User talk:Risker/Archive 14

Archive July 2013 -

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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia does not include these kinds of reports. More importantly, the bottom line on whether or not Lanza edited Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia 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. Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia to Lanza, which is the Courant's own investigation, but the authorities are now looking into Wikipedia based on the Courant's findings. So yeah, dead subject now, at least in terms of Lanza = Wikipedia. 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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia 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: [1] 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 Wikipedia 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.[2] Penwhale notified me of the case 16 July.[3] 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 Wikipedia: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#Wikipedia: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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia Adventure Start Page
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-- 19:54, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Mission 1	Mission 2	Mission 3	Mission 4	Mission 5	Mission 6	Mission 7
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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!

Hello, Risker. Please check your email; you've got mail!
Message added 18:45, 3 August 2013 (UTC). It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Dusti^{*Let's talk!*} 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 ^{How can I help?} 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 Wikipedia 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 (Wikipedia edits) is already in the media.... The whole point of the oversight tool is to prevent Wikipedia from getting out ahead of reliably sourced material. Now that Wikipedia'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 Wikipedia 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 [this] article... is valuable." Another editor stated "[the admin] cannot really be reproached for his actions" and yet another said "there's no abuse of tools by [the admin]". Jimbo Wales weighed in to say, "I certainly don't think [the admin] 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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia: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 Wikipedia. Seriously, Brian, if that original edit had not been on Wikipedia, 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 Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia 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... [the WP:OFFICE already] 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 Wikipedia: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 Wikipedia, 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 Wikipedia'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 Wikipedia such that not only does Wikipedia 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 [else] 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 Wikipedia'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 Wikipedia'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 Wikipedia'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 Wikipedia 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? Wikipedia 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 Wikipedia 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 "[your username] 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)

At issue here is the editorial decision of the Star editors to allow a sentence appear in their paper and without using censor bars. I do not agree with your contention that what appears in article histories dating to years and hundreds of edits ago also appears "in full public view in our articles." I believe that's a mischaracterization of suppression, which in fact blocks not just casual readers but persons who are reviewing an article history for forensic purposes (the undeleting admin mentioned this when suggesting that the material may be of interest to the FBI, if it truly was of interest I'd say we have a "responsibility" to not obstruct justice by hiding evidence). I believe you are characterizing deleted material as being far more readily available than it in fact is. Deleting material from an article and applying censor bars to its edit history are critically different with only the former being subject to community review. With respect to what someone else says about me, I may "prefer for it not to be immortalized into eternity" but the fact of the matter is that the only limit on another's freedom of speech about me is illegal defamation, which is strictly defined as a matter of law. I would particularly see no point in suppressing an already deleted statement on Wikipedia about me if the statement has already been "immortalized into eternity" in the media. Our responsibilities extend beyond just extending courtesies to individuals who don't even ask us for such courtesies.--Brian Dell (talk) 07:36, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

What an absurd reason for undeleting anything. Whenver I hear/read the phrase "freedom of speech" in connection with Wikipedia, I know it's time to walk away from the discussion. We're an encyclopedia, not an instrument of philosophical rhetoric. Happy editing, Brian. Risker (talk) 08:03, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Walk away then, but "we" are in fact a community as opposed to a thing and "freedom of speech" is not empty "philosophical rhetoric" within that context. I hope that "if someone was to go to [my] user page" he or she would allow me some space there to talk about myself as a community member as opposed to deleting (never mind suppressing) everything I say there that isn't "encyclopedic." If you think no obligation is owed to ordinary members of our community to hear them out then of course it's impossible to appreciate an objection to the prohibition of community review.--Brian Dell (talk) 09:15, 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 Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 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 Wikipedia 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 ^{Read! Talk!} 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 Hutton 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 ^Talk 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)

Note that I did not respond to this yet, and I see that the RFC has already closed with some fairly clear consensus. I don't think anything I could have said would have changed the outcome there. Risker (talk) 20:15, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Mail

Hello, Risker. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Responded by email. Risker (talk) 20:15, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Because just vaguely watching your talk page from a distance hurts my brain and I don't know how you put up with it.

		The Purple Barnstar
		"The Purple Barnstar is awarded to those who have endured undue hardship (e.g., incessant harassment) on Wikipedia but still remain resolute in their commitment to the project and its ideals." Yeah, that sounds like you right about now... Beeblebrox (talk) 06:09, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Awww, thank you Beeblebrox. I do actually get where Brian is coming from; it's just a very different place than where I'm coming from. I dearly wish that he and I had been able to sit down together when we were both in Hong Kong to hash this out face to face: it's just so much easier to find middle ground that way, or at least to both walk away knowing that we've done our best to try. It's much preferred over an internet argument. Risker (talk) 06:32, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Unrelated to whatever Beeblebrox may have seen but in the same spirit of his good wishes, please do not ever go crazy and leave the project. I really appreciate the moderate tone you bring to the project along with the firmness of your will to execute what needs to be done. Thank you for being who you are and expressing yourself as such. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:52, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Templates and empathy: canvassing

Hi. I remember you weighed in on something like this earlier, especially the "empathy" question. Perhaps it might interest you. Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Why is it so horrible to nominate for deletion on Wikipedia, when it's so easy on Commons? Bishonen | talk 21:12, 29 August 2013 (UTC).

A call for your desysopping

[4] The nominator has erroneously failed to ping you about doing so - David Gerard (talk) 17:48, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

I think David means here. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 19:09, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Article Feedback Tool update

Hey Risker. I'm contacting you because you're involved in the Article Feedback Tool in some way, either as a previous newsletter recipient or as an active user of the system. As you might have heard, a user recently anonymously disabled the feedback tool on 2,000 pages. We were unable to track or prevent this due to the lack of logging feature in AFT5. We're deeply sorry for this, as we know that quite a few users found the software very useful, and were using it on their articles.

We've now re-released the software, with the addition of a logging feature and restrictions on the ability to disable. Obviously, we're not going to automatically re-enable it on each article—we don't want to create a situation where it was enabled by users who have now moved on, and feedback would sit there unattended—but if you're interested in enabling it for your articles, it's pretty simple to do. Just go to the article you want to enable it on, click the "request feedback" link in the toolbox in the sidebar, and AFT5 will be enabled for that article.

Again, we're very sorry about this issue; hopefully it'll be smooth sailing after this :). If you have any questions, just drop them at the talkpage. Thanks! Okeyes (WMF) 22:00, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

The dignity of a BLP subject

Hi Risker. Can I ask your opinion on something? I think English Wikipedia is defying the Foundation's BLP resolution at Bradley Manning. It tells us to take human dignity into account when editing but calling Manning "Bradley" is a gratuitous insult, an assault on Manning's dignity.

Is this something I should draw to the attention of the ED or the WMF Board? (The board doesn't have an ethics sub-committee does it?) --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:33, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

@Sue Gardner: commented on the RFAr so is highly aware of the situation; perhaps there is a particular formal complaint method (or, if not, one could be formulated) - David Gerard (talk) 14:40, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

For any other issue, I'd give the community, through ArbCom, time to clarify its position. This is a BLP issue, and taking one minute longer than necessary to remove the insult is inappropriate. Office action might disrupt Wikipedia, but so what, what's that compared to an ongoing insult from a top ten website that claims to be a reliable source? Sorry. I think it's Sue's responsibility. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 15:55, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

An OFFICE action is indeed urgently needed to resolve this BLP situation, but per Wikimedia internal policies, they would need a formal complaint from the subject or her representative (lawyer) first. Josh Gorand (talk) 18:57, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Wikimedia is meant to implement the Foundation's resolutions. If it has some internal process that prevents that, the solution is to adjust it's internal process, not ignore the Foundation's resolution. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 09:35, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Attacks on organisations

I am concerned about the way that WP is being issued by some editors as a place to launch low level attacks on organisations. Examples of what I mean can be found at BP, where despite two RfCs there is still excessive negative information about the DWH oil spill and March against Monsanto, where the article is being used to promote the anti-Monsanto cause of the marchers. This has even spilled over to to Polyethoxylated tallow amine where a page on an unremarkable surfactant reads as if the substance is a serious poison, principally because it is an ingredient of Monsanto's 'Roundup' herbicide.

I have seen other cases WP pages have been used as coatracks for negative information about smaller organisations too.

I have no connection whatsoever with any of the organisations and appreciate that many may consider some of their actions deplorable. It may even be true that some sort of campaign against them is desirable but WP is not the place to launch it from. It will be seriously damaging to the credibility of WP if it is perceived to have an anti-establishment or environmentalist (or the reverse) slant.

I am not looking for any drastic action, just your thoughts on the problem, if you see it as one. Martin Hogbin (talk) 12:50, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment at the Visual Editor RfC implementation notice on the admin noticeboard

I never commented on this issue; it seems you had little to say as well. I am glad that you still enterAed the forum and made a comment as an observer over the conduct of the discussion about the issue. I know you similarly observe other discussions and I appreciate your presence in such talks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:48, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

"Community unblocking"

Thanks for your comment at L'Origine's Talk Page regarding the role of ARBCOM in considering unblocking an Editor who has received a "community block" because of an Admin's perception of community consensus. It was stated further by Beeblebrox that:

""blocks imposed as the result of a community discussion are usually reviewed the same way"

but NE Ent told L'Origine

"You've completed the necessary steps for the appeal. Now ... you wait. You have an active unblock request which is listed at Category:Requests_for_unblock -- at some point another admin will review the situation; they could decline the unblock, accept the unblock, or ask you follow up questions."

And that's what happened, AGK reviewed the appeal and declined it. There was no community discussion.
So, here's where I'm confused. Bonkers the Clown had a similar case brought up at AN/I on the same day, people asking for his head on a stick and he, like L'Origine, received an indefinite block. But on Beeblebrox' Talk Page, Monty845 said,

"The blocking admin of Bonkers, when asked, indicated the block was on that admin's own authority, and that it was not an implementation of consensus from the block discussion. Even if it had been a consensus block, the later decision to unblock can be a separate question, looking at the post block actions of the blocked editor. Only if the block is overturned as invalid or wrong would the overturn risk being against the block consensus."

So, how does one tell when an Admin blocks on his/her "own authority" (so he can unblock) or when an Admin blocks based on their perception of "community consensus"? I find this idea of a "community block" and the process by which one becomes unblocked confusing. I mean, if Beeblebrox was right and the correct forum was to have another community discussion about unblocking on AN/I, how would a blocked Editor even participate in the discussion and address concerns people had? Any way, that's not what happened but it's clearly what some people believe is the proper way to get unblocked from a "community block".

What's mystifying to me is that Editors get blocked and unblocked every day on Wikipedia for a variety of reasons. How can so much contradiction exist on this one question? Thanks for hearing me out, I hope you get a moment to clarify the situation for me. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:42, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

P.S. I purposely didn't link names because the three other versions of this conversation (which led me to the point I'm at right now) had a lot of participation from Editors and Admins and I'd prefer to receive an answer from you rather than hear even more different opinions on how the process works (or is supposed to work). L

I suppose the reason you're having a hard time finding a definitive answer is that there is no definitive answer. Each case is dealt with individually. In the past, administrators who have taken a blocking (or unblocking) action that appears to be in direct opposition to the result of a community discussion have met with very negative reactions, so many administrators are leery. If the community-supported block was conditional in some way (e.g., "blocked user must resolve not to do xxx before the user can be unblocked"), then the condition for unblock is pretty clear, and any admin who is satisfied that the condition(s) has been met can unblock with relative assurance that the action will be supported, for example. In other situations, the user has simply used up the community's tolerance of certain behaviours, and a longer break for both the user and the community is probably appropriate. There's often a history that goes behind a community block, sometimes months or years long, and that may not necessarily be apparent to someone new to the discussion. So, as I say, each situation has to be dealt with individually, and with care to ensure that the unblock decision is based on something more than a cursory review. Just like real life, the answers aren't always black and white, and those who want absolute certainty are looking for something that no community can ever guarantee. Risker (talk) 03:02, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

That's a really good answer, but just FYI, since this is being discussed in three or four different places now I have opened a thread at Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy regarding the concept of community imposed blocks. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:48, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#@ArbCom @Checkuser Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Too many indef blocked IPs

Hi, is there any progress on this? -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 20:46, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Hello

You seem like an accomplished Wikipedian. Can you tell these idiots here (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jung_Chang&action=history) that they are wrong, and explain basic POV balance and BLP? 69.171.160.59 (talk) 05:29, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Your message to me

Hello, Risker. You have new messages at Tryptofish's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Manning

Just an FYI - the latest letter from Chelsea indicates she would prefer not to be referred to by her rank.--v/r - TP 16:43, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm referring to the arbcom case, not the article subject; however, I've matched it up to the actual case title now. Risker (talk) 17:04, 12 October 2013 (UTC)<revised>

• Just for the record, since there seem to be lots of people referring to me or otherwise requesting my comment or discussion at the moment: I am traveling today and unlikely to respond substantively for the next 18-24 hours. Risker (talk) 17:06, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

  On remedy 12, did you mean to post your statement made on October 7th in the oppose section or the support section? Your wording appears to be in support of the proposed remedy, not in opposition.--MONGO 11:31, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

It is an oppose, because I don't think there are very many people here who should be sanctioned; Phil wasn't even involved in the primary discussion so I think it rather too much to support a sanction on him. I do think, however, that it is possible he has such strongly held personal beliefs that he might have a difficult time participating in a balanced way, and I wanted to point that out to him. Risker (talk) 14:59, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Gotcha and agree with the assessment.--MONGO 16:19, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Institutional memory

Hello, Risker,

I was just reading the conversation you were having over at Tryptofish's Talk Page and I realized something. Everything I've learned about Wikipedia's true history has come from Editor allusions to some past conflict or incident and then doing a search by username or topic on Noticeboard or Signpost archives to see what the issue was. The "history" of Wikipedia isn't on the article page but in the memories of the most long-standing Editors. In that sense, it is biased as it is all colored by an individual's point of view but that can be balanced by including many perspectives. And, unfortunately, it is also ephemeral as every time an Editor leaves WP, they take their knowledge with them.

So, reading your comment about discovering that the carpets in ARBCOM HQ were hiding rotting floor boards made me wonder if there was much documentation of ARBCOM's development and evolution, what reforms have been attempted in the past, what the pitfalls are, mistakes that were made and should be avoided in the future, you know, self-reflection on the role of ARBCOM by those who are the heart of it. In terms of a historical record, there are case proceedings but I imagine that this is the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. I hope new Arbitrators have access to email archives but I'm not sure how much time an Arbitrator would ever spend diving into those (or how organized they even are).

I just think that there must be a sharp learning curve for every new Arbitrator, each of whom comes into office with ideas of how the system can be improved. It would be useful if there was a document similar to Wikipedia:Perennial proposals that was written by outgoing Arbitrators during their last year, to preserve some of the knowledge gained through the experience. I guess I'm suggesting something like an exit interview where Arbitrators could also suggest changes they'd recommend and projects they wished they had had time to pursue.

While I imagine some documents like these would remain private to the ARBCOM community, I think they'd be invaluable if they were posted on-wiki. I think there is resentment that exists against ARBCOM by some Editors because it is opaque, people don't see the work that is involved, they only see the outcome. Maybe Arbitrator X had some radical idea to reform the request process, it was debated by ARBCOM and rejected as unfeasible. But no one off the mailing list would know this. We only see rulings, we don't see the hard work you all do.

Maybe this exists in some form already which leaves me with a severe case of "foot in mouth" disease. But if not, I hope you and Arbitrators might consider leaving some information behind besides how you voted on cases (and Arbitration Committee (English Wikipedia) is a completely inadequate record). Of course, I'm not talking about divulging any private conversations or information, just making the work that I know goes on behind closed doors more evident to the larger community.

Thanks, I hope this hasn't been too long-winded and I was able to communicate my idea to you. Your experience, and that of other Arbitrators, is invaluable to Wikipedia. I think that there are times when people want to reinvent the wheel and they don't realize what has been attempted in the past. Sharing what has been tried, what you've learned over the past few years, could be the most substantial legacy you could leave (frustrations and all!). Cheers! Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:05, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Liz - thanks for your message. About a week ago, I wrote something on the mailing list that talked a bit about the origins of arbcom and what it was created for, and how it had morphed over time. One of my colleagues told me that I should make some tweaks and post it onwiki, but I thought he might just be being a bit kind about my otherwise-ignored rant. Your post makes me think that perhaps there might be something to the idea. I confess that I've always made a point of researching and tracking the history of the committee (my first act on becoming an arbitrator was reading all of the archives sequentially so that I understood how we'd got to where we were), and you're quite right that that institutional memory is going to fade away rather quickly once my term comes to an end. I'll start working on it over the next few weeks; hopefully there will be something that is useful for Arbcom candidates as they prepare to run. Risker (talk) 20:49, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Liz and Risker. I'd concur that this is an excellent idea for now and in the future, and think editors would feel encouraged if all the departing arbs created an exit document, helping to create consistency for editors. For the new arbs such a document would be informative as to what and what not to build on. Does an arb have to re invent the wheel or can they save time and just add new spokes. (olive (talk) 23:56, 14 October 2013 (UTC))

This is pretty much a redundant statement after Liz's comment... just adding support for a good idea.(olive (talk) 00:16, 15 October 2013 (UTC))

I didn't realize how long my comments were until I posted it...I guess I was on a role about something I care about! I realize that documentation over organization change isn't "sexy" but it would allow future Committees, researchers and ordinary Editors to better understand the conflicts and the limitations that ARBCOM works within.

Personally, I was hoping for some kind of historical record to be begun but, to start, I think it great if you decided to share your thoughts. I just wanted to emphasize (if it even needs to be said!) that I hope this wouldn't be some sort cathartic, "let me get this off my chest now!, kind of article. But a sober reflection on what you wanted to do when you started in your first term , what you tried to do, unexpected obstacles you faced, successes and disappointments and what you think is most misunderstood about ARBCOM by the Wikipedia community...that would be exceptionally useful from you, and every Arbitrator. Thanks for being open to my suggestion. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:50, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

No worries, my focus would be to be as factual as possible, although no doubt what I consider to be key to the development of the committee would be somewhat coloured by my own experiences. The history lesson I wrote before was aimed at focusing my colleagues on a current issue and how it might play out in the long run, but it does offer a kernel for me to start with. Risker (talk) 00:58, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Heh. Looking over some of what I've said this year (on the mailing list) I see that 'institutional memory' has come up a few times. I said "What happens when such institutional memory is gone?" That former arbs "also have some institutional memory". And that [various things] "need to be written down somewhere more permanent if some of the 'institutional memory' built up over the past 4-5 years is to be retained".

It would be good if arbitrators were encouraged to write a brief history of their view of the committee's work during their term. The reason it hasn't been done more often is probably because it may re-ignite any number of old disputes... BTW, the rotting floorboards quote is here (more for myself than anything else, as I took ages to find that). And I just noticed that Liz suggested exit interviews for arbitrators. That rung a bell, and I suggested this back in 2009. I should have suggested it on-wiki as well - it is possible it has been suggested on-wiki before in some form - most things have, but the suggestions get lost.

On a side note, I agree absolutely with what Liz says about about how different individuals have different perspectives on things because they tend to see different parts of something such as a dispute, rather than the whole. Part of the problem is because the wiki editing history seems to do a great job of retaining and recording the history of what happened, but unless someone pulls it together into a coherent narrative, it is often very difficult to make sense of what happened, as well as the conflicting accounts of what people claim happened. Carcharoth (talk) 01:07, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Changing venues

Hey - I thought I'd continue a line of discussion from Wikipedia talk:No paid advocacy here on your talk page, if that's OK with you. There's a lot of noise on the other talkpage, and I'm interested in exploring our difference of opinions on the subject in a quieter environment (my talkpage would be fine too, if you'd prefer).

First of all, I agree with you entirely about our excessively low notability threshold, which is the root of many problems on Wikipedia (including the problem of maintaining low-profile BLPs against promotional/revenge editing and the problem of writing seriously about obscure fringe theories). As I'm sure you've noticed, notability is usually treated in a rote checklist fashion ("Subject is notable because he was mentioned twice in the New York Times and quoted once in Newsweek"). Ideally, we'd treat notability criteria as a means to an end. The real question is: are there sufficient independent, reliable sources to write a neutral encyclopedia article on this subject? But virtually no one approaches notability/AfD discussions with that mindset. After all, once we've !voted "keep", we don't have to actually take responsibility for writing and maintaining the article in question.

So I think we agree that tighter notability standards would help immensely. I've worked in that direction in a modest way over the years, but it will be a hard slog at best. Well-defined factions have sprung up around the question ("inclusionists" vs. "deletionists"), which doesn't augur well for a thoughtful and rational resolution. And for whatever reason, the question seems to draw some of our most ideologically zealous editors. When I started participating in AfD's, WP:PROF was interpreted to mean that anyone who achieved the faculty rank of full professor at a college or university was automatically notable. That is, of course, insane, since the vast majority of full professors lack suitable sources for anything resembling an encyclopedic biography. But these articles would routinely be "kept" at AfD. In a best-case scenario, they were basically cut-and-dried rehashes of the professor's c.v. In worse cases, they were vehicles to promote or disparage the article subjects and suffered from the usual woes of low-profile BLPs. It took years for people to come around to the idea of better notability standards, and I'm not sure we're there yet although things are better than they were.

I also agree that we need to get our own house in order in terms of dealing more effectively with agenda-driven and COI editing, and I've beaten the drum in that regard where I've seen issues (albeit with little visible effect). Believe me, I know firsthand what a shitty job Wikipedia does in dealing with these things - at this point, I've probably spent more time in the trenches editing controversial articles and navigated more content disputes than anyone on the project. But I don't agree that we need to table the question of paid editing until we've definitively resolved all of our internal issues. I think we can make a strong statement of our principles on paid editing and continue to work toward a more effective way of handling tendentious/agenda-driven editing.

Sorry for the rant. I'd like to explore the examples you raised of psychologists under the Canadian system and researchers looking to improve their visibility on Google Scholar, but I should probably take a breath and stop there. MastCell ^Talk 19:30, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

I think both of you, Risker and MastCell, have raised some excellent points, and a past conversation I had with MastCell on the subject of COI helped me think about things in a new light. I'm trying to find a good formulation that reflects the balance of the views that have been offered, and I've come up with some wording in my userspace at User:Alanyst/Position of advocacy draft. My approach was to start with identifying whether a person has a position of advocacy, and from there differentiating between paid (mandatory disclosure) and unpaid (disclosure optional but strongly recommended). If either of you (or any talk page watchers) have the stomach for further discussion of the subject, and would like to look it over and offer your thoughts at the related talk page, I'd be grateful. I need some reasonable people to scrutinize it for major deficiencies. Apologies for butting in here; I don't mean to interrupt this conversation further. alanyst 21:42, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

• Greetings, gentlemen; you are both always welcome here, and I agree with MastCell that sometimes it is easier to have an intelligent conversation far from the madding crowd. You know, I don't have actual statistics, but given the aggressive recruitment carried out by at least one paid editing company (including booths at college and university job fairs), and the reported premium pay that editors with a history of good contributions can get from them, I think it's going to be nigh on impossible to pick out the "paid editors". Some of them will be regular Wikipedians that we have known, in some cases, for years. I'll be honest, I think paid editing is a much smaller threat than other advocacy editing; paid editing is generally fairly easy to clean up if it is not NPOV (with the exception of trying to leap the barriers to get rid of non-notable articles, although sometimes it can be done by merging). I'll lay odds that just about every article for any "Number 1 singles" or similar music-related category has been edited at some point by someone from a record company or an editor paid by a record company or a management firm. Guess what, though? They're adding things like chart positions, names of co-writers, band listings, info from the liner notes and so on. In fact, they're adding the most important part of the articles, and it's all factual, neutral information. (I've actually met and spoken with some people who do this, and they are often [unpaid] interns hoping to move up the ladder. The labels take it seriously enough that they'll dump people who advocate too strongly or enter opinion, which is a much bigger stick than anything Wikipedia can offer.) Longtime Wikipedians can often write articles on notable subjects using proper weight, and still get paid for them; for a lot of organizations, it's the fact of having a Wikipedia article that is important, at least as much so as what it says.

  One of my most significant concerns here is that the proposals (pretty much all of them) are written in such a way as to provide a tool to people who are advocating or otherwise pushing a point of view (even if it is just WP:OWN) for reasons other than financial gain to attack editors by implying and insisting the opponents are editing with a (financial) COI; it's been happening for years ("you wouldn't remove that if you weren't an agent for Article Subject" is a common refrain, as we all know). These proposals would put editors challenging status quo on the defensive, forcing them to "prove" they *aren't* in conflict - and again outing themselves in the process. Wikipedia has to be about the content, not about who writes which sentence of fixes which typo, and any effort to personalize editing to the extent that these proposals do is fundamentally anti-wiki. Risker (talk) 00:38, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

  We have a tension between two ideals: the Wikipedia ideal that the content is what matters and not the identity or credentials of those who contributed it; and the meatspace ideal that positions of public influence and trust carry an ethical obligation not to subvert them for one's private interests. Wikipedians in general don't want to have their edits restricted based on their real-world identity or affiliations; it would lead to privacy issues, class divides, and a lot of argumentum ad hominem in place of actual content-based discussion. Yet Wikipedians in general do want their content to be protected from editors with real-world identities or affiliations that they deem pose a threat to the integrity and independence of the content.

  Two factors aggravate the situation: the high visibility of—and reliance upon—Wikipedia as the reference source for the Internet; and the enormous size of the encyclopedia. The popularity of Wikipedia aggravates it because it becomes a PR tool, attracting those interested in promoting or opposing a particular public narrative. The size of the encyclopedia aggravates it because it dilutes the "wisdom of crowds" effect that is supposed to balance out bias. There are so many articles and, as you both have noted, such a low bar of notability, that there aren't enough contributors to provide balance and moderation wherever needed. There are simply more places for agenda-driven editors to hide or take control. And instinctively we sense this, and begin to focus on detecting and restricting those editors because we instinctively realize we can't just rely on numbers to mitigate their influence. This leads to questions of outing and doxing and conflict of interest and advocacy, and lots of argument about what forms of compensation are permissible and who should disclose identities and affiliations and who should not, and these in turn (as Risker points out above) are used by agenda-driven editors to get rid of their rivals.

  Because popularity and growth of the encyclopedia are not readily reversed and are seen generally as measures of success, we have to grudgingly weaken the ideal that the contributor doesn't matter, because in too many cases it really does. That's not to say that we abandon it entirely; to the extent possible we should not inquire into or demand proofs of expertise or objectivity in order to edit. But we do need to continue to recognize the ethical responsibility we, the community, have towards our readers: just as BLP reflects our ethical responsibility towards the subjects of articles and discussion here, we need to have a policy that vouchsafes the readers' expectation that the content reflects a balance of viewpoints, and not simply a PR agent's tract or an activist's screed or a political opponent's smear or a corporation's advertisement.

  And just as in the real world there are conflict of interest disclosure rules to deal with questions of influence (especially financial influence) in positions of public trust, I am persuaded (hat tip to MastCell) that we need similar rules, even if we can't fully enforce them due to counterbalancing concerns. Simply having the policy will draw an ethical line and set a cultural expectation that some will be unwilling to broach. There will still be the unprincipled ones who ignore it and conceal their conflicts of interest behind pseudonymity, but if discovered then the existence of a clear policy will justify severe sanctions.

  Thus I favor a policy that requires disclosure of financial conflicts of interest, restricts all forms of advocacy-driven editing, provides a legitimate way for advocates (paid or unpaid) to request content changes without controlling the content, and that largely relies on the honor system for compliance.

  Wall of text, I know. Sorry. I swear this is not a trial run for Arbcom. alanyst 03:58, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Heck, you might as well run, Alanyst, it's what all the cool kids are doing. ;) Me, I'm post-cool. What I will say is this: there has been paid editing on Wikipedia since at least 2003, possibly even earlier, and that's what I've been able to spot myself. Some of it has been the best editing this site has ever seen, and there is a whole pile of reviewed content that was at least partly written as paid editing or for the purpose of personal gain in some way. There are editors who have had a financial benefit for editing Wikipedia who are participating in this very survey that we're talking about, and at least one of them is strongly supporting this motion. Don't kid yourself for a minute, Alanyst, or you either MastCell. Anyone who stands up for neutrality against POV-pushers will likely be accused of being a paid editor or having some other serious conflict of interest at some point, and then you're going to have to defend yourself or leave. I'll lay odds both of you will leave; I probably would. And then the project will simply be overrun by people pushing their own point of view and battling it out with others pushing their own point of view. It has been going on for years, and right now the events with a couple of over-ambitious PR companies has given the upper hand to those who want to shape Wikipedia in their own vision. There's not as much strength in the cadre of editors who believe in Wikipedia being for the readers, not for the advocates. Of course, let's be honest. Editor #1 in the "paid advocacy" circuit would have to be Jimbo, no? Most of his livelihood is built on his association with Wikipedia; his talk page is where he advocates for all kinds of things that directly and indirectly affect content. Some probably are just fine with getting rid of him; as far as I'm concerned, he's mostly harmless. But that's me. Risker (talk) 04:30, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Jain and Hindu religion

Maybe I should have looked at the talk page first. The article itself has a lot of material copied from other articles and I've deleted the article as a copyright violation. It's also at AfC and in the user's sandbox. Not sure where to go from here but I don't think we can allow this. What do you think? Dougweller (talk) 05:44, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi Doug, long time since we chatted! If there is copyvio, then we need to wipe them all, I think. There may be an article in there about the relationship between the two faiths, but this doesn't seem to be it, unless it's reworked considerably. I bumped into this during NPP (figured I'd better walk the talk if I'm going to say editors and admins need to be more participatory), and clearly a lot of work had gone into it, which was why I sort of paused a bit. Perhaps some discussion with the user to point him in the right direction *might* help, what do you think? I'm hesitant to scare of someone who obviously cares about creating an encyclopedic article and is doing the right things (references, AFC, sandboxing, trying to create a flow in the article, etc)...but it seems he needs some guidance. I'm not reliably available to help out, though. Risker (talk) 05:58, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

He keeps recreating it, it keeps being deleted. I don't have the time either I'm afraid. To many other POV articles, copyright, etc. Dougweller (talk) 10:07, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Frederik Bílovský and Roland Šmahajčík

While I appreciate you trying to redirect these articles, there is actually consensus against redirecting player articles - especially active players - to their parent clubs. GiantSnowman 08:33, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Fine, GiantSnowman. Go ahead and delete them. Risker (talk) 08:53, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't like to, seeing as I originally tagged them for PROD. If you don't feel comfortable deleting as an uncontested PROD then I will take to AFD. GiantSnowman 11:46, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Oh der; I didn't notice who'd attached the PROD tag. I'll go delete them now. Risker (talk) 04:20, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

No problemo, many thanks for your help! GiantSnowman 08:09, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Reminder to self for Friday

User:Awindell/Blackstone Media

and http://business.financialpost.com/2013/10/24/juliette-moran-chemist-turned-corporate-trailblazer-for-women-dies-at-96-after-intentional-starvation-and-dehydration/

Books and Bytes: The Wikipedia Library Newsletter

Books and Bytes

Volume 1, Issue 1, October 2013

by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs)

Greetings Wikipedia Library members! Welcome to the inaugural edition of Books and Bytes, TWL’s monthly newsletter. We're sending you the first edition of this opt-in newsletter, because you signed up, or applied for a free research account: HighBeam, Credo, Questia, JSTOR, or Cochrane. To receive future updates of Books and Bytes, please add your name to the subscriber's list. There's lots of news this month for the Wikipedia Library, including new accounts, upcoming events, and new ways to get involved...

New positions: Sign up to be a Wikipedia Visiting Scholar, or a Volunteer Wikipedia Librarian

Wikipedia Loves Libraries: Off to a roaring start this fall in the United States: 29 events are planned or have been hosted.

New subscription donations: Cochrane round 2; HighBeam round 8; Questia round 4... Can we partner with NY Times and Lexis-Nexis??

New ideas: OCLC innovations in the works; VisualEditor Reference Dialog Workshop; a photo contest idea emerges

News from the library world: Wikipedian joins the National Archives full time; the Getty Museum releases 4,500 images; CERN goes CC-BY

Announcing WikiProject Open: WikiProject Open kicked off in October, with several brainstorming and co-working sessions

New ways to get involved: Visiting scholar requirements; subject guides; room for library expansion and exploration

Read the full newsletter

Thanks for reading! All future newsletters will be opt-in only. Have an item for the next issue? Leave a note for the editor on the Suggestions page. --The Interior 20:18, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Office Hour

Sorry you weren't able to attend all of it! James had asked you a question for context before he could actually answer to yours: he said Which "edit tools" were you thinking of, specifically? If you want to follow-up, we'll be glad to satisfy your curiosity :) --Elitre (WMF) (talk) 17:54, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, IRC kicked me out, unbeknownst to me....there I was waiting for an answer. Not sure what the problem was, I'm still not able to log on yet. I'm a little befuddled though, what he would mean by that. Using Monobook, I have this nice little line right below this editing window that gives me commonly inserted tools, plus a dropdown menu that allows me to insert tools from a variety of frequently used character sets (symbols, latin characters, cyrillic, IPA, math and logic, etc). I wanted to know to what extent the VE's new edit tools will cover this range of characters. Risker (talk) 18:00, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Edittools ;) (a.k.a. mw:Extension:CharInsert) (found via Template:MediaWiki messages which I keep in my User:Quiddity/How it Works tour..)

The only alternatives, afaik, are Wikipedia:RefToolbar (default) and User:Cacycle/wikEd (gadget). –Quiddity (talk) 21:17, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

WP:ACE

As one of six sitting arbitrators whose terms are expiring, have you decided whether you will be running for re-election? 50.45.158.239 (talk) 05:24, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

You're one of the reasons I'm not running again. Don't think I don't know who you are. Risker (talk) 12:31, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Off-wiki harassment

Related to a particularly nasty article that has become a battleground in a real-life dispute, an editor said at the bottom of this page that a company representative was posting personally identifiable information about other Wikipedia editors and attacking them on his website. This is consistent with allegations of similar behavior by this company on Reddit and online, where the company threatened to sue customers that spoke negatively of them and allegedly used sockpuppets to insult critics, etc. according to the media.

Anyways, it was mentioned as something that may require Arb Com attention, since there is currently an unblock request and they are trying to figure out how to do that if the account-holder is allegedly harassing other involved editors off-wiki. Similar harassment and outing behavior on-wiki is the reason for the block. Thought you might be able to point things in the right direction. CorporateM (Talk) 01:37, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Identifying

Many thanks, I'll try and send something through today or tomorrow. GiantSnowman 10:43, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

PRODs

Risker- I apologize for the handling of the two PRODs. I thought that I had put reasons when I did it, but in fact I had put them in the edit summary instead. I must say that it was a bit frustrating to see the PRODs removed over a technicality when the reasons were recorded (though not in the template certainly). That felt a bit like unnecessary beuracracy. Going through an AfD seemed a bit silly to me since the articles had been tagged for over the required 7 days and the creators were notified when it was done (they could have removed the notices). But in the future I will make sure that I follow all of the steps. Rikster2 (talk) 16:40, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Your advice

Just read your advice at User:Risker/Thoughts for Arbitration Committee Candidates and it is quite daunting. I don't know how someone could be an arbitrator, have a job and a family. And it takes an awfully thick skin, it seems.
No urgent questions, I just appreciate your article. Thanks for taking the time to put your thoughts down. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:56, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I think we exchanged pleasantries about this elsewhere, Liz; however, thank you again for your kind words. I think it can be quite daunting for some; however, I've never felt the need to give up the important things in life (home and work life) while being an arbitrator, although I've had a few sleepless nights here and there. I do limit the time I spend on Wikipedia, ensuring that real-world priorities come first (which over the last 5 years has included caring for critically ill relatives, lots of hospital time, a few deaths in the family, and at least 4 major projects a year at work), which means that the aspect of my life that has suffered the most is work in article-space. I'll admit that, weird as it sounds, I'd rather read arbitration cases than watch television with the family nine times out of ten, and this way there's no disagreement on who gets to pick the channel...

In other news, now that I am shortly to complete my term on the Committee, I'm going to consolidate my several essays about Arbcom together and then have a section on my userpage linking to them. They're personal essays and don't really belong in Wikipedia space, but I hope they'll continue to provide some guidance to future candidates. Risker (talk) 03:46, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Can non-admins really become arbs?

Hi. In your FAQ for ArbCom candidates, you say that "Checkuser and Oversight permissions are not dependent on administrator permissions; thus, this is not a direct bar for non-administrators to become arbitrators." But in light of the Foundation's March 2013 statement insisting that access to deleted revisions requires passing an RfA or RfA-identical process, I'm not sure I see any way that a non-admin could qualify to be an arb. This doesn't appear to be a problem right now (we did have one non-arb throw his hat in the ring this time, but he withdrew very soon thereafter), but it certainly could be a future problem, so perhaps your FAQ needs to be tweaked accordingly. Your thoughts on this? — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 02:21, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, first of all, that's an old page (2009, I think!) which I forgot even existed until tonight when someone else pointed out it's being referenced in one of the election guides, so it needs some tidying in the first place. I believe that the WMF would consider a secret ballot election to the Arbitration Committee to be close enough to RFA; after all, even without handing over the OS or CU bits, any arbitrator has the right to access to certain information involved in a committee decision. I'll see if I can get Philippe or someone similar to comment on this, but it might not be until Monday. Risker (talk) 02:38, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I would agree passing ArbCom election qualify as "RfA-identical process". However, even if that weren't the case, we currently have a user that had previously passed RfA, but resigned voluntarily their admin bit while retaining CU/OS. There's nothing either technical or foundation policy wise that would stop an ex-admin like that from serving on ArbCom. -- KTC (talk) 09:59, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I think if a non-Admin actually places high in an ARBCOM election, they should be given the tools. I think it's unlikely that they could garner the votes but being an Admin shouldn't be a requirement to serve as an Arbitrator. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:29, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, I tend to agree with you. On the other hand, I also believe that the WMF really needs to ensure they properly control the access to these tools. I've pinged Philippe, who has in turn sent the question on to Legal, just to clarify this issue. Risker (talk) 23:31, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

The funny thing is I think a few other wikis do have non-admin CU/OS who were ArbCom-appointed... not sure how that happened. --Rschen7754 23:34, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Non-admins and CU/OS qualifications

Hi Risker, please see the below statement, in response to the question you left on my talk page.

---

"The Wikimedia Foundation has been asked to clarify and/or expand on a previous decision of the legal team, specifically that the Foundation would not allow users to have Checkuser or Oversight rights added to the user account of a user who had not passed a request for adminship or an equally rigorous community selection process.

Our legal and community advocacy team has been asked whether running for (and winning) a seat on the Arbitration Committee would meet the "rigorous community selection process" test, and therefore qualify an elected ArbCom member for Checkuser/Oversight rights. We believe that being elected to ArbCom is an involved process that strongly demonstrates community trust, and that there is a reasonable expectation that Arbitration Committee members on the English Wikipedia's Arbcom will hold those tools, except in exceptional circumstances. Therefore, we will not object to the assignment of checkuser/oversight tools to any user who runs for, wins, and is seated on the Arbitration Committee. Respectfully,
Philippe Beaudette
Director, Community Advocacy"

---

I hope this resolves the question to your satisfaction. I am posting a courtesy copy to the election's page, and to the Arbcom via mailing list. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 23:52, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry

I want to type your real name, because I feel that I know you as a person - but I do know better than that. I am so sorry that the things I've posted have been discouraging to you. I think the world of you - even when I don't agree, I do respect you - and yes - care about you. I know you have so so much to deal with. I wish I could help. I really do wish I could see your name at wp:ace2013 - and feel a touch of guilt that people like me have driven the good folk like you from doing what is needed.

I have grown cynical, and for the best part of the last year my posts have been detrimental in a large degree. I see what is wrong, and instead of continuing a "good fight", I've only lamented about what is wrong. It is easier to say "this is wrong" than to try to fix things, and I've taken the easy way out.

I do try to walk away when I get angry, and I often don't do what I should. I am sorry. You are a wonderful person that is fair and honest. The day that Arbcom does not include you will be a dark day indeed I fear. I can't promise to be what I should be, but I can honestly say that you do indeed have a piece of my heart ****. Wikipedia is a wonderful project, but ... NO - I won't go into the "but".

I can't promise to change, I'm too old and too tired to even try.

I just couldn't disappear without letting you know how much I thought of you.

Ched

— ChedZILLA 11:00, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Ched. No, you haven't driven me away from Arbcom, but my heart goes out to you because you find yourself increasingly cynical and unhappy around here. It's always very sad when someone who has given so much finds that they're no longer able to give.

It's important for those of us who've spent a fair amount of time in the darker side of the project to keep in touch with its wonders and its joys, to remember why we came here in the first place, to be able to take pleasure in what so often becomes a major part of our lives. The other day, as part of my staged preparations for being back in the "real Wikipedia world", I did nothing related to Arbcom, and went back to my roots. I copy-edited an article, did some speedy deletions, did some poking around other content — and had the most fun I've had on Wikipedia in years. It did serve to remind me that the little corner of Wikipedia that is the drama boards and Arbcom is *not* what Wikipedia is all about; yes, a lot of these tasks are necessary, and it takes the right mix of people to get things right most of the time. But they can't be the same people all the time. We can't develop new leaders if those of us who've worked in this area won't move on. I've been worried for a while that Arbcom was being selected from too small a subset of the already-shrinking group of administrators; it's only since 2009 that incumbents have regularly been re-elected. There are more things that I want to do on this project, and other areas where I think I can contribute both here and globally. We'll see where things take me.

You know that I wish only the very best for you, Ched, and that you're one of the Wikipedians I'm really glad to have met. You've had an impact here, and I'm sure you'll have an impact wherever the winds may blow. Take care, and don't be afraid to pop by and say hello when you're in the neighbourhood. :-) Risker (talk) 13:36, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Discussion at Template_talk:Bullying#RfC:_Template_links

You are invited to join the discussion at Template_talk:Bullying#RfC:_Template_links. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 05:41, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

• Noting that I posted some comments there. Risker (talk) 04:26, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Backlogged

Mind if you help at WP:AIV right now? It's truck loads of reports! ///EuroCarGT 05:30, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

G13 deletion in mainspace

I have just restored Manuela Gandarillas. I assume your deletion was an error as G13 is not applicable to pages in mainspace. My fault for not cleaning up the AFC templates fast enough after moving it. SpinningSpark 15:18, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I was looking only at Hasteurbot's template and wasn't watching for namespace; didn't occur to me that the template would be present anywhere other than the designated namespaces. It's good of you to move things out of AFC space if they're potentially viable articles; perhaps you might want to consider removing the templates and saving as "step 1" before moving? Just a thought. Don't know that anyone's to "blame" for this one (it's more a systemic issue, so many templates and automated processes), and glad you caught it. Risker (talk) 17:46, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

It shouldn't happen again, I'm doing it a different way now. I resubmit the article and then immediately accept it. That way the bots do all the messy template fixing work. I didn't do it that way at first because I was afraid of being spammed with hundreds of "Congratulations! the article you submitted..." messages for articles that I had not actually created and unnecessarily putting myself in the article history. Fortunately, I now know that the bot only ever informs the original page creator. SpinningSpark 19:20, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Clarification on a speedy

Hey there. Last night I was doing some new page patrol and CSD tagging some broken redirects. This morning you deleted a lot of what I'd tagged. I'd tagged Manley mutt as a hoax, but you deleted it as A10. Could you point out the existing topic? I try to do a WP:BEFORE when I tag possible hoaxes, and I saw nothing in online sources, including WP, which justified the subject's inclusion. Thanks again for following up on my tagging spree. BusterD (talk) 15:58, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Actually BusterD, I intended to mark it as A11 and I must have accidentally clicked the one before. It's quite plausible that there could be such a crossbreeding of dogs; however, if it occurred, it would not be notable. I'd generally regard G3 as having more obvious "intent of deceiving", such as a multi-sentence article that made a clear assertion of notability and possibly a few made-up "offline" references. Your tagging wasn't blatantly wrong. No matter how hard everyone tries, there remain grey areas. Risker (talk) 17:29, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm always trying to learn something new. I've only got about a thousand csd tags on my log, most of them from watching Special:Broken Redirects which these days seems to get a long backlog. Will be working my way through that list soon. Thanks again. BusterD (talk) 17:37, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Urgent mail

GiantSnowman 20:26, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Response sent, thanks GiantSnowman. Risker (talk) 20:42, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Sabotage

Hi. I'm trying to understand the WMF. And failing, really. In a comment presently on Iridescent's talk page you said, "The events of this summer, with the VisualEditor and the very deliberate decision to sabotage any chance of successful implementation of that software should tell you that the WMF is in no way capable of understanding this project." Would you be willing to explain to me who made the very deliberate decision to sabotage there? Do you mean the en. community or WMF? Feel free to ignore this. Email's good, if you prefer. Cheers. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 15:07, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Anthonyhcole. In my view, and I'll note that while it's a very informed view, it's still my view, the WMF knowingly released as the production default editing interface, software that was obviously and clearly unsuitable and unready for even basic editing, with the very specific intention of ignoring any and all criticism for the decision and refusing to pull things back until such time as the community forced its hand. They insisted on maintaining a timetable that meant two of the most critical editing features (references and templates) had not even been given the slightest testing by experienced editors before VE was made the production editor. Their purpose was to use English Wikipedia as the stalking horse to identify what wasn't working, although almost all of the significant bugs were already known. They released VE as the default at the same time as adding ULS, another very major extension applicable to all pages, which made it impossible to tell which of these two major extensions was causing problems (as it turns out, most of the slowness was due to ULS, but nobody remembers that, they just remember that VE is supposed to be painfully slow). They knew that the community's willingness to pull together and say "no" in advance of the implementation was non-existent (unlike other projects, such as German Wikipedia, which has a much more cohesive community and had had the benefit of seeing how badly the implementation was going on our project), and they had no hesitation in using their power to control the interface to force this through. There were other options that, had they been taken earlier (e.g., giving VE as a clearly labeled, ever-present alternate editing interface instead of the default right from the beginning), might have significantly mitigated the damage to the relationship between the WMF and English Wikipedia; however, the "vision" of the Engineering Department's leadership took precedence.

VisualEditor (or something like it) is something that has been sought by the editing community for almost 10 years; there was lots of enthusiasm, and there were lots of people who would have been willing and interested in testing VE once referencing and templates were added in; before that, it was not useful for much more than fixing typos. Instead, they squandered all that goodwill and enthusiasm. They had been warned repeatedly that this was a bad idea, they were strongly, strongly urged to pull back early on, and they went out of their way to ignore all of that advice. As a result, the use of VE on English Wikipedia is almost unknown.

I'll note as an aside that the implementation of VE on some other projects has been much more successful. That's because they worked hard to communicate with the smaller, more homogeneous communities; because a lot of the biggest bugs were resolved before VE was released there; and because they'd learned a lot of lessons like creating help pages and other resources from the very negative experience here. However, much as it's great to have VE on a project with 50 active editors and 10,000 articles, this is the project where it's needed, where it's hardest to attract new editors, where the complexity of the editing interface and process is greatest. This isn't the fault of the project lead, James Forrester: his job is to be extremely enthusiastic and supportive of his product and his team, and to meet the objectives set for him by the managers above him. No, it was the fault of those above him in the chain of command. They know who they are. This was a failure, and it wasn't a failure of the English Wikipedia community (we've got more than enough of those!). It has set back the relationship between Engineering/Product to the point that it will take a couple of years to recover (if it ever does) and will delay acceptance of new features. And most importantly, it's resulted in the rejection of the software that was most likely to help this project grow in the future. One can only assume that the decision to proceed in the face of so many entirely valid reasons for slowing down and being less aggressive was deliberate and intended to cause this specific outcome. English Wikipedia is the WMF's "golden goose", the one that brings in the dough, the one that seeds hundreds of other projects, the one that is read around the world. The WMF needs this project to be healthy. This wasn't the way to do it. Risker (talk) 15:53, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Talkpage stalker swoops in to say.... although Risker's take on the subject mirrors my own, for the most part, there are two points worth making methinks. First of all, some kind of beginner-friendly yet efficient-for-experts editor-upgrade would be a huge boon to retention, and all by itself could reverse the downward trend in editor-count we've had for the past five years.[5] But methinks it is flat-out wrong to say that *VizEd* could ever have been efficient-for-experts. It did not handle tables, refs, transcludes, LaTeX mathematics, and so on. This was by design; all those features were "for later", to be bolted and band-aided on afterwards. Similarly, WP:FLOW aka the facebooky-chat-like wordpressy-forum-like replacement for talkpages that will be forced down our throats (unless we again resist) during 2014, is simply the wrong design. Therefore, it is slightly incorrect to say that this was "the rejection of the software that was most likely to help this project grow" ... because VizEd was *not* in point of fact *that* software, it was something less ambitious, a lowest-common-denominator design, which could dumb-down the editing interface, but failed to smarten the editing interface up (by design!).

  The second point is, the devs and the devmgrs Must.Not.Take.Orders from the managers above. Instead, the way to create successful software, is by building incremental improvements, and getting feedback from the users which support the devs (even if that means thwarting the 'vision' of some manager or some designer). Some devmgrs, and even some devs, are incapable of bucking the boss. Of course, it gets a lot easier to buck the boss, when there *is* no boss. It seems silly that wikipedia software is developed waterfall-style, by paid devs, under centralized managerial control. Have we learned nothing from Linux, Firefox, and similar projects? enWiki has the devs, amongst our hundreds of millions of uniques we get every month. Why don't we build an upgraded editor (and talkpage system), distributed wiki-style, instead of waiting for the WMF to spend another million bucks trying to do it for us, centralized fiat-style? Hope this helps.

  p.s. Risker, you will be missed, you did sensible work, appreciate it. Or should I say, rather, that you will be welcomed gladly back to the open arms of the wikiFauna peasant community, after your brief imprisonment in The Black ArbCom Castle Of Doom?  ;-)   Methinks I'll say both simultaneously: thanks for improving, and continuing to improve, wikipedia. — 74.192.84.101 (talk) 06:35, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Scrutineers for WP:ACE2013

Per m:SN#Stewards_needed_for_the_enwp_ArbCom_elections, the scrutineers this year are User:Mathonius, User:Vituzzu, User:Matanya, and User:Tegel. In the past they have been granted CU locally for the duration of the elections; should they be this year as well? --Rschen7754 02:35, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Motion posted. Thanks! Risker (talk) 03:43, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Page deleted- Kosovo Agency of Privatization

Hi, I saw you deleted the page. I don't understand what does the page have to do with the link you provided http://www.cacttus.com/Portals/0/Case%20studies/Software%20development.pdf. The link is some kind of software, while the article is about government agency. Probably the pdf has info from the Agency website as well, but I don't see any copyright issues with it. I never referred to that page you provided.
RegardsMondiad (talk) 15:38, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Argh, sorry about that, I didn't change the external link that was generated by one of the bots. The correct link to the site was <http://www.pak-ks.org/> as some of the content appeared to be directly copied from (or closely paraphrased from) that site. Risker (talk) 00:40, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Library Survey

As a subscriber to one of The Wikipedia Library's programs, we'd like to hear your thoughts about future donations and project activities in this brief survey. Thanks and cheers, Ocaasi ^{t | c} 14:59, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Like Mussolini's Trains

Oh, bravo. Shudder. Laugh. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 06:01, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Bug

[6] may be of interest to you. --Rschen7754 21:31, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Ping

I've emailed you on a Signpost matter. Tony (talk) 06:38, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Addressed, as can be seen by this week's Signpost. Risker (talk) 22:22, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Help needed

Hi, I just logged in an incident on ANI. Check this [7]. I feel that the action by the admin in discussion was harsh, sudden and one sided. Whilst I wait for the discussion on ANI to progress, I am placing a request to you if you can review this independently and give me your feedback. Cheers AKS

The thread was already closed by the time I looked at it just now, and I agree with the majority of posters that John Reaves' actions were appropriate. I think if you are in the midst of a dispute about a specific reference source, instead of rollbacking or edit warring, you should consider using the reliable sources noticeboard. Risker (talk) 22:20, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

The best interests

Thank you for your thoughts as a parting arb who will be missed: "The Arbitration Committee's purpose is to look out for the best interests of Wikipedia". You were not involved in the socalled Infoboxes case. Andy wrote an article on a nature reserve. He is restricted from adding any infobox, I am restricted from adding one to articles not my own. I believe that Wikipedia would be served better with an infobox, like similar articles, but it would take courage, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:14, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Gerda, I was not involved in that case decision, but on looking at your behaviour ever since that case, I believe my colleagues made an error. You have become so obsessed and tendentious on the mere subject of infoboxes that you should, at minimum, be banned from even discussing the matter in any way, in my opinion. Please keep your obsession off this talk page. Risker (talk) 11:35, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I will, but would like one diff of what you consider tendentious, in order to avoid it, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:50, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Every time you mention infoboxes you are being tendentious, Gerda. You seem to be completely unable to make a post or edit anywhere outside of article space that does not involve infoboxes. If you cannot write about infoboxes (or Andy), then don't write anything at all. Every time you think, even for a second, about infoboxes or about writing about them, stop yourself and do not make any edits until you can trust yourself not to want to write about infoboxes immediately. It is like an addiction for you, Gerda, and it will be very hard for you to do. But if you cannot do it, you are more likely to be further restricted than you are to have your restrictions lifted. Risker (talk) 12:04, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Look, I try to help, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:14, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Summer Leys was helped, - enjoy the holiday season, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:29, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Wow, Gerda - way to prove my point. You are a good writer of articles, Gerda, but that is completely escaping the attention of almost all users because you can't drop the infobox stick. Is that what you want to have as your Wikipedia legacy? What a shame. Risker (talk) 21:59, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Interesting interpretation of me not doing a thing i this case. I never thought of legacy, only best information, - I accept that you and I possibly have a different vision, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:07, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Gerda, you do not seem to be able to go even 24 hours without posting something that relates to infoboxes. It is becoming toxic to your ability to contribute effectively to this project. I am sorry that you cannot see how tendentious your behaviour is becoming, because it is very unlikely to end favourably. Risker (talk) 22:18, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Land reform in Zambia

Could you restore Land reform in Zambia? I want to contest deletion.--TM 11:36, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

I have responded on your user talk page with my apologies for the delay in responding; for some reason, I thought I had already done so. I am willing to restore this as a draft or as a user subpage for continued development; however, as the article's content didn't actually refer to Zambia (it talked about Zimbabwe), it was a legitimate candidate for deletion. Please let me know. Risker (talk) 03:38, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Namiba, apologies for the delay. This is now at User:Namiba/Land reform in Zambia. Risker (talk) 05:41, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

YGM

Did you get email from me over the last week? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:54, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Noting that I responded via email. Risker (talk) 03:47, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
	I'd just like to thank you for your service on ArbCom. I know it's been a pain in the behind most of the time, and while I don't always agree with your stances on issues, I appreciate the service. Enjoy your break. Ealdgyth - Talk 01:22, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I second Ealdgyth's gratitude for your services and always thought you were one of the most reasonable arbitrators (whatever that means). In the spirit of your break, and because Ealdgyth writes great stuff on these marvelous creatures: Some relaxing horses for you to emulate. ---Sluzzelin talk 17:23, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Noting that I have responded (belatedly!) to each of you on your talk pages. Thank you very much for your kind words. Risker (talk) 04:25, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

There is no need to apologize for a delayed or even for no response to this kind of acknowledgement, ever, so I'd like to thank you all the more for your kind words, and à propos reasonableness and opportunities, I was saddened to see an electee whom I considered to be among the refreshingly reasonable resign, and was also saddened by the rushed way it went down. This isn't the first time I voted for a successful candidate never or hardly ever to arbitrate. Among many other things, I do not envy you arbitrators for this kind of attention either. Happy New Year, Risker! ---Sluzzelin talk 19:55, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

COI/advocacy policy

Hi Risker. Please pardon me, but I am working on the next iteration of a COI policy and am trying to take into account the views of strong opposers to earlier, failed versions. I wondered if you would answer some questions to help with that. Several times in your responses to the failed No Paid Advocacy policy proposal, you said things like "We refuse to deal with non-financial COI and advocacy amongst our own editorship while whining endlessly that Company XX has come here and had the nerve to suggest we've got something wrong." as in this dif and earlier difs like this and especially this. You also noted that you think more stringent notability standards would be a useful check to advocacy. I am willing to make the next draft focus more broadly on advocacy, while also dealing with paid advocacy. Four questions, now:

1. Do you think that a well written COI policy would usefully address the problem of POV-pushing? (this is an "are we barking up the right tree?" question)
2. Do you have a useful, actionable definition of "advocacy" based on editing behavior?
3. Do you agree with a requirement to disclose COI? (be it voluntary or paid)
4. Can you please expand a bit on how you would see notability standards changed to prevent COI editing? (not sure this can/should be addressed in a COI policy, but wanted to ask)

Thank you for your time! 66.108.38.156 (talk) 12:00, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

• Hi 66., these are important questions and I want to give them the attention they deserve, so I'm going to hold off responding until I've pulled together some thoughts. Should be back to you in about 24 hours. Risker (talk) 15:42, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Barnstar of Diplomacy
	For your success in changing a few others editors' opinion in a contentious BLP debate. Someone not using his real name (talk) 17:27, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Blocked IPs

• Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard

There is a serious backlog of about 20K individual IPs that are blocked without expiration. I have broken the IPs into groups of 5000: m:User:とある白い猫/English Wikipedia open proxy candidates. So they are effectively blocked until time ends. This creates considerable potential collateral damage as the owners of IPs tend to be not very consistent. Some of these IPs are on dynamic ranges which results in arbitrary blocks of good users. Vast majority of the blocks go back years all the way to 2004 - some were preemptively blocked. Nowadays even open proxies normally do not get indefinite blocks.

The problem is that no single admin wants to review this many IPs and very few have the technical capability to review. Such a technical review would be non-trivial for individual IPs which in my humble opinion would be a complete waste of time. I feel ArbCom could step in and provide criteria for bulk action. A bulk unblock of all indefinite blocks (with exceptions if the specific single IP unblocks are contested) before - say - 2010 would be a good start.

Open proxies tend to be better handled at meta as open proxies are a global problem for all wikis.

-- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 11:31, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

I've done work on some of this as time has permitted. However, sticking them on Meta without the ability to review their contributions here will not, and cannot, make the work easier. There are a large number that really do remain blocked open proxies. Once I am relieved of some of my other responsibilities I can give this further attention, and I will. Keep in mind that if the blocks are done from Meta, they are that much more difficult to locate and work with on our project. Risker (talk) 12:38, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

I can copy paste them on en.wikipedia if you like. The idea however is to let stewards deal with open proxies so we do not need to bother managing them locally. Meta is very efficient in keeping track of them unlike here where it is all rather chaotic. At least enough for 20k individual indef blocks to accumulate since 2004. At the moment we need to simplify that backlog but scanning 20,000 IPs is a non-trivial task. I have heard estimates of 15 minutes to an hour to process each IP request depending on the level of check. There is very little gain in keeping vast majority of these mostly ancient IP blocks. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 15:32, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

You know the issue of indef blocked IPs is not a personal issue for me. I am not affected by them. This may not have been your intention but you implied to this end. I do not need to be 'satisfied'. I just wish the issue to be properly handled rather than being ignored. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 06:10, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry that I implied this was a personal issue for you; you've been the face of it, and you certainly seem to have taken it to every venue you can think of, though. It should be noted that some of these IPs are not open proxies, nor are they claimed to be, they're "blocked proxies". That covers certain types of proxy edits that are used to anonymize editors (such as Anonymouse, or certain VPNs), which technically are not open proxies. These are also frequently associated with severe vandalism or spamming, and will not be unblocked. One needs to keep in mind that those types of proxies are more likely to require local blocking rather than global blocking compared to open proxies, because they tend to focus on only one project. They're often blocked anon-only, account creation blocked, rather than hard-blocked (i.e., no editing by non-admins), which allows autoconfirmed registered users to edit normally while logged in. Incidentally, I'm trying to find discussions about schoolblocks; they were probably long ago, but it would be worth reviewing for consistency. Risker (talk) 05:47, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Arbcom

Hi Risker. I see now that you aren't a candidate for the current arbcom elections... In my mind you are the arbcom here. I expect that will be strange, for you and for us, with not you having in the committee. I guess you needed a break after so many years. Take care and hopefully you won't disappear completely from WP. ;) With regards, Trijnstel_talk 23:41, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

I know we have "spoken" several times since you posted this, @Trijnstel:, but I want to take a moment to thank you very much for your very kind words. As I mentioned, I will continue on as a checkuser and oversighter, so our paths will continue to cross on a regular basis, and I will remain an administrator on Checkuser-L. I expect I'll spend more time on Meta looking at some bigger picture stuff (I gave consideration to running as a steward, but that election will come too soon after I've completed my Arbcom responsibilities, I think), and you'll probably see me poking around in other areas as well. I want to especially thank you for all your assistance over the years in your role as a steward: you've always been so very responsive and considerate of some of the weird issues that enwiki sometimes encounters. Risker (talk) 06:36, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! And, eh, regarding your possible steward nom: I would certainly support that. and it wouldn't hurt having a second female steward around ;-) Trijnstel_talk 21:01, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Category:Woman janitors

On 8 December 2013 you deleted Category:Woman janitors. There was no discussion about this deletion at wp:CFD (I believe?). When you have a minute I would appreciate finding out why this category disappeared so quickly.

Since you offered, I would appreciate a response on my talkpge, since I do not follow your talkpage regularly. Thanks in advance, XOttawahitech (talk) 15:33, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Just to remind you (you probably forgot) that I am still waiting for your reponse. BTW IIRC the category you deleted was nominated for a speedy deletion after the nominator emptied it XOttawahitech (talk) 15:00, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Apologies to you, Ottawahitech. As you have requested, I have responded on your talk page. Risker (talk) 06:29, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Your graph of complexity for "rules-oriented"

Recently, your graphics on your user page, File:Complexity Map.svg, reminded me of the discussion on "systemic bias" on the "Wikipedia" Page. Are you aware of any attempt to draw the "complexity map" for Wikipedia in either its current form or its historical form. Such a graph would make a useful addition to the section on systemic bias on the "Wikipedia" Page if you have ever seen such a graph or illustration. BillMoyers (talk) 14:05, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi BillMoyers (talk · contribs), please accept my apology for being so tardy in my response. I have to agree with you that such a graph would be a useful way to visually portray some of these biases and complexities on the project. However, I have no idea if anyone has ever actually tried to map it out. I know the visual I selected isn't directly comparable to the words it accompanies, but does give the right impression of layered complexity. Risker (talk) 22:48, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

kafziel arb case

Hello Risker, you are listed as draft-arb, and Callanecc kinda-sorta suggested I contact you. Summing up:

1. I'm involved with AfC and WP:RETENTION (past couple months)
2. I watched the AN/I thread against Kafziel (after the fact)
3. I happened to notice the arbcom case against Kafziel
4. They had already retired
5. I entered evidence directly below Kazfiel's
6. This included to direct quotations (too short to need diff-URLs)
7. Hasteur, the AfC person who filed against Kazfiel, asked Callanecc to remove my statement ("consists of no evidence")
8. Callanecc removed it, and graciously left me a note [8]
9. Either then, or shortly after, my statement was placed on the evidence-talkpage

I don't think Callanecc nor Hasteur were acting in bad faith.

But I *do* want the arbs to read my statement,[9] and not miss it because it was moved.

Callanecc said that arbs "should" see it on the evidence-talkpage. Is that correct?

That is all I really am after here; I don't care if it is moved again, or not, as long as it is not missed lost the hustle-n-bustle.

Thanks for improving wikipedia, sorry to be bothersome. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 03:23, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi 74., don't worry, we will read your posting and consider its information in the formulation of the decision. Sorry it's taken me a while to respond, but I did read your message earlier. Risker (talk) 06:31, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Pending Changes Protection

After the reduction in level of pending changes protection on Bigg Boss 7, the pending changes protection is of no use because the page is already semi protected and new and unregistered users already can't edit it. Please see to it. Thanks. --Param Mudgal (talk) 09:10, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Apologies for the delay, I've been tied up to a large extent getting new arbitrators set up. I have lifted the pending changes on the article, as there haven't been reverts of any pending changes, and the semi-protection appears to be addressing the issue. Risker (talk) 22:09, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

No problem. Thanks.--Param Mudgal (talk) 12:59, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

RE: Electoral Comission

It appears that you were right and I was wrong.--Tznkai (talk) 06:34, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm struggling to remember what we disagreed about! Nonetheless, nice to see you around. Don't forget article space too. ;-) Risker (talk) 22:21, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks

At this time, I'd like to send you a thank you that means a lot to me. Very early in my editing experience, you helped me with something ([10]), and it made all the difference in me not walking away from Wikipedia. I mentioned this briefly in a discussion we had a while back, but I want to say it more formally now. It's been a long time, and I've waited until there would no longer be any question of making you have to recuse from anything, but I never forgot. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:29, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

@Tryptofish:, I'm glad that I was able to make your earlier editing experience just a little bit less daunting, and it reminds me of the value of small kindnesses that any of us can extend to our newer editors. I'm sorry that I wasn't able to get sufficient traction within the committee to move forward on mailing list issues; when something is a priority to only one or two members, it's quickly overtaken by "bigger" issues. Perhaps that is as it should be: mailing lists don't have nearly the impact on the project itself as something like discretionary sanctions, and yet we're having a hard time getting that one accomplished too, and it won't be finalized until the new team takes over. Risker (talk) 06:41, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's very difficult to change anything around here from the status quo. After a bit of settle-in time for the new members, I'm going to bring it up again (I'm nothing if not stubborn), and I'll remind them that I asked a question about it during the election and they all expressed support for something like it. If, at any time, you decide to push for something like this, and you think that I can help, please ping me. In the mean time, happy editing! --Tryptofish (talk) 14:48, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

I don't know why .. but a couple folks on Wikipedia touched my heart. I hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas. Thank you for always being so kind to me. — ChedZILLA 00:22, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you

		The Barnstar of Integrity
		Thank you for your service on the Arbitration Committee. Your comments and insight on the arbitration process itself (the good, the bad, and the ugly) are manifold and always of particular merit. The project has benefited from your efforts in ways uncountable. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 21:53, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

@ArtifexMayhem:, thank you very much for such high praise. I appreciate your thoughtfulness. Risker (talk) 06:56, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Merry Christmas! :-)

Happy Yuletides!

Merry Yuletides to you! (And a happy new year!)

~TheGeneralUser (talk) is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Happy New Year!

Spread the Christmas cheer by adding {{subst:Xmas3}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

Hi Risker, Wishing you a very Happy and Wonderful Merry Christmas! Hope you are having a great time with family and friends :-) Best wishes. ~TheGeneralUser (talk) 23:02, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Did you

get my email about an IP you unblocked? Dougweller (talk) 17:14, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Dougweller, seems I read it but wasn't able to act on it immediately (we were just starting a 35-hour power failure). I apologize for not having had the chance to follow up sooner; I'm still going through those emails to clear up everything. I have now looked, and see that a whole slew of socks were created over a short period of time, have blocked a few more, and have reblocked the IP with account creation off. If additional socks turn up that look like the same editor, please feel free to bump it up to a hardblock. The SPI is at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Allthekidsinthestreet/Archive. Risker (talk) 06:32, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Bad luck with the power failure, there's been a lot of those recently. Thanks for dealing with this. Dougweller (talk) 06:47, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Arbs appointed outside election

Posting here, because it's a bit of a tangential point, but your comment piqued my sense of "Wiki-history" and I hope you'll excuse this digression. The appointment I think you refer to was one of two. The other, Mackensen (who was a former Arb), as I recall served out the remainder of that term without much controversy. Also, I suppose it is worth remarking on James F's and Jayjg's respective appointments to ArbCom in mid-2005 to fill vacancies created by the resignations of Ambi and Grunt respectively (both of whom had been elected in the December 2004 election). Not only did James F and Jayjg finish their terms, they were elected by the community to new terms in the January 2006 elections. But that was a long time ago! Best, WJBscribe (talk) 10:29, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, it piqued my sense of wiki-history as well. I responded at the thread (which I notice you've already replied to Riskerwithout checking here first, but WJBscribe, your research was far more thorough than mine (I was just going on my memory). Graham87 14:38, 31 December 2013 (UTC)