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Behaviour on this page: This page is for discussing announcements relating to the Arbitration Committee. Editors commenting here are required to act with appropriate decorum. While grievances, complaints, or criticism of arbitration decisions are frequently posted here, you are expected to present them without being rude or hostile. Comments that are uncivil may be removed without warning. Personal attacks against other users, including arbitrators or the clerks, will be met with sanctions.

CheckUser access for administrator election scrutineers

[edit]
Original announcement
  • I have no issue with the appointments but it would be useful for the future to determine what "outside the English Wikipedia" actually means. While the English Wikipedia is not the home project of any of the three volunteers, they are all relatively active here. It would be challenging to find any Steward who had never contributed here, so some kind of definition would be helpful. MarcGarver (talk) 15:37, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    While the English Wikipedia is not the home project of any of the three volunteers - that, I believe, is the primary metric, as well as considering total edit counts across the movement. Primefac (talk) 15:44, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    We stewards typically follow a test of if we are an active member of the local community for recusals on a project. That doesn't mean we can't ever had made a contribution to a project, even routine content contributions. This typically will mean being a functionary or admin on a project, or otherwise being frequently involved in the meta- parts of a project. — xaosflux Talk 15:52, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I guess that's my point really. The Stewards have a test, and personally I believe the test is reasonable and the community here could always object to a particular Steward. However, if this was a new practice, the community whould define the test (rather than the Stewards) so if there is going to be a future discussion on the practice (as the noticeboard suggests there might be) then it should include what "outside" means. Although, per Arcticocean, below, I believe it is a well established process that has existed for a long time and therefore a discussion probably isn't needed. MarcGarver (talk) 16:00, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    It's always going to be a little bit subjective, especially with the English Wikipedia, which was the first and is the biggest Wikimedia wiki. Most Wikimedians with a good grasp of English have probably edited here to some extent but not all will be heavily involved with our internal politics and those who aren't are unlikely to have any conflicts of interest (what we would call INVOLVED) with the candidates. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:14, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • ACERFC next year is probably a good place to establish that consensus, I listed it to review next year in Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee Elections December 2025. — xaosflux Talk 15:48, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I made a proposal at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/CheckUser and Oversight#Temporary CU for admin election scrutineers. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:51, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I would suggest having the post-RfA election debrief RfC first. See my comment to Xaosflux below: this is an issue exclusive to RfA so the Community would have to decide what it wants in the future. Sdrqaz (talk) 07:48, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The Committee is not contesting the consensus for ACE having non-English Wikipedia CheckUser scrutineers: it is saying that such a consensus does not exist for RfA elections (so ACERFC would not be the right place to create that consensus). Sdrqaz (talk) 16:08, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Ahhhhh OK, thanks for clearing that up. This is something that could get put in to the follow up of the trial, along with deciding if the elections should even continue. Thank you, — xaosflux Talk 16:42, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • There has always been a consensus for this practice – that is why the practice exists. The community has been voting in Steward-scrutinised elections for about fifteen years: arbitrators were first elected by secret ballot in 2009 (excluding one aberration earlier in the decade). Secret ballots were introduced to address community concern over rigged ballots and the off-wiki co-ordination of electoral votes. While that sort of sentiment seems quaint nowadays, it was a real and genuine concern for the Wikipedia of 2009. Independent scrutiny was always an essential quality of these ballots. The community did not positively, or separately, approve the involvement of stewards in the first arbitrator election because it was already accustomed to their involvement in elections. By December 2009, the community had just had an election of audit subcommittee members earlier in 2009. The Arbitration Committee established that election and decided that its results would be scrutinised by stewards: Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Audit_Subcommittee/October_2009_election#Supervision_and_scrutiny. When the community decided later in 2009 to have an election of arbitrators, the consensus would have to have been for a change to the accepted practice for elections. As it happened, steward involvement was retained in that election and all subsequent ones, for nearly fifteen years, including now the community-organised administrator elections. The notion that it was not and continues not to be supported by consensus is just not true. Why is the committee looking for a renewed expression of the community's desire for independent stewards? There is obviously a concern here, and it would help to know what it is… Arcticocean 15:53, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes and no. There's also been a long history of bureaucrats managing the administrator selection process, with the assistance of Enwiki checkusers to review any potential socking allegations; that's been the case ever since the creation of the bureaucrat permission. The reality is that there's no reason to go outside of this community to manage our own community election. We are a huge community, larger than any other Wikimedia community. We do not have a history of our admin selection processes being hijacked. We do not have a history of attempts at external interference in our elections, or of using information from election data for inappropriate purposes. Those latter two points have been the reasons that a couple of other projects (whose main contributors reside in countries that have a long history of "official" interference in Wikipedia-related matters) have needed to move to steward reviews. We can do this all by ourselves; we have the personnel and the know-how to do it. We should not be drawing on limited global resources (i.e., stewards) for activities for which there is no actual benefit. There's no security issue here that isn't present in any other type of admin selection process. Risker (talk) 16:12, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      If Admin elections happen again, I would suggest they be moved onwiki (as improvements are soon to allow) and for enwiki CU to be appointed rather than stewards, while Stewards continue (whether on enwiki or votewiki) to scrutinize ACE where that additional hands-off remove helps with independence and trust of an independent election. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:39, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      Fwiw, that would seem to me to be a good outcome. Arcticocean 19:21, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      Independent scrutiny may be superfluous, but the pros and cons of it are a little beside the point. The existing consensus is clear: the community expects non-enwiki stewards to be appointed to scrutinise an election. That is why the committee announcement went too far in suggesting that these appointments are not routine. Arcticocean 19:20, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      I think in this case in particular, it became presumed at some point that stewards would be required because that's how we do it for the ArbCom elections, from which a lot of the procedures wee borrowed. I'm not sure it occurred to anyone that the scrutineering could be done locally. Personally I don't have strong opinions on whether we should use stewards or local CUs, though Risker's point about straining global resources is well taken. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:25, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I recognise EPIC. Regular face at m:Steward requests/Global alongside AmandaNP. Will be good, if the counting is monotonous. Good shout by the Arbs, if you ask me. MM (Give me info.) (Victories) 16:34, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • To elaborate a bit on our message, there are two issues that I identify here. First, when someone reached out to us to ask us to appoint the scrutineers, we were a bit surprised because there had been no prior communication to us, and the discussion on point on-wiki had been minimal. The fact that a random user had to email us and ask us to do it indicated to me that the community hadn't appropriately considered the process and what would need to happen. Second, there are rumblings from some of our respected steward comrades that they weren't adequately consulted either, in that they don't have the capacity to be routinely scrutineering additional EnWiki elections. So the moral here is that, should the community wish to run admin elections again, more thought, communication, and outreach to the involved parties must happen. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 16:43, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Rereading this message, I see that it perhaps comes across a bit harsh, so I do want to clarify that this isn't a terribly big issue. It's the first time enwiki has done this, so I think it's totally reasonable that there's going to be some hiccups in the process. If anything, we're just trying to flag issues to be remedied if there's a next time :) CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 16:51, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think I was the one that came up with this workflow. The way it went was we needed someone to scrutineer the administrator elections, and the original proposal didn't talk about this in detail, so many months ago I just proposed to copy how ACE did it, and no one objected. I asked how we'd go about contacting the scrutineers, and a steward told me I should post at meta:SRM. So I did that, and 3 stewards volunteered, but let me know that this is a one-off and they don't have the bandwidth to do this in the future. I'm a bit surprised to hear they're "grumbling", since they already publicly set a boundary that this is the only admin election they have the bandwidth to scrutineer.
    Anyway, thank you for cutting through red tape and passing this motion. It didn't even occur to me that they'd need local checkuser or that it'd require arbcom permission. It sounds like we have to use local checkusers in any future admin elections, so this shouldn't be an issue in the future. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:03, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Rumbling, not grumbling :) I was referring to I believe the same messages you are, which to me indicated that they would do it, but as a one time thing to help us out of a bind we had created. So I think we're on the same page here? CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 20:59, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Just to clarify as I was one of the stewards voicing their opinion in the mentioned discussion: I do believe we can support future admin elections, if they are happening only once a year like ACE. If the frequency increases, I'm not sure if we have the capacity to support. But that's still open for discussion, it might just turn out that there's no problem scrutineering admin elections more frequently. Johannnes89 (talk) 15:18, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Scrutineers can see the IP of everyone who voted, without needing to do subsequent logged checks. If the community is comfortable with local CUs having that access, then there is no need for independent stewards to perform the scrutineering function. If not, I'm sure my non-enwiki-involved colleagues would be happy to continue to assist. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 23:24, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I find the whole idea really confusing. They're already stewards: with the potential exception of something only Founders can do, don't they have all possible user rights already? Why do they have to be authorised as Checkusers if they have already been? No complaint about the idea of asking these specific stewards to do the job, or the idea of Arbcom selecting them in lieu of community discussions for the process, or anything else. Nyttend (talk) 06:54, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Stewards don't automatically have CheckUser access locally unless they are granted it (see Meta's list of their global permissions). They have the technical ability to grant rights to themselves but are only allowed to do so when there aren't local access holders. You can see stewards granting themselves CheckUser on various wikis at m:Special:log/rights. Sdrqaz (talk) 07:48, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Only in the interests of discussion, there is a slight difference in how being given "CheckUser access" could be interpreted. Being "added to the CheckUser group" which contains multiple rights (for example, view private data in the abuse filter log) is different to being "given the checkuser right." In this particular case, the Stewards have been added to the CheckUser group, so have gained all the rights in that group. Some of the rights in that group are also in the Steward group. So a Steward can see the CheckUser Log here all the time without being added to the CheckUser group (for example). MarcGarver (talk) 19:25, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you. I misunderstood the user-rights situation; I imagined that if you were logged into a global account with steward status, you automatically had all user rights on all wikis. Nyttend (talk) 21:23, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    FWIW, the MediaWiki software defines a large number of reasonable fine-grained user rights, listed at mw:Manual:User rights#List of permissions. The groups that we're used to talking about (admin, extended confirmed, etc) are just ways to aggregate a bunch of those permissions so they can be assigned easily. Exactly which permissions go with which group is configurable on a per-wiki basis. For example, on some wikis, checkusers have the block permission, on others they don't. I don't know where the specific list of permissions that go with the steward group is, but I'm sure it doesn't include every single permission. I'd guess, for example, that stewards don't have siteadmin or bot. RoySmith (talk) 21:38, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Stewards are in a global group. You can see the permissions that apply to all wikis at meta:Special:GlobalGroupPermissions. I say all wikis, but it is also possible to disable a global group for a specific wiki. For example, the Global Sysop group is not enabled for en.wp, however, the Steward group is active everywhere. Stewards can also modify the global group to give, or remove, rights to all Stewards as long as the right has been enabled for inclusion in a global group. This last function - make a right assignable globally - is only held by sysadmins. MarcGarver (talk) 22:12, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you to Johannnes89, EPIC, and Yahya for volunteering! DanCherek (talk) 02:04, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Resignation of Firefly; effective Dec 31, 2024

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Original announcement

Temporary checkuser privileges for 2024 Arbitration Committee election scrutineers

[edit]
Original announcement

Arbitration motion regarding Marine 69-71

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Original announcement
It's a shame? Are you serious? The motion to desysop went from proposal [1] to passed [2] in 4.1 days. Over the last two years, Tony's average gap in editing has been 4.9 days. He's has 52 gaps in that same time period of 5 days or more. ArbCom was in a damned rush to desysop him and, given his low editing rate, never gave him a chance to respond in the way they wanted. Please, don't sit there and tell us what a damned shame it is he didn't respond when ArbCom had to have known (or if they didn't, exercised a high level of incompetence) how inactive he is. I'm so glad ArbCom stepped in to avert utter catastrophe here. There was obvious imminent danger to the project given Tony hadn't used admin privileges in 17 months. Please, enough with creating a steaming pile of filth and feeding it to us while telling us it's ambrosia. The utter disrespect and contempt shown for an editor who has contributed so much to this project is absolutely appalling. ArbCom should be thoroughly embarrassed in their behavior, but of course will defend it tooth and nail. Whether or not Tony should have been desysopped is an utterly minuscule issue to the contempt ArbCom has shown. The shame here is ArbCom. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:05, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Words fail me. You literally told him not to participate. – bradv 16:15, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And words fail me. Tony never acknowledged that advice nor gave any indication they were following it. As I've already previously noted [3], it is patently obvious that I can encourage Marine 69-71 to not participate and still call out ArbCom for acting in the manner they have. I'm sure you can understand the difference. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:36, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, you have been giving arbitration participants this bad advice for years, and none of them has ever benefitted from listening to it. And yet you continue to criticize ArbCom rather than reevaluate the usefulness of your advice. You know that ArbCom has a tendency to desysop those who do not participate, so why do you keep telling people not to participate? – bradv 17:59, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Let me suggest a different approach. @Hammersoft, you clearly disagree with how arbcom has been running things. If you want to improve the situation, put your name down at WP:ACE2024/C and help fix the problem. RoySmith (talk) 18:05, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Bradv; simple. Outside of a handful of cases, defending oneself at ArbCom cases has no benefit. It is a waste of time. If you don't respond, you're desysopped. If you do respond, but don't defend at the case, you're desysopped. If you do respond and you do defend, you're desysopped. In almost every case spending time to respond/defend yields being desysopped. So please explain what benefit spending hours upon hours reading everything in the case against you and then spending hours and hours trying to defend yourself is of some benefit? I consider my advice to be excellent advice; it is an utter waste of time to defend yourself, as case after case after case after case has shown. I see no reason to change it. I'd be happy to change it if evidence spoke otherwise; but it doesn't. You were on ArbCom for two years. What did you do to try to reform ArbCom in that time? --Hammersoft (talk) 19:15, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Hammersoft: Oh, really? —Jéské Couriano v^_^v threads critiques 18:32, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oh really? --Hammersoft (talk) 19:35, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@RoySmith; so the only way in which I should attempt to fix ArbCom is by running for it? --Hammersoft (talk) 19:15, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The only way? No. But probably the most effective way. RoySmith (talk) 19:24, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Hammersoft: The diff that prompted the deop motion to gain steam shows behaviour that, in a real-life workplace, would result in getting one written-up or fired for sexual harassment. You telling him not to engage with ArbCom was essentially telling him not to bother defending himself or offering a mea culpa. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v threads critiques 16:31, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have not commented on that diff anywhere. I will say this about it; if it was so bad that he would be fired for sexual harassment, why isn't he banned from the project? (and before anyone starts calling for my head on a platter; no I am not defending what Marine 69-71 said) --Hammersoft (talk) 16:36, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Would I block for this relatively minor instance? No. Should he be an admin though? Definitely no. - CaptainEek, discussing the motion to desysop. I personally don't accept the position that this is "minor", but so far as I'm aware this was a one-off instance that was still egregiously beyond the pale. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v threads critiques 16:41, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It does appear to be a one-off instance, but had we received a reply that might have been assurance enough to stay the desysop. Personally speaking, if he returns and asks for further discussion on the issue, I would be willing to listen; ArbCom can reverse any decision it makes if necessary given changing circumstances. Primefac (talk) 17:05, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just noting that the case request was opened a full week before the motions were presented. Marine also made multiple edits after Arbitrator pings were made asking questions or for clarification prior to the motions being posted, which might be why some Arbitrators felt that further interaction was unlikely. Primefac (talk) 17:05, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What was the emergency that he had to be desysopped by motion? If it was a one-off instance, why not start a case to gather evidence to conclude enough evidence existed to desysop? If it was a one-off instance, then desysopping by motion appears more to be retribution because he hasn't been active rather than acting in the interests of the project. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:26, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why do we need to have an emergency to act expediently? Primefac (talk) 18:53, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You indicate that it might have been one-off and not enough on its own to desysop if he responded, but were unwilling to wait an appropriate time given Tony's inactivity. So since he was inactive it was enough to desysop. In the past, ArbCom has suspended cases pending activity on the part of one of their victims. Why not now? What was the emergency that he had to be desysopped right now? You can't have it both ways. So what was the emergency? --Hammersoft (talk) 19:03, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I debated bringing up a motion for a suspended case, but by the time I made the decision to do so the new evidence came out and the motion to desysop was rapidly approaching majority; it did not make sense to me at that point to propose a secondary motion that would — based on past precedent — have the same effect. Primefac (talk) 19:07, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
ArbCom can pass motions in lieu of a full case in the event that a full case would either be of no benefit to any party or where the only reasonable course of action is obvious and a full case would only delay the inevitable. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v threads critiques 19:12, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hammersoft: "Enough with creating a steaming pile of filth"
Also Hammersoft: "Please treat editors more respectfully".
Sigh. SerialNumber54129 17:28, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sigh all you want. I speak the truth. I also speak of ArbCom, not of anyone personally. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:57, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that is as much of a distinction are you probably mean it to be because we know which individuals that are part of ArbCom supported the action you don't like. Beyond that, it has been my experience that you often have valuable criticism of ArbCom that needs to be considered and taken on board. But also in my personal experience, figuring out what is of value and what is hyperbole can be a challenge and, because of the rhetoric used, was sometimes unpleasant for me as a person. An example (besides this discussion) of where there was both hyperbole and real value for ArbCom to think about doing things differently would be this discussion which resulted in real changes. I would also draw both of those examples in contrast to this discussion from earlier this week where you actually named specific arbs while offering criticism, but it (at least for me) read rather differently. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:39, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In criticizing ArbCom, it is not my intent to criticize any particular member of ArbCom, but ArbCom as a body. Hyperbole? Maybe. Sometimes making change happen requires calling out the absurd. That makes some people uncomfortable, but it isn't targeted. For the discussion you noted last about inactivity, I was stating fact, not criticizing beyond saying "I find it slightly bothersome". Slightly. That's not much of a rebuke. Regardless, I probably should have worded it to be more abstract and make a distinction that I wasn't calling out individual editors. Thanks for the constructive criticism. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:13, 8 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Personally I think arbcom is being too kind to Tony. I don't think any reassurances about it being a one off should be sufficient to allow them to keep their admin bit. We should remember that although those of us in the know may understand someone being an admin doesn't really give them much power over us; many new editors will not understand this and if made to feel uncomfortable in that way will just bear it or leave since they don't know better. We should remember there is a reason why sexual harassment is such a problem, something often missed by those in power guilty of it. Even if they are great people who can magically put aside their personal feelings and would never cause anyone harm by being rejected or confronted over their inappropriate language, very often their victims will have no idea this is the case, and even if they believe it may be the case, they might not want to risk being wrong; therefore they are forced to tolerate stuff they never should. Even for those who do have some understanding that having the admin bit doesn't mean they can do much, many will feel if that's something we tolerate with admins, it's not a community I ever want to be part of and rightfully so. I supported recalls but have felt the process has so far been a bit of a disaster in many ways. But if arbcom had allowed them to keep that bit, I would have brought a recall as soon as possible if no one else did. Besides losing the admin bit, IMO they should have been indeffed until and unless they satisfactorily reassure at least an admin if not the community that it will never be repeated. Yes they've done a lot of great work but we should never tolerate stuff which is beyond the pale just because of great work. I don't feel it's worth being up a cban discussion for many reasons including that this will undoubtedly bring too much focus on Tony's victim which is clearly unfair but always happens. But the idea Tony was hard done by is laughable. BTW I saw this earlier but decided not to comment, what's done is done and as said I'm not suggesting to do anything different and as much as I am horrified by what they said, I don't support any sort of public shaming or struggle session. But with User:Hammersoft's comments I've decided to speak up. Tony got off extremely lightly given how terrible what they did was. Nil Einne (talk) 04:34, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To add what @Nil Einne said above:
  • Searching for someone on Google and then commenting on their appearance is incredibly creepy, and not becoming of admin-like conduct. "Sexual harassment" is certainly a formal and accurate way of describing said creepy behavior.
  • There is an unequal power dynamic between an admin and non-admin (an admin can block anyone, a non-admin can't return the favor, among other things). This power dynamic is kept in check, in part by ArbCom, but a new user may not be aware of that.
  • Harassers tend to have multiple victims, and harassment victims who believe they have no other option (rightfully or not) have a tendency to leave the environment where they are being harassed.
I dream of horses (Hoofprints) (Neigh at me) 04:47, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@I dream of horses: while I don't really disagree with anything you say, I'll mention that searching on Google is possibly or even probably not what happened here. This was discussed in the case request but basically the victim has a Google Scholar link on their user page and this profile has photo. So "on Google" probably just means that Tony followed that link. That said, while it's not quite as bad, commenting even on an on Wikipedia photo would still be highly inappropriate. And even when an editor has voluntarily linked to some offsite profile it's even more inappropriate when it's offsite.

Also while I agree with the general point on multiple victims, in this case without further evidence and considering if it's on wiki it's not something that is likely to be hidden I'm personally fine with saying it's we should treat it as the only time this happened in a long career.

I still feel this is enough to justify an indef since it's well accepted that there are certain things which are bad enough that even one case is enough that the editor can be indeffed and needs to convince someone to allow them back depending on the type of ban or block. In the case of a community ban discussion, it may be that the editor is able to convince us that it won't be repeated before the cban discussion ends and so is never cbanned. But the point is in some cases we don't just say, well the editor hasn't commented but it also hasn't repeated so we'll just let it slide unless there's evidence for more.

While we apply this less to regular editors, even regular editors will sometimes find themselves indefed until they are able to convince someone to allow them back. Perhaps it's true this is very rarely applied to editors with a very high level of great contributions (WP:UNBLOCKABLES) but I don't think that's right. If the behaviour is severe enough we should treat them the same. Rather than just assuming it won't be repeated, require the editor to convince someone.

I didn't comment on the timing but IMO while it's been a while it's not so long that it's something we should just ignore given the severity. And it's also within their 40 most recent contributions so it's not like they've done a lot more since then. I can understand that this might be the tail end of a long series of great contributions, but we are where we are.

Also to clarify my comments I also became aware of the case request a while before it close but after the comment was part of the mix. I considered but ultimately didn't comment there either since while I wasn't sure I entirely agreed with the approach I decided it wasn't bad enough that it was worth getting involved in.

And to be clear, I'm not saying any action is neded against Hammersoft over what they said. I do think they should appreciate that if they're going to effectively defend what some may find very wrong; then it's likely others will push back on that even if it means calling out the editor when we felt it better to just let it be as an acceptable outcome of highly problematic situation. In other words, they should consider what they say affects not just arbcom or them, but it might also affect the person they are trying to defend.

P.S. I'll mention that when thinking about this more, there is two things I can think of where I feel it was fine for Tony to keep the arbcom bit. One is if they were on some sort of medication or something that seriously impaired their judgment and they could provide sufficient reassurances it won't be repeated. Two is if it was a case of someone else using their computer. Both of these are sufficiently unlikely that I sitll don't think arbcom needed to wait.

Nil Einne (talk) 07:46, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Nil Einne Thank you for the explanation. I also agree with you. I dream of horses (Hoofprints) (Neigh at me) 07:49, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I avoided commenting further at Arbcom because I didn't want to distract from the issues, however there are a couple of points that I wish to make/reinforce:
  • Marine 69-71 had every opportunity to participate in the discussion, he knew this was a serious matter but clearly chose not to after his statement on 27 October. So @Hammersoft all your comments about his editing history (above, at Arbcom and on his Talk Page) are completely irrelevant. Whether or not he followed your repeated advice not to participate is anyone's guess until he chooses to comment. If he had chosen to engage and recognized and addressed the issues then it seems likely that he could have got away with admonishment, at least until his inappropriate comment came to light, but that then swung Arbcom to desysop.
  • Various comments were made about Marine 69-71 being an inactive admin, doing little harm to the project and that the Arbcom and desysopping somehow was disrespectful to his contributions over the years. If an Admin isn't active they should voluntarily give up the mop, several users recommended that Marine do just that at Arbcom and on his Talk Page and its not like its the first time someone had said it to him: [4], but he did nothing for whatever reason(s). He has only misused the tools for his own benefit and ignored many of the most basic rules and requirements that would be expected of any user let alone an Admin. Admin is a position of responsibility to protect and advance the project, its not a knighthood or lifetime appointment, if you misuse the position you lose it. Marine 69-71's actions led to the Arbcom and his desysopping, he had many opportunities to defend himself and mitigate the fallout but didn't take any of them. Mztourist (talk) 08:11, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. Early on in this, I was hoping to talk with him to convince him to step down. I didn't want to discuss it in public, which is why I asked him to email me (his email is not enabled) [5]. --Hammersoft (talk) 11:53, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with this; I even started writing up a CBAN proposal for ANI before I decided against it. We've already got a significant gender disparity among editors; things like this make it worse. BilledMammal (talk) 08:13, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Nil Einne: You're claiming that I effectively defended what Marine 69-71 said. I specifically stated above that I was not. See [6]. --Hammersoft (talk) 11:53, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jéské Couriano 117.20.113.66 (talk) 14:28, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why the ping? I haven't insinuated that Hammersoft is defending Marine's statement. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v threads critiques 16:43, 9 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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