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The community consultation phase is closed. The Committee has announced the appointments.

The current time and date is 16:47, 12 November 2024 (UTC).
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The Arbitration Committee is seeking to appoint additional editors to the CheckUser and Oversight teams.

Prospective applicants must be familiar with (i) policies relevant to CU and/or OS and (ii) the global privacy policy and related documents. They must have good communication and team-working skills. CheckUser candidates must be familiar with basic networking topics and with SPI tools and techniques, and preferably are willing to volunteer at ACC or UTRS. Applicants must also be:

  • available to regularly assist with the workload;
  • familiar with Wikipedia processes, policies, and guidelines;
  • an administrator on the English Wikipedia;
  • at least 18 years of age and have legal majority in their jurisdiction of residence;
  • willing to disclose all other accounts they have operated to the committee;
  • willing to agree to the WMF Access to Non-Public Information Policy.

We welcome all applicants with suitable interest to apply, but this year we have particular need of applicants who are:

  • Familiar with common ISPs and editing patterns from Asia and Eastern Europe.
  • Familiar with IPv6.
  • Familiar with identification of factors that may change a result or block, such as ISP, location, activity, or type of network.
  • Experienced in analyzing behavioral evidence for sockpuppetry investigations.
  • Interested in mentoring editors who wish to become SPI clerks.
  • Active users of non-standard venues, such as IRC, the account creation interface, OTRS, or the Unblock Ticket Request System
  • Interested in handling sockpuppetry investigations related to paid editing.
  • Available to handle oversight requests between 03:00 and 12:00 UTC.

Applicants must be aware that they are likely to receive considerable internal and external scrutiny. External scrutiny may include attempts to investigate on- and off-wiki activities; previous candidates have had personal details revealed and unwanted contact made with employers and family. We are unable to prevent this and such risks will continue if you are successful.

Appointment process

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Dates are provisional and subject to change
  • Applications: 1 Sept to 12 Sept

    Candidates self-nominate by email to arbcom-en-c@lists.wikimedia.org. Each candidate will receive an application questionnaire to be completed and returned to the arbcom-en-c mailing list before the nomination period ends. This should include a nomination statement, to a maximum of 250 words, for inclusion on the candidate's nomination sub-page(s).

  • Review period: 12 Sept to 15 Sept

    The committee will review applications and ask the functionary team for their feedback.

  • Notification of candidates: 16 Sept to 18 Sept

    The committee will notify candidates going forward for community consultation and create the candidate subpages containing the submitted nomination statements.

  • Community consultation: 18 Sept to 29 Sept

    Nomination statements will be published and candidates invited to answer questions publicly. The community is invited to ask questions and to comment on each candidate. Comments may be posted on the candidates' subpages or submitted privately by email to arbcom-en-c@lists.wikimedia.org. Editors are encouraged to include a detailed rationale, supported by relevant links where appropriate.


Candidates

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To comment on candidates, please use section edit buttons to edit the appropriate candidate subpage(s).

CheckUser

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The community consultation phase is closed. Katietalk 00:10, 29 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Ivanvector (CU)

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Ivanvector (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Nomination statement
Hello Wikipedians! I'm Ivanvector, and I'm applying for the checkuser permission. I have been a sockpuppet investigations clerk for two years and an administrator almost as long. I'm seeking access to checkuser obviously to aid in my SPI work – although there is not often a backlog in requests awaiting checkuser these days, there is a persistent backlog of “open” cases which often require checkuser attention in the course of investigation. As a clerk I endorse or request (self-endorse) checkuser probably about 10-20 times a week, and I’m keenly familiar with what checkusers can and cannot do from many interactions with the team. We also have a significant backlog of users interested in clerk training, which I would like to help with. Aside from SPI, I have experience in networking and technicalities of the internet from working with networked computers throughout my professional life as well as deploying home and small office networks. I’m familiar with both IPv4 and IPv6 subnet masking, and I’m currently one of 24 administrators listed in the “willing to make range blocks” category. Professionally, I work in accounting and finance, especially in payroll and benefits administration, which involves handling individuals’ very sensitive confidential information such as banking information, details of health issues, and immigration matters. I am very well-versed in handling and protecting such information, including tactful and respectful ways to decline requests for access. I look forward to your questions and comments.
Standard questions for all candidates
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  1. Please describe any relevant on-Wiki experience you have for this role.
    As mentioned in my nomination statement, I have been a sockpuppet investigations clerk fully for just over two years (June 2016, training started December 2015) and an administrator almost as long (December 2016). I already regularly interact with many of the current checkusers both on- and off-wiki, and I'm familiar with the sort of information that can be gleaned from the tool, as well as (vaguely) how checkusers publish their results on the public wiki and what the various CU tags mean. I'm fairly consistently active at SPI and also frequently comment on issues related to the [ab]use of multiple accounts in many areas of project space.
  2. Please outline, without breaching your personal privacy, what off-Wiki experience or technical expertise you have for this role.
    Professionally, I am an accountant and currently also payroll and benefits administrator for a medium-sized tech-driven manufacturer. I regularly handle confidential private and sensitive employee information in the course of my work. I'm also familiar with IPv4 networks and network address translation from years of home and occasional professional network maintenance, large IT projects and software deployment, and I have some working knowledge of IPv6 through my work in SPI.
  3. Do you hold advanced permissions (checkuser, oversight, bureaucrat, steward) on this or other WMF projects? If so, please list them. Also, do you have OTRS permissions? If so, to which queues?
    I do not. I have never applied for nor held any of these permissions on any wiki, nor OTRS.
Questions for this candidate
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Comments
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Comments may also be submitted to the Arbitration Committee privately by emailing arbcom-en-c@lists.wikimedia.org. Please note that the candidate will be provided the opportunity to respond to a paraphrased version of any emailed comments; the sender's name will not be provided.
  • Oppose There numerous issues which I would prefer detailing by naming only two cases that involved you as an SPI clerk:-
  • NadirAli: You noted in his block notice that he was blocked because he was "editing from alternate accounts and while logged out".[1] Block log entry made by you says "using multiple accounts and editing while logged out".[2] You blocked this long term sockmaster for only 3 months when standard duration is indef block.
  • You significantly changed your statement when site ban was proposed on WP:AN. You claimed that "accounts are blocked for being sockpuppets of each other, not for being sockpuppets of NadirAli."[3] You were reminded of your own statements on WP:AN along with new evidences that how these accounts are socks of NadirAli[4][5] however your replies were unconvincing[6][7] and couldn't change your earlier rational that NadirAli had "evidently created sockpuppet accounts in violation of an Arbcom-imposed unblock condition".[8] The user was sitebanned in the same thread for reasons that included sock puppetry.
  • CU stated that StLouis2 is abusing proxies and "I was almost tempted to block the account for looking so suspicious."[11] However you acquitted the suspects[12] and this was contrary to the behavioral evidence provided by multiple editors as well as the policy on open proxies that the account should be blocked if they are found abusing proxies to circumvent policy. This account was later given a {{checkuserblock-account}} block by Courcelles for sock puppetry, following an ANI report.[13][14]
These examples show that you have been evaluating technical evidence or behavioral evidence only when it suits you in place of evaluating them on their merits. I can in fact substantiate more examples but above two are clearly enough for establishing that you are not qualified for CU permission. Lorstaking (talk) 04:29, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Ritchie333: Are you sure? Ivanvector didn't talk Saqib before he blocked him for a week.[15] I am not certainly raising issue with it but it was contrary to "talk before you block". In Nauriya's case, Ivanvector first claimed that Nauriya was found "unrelated" to Faizanali.007,[16] though later struck his comments after I pointed it on his talk page that Nauriya had admitted Faizanli.007 to be his own account.[17][18] Next day Ivanvector claimed that Nauriya has not socked "since 2013",[19] contrary to the fact that Nauriya was evading his block for years. Numerous others including an uninvolved admin also disagreed with Ivanvector and verified that block evasion is sock puppetry.[20] We cannot say this was a misunderstanding because block evaders have been already treated as socks and recently another editor was blocked by multiple admins for engaging in similar block evasion for years.[21][22] Including this one, my above comment has described some other serious problems such as not taking action against a proxy abuser and changing own statements about sock puppetry of a long term sock abuser. Lorstaking (talk) 11:43, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Mostly, per Ritchie. To add, my assessment of Ivan's past administrative actions have painted a picture of a thoroughly careful editor, who takes their time to assess the situation and act judiciously. I'm not sure why Ivan's decided to not answer the standard questions discretely, but notice that most of the responses are written within the nomination statement. All well, in my opinion, Lourdes 11:35, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
A matter of timing. I had already put my laptop away for the night when the page went live, and didn't see the email about it until this morning. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 12:17, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also attempts to openly admonish editors who criticize and point out this improper behavior [26] [27].
  • The disturbing StLouis2 SPI case above is just 2 months old.[Updated] Ivan was involved in the content dispute about text [28] on a page with Ivans own Edit Count of 25 and yet he goes on to Protect the page three times, and then Join SPI inspite of being in the dispute with Filer and the suspect, and then absolved the suspect (who was later blocked) blatantly disregarding WP:INVOLVE policy.
  • Everyone is aware that, there are a lot of "technical Grey areas", in the results of the CU tools and CUs and admins often decide on the results of the tools, based on their best judgement. I can easily imagine that such a biased admin after getting hold of CU will falsely convict opponents of sockpuppetry, and if an abuser happens to share the same POV as this admin, then absolve proxy abusers like he did in St Louis case.
  • Was seen trying too hard supporting problem users like NadirAli and dishing out ad hominem on editor reporting Nadir.[29]
  • Reverted me 10 days back to restore a malicious slander from the harassment sock of a banned user against WP:BMB and WP:SOCKSTRIKE. One can easily see clear intentions, in his revert i.e. to support abusers who share his POV.
  • Openly badgering bullying and threatening "punitive blocks" [30]
"It is not merely of some importance, but is of fundamental importance that justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done".-Lord Chief Justice Hewart in R v. Sussex Justices, ex parte McCarthy The confidence of the right-minded people is destroyed when they go away thinking that the judge was biased – that he had been influenced by the other party. The judge’s reputation for fairness and justice is shattered by this. It does not matter whether he did, in fact, favour one side unfairly [31].
All these reasons leads me to think this admin will "checkuser block" people liberally and be unwilling to consider appeals. Other admins don't have the powers to revert a CU block
I believe this will ultimately badly affect Wikipedia's neutrality with such editors being given such powers. Hence my oppose.--DBigXrayᗙ 14:15, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
What is "disturbing" about the Stlouis SPI case on Ivan's part? Your comment that he will falsely "convict" editors is absurd and in WP:NPA territory. If you believe Ivanvector is abusive, that seems like something you need to take to AN instead of making accusations here of things that have not happened.CHRISSYMAD ❯❯❯¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 14:25, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
DBigXray - I am leaving a ping here for you to respond as your comment about the StLouis case is an actual personal attack and should be removed/redacted on your own volition. CHRISSYMAD ❯❯❯¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 14:48, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I added more details in the line above, kindly take a relook. Please note that Wikipedia policies (WP:PROXY#Checkuser) support blocking of a proxy abuser (StLouis2) however Ivanvector absolved this user regardless of Ivan himself being involved in same content dispute, [32][33][34] against the reporting editor (Masterpha), and the mass proxy abuse by StLouis2. This user StLouis2 was later blocked by a CU for his sockpuppetry, thankfully. DBigXrayᗙ 15:29, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
this diff is Ivan admitting their mistake, the others show no abuse in any manner and given there's been no discussion on that anywhere, this is still an unsubstantiated claim and personal attack. CHRISSYMAD ❯❯❯¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 15:49, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
DBigXray, I agree with you. Ivan's protection of the page seems clearly involved. I would have trouted Ivan if I had known of this issue before (I'm actually surprised Ivan undertook this administrative action). To be transparent, I've trolled CUs like Bbb23 for undertaking involved CU blocks on socks that have edited pages that they themselves have edited in the past. I can understand your personal interaction with Ivan hasn't been in the positive – and you may be in your right to have this negative perspective. But administrators and CUs (like Bbb23 above) do make mistakes, and most accept the same and improve. This should not taint your view of their overall stellar contributions. I'm sure Ivan understands and appreciates the issues you have raised in the same light. Warmly, Lourdes 15:54, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Lourdes" I've trolled CUs like Bbb23 Might you mean "trouted"? Trolling probably isn't going to be very helpful. Natureium (talk) 15:58, 20 September 2018 (UTC) [reply]
("Trolled" is what I mean; and no, it wasn't very helpful, as you rightly estimated. Lourdes 16:01, 20 September 2018 (UTC))[reply]
Well, Lourdes, I suppose I should reply to this. As usual there's more to the story than what is offered here, probably because DBigXray and Lorstaking have never edited that article but seem to have decided I'm their enemy. See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Masterpha/Archive for how I ended up at Opinion polling for the Pakistani general election, 2018. I watchlisted the page and was following a slow edit war over including the results of a poll conducted entirely over Facebook with no methodology. It was basically back-and-forth for months and the page had already been protected once, so rather than try technical restrictions again I decided to clean up some issues with the article myself - filling refs, consistent table formatting, scraping external links, and so on. I've often found that that's a better solution than admin button-pushing, it allows editors to see what might be a better way forward, and in this case it worked. Some editors had questions but nobody really objected, and the edit warring stopped. Later, around mid-June, the same Facebook pollster released another poll, and there were heated discussions on the talk page about which polls should be included. This was good, but there was an accompanying edit war, and MelanieN semiprotected the page. Later it came across my watchlist with confirmed editors still carrying on the edit war, and I upgraded Melanie's protection to full (and see Talk:Opinion polling for the Pakistani general election, 2018#Page full-protected, 4 July 2018 where she endorsed this). After that protection expired (protections always expire to no protection) the editors active on the page noted that IP vandalism resumed on the page, and pinged me (see the same discussion) to ask me to restore Melanie's protection, which I did on 9 July. On 11 July Masterpha created the StLouis2 SPI, and when I saw it I thought it would be best to handle it expeditiously as it was having a negative impact on collaboration on the article, you can see on the page how that went. I don't understand the objection about the open proxy: we can block an IP when it's identified as an open proxy but users with accounts are allowed to use a proxy to edit; some have no choice. We block them if they're disruptive - in my opinion at that time there was insufficient evidence, and I don't block users unless there's a good reason. The next day (12 July) I was pinged again to intervene, so I offered my opinion. After that there was a separate dispute over wording in the article's lede, which I proposed a solution to, but StLouis2 rightly pointed out that my edit was unhelpful, and so I added that null edit on 17 July to confirm I was wrong, because that thing was happening where other editors were reverting to my edit just because it was made by an admin. I hadn't really considered myself capital-I involved up to having made that proposed edit, since nothing I had done was really substantive. Afterwards, when there was edit warring over something else, I posted a protection request at RFPP that Enigmaman actioned, and when that expired (to no protection) I restored MelanieN's original semiprotection again, which maybe I should have asked someone else to do but there's that "any admin would do this" point in WP:INVOLVED that seemed like it applied to this situation. And, yes, some months later Courcelles blocked StLouis2 as a checkuser action, but I have no more info about that than anyone else that's commenting.
Anyway, yes, this is an edge case, and I acknowledge that a very strict reading of WP:INVOLVED may dictate that I've erred, but I personally think that the article is better for it, and we're all here to build an encyclopedia, not bicker about strict interpretations of rules. If other editors think that my actions here were grossly out of line then so be it, but at least now you have the whole story. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 17:32, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"if they're disruptive"? That is completely wrong because sock puppetry is itself one of the major forms of disruption and in any case the account in question was really disruptive.[35][36] Lorstaking (talk) 18:06, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm confused. Is everyone mad because he took no action based on inconclusive CU results that were not run by him, since he's not a CU? I'm all for blocking socks indefinitely but it's still better to not block an account where there is significant doubt. Kind of goes against Xray's inane theory that he will abuse the tools. Better to be conservative with the blocks than over-zealous, especially when there is technical evidence in dispute.CHRISSYMAD ❯❯❯¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 18:22, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I think we can bring this discussion to a close here (or shift it to the talk page). Ivan's explanation is absolutely satisfactory and it makes no sense to simply let this discussion become an eyesore and a waste of reading space for future commenters. Might I request any passing editor to either collapse this discussion or shift it to the talk page in toto? Thanks, Lourdes 23:56, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - No concerns. — Godsy (TALKCONT) 20:08, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Active and experienced SPI clerk, no concerns. Simplexity22 (talk) 23:25, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Regardless of the controversy that he has recieved around being “involved” in a dispute between several editors and I, I have found him to be quite reasonable in his decisions and has never been biased. His experience at SPI will help. маsтегрнатаLк 08:16, 21 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose You request topic ban from WP:ARBIPA on a dozen of editors without adding diffs for your claims[37] and further state that you "would just ban everybody".[38] But when the most disruptive user has been caught socking for a long time, you give him only 3 months block and then endlessly argue to falsify every inch of evidence provided against the now sitebanned user.[39][40] Not to omit your filing of a frivolous AE report citing "ARBIPA topic"[41] ban against a user after rejecting a legible SPI as "violation" of a topic ban after completely misreading the SPI yourself (for e.g. missing the self admission of one suspected account to be related to master[42]). The user told you at least 2 times that it is not a topic ban violation and you refused to believe this simple fact and reacted in a combative manner.[43][[44] You realised that it was not a topic ban violation only after an admin told you that it is was not.[45][46]
    It is unbelievable that it was only 1 week ago that you learned that Pakistani articles also falls under WP:ARBIPA,[47] and surprisingly you were telling an arbitrator that what comes "under [[WP:ARBIPA]]"[48] This means that you have been talking about ARBIPA for over 5 months and you don't even know the easiest definition of WP:ARBIPA. You don't think sock puppetry is "disruptive" or think it needs extra evidence of disruption to block an account than just socking (or socking with proxies) per your statements on this page. Your block of Adding The Truth as a sock of My Lord[49] was disputed by nearly everyone who took time to review the unblock request on his talk page, including the reviewing admin.[50] Adding The Truth could've been a sock of someone but not My Lord and thus your your block was incorrect that was based on "inconclusive" checkuser and very circumstantial behavioral evidence. In the light of these latest incidents, I find it extremely uncomfortable to think that you should get this permission. Razer(talk) 13:53, 21 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
There's more to these claims, again, thus I encourage those reading to review for themselves:
  • Razer2115 claims that I "requested" topic bans, but I did not: in this AE discussion I endorsed the suggestions of several other administrators that a number of users should be sanctioned. Razer also claims that there was no evidence, but also linked to the edit in which I explained to BU Rob13 that nearly two hundred diffs had already been provided in that discussion.
  • I thoroughly explained my rationale for blocking Adding The Truth (Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/My Lord/Archive#08 July 2018), and expanded with respect to one of the more contestable points of my analysis on the user's talk page after being asked to do so. Of the administrators who commented, one explicitly agreed with the SPI finding, and four more ([51] [52] [53] [54]) were not entirely convinced of the exact sockpuppetry finding but declined to unblock for various reasons including probable meatpuppetry. In the end the user was advised to approach UTRS to disclose their supposed exonerating evidence which they would not discuss on-wiki, and since they remain blocked I presume they have not done so or the evidence was not so exonerating.
  • The SPI I supposedly "misread" (Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/MegaCyanide666/Archive) involved a blocked user who some time earlier ([55]) had come logged-out to Boing! said Zebedee's talk page inquiring about how to get unblocked. They disclosed their original account was blocked and mentioned they used multiple socks in the distant past. A discussion among several admins and checkusers which I was not involved in endorsed this user creating a new account as a WP:CLEANSTART noting the standard offer. Capitals00 later filed the SPI noting one of the supposed socks which was blocked two years earlier. Boing! explained that past sockpuppetry had been considered when offering the user a clean start, and this new finding would not invalidate that decision, so blocking would have effectively been wheel-warring and I was not going to do it. I also found Capitals00's evidence unconvincing.
  • In the same SPI, I noted that Capitals00 was under a topic ban which I believed applied to an article which the other user had been editing. Capitals00 insisted that was not the case, but did not attempt to explain why. I went to AE (Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement/Archive240#Capitals00 - July 2018) to request a review of that situation; when Icewhiz (who is not an admin) pointed out that the article was definitely not within the scope of the topic ban (an admittedly serious error on my part) I withdrew the request and apologized to Capitals00. That was not before another admin noted that, had the article been within the topic ban scope, reporting a user editing that page to SPI would have been considered a violation.
-- Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 17:45, 21 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - in regards to the AE above, while content wise this was clearly not ARBIPA - if one was examining the editors involved, and positions/rhetoric, it was quite similar to ARBIPA.Icewhiz (talk) 18:07, 21 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ivanvector, I don't see any diffs in your AE statements,[56][57][58] where you were requesting topic bans on editors.
  • My Lord was not Adding The Truth, that's the point. It is irrelevant to say that block can be right because the user didn't appealed to UTRS. One user wondered how it is possible for ATT to edit Wikipedia now.[59] The judgement of blocking an editor had to be so clear that everyone could agree but here you had majority of users refuting your decision.
  • The discussion you are referring clearly didn't involved "several admins and checkusers", but only two admins unaware of the mass socking revealed in the SPI. The SPI filed by Capitals00 against MegaCyanide666 was definitely convincing since we don't expect anything more than knowing the fact that suspects made same edits, have suspicious timing of account creation, and not only resides in same city but even shares same pincode as evidenced by the details of their IPs which they used during block evasions. I find it pretty obvious that you didn't read the rest of the SPI, since you misread the very first sentences of the SPI. You rejected the whole SPI as mostly a topic ban violation when there was none. Boing! had admitted that MegaCyanide666 never revealed that he was KahnJohn27,[60] but once we were aware that he is KahnJohn27 then the new account had to be blocked since there could be no unblock without a proper community discussion and/or unblock conditions given the mass socking. Some diffs of sock puppetry dated 14 May which indicates that he was socking even during that same day when he was making requests to resume his editing. WP:SO says that editor should not sock for at last 6 months. If we are going to encourage people use flimsy reasons like "I forgot password" then a time will come when we won't see any unblock requests on past accounts since blocked accounts returning after a community discussion are clearly more scrutinized than the newly created accounts and socks would better prefer the latter.
  • It is not a WP:CLEANSTART when the user is disrupting same subjects and articles that he did with his previous socks and "clean start is not permitted if there are active bans, blocks or sanctions." You are also wrong with your definition of "wheel-warring". It is not WP:WHEEL when you overturn an admin's action based on new evidence. It is "wheel-warring" when you restore an overturned admin action.
  • The scope of topic ban was easily understandable. It was already made clear for you that there could be no doubts over the scope since a bridge between India and Sri Lanka has nothing to do with wars and conflicts between India and Pakistan and you still refused to believe it until other users intervened. Lorstaking (talk) 04:45, 22 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, although there's slightly more to it than what the answer below might suggest, as it is generally a reflection on the paucity of the argument presented (which of course is why it is such a poor example in the first place, as that was in response to a forensic dissection of the candidate's suitability, rather than a blind misstatement as is the case here). Happy editing, everyone! —SerialNumber54129 paranoia /cheap sh*t room 18:18, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Kashmiri: I am not Serial Number 54129, so could not answer for sure, but editors do occasionally support/oppose based on the opposing (as in opposite to their) !votes. An example of this was BU Rob13's !vote on my RfA (support #39). --TheSandDoctor Talk 17:52, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support no concerns. --TheSandDoctor Talk 17:52, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – Ivanvector has the experience, competency, & integrity required for the handling of CU. And he is not afraid to handle highly volatile & problematic areas for the overall betterment of the project. - NitinMlk (talk) 21:50, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Ivanvector with the CU tool would transform the entire SPI process. Experienced, civil and hard-working. He has helped with his experience in fighting socking in difficult areas such as the Balkans and the Middle East. Ktrimi991 (talk) 23:35, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support experienced admin who looks at the bigger picture. Son of Kolachi (talk) 05:52, 24 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. It surprises me to see this application from Ivanvector here because of the kind of stunts he's been pulling of late. His conduct in recent months has been totally appalling. As per my reading of the oppose comments above and my personal observation: he has a) frequently feuded with a number of editors, b) acquitted (or attempted to acquit) long term abusers such as NadirAli and Nauriya by engaging in falsification of facts, and proxy abusing socks like StLouis2, c) protected pages and acted as an SPI admin clerk where he's WP:INVOLVED, d) frequently engaged in WP:NPA by casting aspersions on fellow editors (for example, as mentioned by User:Desmay, calling User:DBigXray an "obvious meatpuppet" without even a shred of evidence[61]). All of this has happened before this appointment process began. These are significant misconduct issues, and make me believe that this candidate cannot be trusted with a permission like CheckUser at all. Finally, their own comments here gives the impression that they are far from having a fair understanding about policies such as clean start and wheel warring. Bharatiya29 18:25, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as entirely trustworthy. The opposing comments look to me like grudges that happen when an admin has been around long enough. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:02, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: IvanVector has the necessary expertise and, as Son of Kolachi points out, the "bigger picture" view that is critical to the CU role. I think they would make an excellent CU. Waggie (talk) 03:21, 26 September 2018 (UTC)*Support RHcosm (talk) 09:40, 27 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: IvanVector as a CU would be very helpful to the project so this should be a no-brainer. --regentspark (comment) 11:48, 27 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per everyone above - No concerns here, Trusted and competent. –Davey2010Talk 21:00, 28 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

SQL (CU)

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SQL (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Nomination statement
Hi, I’m SQL. I’ve been an Administrator since 2007, and I am applying for Checkuser. I’m the developer of tools such as ISP Rangefinder, IPCheck, IPRange, and the original developer behind ACC, as well as an early usercompare tool on the old toolserver.
I am a regular at CAT:RFU, UTRS, and one of the primary patrolling admins at WP:OPP. I would primarily use the tool at UTRS, and in reviewing unblocks on-wiki.
Standard questions for all candidates
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  1. Please describe any relevant on-Wiki experience you have for this role.
    In addition to the tools I've written mentioned above, I'm probably the most active admin at WP:OPP, and have a lot of experience testing / blocking proxies / webhosts. I'm also active at UTRS, and in reviewing unblocks on-wiki.
  2. Please outline, without breaching your personal privacy, what off-Wiki experience or technical expertise you have for this role.
    In the past I've worked in varying tiers doing cable internet tech support, as well as NOC / internal support.
  3. Do you hold advanced permissions (checkuser, oversight, bureaucrat, steward) on this or other WMF projects? If so, please list them. Also, do you have OTRS permissions? If so, to which queues?
    No
Questions for this candidate
[edit]
Comments
[edit]
Comments may also be submitted to the Arbitration Committee privately by emailing arbcom-en-c@lists.wikimedia.org. Please note that the candidate will be provided the opportunity to respond to a paraphrased version of any emailed comments; the sender's name will not be provided.

Stwalkerster (CU)

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Stwalkerster (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Nomination statement
I would like to respectfully nominate myself for an open CheckUser position. I've been an admin for a decade, and while I'm not active around SPI itself, I have been involved in a few recent sockpuppetry cases (Imeghana17, Realmissvoodoo), and I am fairly active around ACC (since around June 2007), and I'm also on IRC. I am acutely aware that the CheckUser queue within the ACC tool has been fairly backlogged for quite some time, and there are simply not enough CheckUsers who look in on ACC. As a software developer, I have the technical background necessary to use the CU tool, and as one of the primary developers of the ACC tool, I'm also acutely aware of the privacy policy and both what it requires and what is generally good practice in addition.
Standard questions for all candidates
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  1. Please describe any relevant on-Wiki experience you have for this role.
    I have been the primary developer of the WP:ACC tool for many years (after taking over from SQL), and involved with ACC before the current tool was originally written. I've also been an admin here for a decade.
  2. Please outline, without breaching your personal privacy, what off-Wiki experience or technical expertise you have for this role.
    I'm a software developer by trade, having done a fair amount of network-capable application development. As such, I'm familiar with the HTTP protocol and the various headers which come with it including User-Agent and X-Forwarded-For. I'm also familiar with IP addressing, CIDR prefixes, etc as a result of sysadmin work I've done.
  3. Do you hold advanced permissions (checkuser, oversight, bureaucrat, steward) on this or other WMF projects? If so, please list them. Also, do you have OTRS permissions? If so, to which queues?
    I do not hold advanced permissions anywhere of note (On testwiki I hold +crat). I do not currently have access to OTRS; I formerly had access to info-en a number of years ago.
Questions for this candidate
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  • You're not someone I'm familiar with, so I did a little digging. From what I can tell, your main work is ensuring that BLPs always have a source confirming their death. So I'm a little confused as to what you need checkuser for? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:42, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    You are correct that most of my recent on-wiki edits are in that area, it's something I set up an recent changes monitoring tool for. However, this is not my main work; as I mentioned above, I'm mostly involved with the WP:ACC tool. Unfortunately, due to the sensitive nature of the data in the tool, the logs of activity within the tool are restricted to tool users only, so I understand how you may not be able to see the activity there.
    In case you are unaware, we get a significant number of account requests from users who are blocked (mostly thanks to the standard block templates redirecting users to ACC), and in cases where there is a possibility that the intended target of a more serious IP-based block is requesting the account, or where an IP-based block is marked as a checkuser block, those requests must be handled by a checkuser. There are currently only 2-3 checkusers who occasionally look in on the ACC tool, and as such backlogs of requests which need checkuser attention grow and sit for weeks or months. Currently, there are 152 of these requests in waiting input from a checkuser, the oldest of which has been open for around four weeks. The ACC tool does need more active checkusers, and given my familiarity with the ACC process and technical knowledge, it makes sense for me to step up and tackle (and attempt to stay on top of) a backlog which needs attention. stwalkerster (talk) 16:53, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • You have made 406 edits since October 2012 till March 2018 as per this including 52 edits last year in 2017.Where you active in the WP:ACC or in other areas during this period ?Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 20:38, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    I was fairly inactive from October 2012 through early 2016 due to other commitments at the time. I did remain semi-active doing development work for ACC during that time, but it was from early 2016 onwards, my activity has risen again, again centred around ACC both from a request handling perspective and a development/administration perspective. stwalkerster (talk) 20:04, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
[edit]
Comments may also be submitted to the Arbitration Committee privately by emailing arbcom-en-c@lists.wikimedia.org. Please note that the candidate will be provided the opportunity to respond to a paraphrased version of any emailed comments; the sender's name will not be provided.
  • @Serial Number 54129: I normally try and keep my head out of what i'm going to be voting on in the near future, but I need to clear up some factual inaccuracies. His 100 ACC actions dates back only to 2018-08-15. Their last 500 ACC actions dates back to 2018-05-17. The candidate may be to humble to mention the activity there. Since we have 198 current CU requests sitting at ACC, spanning back to 2018-08-22, and I've gone back to school, I'd like to get any help I can. They have sufficient recent experience in the area where it is most needed. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 22:36, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

TonyBallioni (CU)

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TonyBallioni (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Nomination statement
Hi, I'm Tony. I've been an admin for about a year now, and I'm applying for CheckUser because I think I have experience in several areas that would be beneficial to the CheckUser team. In terms of how this tool would be useful to me: I have pretty broad experience with SPI, COIN/UPE work, UTRS, and several LTAs where SPI doesn't work as well so it requires private coordination with CheckUsers. I'm also involved across the Wikimedia movement as a global renamer, and in the past, I have worked pretty closely with sysops, CheckUsers, and stewards from other projects to combat cross-wiki socking and LTAs from various language groups, and having the CheckUser tool would be helpful in dealing with cross-wiki issues on large a project that many en.wiki users aren't as familiar with.
In terms of what I bring to the table: I've been one of the more active admins at SPI in the last year, and I am behaviorally familiar with many UPE farms and LTAs, and because of my work at COIN, I also am aware of the privacy guidelines in many of these difficult cases and am familiar with the guidelines for when running a CheckUser would be appropriate. I'm familiar with range blocks and with VPNs/open proxies, and feel I would be competent to operate the technical aspects of the CheckUser tool and would be able to learn anything that I'm not initially familiar with.
Standard questions for all candidates
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  1. Please describe any relevant on-Wiki experience you have for this role.
    As I noted in my nomination, I've been pretty active at SPI in the past year, and I typically handle a wide variety of cases there: from the undeclared paid editing farms to you more conventional vandals and POV-pushers. I also have experience dealing with several LTA cases where it's normal just to go to a CheckUser directly or block if it is a DUCK case. One of the other areas I hope to work in if appointed a CheckUser is unblocks and in particular UTRS. I'm fairly active in the UTRS system, and there can often be a delay in processing those CU requests. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:39, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Please outline, without breaching your personal privacy, what off-Wiki experience or technical expertise you have for this role.
    My background is in a sales-related industry which is part of the reason that I've been so involved in working on undeclared paid advertising front: I'm normally good at spotting it and also pretty good at telling when something is more of a good faith fan of something than an advertiser. Because there are a lot of these types of cases at SPI/WP:COIN and being handled by individual CheckUsers, I think this experience would be an asset to the CheckUser team from a behavioral standpoint. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:39, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Do you hold advanced permissions (checkuser, oversight, bureaucrat, steward) on this or other WMF projects? If so, please list them. Also, do you have OTRS permissions? If so, to which queues?
    I'm a global renamer and also an OTRS member. I'm less active on OTRS than I used to be, but I have access to info-en and several of its subfeeds, including the quality one, as well as the permissions feed. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:39, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Questions for this candidate
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  • CheckUsers are often requested to cooperate with CheckUsers from other wikis as well as with stewards. While understandably you were upset over being accidentally blocked for being a spambot on nlwikiquote, you asked him to resign and threatened to get WMF involved. Later, you gave a reply to a steward that was in my opinion, dismissive and confrontational. Do you think this will affect your ability to collaborate with CheckUsers from other wikis or stewards, even those you disagree with? --Rschen7754 04:04, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hi, Rschen7754, I was actually was anticipating this question, and I'm happy to have the opportunity to address it. First, re: Whaledad, I was particularly mad there as it was apparent that he had blocked without even looking on the user page, he had issued no notification, and had cut off all avenues of appeal. For those who aren't aware, a global renamer being blocked on a project has the potential to cause technical glitches, and when I'd looked at his block log, this appeared to be the norm for him for other accounts, and I considered that not to be appropriate as an admin on a Wikimedia project. I discussed it with Trijnstel, who a steward who is a native Dutch speaker, and without revealing too much of our conversation, she told me that I should raise the issue with the Dutch ArbCom, I did. They disagreed and said some of the things that I had been told were true were not: I'm not a Dutch speaker and am not involved with the issues on that Wiki, so I was just glad they heard me. I've moved on: the local process played out, and I'm respectful of it.
      Re Matiia: while I 100% agree with you that many en users give a bad taste to others, I think it's also important to note that the respect needs to go both ways. I've had interactions with him in the past that caused me to read that statement as him trying to influence a local process on a project I have personally gotten the impression he isn't that fond of and without knowing many of the reasons why we do it the way we do. I don't think that is appropriate for a steward, especially at a discussion that is supposed to be about individual suitability for the role, which is why I spoke up. Looking back, I should have waited and commented more on these issues at the steward confirmations, because my commenting further distracted the discussion from being about 331dot and also wasn't fair to Matiia since he was honestly speaking his mind, and it shouldn't have been a forum where he might have had to be on the defense.
      As a whole, I think I have pretty good relations with the steward team. I have worked very closely with Alaa in the past on multiple cross-wiki socking issues between en.wiki and ar.wiki and helping with that is one of the areas that I do hope to further contribute. Speaking on a personal level, he's probably the single Wikimedian I trust most on any project, and I wish more admins on this project had stronger ties with users in other language groups, because I think it would be very enriching to the entire movement.
      I consider myself part of the global Wikimedia movement, and am very proud of my place in it, and am very respectful of the difference between different projects, having friends on many different home wikis. As a member of that global community, I will raise my voice when I have a concern, and I can be blunt when I think there is an issue, sometimes to a fault, but in the end, we are all here with the same goal in mind, and working for more interproject cooperation is a necessity and I strive for it whenever possible and would do the same as a CU, and to answer more directly your question: I'm willing to work with anyone to better any project, even if I disagree with them very strongly. I'm sorry to you and to others for the long reply, but I wanted to address it thoroughly because this is something that I care quite a lot about and I think it deserved a full explanation. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:15, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Tony, you only succeeded your RfA last year, why did you apply for CU now? Hhkohh (talk) 05:10, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'd been encouraged by several users I respect to put my name forward. I also feel that I'm familiar enough with a lot of the sock farms and LTAs that we deal with regularly that I could be net-positive to the CU team. TonyBallioni (talk) 05:16, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do you have any comments as to your handling of this SPI? That, several users have perceived (and commented) that post-RFA, you've increasingly shifted to an authoritarian attitude (something I do not concur with) , do you believe that such a feeling in the community coupled with incidents like this might adversely affect the confidence of the community in your actions, executed in the garb of a CU/functionary? On a side-note, from my reminisces of his now-deleted user-page and other activities including editing-similarities, I think the duck-call was within the upper margin of discretion.∯WBGconverse 15:14, 21 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Winged Blades of Godric, thanks for the question. In regards to that incident, it was almost a year ago and was when I was new to patrolling SPI. I did not see enough to block on behavior alone, and administrators are responsible and accountable for their blocks as individuals, even if acting on the advice of an SPI clerk. Admins can and do regularly close SPIs without CU or clerk input, and in this case, I didn’t block because I didn’t see it and I try to be conservative when acting at SPI. I should have talked to the clerk in question first rather than closing unilaterally. I misunderstood the process at the time, but I don’t think I’ve ever done that again.
      Re: the authoritarian bit, I’ll admit the statements have me taken aback a bit: I’ve always been willing to make difficult blocks, but I’m also equally willing to put them up for community review and discuss it with anyone who thinks I’m wrong: I have always held strong opinions and been willing to express them, this was discussed pretty heavily at my RfA, but I am always open to other views and I think any examination of my record here shows that finding compromises and working solutions to problems on this project is my preference compared to enforcing my view of what should happen. Needless to say, if this many people perceive me in this way, then they all can’t be wrong, and I do need to take that into account and change my approach. In terms of community confidence, if I were still appointed I would do my best to show to those who opposed this that I am not the person they fear I am. My talk page is always open, now and in the future, for anyone to raise issues with me, either general or specific, and I will strive to address them. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:06, 22 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • You were vehemently coercing and threatening someone to resign from CheckUser here just because he blocked you by mistake in a project you never edited before then (although no single evidence of CheckUser abuse was presented). Now, how do you think of your behavior on that page? –Ammarpad (talk) 16:41, 21 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ammarpad, I think I was too forceful then, but I also think there were a lot of issues with that block and the circumstances surrounding it that caused me to be that way: it was made on a wiki that had no functioning process for reviewing whether admin actions were compatible with community trust and where the user in question was for the most part the only active admin, and a quick review of his block log showed that he regularly appears to block no edit accounts without notice and with talk page access and email access disabled: I found that practice objectionable because I think it is counter to the aims of WMF wikis, and yes, I got mad about it because it bothers me when people who hold advanced permissions do it in a way that has the potential to harm people who can’t speak up because they don’t understand our processes. The block was actually discovered by a nl.wp ArbCom member, before he was appointed a CheckUser, and seeing the appointment really concerned me because having looked at the block logs on nl.wikiquote, I did think there was a chance that he would overuse the new tool, even on users from other projects who have just one logged action on a Dutch project.
      That isn’t a justification for my being so forceful, but it does explain my state of mind and how I was thinking. As to how I view my conduct now, I should have either dropped the issue completely after being unblocked or just politely raised the concerns that similar blocks could also effect other good faith users from other projects in the future. It would have made the same point, and possibly actually had some impact rather than turning someone off. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:06, 22 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
[edit]
Comments may also be submitted to the Arbitration Committee privately by emailing arbcom-en-c@lists.wikimedia.org. Please note that the candidate will be provided the opportunity to respond to a paraphrased version of any emailed comments; the sender's name will not be provided.
  • Support – TonyBallioni is one of those administrators whose judgment I trust instinctively. Although he is not always right (no one is always right), what he has to say will always make you think very carefully about your own position on the matter. As for the checkuser tool specifically, Tony would be a clear net positive. He's got a really good eye for the behavior patterns of a number of our LTAs, he can almost always be found in the IRC channel #wikipedia-en-admins, and he has a broad range of experience as an administrator at SPI. Finally, TonyBallioni is one of the most personable administrators I've had the pleasure to interact with on Wikipedia. I think the checkuser team will find that he'll be one of their most cherished colleagues. Mz7 (talk) 01:24, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I have had several interactions with Tony on a number of different issues. I haven't always agreed with him, but I have always found him reasonable and collaborative. Also, his knowledge of policy is as good as that of anyone I know. No hesitation here: if he's willing to do some of the messiest but most necessary work on Wikipedia, let him have at it. Vanamonde (talk) 04:21, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – While I would have perhaps preferred Tony to run for the arbcom, given his wide contributions and the perceivable trust the community holds in him, this is a bit that, given to him, would benefit the project significantly. Lourdes 11:21, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - I've interacted with Tony in many project areas including SPI, and have always found him to be insightful and careful, but always willing to tackle difficult situations. No concerns. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 12:22, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support — Not a jerk, has a clue — pythoncoder  (talk | contribs) 12:27, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Although Tony is a young admin, but I am confident that Tony will not abuse this tool Hhkohh (talk) 12:31, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(The young and excited Tony is doing good things to you, is he? Well, I'm mad now; he's never offered to do these good things to me. Lourdes 05:29, 20 September 2018 (UTC))[reply]
  • Oppose Tony has performed a number of blocks that I found to be quite bad, jumped into AE quickly after saying he was not interested in working there, and has caused at least one long standing contributor to leave the project. Mr Ernie (talk) 12:38, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mr Ernie can correct me if I am wrong, but in regards to AE, I think they are probably referring to DHeyward ([62]). Alex Shih (talk) 14:51, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • (edit conflict) Vanamonde, he's likely referring to one of my first AE actions regarding DHeyward. I'll be the first to admit that it was a mistake. I was a new admins who was trying to contain the disruption surrounding the Roy Moore issue last year. For those who aren't familiar, it was concerning a US political candidate who there were allegations of personal relationships with minors. I tried for a very narrowly construed topic ban as to allow a good content contributor more reign. What I saw as an obvious TBAN violation they did not, it went to AN on appeal, where it was upheld, but it went to ARCA, and after feedback from arbs I withdrew it. You can see it at WP:AELOG/2018 if you want background. In all honesty, it was one of the more enlightening moments of my time as an admin: I saw the negative impacts it had, how divisive it was, and how things that are clear to one person are not always clear to others. Tl;dr, it made me realize how powerful TBANs were and I'm generally reluctant to use them now unless absolutely necessary.
    I think if you look at AELOG, the only other TBAN I have placed since was on Andrevan, and that was updating the previous one from a Trump ban that another admin had placed to a standard AP2 ban in part because I felt it was unclear and that it would be easier for him not to cross the line on it going forward. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:54, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I see, thanks for the links. I do remember this sanction, I did not realise DHeyward retired afterwards. I haven't investigated the circumstances in detail, but given that Tony himself is saying it was a mistake, this isn't going to change my opinion. Vanamonde (talk) 15:02, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • No problem. By the way, Mr Ernie, which were the blocks that you found to be "quite bad"? Although I am not aware of any bad blocks made by the candidate, I think this is an important point; CheckUsers will be making many controversial blocks that cannot be overturned easily, so any relevant history in regards to blocks will be a good point of reference. Alex Shih (talk) 20:49, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: Now, I am certain TonyBallioni will receive both CU and OS, as they are fully qualified in terms of temperament, skillset and experience; under normal circumstances I would see no reason to oppose; however, with the feeling that community feedback receives relatively few weight when it comes to the final decision, I would like to voice my dissent based on two minor concerns that are more philosophical than practical.
    I also find the candidate's comment at Meta to be dismissive and confrontational; and I find the explanation here to be less than satisfactory: telling Matiia, who raised a legitimate concern, that they should probably not comment on the processes for a project that they aren't familiar with, because of your own established opinion towards their suitability as steward not completely relating to the request, does not exactly reflect the sentiment of being part of the global Wikimedia movement, in my opinion. This is not about whether or not one usually works well with the steward team; to me this is more about how this very example can be reflective on what enwiki administrators probably should not do when interacting with editors from other projects, for the very reasons that have already been stated.
    Moving on to the second concern: I don't really have any problem with an candidate saying that they are not interested in working at AE, and then become one of the more active administrators working in that area. Our interests can change, and that is perfectly fine and should be applauded. What I am slightly concerned about is the incremental shift in mindset from the candidate ever since they became an administrator in October 2017. Perhaps this is the natural consequence of being one of the more active administrators overall for the past year, but I find the increasing amount of bureaucratic tone of voice to be counter-productive; the functionaries team needs to be better connected with the community, and I don't see the need for another member that could be perceived as authoritative and inflexible. TL;DR: My main fear is that the candidate would step further away from the community if they become a member of the functionaries team, based on my observation on the pattern of their adminship and subsequent work. Alex Shih (talk) 13:50, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(An absolutely honest and model feedback, which should probably be benchmarked. Lourdes 15:47, 18 September 2018 (UTC))[reply]
  • Support I have worked with Tony in a number of areas, not least putting forward some very successful RfA candidates, and I was particularly impressed at the tact and diplomacy he showed when managing Elisa.rolle, who has been blocked several times (since indefinitely and retired). The reasons for the block were backed up with policy, but ultimately this was a good faith editor who tried her best to write and improve the encyclopedia. Tony withstood the yelling from all sides and held his cool, and he was reasonable to consider a shortening of the block. I am confident I will be able to review CU blocks in the same amicable manner. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:22, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Generally competent with a reasonable understanding of the tool - nothing which can't be learnt, and Tony has proven able to pick up a new role and roll with it. He's also the type to stop, think, and ask questions before diving in and hoping for the best TNTPublic (talk) 17:39, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose—Evidence of victim-blaming and supporting corrupt admin behaviour makes this a foolhardy proposition. Tony (talk) 01:06, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Trusted admin with excellent judgment. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:52, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Ah yes, the old "supporting corrupt admin behaviour": well, since apparently I do that too it makes sense I would support him. Also, Tony has clue and technical skill. Now, as for the other stuff--I am not impressed by the Meta comments but it's funny how frequently and easily those cultures clash. The conversation with Whaledad, yeah, I think Alex Shih has a point when he says that Tony sometimes stands on his stripes, as the Dutch would say, but it's worth noting that it was indeed a ridiculous block, and Tony wasn't the only one criticizing that admin. Drmies (talk) 02:03, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support This one is a close call as Tony has made some mistakes in interactions with other wikis, but I don't think it's anything that can't be overcome, and somewhat understandable since he was blocked, after all; furthermore something should be said for the candidate's willingness to go onto other wikis at all. Overall I think it would be a net positive. However, I would caution Tony to tread even more carefully in this regard should they be appointed, since functionaries do often impact other wikis' perception of the English Wikipedia. --Rschen7754 04:40, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support-Per Tony1.∯WBGconverse 13:18, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Would be useful. Vermont (talk) 16:20, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per Drmies and Ritchie333 and over 7100 admin actions in over 1 year.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 16:57, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I respect TonyBallioni, but I think Alex Shih put it into words well at the end of the second part of his comment. He's become more authoritarian than I'm comfortable with. Natureium (talk) 17:16, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per partisan behavior on divise threads at the dramaboards. That's ok for an admin, but for advanced permissions someone more neutral is better. --Pudeo (talk) 17:59, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is the only one I really wish to address other than the one above since there were links asked for: I think the only blocks I have made that could be anywhere close to "partisan" are that I have blocked holocaust deniers and actual Nazis (and I think this has been my only interaction with you there.) These have all been endorsed by the community or other admins on review, and I don't think that it is bad thing for a functionary to take a strong stance against neo-Nazism. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:44, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • I don't know what Pudeo is alluding to; but if your reference is right, he may be referring to your unilateral and 'partisan' (as said by Pudeo) blocking of the editor while community discussion was going on at ANI, a discussion in which you had already participated. Do note that while I opposed your action initially, I later realized you were probably right in your actions. Perhaps Pudeo can fill in on this issue if they desire. Lourdes 05:43, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • Fine if you wouldn't use CU tools on "suspected Nazis" in a more lax way disregarding due process because of your moral highground and strong stance. Yeah, neo-Nazis exist (IIRC there's one prominent Stormfront neo-Nazi who has done LTA sockpuppeting), but at times it seems like a McCarthyist hunt with people going back to see edits from 2011 for possible sympathies, or indeffing users who've had "Kek" in their username since they registered in 2015. Let's just say that there are more calm and objective ways to oppose extremists, and then there are more frantic and activist ways to do that. --Pudeo (talk) 13:55, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
        • @Pudeo: Of course I wouldn’t use the CU tool based on that unless there was actual reason to believe socking existed. That would be a strong violation of the privacy policy and arguably the local CheckUser policy depending on the circumstances. Re: the 2011 edits, I don’t think I’ve ever looked that far back when making a block for anything. I also wouldn’t block for “Kek” unless there was other evidence the user was being disruptive as that can have a few meanings (I also generally oppose username policy blocks unless it is 100% clear that the user is acting disruptively.) A user simply being disruptive is not grounds for a CheckUser to be run unless there is reason to suspect abuse of multiple accounts. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:17, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I respect TonyBallioni both as an editor and as an admin. I have learned from him. What I have not seen is the friendly user that was described at his RfA. Instead I have seen a well versed, thoughtful, active admin and editor who seems convinced enough of the correctness of their opinions that he can sometimes lack the humility and openness to other points of view I would hope to see from a Checkuser member of the functionaries team. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:27, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Alex, and my own uneasiness about attitude post RFA. -- Begoon 23:13, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose — Per Alex Shih's concerns about Tony's seemingly authoritarian attitude.
    Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 09:09, 20 September 2018 (UTC); edited 09:10, 20 September 2018 (UTC).[reply]
  • Oppose - Needs more time as an administrator. Shows signs of being too aggressive for the advanced tools. Carrite (talk) 17:16, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: Seems to be obsessed with power and authority vaunting. Second, no known clear evidence of on-wiki technical competence neither off-wiki as evidenced by answer to question number two. Activities at AE (where they declared they'd no interest while in RfA) and UPE made him to develop over suspicion habit, which then coupled with his apparent overconfidence may lead to big errors slipping under the radar due to CU privilege. There's likelihood of CheckUser actions leading to avoidable harm to the project in an attempt to reduce harm by a candidate like this. –Ammarpad (talk) 18:40, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • To be fair, as to Trung, I didn't see where he had any misplaced overconfidence.He was supported by Arjaddatz (a quite respected steward), SA13Bro et al and that Trung was blocked for those very reasons, the entire following episode is weird.And, he immediately backed down once the role of ElectCom was pointed out. The outcome reverse-drama thay followed, in the thread, has got more to do with the fact that most of their bureaucrats and authority-figures have an immense liking for political correctness and a lack of common sense.Post reply addition:--And, that it is often a free-zone for those who have been shown the door from en-wiki. ∯WBGconverse 05:22, 22 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • My friend. You don't see it, doesn't mean it's not there. Arjaddatz, as a Steward and long term Meta-Wiki user has greater moral, technical and authoritative responsibility to remove the comment, ask yourself why he didn't?, is it that he was afraid or was he being naive?. Why no one else but someone who later confessed that he'd overacted and he was newbie to Meta?. You then claim "he immediately backed down" after he was lectured about ElectCom. I see that, what else can he do? In this SPI, there's another example of both overconfidence and know-it-all comportment which deals directly with CheckUser and he has also backed down after proven wrong manifestly. Consistently exhibiting poor attitude and then apologizing after proven wrong is not a quality I want in a functionary. As a matter of fact, in that case, had it been TonyBallioni were a CheckUser at the time, then Vanjagenije wouldn't have been able to contest the close and that means those socks (clear harm to Wikipedia) wouldn't have been blocked and would've been here with us. This further substantiate what I said in my earlier comment "there's likelihood of CheckUser actions leading to avoidable harm to the project in an attempt to reduce harm by a candidate like this."
  • Also your comment will have been better without the veiled insult to Meta "authority-figures" and bureaucrats, we are not discussing them here. –Ammarpad (talk) 07:43, 22 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I will leave a note that my entire point, in the above note, was solely w.r.t to the meta-incident and I did not find his behavior to be any problematic. But, obviously perceptions can vary:-) That I was the first user to invoke Binamra's SPI over here, I am obviously not much pleased as to that particular case.∯WBGconverse 08:05, 22 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Really? I am baffled to see this from you Rschen7754. Existing of bad sitting functionaries on Meta is not justification to have one on English Wikipedia. Follow the right process to remove those "bad functionaries" there on Meta and let's not start even having them here on English Wikipedia else we end up like Meta (in your thought). Hopefully, now on EnWiki, we don't have any bad functionary, so let's not give room to be used as an example like the way you're using Meta now. –Ammarpad (talk) 07:43, 22 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Doesn't change much and my comment still stands. Follow the right process to remove/sanction those "English Wikipedia functionaries behaving badly on Meta" but don't use their perceived (subpar)behavior and justify adding someone who'll go on Meta and elsewhere and be threatening their functionaries with "I will seek your removal as an office action if need be" even though the user being threatened didn't abuse his CheckUser tools. In a saner climes, when we've something bad we try to reduce/mitigate it not add to make it worse. –Ammarpad (talk) 08:17, 22 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I’ll reply to this one because I think I can clarify my intent (not arguing, just shedding light): it appeared that there was a rough consensus to remove the Trung comments. Since it looked like there was, I acted upon it, not knowing about ElectCom because that was when I was new to meta. I reverted once it was clear people had issues with it. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:22, 22 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Terribly self-important, generally unpleasant know-it-all approach. Still wet behind the ears as an admin, yet quickly trying to collect all possible hats. Plus what Alex Shih writes above. Widr (talk) 19:39, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose basically per Mr. Ernie. I am aware of at least one bad block, and there have potentially been others based on comments above. In regard to temperament: Administrators are not community managers but rather community janitors; they do not direct the community but rather cleanup things as directed by the community. I think TonyBalloni would do well to remember that. That aside, I have a good working relationship with them but I feel it is due to much more compromise from my side than theirs. — Godsy (TALKCONT) 20:19, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per the opposers above regarding the authoritarian attitude, proven by their recent comment on my talk page unnecessarily stating they'd "have no problem blocking" me despite me not doing anything to deserve such comment. I don't trust their judgment and think they would misuse the tools if given advanced permissions. Flooded with them hundreds 20:22, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose [63] really does not inspire confidence in me. Unrelatedly, "For those who aren't aware, a global renamer being blocked on a project has the potential to cause technical glitches" isn't true AFAIK. Legoktm (talk) 07:19, 21 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Although some here are calling Tony "overconfident" or "authoritarian", my experience has been that he is a considerate guy who is willing to admit publicly on a noticeboard with tons of views that he was wrong and change positions after giving the concerns others had raised with him some thought. Sadly, this is really rare on wiki, and to me it speaks to the quality of his character as a contributor to the project. As for his other qualifications, I don't think they can be disputed.--Calthinus (talk) 20:54, 21 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - I've waiting to see if any legitimate issues would be brought up. None have, which is why I find it so unfortunate that Alex, who somehow thinks that his word doesn't carry weight, decided to explore his minor, "philosophical" concerns by opposing a candidate he felt was impeccably qualified, because some of his qualifiers such as "bureaucratic" or "authoritative and inflexible" have snowballed into a hard pile-on against Tony, including plenty of lovely, unsubstantiated accusations such as "supporting corrupt admin behaviour", "authoritarian", "partisan behavior", "attitude", "too aggressive", "obsessed with power and authority vaunting", "overconfidence", "self-important, generally unpleasant know-it-all approach", "trying to collect all possible hats", "authoritarian attitude", "think they would misuse the tools". Wow. Good show, everyone. I mean, look at all those diffs! That's a clear pattern of disruptive behavior, very conclusive and overwhelming, such strong evidence to support such strong accusations. Definitely not just a bunch of aspersions. Oh, and how nice that Flooded with them hundreds is ignoring Tony's perfectly reasonable clarification as to what he meant, and refuses to strike their misrepresentation of a comment they interpreted the wrong way. That's really special. /s I work alongside Tony on a regular basis, and the pile-on that's going on is not remotely a justified or accurate assessment of what kind of administrator Tony is. Tony is, though and through, a perfectly friendly and reasonable person, and a competent administrator with good judgment, who thoroughly helps the project and does his job well. He does not remotely deserve this level of personal attacks against his character. (Swarm ♠ talk) 06:12, 22 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, I thought the way I did before Alex posted anything. I mentioned his comment only because I didn't know how best to state what I was thinking in a way that doesn't sound like "I just don't like him", because that isn't the case at all. Natureium (talk) 16:33, 22 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I'm exceedingly disappointed with the tone of this discussion as well. I've interacted with Tony many times on IRC, and he's a friendly guy who is clearly here for the right reasons. When I asked him a few weeks ago whether he was going to go for checkuser, he said he wasn't really sure and was leaning against it. I was one of the users who pushed him towards getting it because I genuinely believe he would be a great help to Wikipedia with the tool. This is not at all a case of a young admin going power hungry, trying to collect all the hats. It's true that he is outspoken about his views when he thinks something isn't going right, but the Tony I'm familiar with does read your concerns and factors them into his thinking. Just the other day, at WT:INTADMIN, he asked me why I had re-opened a discusison I had closed, stating he was confused. After I replied with my reasoning, he responded in an open-minded manner. Mz7 (talk) 19:31, 22 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well put Swarm - shit like this from people like Alex makes me wonder why I bother here. The pile-on bullshit is just the icing on the "what is wrong with Wikipedia" cake - TNT 💖 20:34, 22 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
There'sNoTime, you might want to re-consider your personal attack here. I offered an constructive opinion, and there is no basis for "shit like this from people like Alex". Alex Shih (talk) 22:40, 22 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Alex Shih: I apologise if you took that as a personal attack - it isn't one. Perhaps now would be a good time to stop taking yourself so fucking seriously? - TNT 💖 22:45, 22 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@There'sNoTime: I know that you and I are both frustrated that this isn’t going how we thought it would, but out of respect for Tony, I would suggest we tone this down. It is true that Tony is outspoken, and I guess he does give some editors the impression that he’s unwilling to reconsider his views. Now that he’s aware of this feedback, I’m sure it’ll be something he’ll think about moving forward. As I’ve stated, I don’t fully agree with this picture of Tony, but I would recommend following the path of least drama here. Mz7 (talk) 23:16, 22 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Second that. TNT, I can't picture you ever like what your above comment paints you as (I recall two years ago when I enquired why you hadn't run for the RfA, it was because you were – and are – absolutely calm in your disposition; do please not change that). Most warmly, Lourdes 23:31, 22 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, and now we've got the civility police beating up on TNT, for speaking out against personal attacks and aspersions, while ignoring said personal attacks and aspersions immediately above. Great work, guys! (Swarm ♠ talk) 01:47, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It's nothing like that Swarm. Both Mz7 and I support Tony's candidacy. If you believe Alex's statement is a personal attack on Tony, and everyone commenting here should subscribe to that viewpoint or be trouted, it's a narrow viewpoint that you should reconsider. Thanks, Lourdes 07:21, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Swarm: You claim that I made "lovely" and "unsubstantiated accusations." That's not true. 1. I don't consider them lovely, rather bitter. Truth is always bitter and hard to say; that's why some who tried to say it and at the same time want remain politically correct ended up with more than what they bargained for. 2. They are not unsubstantiated; they're. What I said is evident and further shown with extant diffs and I am not the only one who believe these diffs count for that. –Ammarpad (talk) 14:15, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I doubt that Tony would abuse CU and see its addition to his proverbial toolset as a benefit to the project. --TheSandDoctor Talk 04:26, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support-∯WBGconverse 08:15, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per There'sNoTime and the opposes generally. —SerialNumber54129 paranoia /cheap sh*t room 11:21, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Undecided. I somehow don't see much difference between "blocked by bot" and "blocked by TonyBallioni". It's as if a tank was rolling. Whereas I will always crave for human bureaucrats who are willing to read discussions and carefully balance all the opinions. But I am aware that we do not always get what we dream of. Hence, neutral. — kashmīrī TALK 12:27, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I do hold particular reservations about hat-collecting here, but this does not directly affect whether the candidate fits the job description. Instead, I am concerned about the sideways answer to the mandatory question asking about technical expertise. I've been behind the scenes are used a proper CU interface before (one mandatory requirement ought to be the ability to cope with large quantities of browser tabs), and the frontend is easy enough, but if one needs to dig deep, then they out to have some experience in networking matters. Tony does not answer the question, and gives no indication of technical competence. talk to !dave 13:12, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • My name is not dave, if I might shed some light on that: we were asked to answer that question in private to ArbCom, and the public question I read as being about professional background: mine is not technical, and I would never claim it. Re: if I have the skill set: I consider myself to have a decent understanding of networking, IPv4/IPv6, geolocation, ranges, open proxies, and the technical limitations of the CheckUser tool in this regard. I’m comfortable making range blocks and will and have done them when needed in the past. I hope that sheds light on the answer. Sorry it was not meant to be evasive: I’d just answered that bit of the mandatory questions on the questionnaire ArbCom sends out, where it is listed separately than the professional background question. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:28, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
So you think Tony's got a "Terribly self-important, generally unpleasant know-it-all approach" and agree with someone who blocked everyone at my local library for two years. Nice. How on earth did you conclude that Tony was hat-collecting? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:05, 24 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yet another irrelevant commentary on someone else in a topic which has nothing to do with them. Widr is not the subject of this discussion; if you have something against him, might I suggest you handle it elsewhere. Nihlus 15:18, 24 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If you've got a problem with me Nihlus, take it to my talk page, or email, or better still over a pint in a pub. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:15, 24 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Given that your comment was a direct response to mine, my response here was appropriate. Nihlus 20:13, 24 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oshwah (CU)

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Oshwah (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Nomination statement
I am applying for the CheckUser and Oversight permissions to extend my participation with Wikipedia in order to protect the privacy of users and put a stop to disruption. I'll be available to help with processing requests that I see go unanswered on IRC, as well as help with the backlog at SPI and ACC. I've been an administrator for two years, and have been consistently active and available to help with requests as well as urgent matters on IRC and other communication methods. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask and I'll be happy to answer them.
Standard questions for all candidates
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  1. Please describe any relevant on-Wiki experience you have for this role.
    My time has been mostly spent in recent changes patrolling and attempting to mentor and help new users on Wikipedia. I patrol recent changes and revert vandalism, respond to instances of long-term abuse, username violations, blatant sock puppetry, page protection requests, and (occasionally) AFD, AN3, and ANI. I'm also an ACC Tool Administrator on WP:ACC, and assist with processing account creation requests, as well as helping tool users with difficult or complex cases. I'm also an SPI clerk in training with DOrD and should hopefully be finished with the training soon - so far, I feel that it has gone very well and the processes and additional responsibilities that come with being an SPI clerk don't seem very difficult. I'm also highly active on IRC and I respond to requests for assistance and input from other users, and I respond to emergencies such as LTA activity, threats, blocking requests, revision deletion requests, and I make sure that the proper functionaries and channels are notified immediately depending on the issue.
  2. Please outline, without breaching your personal privacy, what off-Wiki experience or technical expertise you have for this role.
    My user page explains the extent of my background in a nutshell - I've grown up around computers and my IT-related experience goes very far back. I performed computer and network administration throughout my youth while in school, and held jobs in IT-related areas ever since. I have a BS in Computer Software Engineering Technology and a Minor in Applied Mathematics. I have extensive IPv4 and IPv6 experience that I actively use during my daily tasks at my current job, including networking, traffic routing, VPN, encryption, and security. I also have basic and advanced certification with Dell SonicWall firewalls and have written packet sniffing, ARP, and ICMP software GUIs and tools completely by myself using C++, Win32, and the WinPcap library.
  3. Do you hold advanced permissions (checkuser, oversight, bureaucrat, steward) on this or other WMF projects? If so, please list them. Also, do you have OTRS permissions? If so, to which queues?
    I am an active ACC tool administrator. I don't have OTRS permissions, but that of course can change no problem if this is an issue.
Questions for this candidate
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  • I guess I'll ask about the elephant in the room. Last year, you applied for both CU and OS, but were not granted the rights. What has changed about your application this year? (A few disclosures: sometimes unsuccessful candidates are not given specifics as to why their application was not successful, sometimes the outcomes of public votes differ from ArbCom appointment processes, and there has been no successful candidate for the exact same rights who has failed a previous ArbCom appointment process).
I believe that I've had time to grow into my role as an Administrator since the last application period. At the time, I was a new Administrator and I believe that this was the reason I was not granted the rights. I believe that since then, I've had time to mature and grow into the role and hence my judgment and use of the tools has more of a track record to be looked into.
I applied for the user rights in order to further my ability to assist with stopping sock puppetry, LTA activity, and disruption to the project. Many CUs were not clerks before they were appointed for the role; I consider it something that helps with overall experience.
Comments
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Comments may also be submitted to the Arbitration Committee privately by emailing arbcom-en-c@lists.wikimedia.org. Please note that the candidate will be provided the opportunity to respond to a paraphrased version of any emailed comments; the sender's name will not be provided.
I think Tony1 may not agree with you ([64])? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 18:01, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Tony1 threatened someone that if they reverted, "it becomes a legal issue". I don't know how anyone can possibly pretend that it wasn't a straightforward legal threat intended to have a chilling effect. As if anyone refers to AN/I as a "legal issue", or that it would be remotely reasonable to assume that's what someone who's threatening "legal issues" is referring to. Right. It's not even thinly veiled! No one just casually throws around a spectre of "legal issues" without understanding the meaning of the words they're using, particularly an old-school Wikipedian who damn well knows better. Of course, when you have 160k edits from 2005, a good admin should obviously understand that the words you say don't mean what they mean! 𝖘𝔴𝔞𝔯𝔪 𝔛 06:01, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ammarpad, oops, forgot to reply to you (don't have this page on my watchlist)! So, here goes nothing:—
  1. As Ritchie333 wasn't talking about any block in particular and his language implied that the problem of Oshwah's blocking attitude spanned to multiple [controversial] blocks, I would like to assume that he meant more than was hence the usage of 'issues'. I apologise if it gave off the wrong impression to you.
  2. While yes, being an SPI clerk is not a prerequisite for being a CU, applying for the bit whilst still training to be an SPI clerk does come off as hasty, to say the least.
Sidenote — If you reply to this message, please ping me, as I am not watching this page.
Regards, SshibumXZ (talk · contribs). 20:01, 21 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - No concerns. They have one of the best temperaments of any Wikipedian I have come across. — Godsy (TALKCONT) 20:21, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Oshwah has been the 9th most active admin since being granted the tools, including 26,085 (re)blocks. Given that, I don't find the few examples of mistaken blocks to be convincing of anything. Being an SPI clerk is not a prerequisite to becoming a CU, so I see starting training as a positive, not a negative. Oshwah is technically competent, trustworthy, and would make good use of the tool, IMO. Simplexity22 (talk) 00:42, 21 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is a tough one. I don't put much stock into the fact that Oshwah was not successful in the last appointments round. (In the interests of disclosure, I did find myself in a similar category in the past, and did eventually serve as a functionary, but I'm not today by choice and am happily not.) Moreover, no editor has failed a previous CUOS appointment round and then run again for the same role as Oshwah has, so we have nothing to compare this candidacy to, and also no official statement as to why Oshwah failed. There is also no formal or informal requirement for SPI clerk training. There have been some successful appointed CUs that did not have it (and there were some not-so-successful ones that did not have it as well and could have really used it, I suppose). It is one of the vehicles where you show experience and rationale for using the tools, and the most relevant vehicle, but just one. As far as the issue about Tony1's block, I have my own theory about it that has not been expressed by others, but I do not think it appropriate to share here.
  • However, requesting both flags the year after, and bypassing some training time which could help in being a better CU, strikes me as a bit hasty. I am concerned that having both CU/OS at once may be too many responsibilities (and unfortunately, learning about the nasty side of Wikimedia) added at once, which might not be so great. So I would suggest granting only one flag at this time. --Rschen7754 05:48, 21 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • I opposed Oshwah last year, and encouraged them to re-apply this year. Last year, Oshwah was a fairly new admin, largely untested, still making some rookie mistakes, still plenty of room for doubt as to whether they'd prove to be a competent admin. In the past year, Oshwah has utterly destroyed that doubt, and has become one of our most prolific, and one of our best, admins. In terms of technical ability, competence, activity level, good judgment, interpersonal skill, help with the backlog, assistance to others, Oshwah has become one of the greatest administrative assets to the project. Oshwah has proven himself to be capable of handling a monumental workload, without the slightest indications that he ever gets stressed out or loses his cool. I find it hard to believe that additional permissions will be too much for him—on the contrary, he seems like exactly the type of person who could handle it. Oshwah is also one of our most prolific vandal fighters, so it seems unrealistic to think that he would be fazed by the "nasty" side of Wikimedia, and is not already regularly exposed to the types of edits and editors he would be dealing with. (Swarm ♠ talk) 05:38, 22 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: A helpful, friendly editor and always willing to help. ‐‐1997kB (talk) 14:43, 22 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as 1997kb said, Oshwah is an extremely helpful and friendly editor/administrator. Through his work with the project, CU would seem to be a natural extension and I see no reason to oppose. --TheSandDoctor Talk 04:27, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. An overall positive experience with the nominee's activity. I sincerely appreciate the time they have dedicated to the project. They seem to get things right 99.99% of time. A few mistakes have happened - and have rightly been brought to light here - but I saw nothing that I could in all honesty call a killer to the nomination. — kashmīrī TALK 12:19, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Now is a good time for Oshwah to step up. talk to !dave 13:02, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per Swarm. Pawnkingthree (talk) 14:49, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - A fine admin. Oshwah is always willing to listen, and to correct themselves on the rare occasion when they do make a mistake – such as the Tony1 gung-ho block. Mr rnddude (talk) 23:25, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support A very polite and experienced admin who is able to solve difficult situations and learn new things. Working with Oshwah is a pleasure. Ktrimi991 (talk) 23:38, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, no concerns. Fish+Karate 13:00, 24 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Great admin, always open to discuss things, super kind and helpful, already involved with SPI, blocking LTAs... don't see why they would abuse the tools, seems like an obvious net positive for me.--SkyGazer 512 Oh no, what did I do this time? 15:42, 24 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I trust Oshwah. Lepricavark (talk) 23:26, 24 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: No concerns about the tool being misused in any way; an excellent candidate. K.e.coffman (talk) 05:35, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I know exactly what Tony1 is talking about, but I'm also seeing someone who learns from mistakes and is very, very dedicated, and I believe can be trusted. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:13, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: Having worked with Oshwah in many areas of the project, it is clear to me that they are strongly motivated to protect Wikipedia and has the clear technical competence to do it extremely well as a CU. They collaborate extremely well with others, even when in disagreement, and clearly have the demeanor and respect for the community to be deserving of the responsibility. When I was working with Oshwah to get started at ACC, Oshwah taught me how critical it is to respect the responsibility being handed to ACCers with the sensitive information handled there. Waggie (talk) 03:11, 26 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. The opposers are unconvincing, Oshwah is probably the only most active admin in the anti-vandalism area and the CU tool may assist him further in dealing with sockpuppets. His SPI traineeship with DoRD is a commendable headstart. Flooded with them hundreds 10:02, 26 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - All respect to the opposers, but I've always found Oshwah to be, if anything, helpful to a fault, but that's a fault that mostly just takes up his own time and patience. I have no doubt he has the required technical expertise. GMGtalk 23:08, 26 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support RHcosm (talk) 09:45, 27 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support would make anti vandal work easy for everyone, really.💵Money💵emoji💵💸 15:25, 27 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Oshwah would make a good CU , but he should be a bit careful with his blocks as pointed out by Ritchie333 especially the one involving Tony1 . Kpgjhpjm 16:53, 28 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Ritchie, Mistakes can and do happen with normal blocking (like the case with Tony and now like the case with the Congress blocking) but I feel with CU there is no room for mistakes and I'm afraid mistakes will happen I guess so regrettably I have to Oppose, We all make mistakes it happens but a lot of care has to be taken with CU, Anyway oppose. –Davey2010Talk 21:47, 28 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Oversight

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The community consultation phase is closed. Katietalk 00:12, 29 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Oshwah (OS)

[edit]

Oshwah (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Nomination statement
I am applying for the CheckUser and Oversight permissions to extend my participation with Wikipedia in order to protect the privacy of users and put a stop to disruption. I'll be available to help with processing requests that I see go unanswered on IRC, as well as help with the backlog at SPI and ACC. I've been an administrator for two years, and have been consistently active and available to help with requests as well as urgent matters on IRC and other communication methods. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask and I'll be happy to answer them.
Standard questions for all candidates
[edit]
  1. Please describe any relevant on-Wiki experience you have for this role.
    Patrolling recent changes for vandalism and disruption often leads me to run across instances of attempted outing as well as information posted by minors about themselves. I'm also occasionally emailed by new users who aren't aware of Oversight and who have accidentally edited while logged out and asking me for assistance in this area. Each of the requests I've submitted for suppression to the Oversight team have all resulted in the revisions being suppressed - including revisions I've run into that were missed. I'm active in the IRC -revdel channel for Wikipedia, and I'm available to assist with suppression requests that come in and during the times where the availability of oversighters is very short.
  2. Please outline, without breaching your personal privacy, what off-Wiki experience or technical expertise you have for this role.
    My current job frequently requires me to handle and process matters and requests that are highly confidential at the corporate level. This includes HR requests and the planning and conducting of employee termination and internal investigations regarding the breach and mishandling of data and terms of use policies by employees, major corporate decisions that are not announced to any employees (such as site closures and the "selling off" of of company assets that affect employees and managers), and the safeguarding and controlling of access to HR and confidential corporate data (electronic employee files, background checks, personal and financial employee and company information, and other classified materials). I take any and all restricted data and its privacy as a top priority as part of my job, and I will reflect the same level of confidentiality and privacy of data on Wikipedia with the same priority.
  3. Do you hold advanced permissions (checkuser, oversight, bureaucrat, steward) on this or other WMF projects? If so, please list them. Also, do you have OTRS permissions? If so, to which queues?
    I am an active ACC tool administrator. I don't have OTRS permissions, but that of course can change no problem if this is an issue.
Questions for this candidate
[edit]
Comments
[edit]
Comments may also be submitted to the Arbitration Committee privately by emailing arbcom-en-c@lists.wikimedia.org. Please note that the candidate will be provided the opportunity to respond to a paraphrased version of any emailed comments; the sender's name will not be provided.

Vanamonde93 (OS)

[edit]

Vanamonde93 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Nomination statement
My primary purpose on Wikipedia has been and will remain content work. I requested the administrator tool set two years as a means of facilitating content work, occasionally for myself, but primarily for other editors. I am requesting Oversight permission in the same spirit. ARBCOM has asked for more people to fill that role: I believe I would be able to do so, and so I am throwing my hat into the ring. As such, I do not particularly want the role; if the community feels others would fill it better, I am quite content. I do not have special qualifications for this position, but I believe I have demonstrated good judgement and an ability to work collaboratively over the last several years. I have very variable working hours, as a result of which I am frequently on-wiki at times when few others are. I am comfortably beyond the age of majority where I live. I have read the policy on access to non-public information and the confidentiality agreement, and will sign the confidentiality agreement if and when I am appointed and before I receive access. Thanks for your consideration.
Standard questions for all candidates
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  1. Please describe any relevant on-Wiki experience you have for this role.
    I have been an administrator for nearly two years now (my RFA was over two years ago; I took a brief break from adminship for off-wiki reasons). During that time I have made regular use of the revdel tool. I also am frequently active between 0400 and 1200 UTC. Aside from that, I do not have any special qualifications, but I believe I have demonstrated the judgement necessary to fill this role appropriately.
  2. Please outline, without breaching your personal privacy, what off-Wiki experience or technical expertise you have for this role.
    I worked for three years in a position that required me to deal regularly with private information, including information on personal health, sexual misconduct, and academic performance. My work included making frequent decisions about how and when private information needed to be shared, and how and when it needed to be kept private.
  3. Do you hold advanced permissions (checkuser, oversight, bureaucrat, steward) on this or other WMF projects? If so, please list them. Also, do you have OTRS permissions? If so, to which queues?
    I do not hold any advanced permissions at this time.
Questions for this candidate
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  • Refer to the link of first Oppose comment, please why do you think comments of Wikipedia-documented LTA shouldn't be removed and what's your view of WP:DENY? I know it is an essay but we can't deny that it is viewed favorably by the community. Does that mean you've a higher bar than the community when it comes to what should be removed or redacted? –Ammarpad (talk) 19:17, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Ammarpad: I am firmly in agreement with the basic principles expressed at WP:DENY. In general, socks may be reverted on sight once confirmed to be socking, or if they are so obviously a sock that no other reasonable conclusion is possible.
    The conflict linked to by Capitals00 (and it's a long-running one) is complicated. Capitals00 and several others have been harassed by socks of Wikiexplorer13, and I have largely had no problem with the edits of this sock being removed; I've even reverted and blocked them myself, on occasion. I have, however, disagreed with how Capitals00 (and others) have interpreted WP:DENY in some cases. For instance, I believe that when reverting a sock, editors should leave an edit-summary describing why they are doing what they are doing: Capitals00 has not taken kindly to my requests for them to do so. In the case linked above, a sock filed an ANI report [65] against Capitals00, during which he went around striking the sock's comments, and also removing them at SPI. He was reverted by several editors, including SpacemanSpiff and Sitush. All of which led to this lengthy discussion, involving five admins, the outcome of which I will leave you to judge.
    If that was a bit long, here's the TL:DR version: in general, socks should be reverted and ignored per WP:DENY; however, there are some common sense steps that should be followed (edit-summaries explaining the revert, for instance) and circumstances wherein the reverting is best left to others (such as at SPI, or at an ANI discussion about oneself).
    So, is my bar for oversight higher than that of the community? No, it isn't. Wikiexplorer's edits were disruptive, and some were offensive; none that I am aware of were disclosing non-public personal information, and I certainly would not hesitate to revert, oversight, and block, if such a case comes to my attention. I hope that answers your question; feel free to ask me for clarification. Vanamonde (talk) 21:20, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Anatoliatheo: It was over email, I'm afraid, and that was my understanding of how things stood. Following further conversation, it is now my understanding that the second block, at least, was judged to be incorrect following an appeal: I do not know about the first, except that it was lifted as the result of a successful appeal. Vanamonde (talk) 14:41, 21 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • As Capitals00 has linked to, (in his second comment), you did not revision-delete a certain edit, that quite nicely fitted the RD criterion, in my opinion. Whilst anything sort of WP:OVERSIGHTACCT isn't applicable in this case (you are not under any responsibility for tending to every rev-delable content and neither you have actively refused to rev-delete the content), community expectations dictate (IMHO) that anybody with the mop, coming across such cases, need to be cautious enough to suppress it. Do you classify your actions (or rather the lack of it) as a mere overlook or did it stem from some other reasons (might be that you did not think the content to fit the RD criterion et al)?∯WBGconverse 12:07, 22 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Winged Blades of Godric: I cannot remember the circumstances of the original edit, but looking back at my contributions during that time, I seem to have come across the IPs edits at the end of an editing session. I reverted and blocked them [66], and then made only a couple of edits in the next 48 hours. It is likely that I intended to revisit those edits, and didn't find the time. As to why I didn't revdel the comment after it was linked here: given that it wasn't a question, wasn't an explicit request, and given the history of conflict between me and Capitals00, I simply didn't click through all of the links provided. I certainly was not expecting a trick question disguised as an oppose comment: I suspect that most requests for oversight will be rather more explicit. I would have revdelled, under RD2, had I seen it. Vanamonde (talk) 15:08, 22 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
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Comments may also be submitted to the Arbitration Committee privately by emailing arbcom-en-c@lists.wikimedia.org. Please note that the candidate will be provided the opportunity to respond to a paraphrased version of any emailed comments; the sender's name will not be provided.
  • Oppose Strong oppose. The duty of an OS is to deal with issues including removal of "defamatory material" from Wikipedia and your performance in dealing therewith has been far from satisfactory. For example, when long term abuser Wikiexplorer13 was harassing multiple editors as a part of his daily routine, you repeatedly claimed that comments of socks are not removed on noticeboards or any talk pages,[67][68] though that is definitely against the established tradition of denying recognition and we are seeing that as recently as today.[69][70] You failed to recognize that all types sock comments can be struck/removed by anybody from anywhere. Later on, Wikiexplorer13 left an offensive note on a user's talk page which was reverted by you,[71] but apparently you were not reverting him elsewhere, including the articles where he carried out BLP vandalism[72]— despite the fact that you were largely aware of this LTA's history and BLP vandalism had to be reverted anyway. Then there is another case involving another serial sockpuppeteer, Kkm010, who left a disparaging note containing misleading accusations of vandalism regarding a rival editor on your talk page,[73] and it was reverted by an admin as per tradition of reverting socks,[74] yet you reverted that admin on your talk page[75] only for telling that sockpuppeteer about the things that he is already aware of.[76] Given these incidents, I am confident that you are going to have a great difficultly in understanding what needs to be removed/suppressed whenever requests for OS would be brought to you. Capitals00 (talk) 08:46, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I linked a diff above, and attributed it as "offensive note" that had to be already deleted under WP:RD2 criteria. By linking it, I was testing your judgement of WP:REVDEL and you failed. First time you failed to delete the diffs when you had made the revert, and second time you failed delete after I had linked it above. Just now I had requested deletion of the diffs since more than 30 hours elapsed after I had posted here.[77] Given your performance right here, I am more confident with my above comment and have changed the !vote accordingly. Capitals00 (talk) 16:58, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Amorymeltzer (OS)

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Amorymeltzer (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Nomination statement
Hi, I'm Amorymeltzer, and I've put my name forward for Oversight. I have made a number of reports to the Oversight mailing list, all of which have been successfully acted upon, so I figured I should offer to be more useful and help the team out. I use revision delete fairly regularly so I am quite familiar with the tool. In my personal life I have been trusted with handling and reviewing confidential medical and personnel information, so I am experienced in keeping private information private. I have worn a number of different hats here over the years, and I hope my experience and tenure as an editor has shown that I can be trusted to use the tools for the betterment of the project. Thank you for your consideration.
Standard questions for all candidates
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  1. Please describe any relevant on-Wiki experience you have for this role.
    I do a fair number of revision deletions, and am somewhat active at copypatrol, so I am quite familiar with the revdel tool. One thing I regularly do (ideally every week or so) is patrol the page creation log; from what I can tell, I think I'm the only one doing so. I regularly revdel and make Oversight requests when appropriate for anything I come across, and to the best of my knowledge all my requests have been acted on, so I think I have a good sense of when to use the tool. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 14:51, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Please outline, without breaching your personal privacy, what off-Wiki experience or technical expertise you have for this role.
    Most relevantly, I am a graduate student studying genetics and immunology, and one part of my current research involves access to confidential data for large numbers of parents and their children. I have also held a few supervisory and committee positions that included handling confidential personnel and budget information and making hiring/firing decisions, including serving on the Board of Directors of a nonprofit. I was also a substitute teacher for fifth through eighth grades for about two years. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 14:51, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Do you hold advanced permissions (checkuser, oversight, bureaucrat, steward) on this or other WMF projects? If so, please list them. Also, do you have OTRS permissions? If so, to which queues?
    I am an interface-admin here, granted temporarily during the initial procedure for six stopgap users. I also have sysop and int-admin on the test wiki, for whatever that's worth. As for OTRS, I am not currently a member. From 2009 to 2010, I had -en access stemming from a statistics project run by Cary aka Bastique; I handled some tickets as well. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 14:51, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Questions for this candidate
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Comments
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Comments may also be submitted to the Arbitration Committee privately by emailing arbcom-en-c@lists.wikimedia.org. Please note that the candidate will be provided the opportunity to respond to a paraphrased version of any emailed comments; the sender's name will not be provided.

TonyBallioni (OS)

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TonyBallioni (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Nomination statement
Hi, I'm Tony, and I'm applying for the oversight permission. Like I mentioned in my CheckUser application, I've been an administrator for around a year, and I also hold the global renamer flag and have access to OTRS. I'm applying for the oversight permission, because I'm generally active late at night in the United States, when many oversighters are not online, and I feel I have a strong grasp of the oversight policy and appreciation for our project and movement's principles regarding privacy and respect for human persons, which is at the core of the oversight policy. I'm one of the most active admins in #wikipedia-en-revdel connect and I frequently have to message oversighters to suppress revisions. I think I would bring additional manpower to the team and that I'm competent enough to handle the tool, so I'm volunteering myself to the community.
Standard questions for all candidates
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  1. Please describe any relevant on-Wiki experience you have for this role.
    One of the main reasons I actually went for RfA was because I came across a lot of private information of minors in the new pages feed that needed oversight and it was staying there for hours at a time because an oversighter wasn't available. That's less of an issue than it was now with ACPERM in place, but I'm broadly familiar with the requirements and discussions as to what qualifies for suppressing private information of a minor. Additionally, as I mentioned above, I'm very active in the revdel IRC channel, and often given second opinions to other administrators on the revision deletion criteria, sometimes even pinging an oversighter when I spot something that was initially missed. I think I have a pretty good grasp of the suppression criteria, and would be able to provide additional resources to the oversight team. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:48, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Please outline, without breaching your personal privacy, what off-Wiki experience or technical expertise you have for this role.
    Slightly different from the answer above, but all the roles I have held in real life have involved access to sensitive personal information of some sort: whether it be details about individuals financial status, to private financials, or even personnel files of individuals. I have a strong belief in individual privacy and protecting people's rights to it, and feel that I would be able to maintain this as an oversighter. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:48, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Do you hold advanced permissions (checkuser, oversight, bureaucrat, steward) on this or other WMF projects? If so, please list them. Also, do you have OTRS permissions? If so, to which queues?
    I'm a global renamer and also an OTRS member. I'm less active on OTRS than I used to be, but I have access to info-en and several of its subfeeds, including the quality one, as well as the permissions feed. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:48, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Questions for this candidate
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Tony, you only succeeded your RfA last year, why did you apply for OS now? Hhkohh (talk) 05:11, 18 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments
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Comments may also be submitted to the Arbitration Committee privately by emailing arbcom-en-c@lists.wikimedia.org. Please note that the candidate will be provided the opportunity to respond to a paraphrased version of any emailed comments; the sender's name will not be provided.
Erm, based on what? CHRISSYMAD ❯❯❯¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 19:46, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Based on my own observations, not so much on interactions (more on the CU section). Widr (talk) 20:02, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The only interaction I can think of with Widr is this one, where I opposed a block he made of an IP at AIV that I was about to decline as a bad report. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:50, 20 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Results

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This section is an excerpt from Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 12 § 2018 CheckUser/Oversight appointments: Candidates appointed.[edit]

The Arbitration Committee is pleased to appoint the following users to the functionary team:

The Committee thanks the community and all of the candidates for helping bring this process to a successful conclusion.

The Committee also welcomes back the following users to the functionary team:

For the Arbitration Committee,

Katietalk 14:04, 8 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#2018 Checkuser and Oversight appointments: Candidates appointed
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