User talk:MickMacNee/Arbitration evidence

Lack of any clear scope

This case has been requested and accepted with extraordinary haste and very little comment from arbs, so I am still pretty much in the dark as to what issues the arbitrators are intending to examine, what it is I am even accused of, who the parties are, and why the arbitrators believed a case was necessary at all given the accusations are not much different to the last time they were begged to 'do something about me'.

After that failed request, there's been a single Rfc, pretty focused on one topic, and to which I signed up to some findings. That was a voluntary agreement. Other than served blocks, many of which are reduced or overturned, I have not once been under any kind of involuntary sanction relating to any of the issues or topics raised in this request, so I'm surprised to have been frogmarched here off the back of an ANI report which found no fault and most definitely was not a live dispute.

Given the case has been accepted with the parties limited to just the people involved in that ANI thread, WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive704#User:MickMacNee and WP:ITN/C, then for now I will just assume that the arbitrators think that there was something about that thread that was ripe for arbitration. I cannot quite believe that, but that's my working assumption at this time.

If other people offer evidence here while not being a named party, for the sake of my time and sanity, I don't at first intend to address it, unless it contains a very glaring falsehood. Arbitrators should not a assume from that, that I think any of it is in any way factually correct. They can see from my Arbitration request response what my side of some of the things alleged in people's statements are.

If the arbitrators think I should be addressing the evidence from anybody but the named parties, if for example they don't intend to do any due diligence on whatever claims might be made, then please say so, because if I have to do that, I think I will have to simply re-examine whether I want to be involved in this case at all, as I think it's going to take a hell of a lot of my time to address all the potential complaints about me, while at the end of it, the best result of all is that I remain unsanctioned, and they get to wait for the next Golden Opportunity like this to fall into their lap.

Chester Markel was not in a dispute with me

Chester Markel has never to my knowledge interacted with me
Chester Markel's first contribution to the ANI thread was to inform of this case
By that time the thread was completely dead (see below)
Chester Markel declared in that, that "enough was enough". So, enough of what?

Chester Markel's evidence is questionable

In his filing statement, he said I threatened to vandalise the Le Mans artile. I did no such thing
Chester Markel's evidence so far against me is a hastily put together mish mash of POV assertions [1] (that he decided to formulate after having first proposed in the workshop that I be banned for a year!)
His accusations jump erratically from one incident to another with no way of knowing what his main issue even is
He makes no distinction betweeen incidents before or after my recent Rfc, or tries to draw any conclusions over its effectiveness
This does not gel with the ending of his filing request, "Every attempt to resolve this situation short of arbitration has failed"
He states that the last ANI ended with "without any conclusive resolution". That's in no small part due to it not being a valid complaint, with nobody in any position to do so saying I'd done anything wrong. I'm sorry, but what more am I supposed to do in that situation to defend myself from people like Chester Markel jumping on such reports in this way, other than get someone to specifically archive it as 'no administrator action required'?
He offers no evidence that his diffs links to incidents where I've actually been sanctioned or even warned for, by anyone in a position to do so, i.e. not the very people I am in dispute with in any of these actual incidents
He offers no evidence that these are incidents or even patterns that anyone has attempted to take through the dispute resolution process other than the afformentioned Rfc, not least himself

Chester Markel's motives are questionable

Chester Markel has all this time point blank refused to tell me why he has filed this case
Chester Markel not once communicated with any of the named parties about his intention to file a case
Chester Markel named Sandstein & Scott Mac as involved parties against their wishes
Scott Mac has already stated he believes this case is an attempt by him to get revenge for his past unblock of me, overturning Sandstein [2]
Sandstein has grasped with relish the opportuniy to rehash that dispute using this case, while admitting he knows nothing of this specific case, and admitting he has had no involvement with me since then
Chester Markel named Beyond My Ken as a party. While he made a generic complaint in the request, he has since admitted he has no evidence to present, possibly reflecting on the feedback from the ANI & arbitrators as to his views on civility
Chester Markel named RD232 as a party. He has already stated had he been asked, he would have advised him against filing a case
Chester Markel named 365 as a named party. My interaction with 365 is limited to that latest ANI thread, and one other incident that I can recall, from at least a year ago. He has so far made no comment at all
Given the above, I don't see how anyone can credibly claim that the issue that Chester Markel actually has is with me, or at least if they believe it is that he has done anything at all to resolve it in the proper manner with the necessary steps before filing case, not least informing me of his concerns.
I also don't see given his lack of any communication with any of the parties, his rather poor preparation for this case, and his lack of any record of such activity, that he is remotely acting here as a 'concerned citizen' type who has simply filed this request for the good fo the community

Chester Markel endorses the aggravation of editors by involved admins

In his evidence [3] Chester Markel seeks to condemn me for being 'hostile' to the provocation by RD232 in his escalation of the ANI, the unfolding of which is described below. I think he is a liar and a hypocrite if he is trying to remotely suggest his reaction to finding himself in that same situation is to extend nothing but love and happiness to RD232. While there might be some policy that says I shouldn't have been angry at the unfolding of those events, I shall point out all of this occured at ANI, in an environment where a lot of admins are watching, and a lot would gladly have blocked me instantly had they actually seen me violate something like NPA

Chester Markel seeks to aid BLP violators in Afd debates

In his evidence [4] Chester Markel seeks to chastise me for objecting to Casliber removing part of an Afd debate to the talk page, what he describes as "hostile AFD participation". What it actually was, was me highlighting that a user who had in that very debate been holding himself up as the champion of BLP, had just been the source of one of the most major BLP violations I've ever seen - getting a related article, one of his own creations sinced redirected due to complete non-notability, linked from the Main Page, with a hook ostensibly about the person's supposed notability, but reffed to a tabloid hitpiece of hearsay on his entire family, in a source known for complete fabrication of stories like that. And if he was infact true and it was hostile, it wouldn't have simply been moved to the talk page - that's an absurd attempt to rewrite history with only one goal - to smear me in this case he started. And it should be noted, my sole objection as stated in my edit summary when I restored it, was where the cut off point had been applied. Had the person archived it again, the whole commentary, and leaving a note (which hadn't even been done the first time), I probably wouldn't have reverted that. I don't really know what to say about the fact that the person doing the removing was also someone who had made a comment there, and also happens to be one of the arbitrators sitting to examine this 'evidence'.

Chester Markel wants to elevate local consensus over that enshrined in site wide policy

In his evidence [5] Chester Markel claims I revert "articles on the basis of claims that explicitly reject consensus, holding his own views of a matter to be superior to everyone else's". The 'explicitly claimed' consensus he refers to was an agreement between a few local editors on the talk page of a high profile article. My 'superiour views' happen to be the fact that we do not balance content for neutrality using footnotes, a view supported by WP:NPOV and WP:MOS, something which I pointed out on the talk page in detail, and got no rebuttal on, except the reassertion of local views as if that trumps policy, and a complete refusal to do as I suggested in that edit summary - to seek a consenus at VPP before re-instating, as this was a VPP level issue. This revert is also the content removal which I referred to in the request response, which still stands. I've yet to see an explanation of how I acted against policy, in seeking and achieving the permanent removal of content that violated policy. This is more rewriting of history by Chester Markel I suspect.

Chester Markel endorses the violation of WP:TPG

In his evidence [6] Chester Markel seeks to chastise me for reverting someone who altered the presentation of the archiving of the most recent ANI thread in a way that obscured the original intent of the original archiver, and left no note of this fact in the discussion. This was a clear violation of WP:TPG, so I reverted. Is Chester Markel happy to ignore these things in his desperate desire to have me banned for a year? I think so.

Chester Markel endorses the winning of debates through the use of archiving by involved editors

In his evidence [7] Chester Markel seeks to paint my reversal of the archiving of the ITN/C debate referred to in the recent ANI by one of its very participants, as somehow wrong. Is the committee happy to endorse the use of archiving by involved debaters as a way of winning the debate? Bearing in mind that in that case, the archiving produces a very clear win for the position taken by the archiver. Chester Markel points out it was re-archived by an uninvolved person, yet leaves out the fact that I didn't revert this. Is Chester Markel happy to ignore these things in his desperate desire to have me banned for a year? Again, I think so.

Chester Markel is seeking retroactive judgement

In his evidence [8] Chester Markel asserts I had insinuated someone was a moron. I can hand on heart say that that the reference to 'moron' was due to my belief that I was being painted by DeCausa as the 'moron' with his suggestion that I had failed to provide a "coherent explanation" and I hadn't up to that point said anything that he felt he even need to reply to, when in actual fact by that stage I had already made a detailed and policy linked argument, and answered every single one of his points. But, I will concede on re-reading that specific diff now, Chester Markel's interpretation of how that word could have been viewed is a plausible one, from DeCausa's POV. I will also point out neither DeCausa, or anyone else, complained at the time that this was how they took it. So, the question is, is Chester Markel seeking to have me banned for failing to react to complaints that never arrived over use of language I never knew at the time was seen as problematic, and thus never had a chance to do anything about. I will re-iterate, his charge is that I made "an insinuation" in a hostile manner, not that I actually called another editor a moron.

Chester Markel doesn't understand what edit warring is

Edit warring at its heart is the disruptive use of the revert function to ignore the need to discuss controversial changes, and as a way to impose changes against policy. As such, we have a bright line technical rule, but its also a violation if you are breaking these principles anyway. Chester Markel has already had to modify his evidence as in his first pile of diffs included all sorts of irrelevant examples. He has thinned his examples down [9] to just the UK page and the British Isles template. And even in these cases, he's had to pick a period of 25 March - 10 May to show 5 reverts, and 19 May - 23 May to show 4. I'll point out that in both cases I participated at length in discussion on the talk page inbetween reverts and fully explained the reasoning behind each one, and I will point out that in both cases, the content position I was reverting to remains as the stable outcome, because it was the correct one in policy and the reverters who were reverting me had either accepted that by then, or the people still disputing that it wasn't the correct one have declined to do what I did, and back up their arguments with a policy based argument, or go and seek outside opinion that would back it up. I don't think I have to tell anyone here what such a report of 'edit warring' at AN3 would have led to.

The ANI thread led to no action, and was not a live issue

365 filed the ANI report alleging, well, it's not exactly clear what to me
Not one uninvolved admin stated I had any case to answer
Not one uninvolved admin even warned me for anything I had allegedly done
RD232 & Chester Markel's further escalation aside, the thread had effectively ended as an exercise in soliciting admin action
Crucially, the thread had NOT ended with uninvolved admins recommending any further escalation of any kind, not least an arbitration case.

RD232's escalation of the ANI thread as an involved admin

RD232 was an admin who was in very recent conflict with me
RD232 chose to drop a link to my prior Rfc in the thread
RD232 chose not to declare his prior history with me as he did so
This does not tally with his later explanation that he did so as he thought the incident 'chimed' with his experience [10]
RD232 finally declared his involvement, later claiming this was in response to a comment from someone else
The comment in part was: "People with Admin status who join these conversations but won't do anything about it should resign their Adminship"
It's pretty obvious this was not a request directed to RD232
RD232 chose to interpret that as a request for him to further the drama, by finally declaring his involvement, and 'suggesting' people could try a restriction
Nobody made any comment after that. The report was effectively stale for a second time, a pretty clear signal that no uninvolved admin thought this suggestion was remotely helpful or needed
RD232 the chose to escalate it for a third time, by 'taking his admin hat off' and proposing an actual civility restriction himself
This recieved precisely two responses - mine of course, and a criticism from another admin of how he had generally been conducting himself thus far
RD232 then, in complete violation of WP:TPG, deceptively refactored these comments out of the proposal [11]
After my objection, he rebooted it again, this time at least noting the change, but still with the effect of removing the other admin's criticism from the reaction to the proposal [12]
Not a single person chose to support the proposal
RD232 then self blocked himself in a fit of pique
The thread was thus dead for a third time
Then Chester Markel noted he had filed for arbitration, his first and only contribution, even after a request to explain why he felt that thread was headed in that direction

DeCausa can be considered more involved than most as regards my involvement at Talk:UK

In his evidence, DeCausa's general theme reads that he was an impartial observer of my 'behaviour' on that article's talk page. The reality is that the supposed consensus backed content that I was disputing, had originated directly from his suggestion to use a footnote. My involvement at that page from the outset was to criticise the process that led to this being adopted, because it's a very basic violation of NPOV. And the outcome ultimately was that it was removed. It's in this important context that the rest of his evidence needs to be read frankly, which I might have overlooked had he not already had quite a lot of opportunity to declare this fact before now in the context of this case.

DeCausa has a strange definition of using the talk page & time wasting

In his evidence, by the time DeCausa alleges I was simply reverting and not using the talk page, I had made five further posts after my original request to see the prior discussion that was said to exist. The link to the discussion had arrived in the very 1st reply, so naturally, off I had gone to read it, and I made all those further responses in full knowledge of its content & thus referring to it. Then I was requested to read it again. Then I was requested to read it a third time. So, by the time of that 6th post, I opined that these continuing requests were an attempt to ignore me and waste my time, while pretending to be an exercise in discussion, the 'D' in BRD. I think that was a fair and accurate summary to that point. And the reference to 'blowing my brains out' is hardly hostile to anyone but myself. Maybe this painted too graphic a picture for DeCausa, I don't know.

DeCausa has an unrealistic model of how to avoid commenting on editors

In his evidence in the section where he alleges "MickMacNee frequently uses personal attacks, insults and invective specifically directed at other editors", DeCausa lists a lot of partial parts of posts to claim that attacking is my modus operandi. It's frankly not. I do not "frequently" act like that, I can be perfectly calm and reasonable if others are talking sense, and showing me respect. Sure, I can't deny that a lot of those diffs don't sound nice. I'm also not going to accept anyone pretending that they were just 'out of the blue' remarks. By that time, it was clear my arguments were overtly being ignored or brushed off, or people were feigning ignorance as to what my point was, presumably in the hope I would just go away. DeCausa has already on the 1st day pulled out a 'TLDR' response [13]. If people continualy talk nonsense or intentionally play games, after a while, I'm not shy about calling it nonsense or gameplaying. Arbitrators need to look at the entire discussion, to decide whether my idea of what is and is not nonsense is accurate. If I am found to be guilty of calling someone's well thought out well argued cluefull opinion as nonsense or rubbish, well, ban me now. That's how confident I am that whenever I go so far as to call someone out for talking nonsense in Wikipedia policy terms, it's because they are. The worst diffs, the only ones that can really be called attacks, are saved for 1 editor - Snowded. And I explained why I have such a long standing animosity for him simply as a person further on in the debate, infact one of them is one of those diffs. If I get banned for my comments to him, well, I can't say I won't be surprised. I really should have brought his behaviour to light through an Rfc myself long ago, rather than just leave it. He is a very artfull gamer of Wikipedia, and he is very skilled in winding editors up by attacking their general character or being generally tendentious, as a replacement for addressing their actual points in a respectful manner in specific discussions. He is probably the most hypocritical editor yet in actually criticising others for doing these things even while he's doing it himself. It's one of the reasons why he drives other people when eventually banned for rising to it, to go the next step and actually expend time targetting him in hoaxes etc, just to wind him up, in the way they feel he has done to them. The person who I talk about above making repeated requests for me to read a discussion I'd already read, was none other than Snowded.

DeCausa's evidence contains junk science

In his evidence, DeCausa alleges that I caused editors to stay away from the discussion, using the comment to that effect of one person......who was highly involved in the discussion, and just a general wave to the lack of others commenting. That's rather contradictory to say the least. It's also pretty much junk science. If it is even remotely true (I'm not going to spend the time actually crunching the numbers), I could just as easily argue that it was his & others repeated insistence on using flawed argumentation and generally ignoring lots of basic policy, that caused people to look at the discussion and conclude that any cluefull input they might spend time providing, was going to be ignored in the way much of mine was. Two or three people did drop in early comments supporting particular aspects of my point, but as far as Snowded & DeCausa were concerned, they were made in invisible ink, as they continued to try and paint me as the sole objector (De Cause did this throughout). I also object to his specific use of the term 'chilling effect'. That conjures up images of fear, which is frankly completely over the top.

DeCausa doesn't understand consensus or edit warring

In his evidence, DeCausa alleges I edit war. A lot of the general points on that I've addressed in the section about Chester Merkel's similar difficulty. He points out how I was 'warned' for edit warring. He also points out I stopped after the warning. Can anyone spot the deliberate mistake here? Can anyone tell me how this would pass muster at a report on AN3? Infact, that's precisely why none of these people alleging I edit war, can point to any block being recieved for edit warring in these incidents. The best DeCausa has to offer in that regard, is this warning. And the warning editor was not an uninvolved observer or even an admin. It was none other than Snowded. Perhaps the reason for my dislike of him I referred to above, is the fact he's the sort of editor who hands out warnings for edit warring, while doing it himself: 19 May, 23 May, 23 May. And also because the precise way Snowded chose to warn me, was to template me. Even though he knows all too well what my experience of Wikipedia actually is. All in all, this doesn't really amount to a 'warning' in the sense that DeCausa intends it to be seen here. Even though as he freely admits, I complied with it's essential content.

As far as his allegations that I go against consensus, or don't accept it when shown it, here is the definition of what he considers "consensus agreement" when looking at the discussion in which he thinks it was present:

Discussion without any reference to policy or guideline, or even common good practice elsewhere
Discussion using mechanisms such as voting or counting, without being one of the normal situations that's normally seen
Discussion between the same small group of editors who are seen as the 'regulars' of the page
Discussion where nobody attempts to solicit independent review & summarisation
Discussion with no attempt to solicit outside fresh opinions at all infact, in a supposedly frequently deadlocked issue
Discussion where not one person realises that they are inventing a solution that would apply to any contentious article around, and thus was presumably already covered by policy or practice, or would reasonably benefit from a wide discussion to ratify a new & unique solution to a common problem (this ties in with all the other points)

I shouldn't have to remind the committee that this rather undermines anybody's claims that I was going against WP:CONSENSUS in that discussion. This is the context in which his claim that I "rejected the validity of the consensus" should be seen. If criticisng a consensus formed in that way a Bad Thing as DeCausa wants to paint it as, then I don't want to be Good frankly.

Now I'll turn to his last sentence. He says "Several days later, a consensus change to the text was agreed on the Talk page by 18 of the 20 participating editors. MMN nevertheless again refused to recognise that there was consensus "because it's such a giant policy violating crap bag"." He is quite wrong. I accepted the outcome, because it removed the footnote I had been objecting to. I criticised the 'change in consensus' that was being claimed however, because it still had all the flaws I detailed above. The actual reason that he so easily comes up with the '18 of the 20' finding, is that yet again, the issue was settled with a poll, with not a hint of any external closure or review, again, just like last time. To show just how poor the whole idea that I don't respect 'consensus' as to how it was working on that page actually is, bearing in mind WP:CONSENSUS is essentially the process of deciding who made the best argument according to policy, barely any of those editors in the '18' were any different to those present the first time, and their arguments were not much different either. At this point, it's probably worth noting that if the actual removal of the footnote really was the 'consensus' outcome of the second discussion, then why did DeCausa conclude near the end that the footnote "had broad consensus support", and that even after this second round of discussion, (his) "suggestion is ignore (Mick), retain the existing compromise and let everyone go back to doing something more constructive". This is pretty embarassing for him if he wants to also claim here that the landslide vote to remove the footnote is also the product of 'consensus', and that my demand to remove it wasn't grounded in the fact the previous consensus was garbage. The fact is, they are both garbage, but seeing as the second one resulted in the article being slightly more in line with policy in my view, I was happy to move on, while noting my observation of what the whole exercise had been in terms of 'consensus'.

Scope, part 2

So, it turns out the filer of this case was a banned sock whose actual interest in me or knowledge of my editting was infact pretty much zero beforehand, and who was using me in some sort of crusade against Wikipedia governance generally. I can't say I am surprised, I pointed this out many times, to universal deafness from the committee. There was a distinct lack of any proper scope or actual justification to this case when it was filed, and that was borne out when at one point, this banned sock was the only listed party who was going to file any evidence, with all others having declined to offer any, who all said they would have no part in the case. And so it would have remained presumably, had I not given Sandstein his golden opportunity by doing the wikicrime of defending myself against personal attacks. More on that later. This case had, and continues to have, a distinct flavour of the stocks about it - paint a target on my back, and see what comes out in the wash. Forget all prior steps in DR. Forget infact the need for there to be any active dispute here at all. Because there was no active dispute here, and once opened by this sock, the requests page became the usual opportunity to be taken advantage of by all the people who have their own personal reasons to be upset at me, but who never get around to doing anything about it in the proper manner, certainly not to get off their asses and file a case themselves. Sanstein excepted of course. C'est la vie. If they sleep well at night, good luck to them. I don't, but Wikipedia shouldn't flatter itself that it's their grievances that's bothering me right now. But while I'm up, I shall endeavour to address what's been happening since my enforced holiday for trying to remove attacks made against me.

Editors may remove obvious personal attacks about them wherever they find them

I find it wholly offensive that some people, Jimbo apparently being a rather depressing addition to that group, still want to describe my attempts to remove Hammersoft's comparison of myself to the WBC as in any way a violation of any Wikipedia policy. First off, if people want to get all rulesy about it, then to quote Wikipedia:No personal attacks#Removal of text:

"Removing unquestionable personal attacks from your own user talk page is rarely a matter of concern. On other talk pages, especially where such text is directed against you, removal should typically be limited to clear-cut cases where it is obvious the text is a true personal attack"

Comparing another editor to a member of the WBC is a clear cut personal attack. There's been some suggestion that there's a difference between saying someone is like a member of the WBC, and just saying that they act like a member of the WBC. I call bullshit. If the committee want this sort of argument to become part of Wikipedia's general atmosphere, then feel free to endorse it. I would have hoped that they feel minded to condemn it for what it is.

As for the suggestion that I should have been blocked in that incident because, even though it was an obvious personal attack, 'edit warring' is not the way to deal with it, I will again call bullshit. In the case of conflicting rules, like NPA vs. 3RR in this situation, then you simply ignore the one which leads to the least amount of immediate harm to editors or the project's reputation as a whole. If the committee wants to encourage editors to view our 'rules' differently, again by all means, endorse it. It's equally up for condemnation in my book.

It pains me to think that due to the way some admins continue to justify their behaviour in this incident, I feel the need to point out the screaming obvious for specific consideration by the committee - the only immediate harm done by the continued reinsertion of that text, and the use of the block button against the person trying to remove it, was to the person it was attacking. There are some rather obvious roads down which this forces editors if the way this incident went down is just accepted as normal.

Delta, 3RR, and GAME

Delta/BetaCommand is a user with a long history of conflict with me. I was predicting what would happen to him due to the many and varied issues with his editting years before he was eventually banned for a year for them, and I don't think he's ever gotten over it. In the WBC PA 'edit war' incident, the first reverter, Ched, has already acknowledged that he was mistaken, and that his first revert was based on a complete misunderstanding of the situation. [14] Delta immediately took over from that point, so what's his excuse?. His sole communication with me during that edit war was to template me, and label my attempts to remove what I clearly saw as a PA as "vandalism" (behaviour that looks very BetaCommand of 2008). Having already abused rollback (and had it removed for doing so, again, very BetaCommand of 2008), and once he had reached 3 reverts in rapid time, and thus pushed me over 3, he filed a 3RR report, which was sadly acted upon by Slackr with a wholly uninformed & biased view of the situation. [15]. And with me out of the way, Delta even made a 4th revert to restore the attack [16], a violation dismissed by Fastily when reported to the very same place, as the justifiable reversion of "innappropriate edits" by me. [17]

Delta is a user who, even with all his history and proven record of disruption, is being actively rewarded for never changing his behaviour, and for engaging in open and obvious WP:GAMEing against other editors on Wikipedia with whom he is in dispute. Even with his record, he is also escaping any kind of censure at all for seeing the 3 revert rule as an allowance, and he is even facing no action whatsoever for undeniably breaking it anyway. I would expect the committee to have a view on all of this, and the admins who helped it play out the way it did. If however the committee endorses any or all of these events, I expect them to say so unambiguously, so others who might find themselves in this situation may be in no doubt where their priorities lie.

Sandstein's idea of prevention is anything but

Sandstein has tried to justify his extension of that WBC edit war block of 72 hours of mine to indefinite, as being "preventative", both to stop me making further post-block attacks, and to stop me carrying out a threat to continue seek to have Hammersoft's post removed if it was not gone by the time the block expired. Well, his extension did not remove my talk page access, which was my only avenue for self expression at that time, so that's out. He had also failed to notice that Hammersoft had already removed the post, so preventing me from returning to that issue was out too. He has made assertions after this was pointed out to him that it was also placed to prevent any future generic edit warring, but given he had not bothered to find out why I might take such extraordinary offence at being compared to the WBC before deciding whether to extend or not, this is not a very credible claim. He also later said it was placed to prevent future attacks generally, but given the fact the attacks were a direct result of the specific edit war now resolved, and given this case was ongoing, I think that's out too. So, by diving in with this unannounced extension and re-involving himself in this case, what does Sandstein really think he was 'preventing'? Certainly not drama, and certainly not the chances of me exploding in fury at the sight of his return to my block log after the last debacle, that's for sure.

This was in effect the second time Sandstein had inserted himself into an incident involving me that he hadn't been involved in from the start, to impose an indef block on me because I was a 'clear and present danger' to the community in his eyes, and then propose this decision be discussed at ANI as an in place 'preventative' measure. The first time was a stale ANI thread which had justifiably resulted in no action. This time it was for something I had already been blocked for. Both of these interventions over the top of other admin heads have been pretty obvious attempts at instigating a community ban discussion on me in all but name, while making sure I could not defend myself in said discussion. Quite why Sandstein tries to give out the impression he is open to persuasion by any other admin in that situation, is beyond me. He basically said the first time there was nothing I could have said to him to persuade him to lift the block, no promise or undertaking or anything, so any admin was of course always going to be going against him should they unblock me. And if there was even the tiniest hint of doubt over the intent the first time, there certainly wasn't any for the second. He even freely admitted it was his way of short cutting the case with a 'commmunity solution'. As such, I think it would be dangerous in the extreme for the committee to adopt any of his findings or proposals, or to overlook the other side of the story as to how his own actions are percieved, however he wants to portray them.

On a related note, on this whole idea that Sandstein is just a generally even handed chap, whose admin actions are only ever intended to prevent future disruption to the site based on a dispassionate and unbiased risk assesment, compare and contrast how he acts in my case here, with how he acts when seeing blatant violations from the likes of Delta whose proven record of actual disruption is far far far far worse than mine, if not standing out as the worst of any active editor on the site. For Delta, there's certainly no steaming in from Sandstein with any cold case indefs to 'prevent future disruption' after any of the many short blocks that have come his way very recently (he's had like, what? 3 in the last month?), even the one directly related to that WBC edit war that he was fully aware of.

Sandstein's idea of a block review

In his evidence, I was pretty taken aback to see Sandstein trying to justify his indef block on me by counting heads at ANI. In his 'count' of 13, he has included anybody and everybody, be they uninvolved admins right through on the spectrum to undeclared axe grinders. Treasury Tag stands out a mile in that regard as someone who I recently proposed sanctions on for his behaviour, receiving landslide support, and only forestalled from being enacted as it surely would have been ironically by a party to this case. HiLo48 is another example, who uses his comment to continue to bang his drum about the lack of admin's caring about how I supposedly traumatised him earlier this week with this this reply, which he ludicrously describes in the review as a "a foul-mouthed, insulting diatribe", which was made in response to this this post of his to ITN/C, something he bizarrley calls in that review an example of how you "politely disagree" with someone, by openly mocking them and making an ironic 'request' they don't even want satisfied, before finally going on to suggest in his review comment that I need mental help. There are similar issues with many other of the 'supporters' too (and by my count, there's just 12 people in support, and only 7 making it explicit with a bold 'support'). The outcome of such a farce does indeed as Sandstein says "depend on how one counts it". You can imagine my distress at twice now being prevented by Sandstein of even being able to participate in such kangaroo courts, let alone prevent their instigation at his whim.