eric Corbett 19:37, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

I think you're a real asset to the project, and I'm disappointed to hear you're considering not running for the stocks next time. Thanks for everything you do here. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 18:09, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

• Thank you all for your comments. I do think that it's important to have better rotation on the Arbitration Committee - more than half of the committee as constituted at the beginning of the year had served at least one prior term before re-election. Institutional memory is important, but so are fresh ideas. The first two years of my term were extremely productive for the committee: institution of the AUSC and BASC, introduction of formal community consultation for CU/OS, re-writing of the arbitration policy with community ratification, implementation of standards for checkusers and oversighters. The one thing that I've put a fair deal of effort into that hasn't resulted in significant change is mailing list management (one of my primary reasons for seeking a second term), and I'm going to see if I can get that covered off before the end of the year, although the clock is ticking.

  Otherwise, there are a lot of other things to do on this project, and working at the cross-project level. I'm thinking about suggesting a few projects and discussions to the community (including intersecting communities where applicable), but I'll wait until I have time to do it right. And of course, I'm looking forward to making more content contributions. Risker (talk) 19:26, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

m:Requests for comment/Global ban for Ottava Rima

Special notifications to you too as most recent proposing/enacting editor of a block for the user. I don't have time for thorough research of all evidence of his misdeeds so it seems appropriate for the people in the know to add useful summaries/evidence/context as felt appropriate (for instance, I'm unable to locate the most recent official statement by ArbCom on why he is indef-blocked). --Nemo 10:22, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

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