Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration enforcement

View by User:SirFozzie

Discretionary sanctions have been a godsend in numerous areas that are constantly problematic (Eastern Europe/Troubles/etcetera). It has done more to resolve these issues then anything bar the cases themselves. I would encourage administrators to be quicker with using discretionary sanctions such as 1RR/0RR, or topic bans in problematic areas

Users who endorse this summary

Cla68 (talk) 00:21, 21 January 2009 (UTC) Based on this , I'm striking my endorsement and am reserving judgement for the time being. Cla68 (talk) 02:16, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

1. Moreschi (talk) 13:00, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
2. While saying they have been a godsend is perhaps an exaggeration, in some areas, including Eastern Europe, and The Troubles, significant progress has been achieved. In other areas, such as Israel-Palestine, progress appears to have stalled. I agree with SirFozzie's last statement - very often it's preferable not to block a user, and instead just issue a temporary article ban, which allows the user to continue to edit productively in other areas. PhilKnight (talk) 13:58, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
3. Maybe the topic bans for awhile but I don't think the 1rr or 0rr has been all that useful. The 3rr policy usually causes controversary when sanctions like 1rr or 0rr are placed since editors seem to think the 3rr policy should be good enough. I would also like to see a limitation on administrators that do discretionary sanctions to be limited to just a couple article per type of article. Maybe something like two or three articles, within like 3 months or 6 months to prevent the problems that are now occurring with administrators giving sanctions to multiple editors over multiple articles, which is bringing the question of whether involvement has actually occurred. Some kind of limitations needs to be set for administators who do a major part in the discretionary sanctions for arbcom in my opinion. --CrohnieGal^Talk 16:49, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
4. I'd agree that they have generally been valuable in most of the the nationalistic and ethnic disputes. They don't appear to be very useful in the pseudoscience disputes due in large part to the partisans there adopting different strategies for dealing with the discretionary sanctions. GRBerry 23:26, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
5. Strongly endorse. Administrator intervention with discretionary sanctions is a much better way to handle some of these things, than to require a new arb case on each one. Administrators "in the trenches" can make more timely decisions, and can monitor and adjust the sanctions as needed, to help stabilize an article. --Elonka 21:07, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
6. As someone who has been on the receiving end of such sanctions, I must attest that this sanctions can and do work! They force peace and foster productive discussion. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 23:04, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
7. As with any admin action there is the possibility of misjudgement, but on balance discretionary sanctions have done far more good than harm. Thatcher 12:51, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
8. I particularly endorse the encouragement of administrators to be quicker with using discretionary sanctions such as 1RR/0RR, or topic bans in problematic areas. Dlabtot (talk) 03:35, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
9. with the important caveat that the admin should first ponder about Moreschi's caution below. To put it shortly: educated/informed discretionary sanctions by honest and good faith people is a fundamental wheel that keeps WP running. Dc76\^talk 18:23, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
10. Strong endorsement and encouragement for Admins to use this tool. Standard precautions apply against abuse and excess, but these do not appear systemic, and where found are easily undone, and at worst should be treated as problems with the Admin, not the process. I've had two cases go to arbitration, and both were sufficiently clear-cut for an Admin sanction, which would have saved considerable time and effort. If anything, more such sanctions by Admins would be a good thing, per WP:BURO I guess. / edg ☺ ☭ 20:03, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

View by Durova

Respectfully expressing reservations about SirFozzie's opinion above. An aggressive AE decision last year of the type he describes caused considerable trouble, even though the decision went in my favor. Not to call out the administrator or the other editors involved, but the basic dimensions were a BLP article with an especially bitter dispute that had already escalated to substantial offsite dimensions. Two people got page banned without warning, and a side effect of that action ruined six months of careful work to earn the trust of both sides. The page banned editors conjectured that I had conspired with the administrator and attempts at retaliation followed. If I had anticipated that result I wouldn't have gone to AE at all. More active intervention is indeed sometimes needed, but not the Dirty Harry solution. Let's not swing this pendulum blindly.

Users who endorse this summary

1. Durova^Charge! 01:31, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
2. Swinging blind, indeed. I have concerns about admins being too ... authoritarian. KillerChihuahua^?!? 02:00, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
3. More power to admins? Hell no!!! OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 06:41, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
4. We need something more nuanced that saying that any one admin can on his own do whatever he thinks appropriate--especially since any matter that gets this far will inevitably have admins taking different sides on what exactly ought to be sanctioned. DGG (talk) 08:59, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
5. Sometimes too much power is assumed. There is a need for better balance than there is now per my suggestion above. --CrohnieGal^Talk 16:52, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
6. Rlendog (talk) 19:52, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
7. Endorse - Shot info (talk) 23:54, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
8. TotientDragooned (talk) 00:11, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
9. Maybe this should really be in the "problems with" section. The AE sanctions as I've seen them implemented have the perhaps unwitting effect of increasing stress on constructive editors while enabling polite fringe pov pushing. . . dave souza, talk 09:20, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
10. Admins were never created to act as an oligarchy. •Jim62sch•^dissera! 02:48, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
11. Cautious use of powers is preferable. Davewild (talk) 22:42, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
12. Give them guns, someone gets shot. We don't want that. Grace Note (talk) 07:11, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
13. I think we should be encouraging caution and considered judgement from admins in non-urgent/non-obvious situations, not shooting from the hip. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 10:23, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
14. When your a hammer, everything in the (Wiki)world looks like a nail.--Buster7 (talk) 04:47, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
15. The licence to kill nature of discretionary sanctions concerns me. At the very least, I think there should be limits and controls on this.--Scott Free (talk) 23:30, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

View by User:Hipocrite

Nothing. Literally nothing about the poorly staffed, poorly managed, poorly thoughtout and badly prioritized AE process works well right now.

Users who endorse this summary

1. Hipocrite (talk) 13:57, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
2. Hrm... actually, I can support this, because of the qualifier "well". KillerChihuahua^?!? 14:24, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
3. Nothing about Wikipedia works well. The amazing thing is that it works at all. Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:37, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

   Well i have to agree with that--KingRatedRIV (talk) 03:15, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

4. In theory, it's fine - the dispute resolutions guidelines are good IMO, in practice, what happens after an arb decision needs more explanations and infrastructure --Scott Free (talk) 23:30, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
5. I would tend to agree it all depends on what admin happens along on whether an editor is blocked or not we get one admin saying one thing and another the oposite a lot more consistency with enforcement is needed. BigDunc^Talk 15:29, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

View by Moreschi

Perhaps a brief recital of my track record is worth going over here. WP:ARBMAC enforcement has, as you can see by the log, been largely the result of collaboration between myself and Future Perfect at Sunrise (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA). Enforcement of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 is something I have heavily contributed to. In Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/CAMERA lobbying the arbitration committee endorsed the findings of ChrisO (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), FPAS and myself at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Statement re Wikilobby campaign based on the authority of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles. I have done as much as I can in the Eastern European wars (Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Digwuren as well), although with limited impact. I could go on, but it would perhaps become tedious.

This is background to ensure that people understand that I have done vast amounts of arbitration enforcement work (usually related to nationalism). I have, therefore, seen both failures of the process and successes, something that many here have not.

Discretionary sanctions can work. ARBMAC has largely been a success. Ditto for AA2, which has reduced edit-warring and talkpage flaming. They are particularly good at dealing with accounts engaging in particularly poor conduct. They are less good at dealing with VestedContributors who engage in more subtle POV-pushing, as such VestedContributors are likely to have admin friends to overturn any sanctions placed on them, or to lobby for overturning. It is worth nothing that in the Balkans and Armenia-Azeri there are no partisan admins to disrupt the work of the neutral ones. Given good admin judgment and conduct, and the absence of influential partisans, nationalist flaming can be contained very well.

However, the problem is the lack of good judgment (others have noted the lack of admins: I won't go into this: the ultimate basis is the retardation of RFA culture, but that's a side-issue). Lack of good judgment stems from a) adopting the wrong paradigm to begin with and b) lack of experience. The latter is especially damaging when someone dips their toes in the water, gets scalded due to not quite knowing what they are doing, and never comes back to help. One admin more down.

This, however, should be easy to fix if we equip admins entering these forests with greater knowledge in advance. I am currently writing a dossier summarising everything I have learnt during my career dealing with these issues. This, once finished, I intend to circulate privately (no, not publicly. I have no intention of dozens of banned users working out how to avoid being caught from it) to a broad but select circle in the hope that it becomes something of an standard tome for future generations of admins facing similar problems.

"Adopting the wrong paradigm" is, however, more insidious, more damaging, and harder to fix. What I mean by the "wrong paradigm" can be summarised as the following:

1. Everything can be solved by rigid adherence to Wikipedia user conduct policy
2. Violators of user conduct policies must always be automatically sanctioned
3. The content dispute itself is unimportant: what matters is that participants in the dispute adhere to a stringent interpretation of policy.
4. It is almost impossible to objectively tell when someone is violating article policy, and therefore absurd to sanction them for it.

The result is admins who fail to do their research, who cannot understand the background to the dispute, who fail to distinguish trolling from a content dispute, who can make no informed statements on the dispute they are supposed to be helping to solve, and who fail to understand which type of content dispute they are dealing with (see Number 46). This last, I suggest, is where most of the discontent surrounding arbitration enforcement stems from. Suggestions to fix it, anybody?

Users who endorse this summary

1. Moreschi (talk) 14:58, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
2. PhilKnight (talk) 15:23, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
3. It makes sense that an admin working on arbitration enforcement should have minimal knowledge of the content dispute at the root of the conflict. Crystal whacker (talk) 15:45, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
4. This makes good sense to me. --CrohnieGal^Talk 17:08, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
5. Yes, exactly. Particular emphasis: discretionary sanctions make it easier to deal with proliferations of obvious agenda accounts (e.g. waterboarding, Barack Obama), but don't really help where the dispute involves numerous vested contributors. MastCell ^Talk 18:39, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
6. Yes, we need a few more clued-up admins. "Uninvolved" should not mean "completely ignorant of the issues at hand", otherwise you just end up with an admin illustrating the fallacy of middle ground (or "it's always six of one and half a dozen of the other") at great length. Admins are going to perform better if they have a bit of knowledge of the real-life causes behind these disputes: e.g. that almost all the Armenian-Azeri quarrels are about Nagorno-Karabakh in some way or another, or that the great firestorm between Estonian (or Baltic) editors and Russians on Wikipedia in 2007 was caused by the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn affair. We also need to provide an environment in which genuine experts are happy to contribute to these areas without being put off by gangs of warring POV-pushers. --Folantin (talk) 19:06, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
7. Partly Endorse - although current policy allows admins great powers at the moment, so addtional powers are not needed - just enforcement of the pillars. Also endorse Folatins comments above. So far the civil-POV-pushers are enabled by ignorant admins purely as the admins only make the easy calls rather than actually trying to understand what the actual issues are. Shot info (talk) 23:57, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
8. Endorse. bibliomaniac15 05:11, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
9. Endorse Want to highlight my agreement with Moreschi and MastCell that the discretionary sanctions are not accomplishing much in areas with numerous vested contributors that are part of the problem (pseudoscience, Isreal-Palestine). Israel-Palestine also has the most tightly drawn definition of uninvolved admin; in that one any editor that has ever participated in any article content dispute related to the area of conflict is defined as too involved to administer - but because of that tightly drawn definition it has had far fewer drama threads claiming an administrator was too involved to administer the discretionary sanctions than several of the other cases. GRBerry 05:59, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
10. KillerChihuahua^?!? 11:12, 22 January 2009 (UTC) per Shot Info.
11. Being informed should be a pre-requisite. Having an incredibly civil work environment shouldn't be preferable to getting the content right - we are first and foremost an encyclopedia. Shell ^babelfish 19:11, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
12. Endorse. This is an accurate appraisal. Mathsci (talk) 23:33, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
13. Endorse. Since the vanished user case, there's been a chilling effect on any admins with knowledge and experience in a topic area from using admin procedures, and the AE process encourages and gives powerful tools (and immunity to criticism) to an "uninvolved" and uninformed focus on civility to the detriment of concerns about core content policy issues. . dave souza, talk 09:26, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
14. Generally agree that admins who volunteer for WP:AE need to be experienced and clueful. However, not every enforcement action that results in vigorous complaints and upset editors is the result of uninformed or experienced admins. There are instances of gaming the system and instances where reasonable actions do not get enough support in the face of organized opposition. Thatcher 12:55, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
15. Endorse §FreeRangeFrog 07:58, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
16. Endorse. I had to deal with cliquish admins who take criticism of their actions as a personal attack. That's exactly the wrong paradigm discussed above. Xasodfuih (talk) 10:24, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
17. Partly endorse (except where may disagree below): because have had neutral or somewhat positive experiences so far; however, have remained paranoid about using Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Palestine-Israel articles enforcement remedies because of the fear of tag teaming by partisans complaining my complaints/mistakes are the bigger problem than POV problems that got me frustrated in first place. (And I read below the same thing can happen to truly neutral admins who enforce sanctions!)
18. For reasons Dave Souza pointed out with crystalline clarity. •Jim62sch•^dissera! 02:51, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
19. Moreschi has got it! I do hope people listen. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 02:59, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
20. So few people bother to do research on the issue... or remember WP:IAR. Too many make hasty decisions, and pile on the bandwagon going through the route of easiest and simplest policy enforcement :( Oh, and of course - too many avoid anything that may be complicated or controversial :( --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:24, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
21. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 10:26, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
22. Endorse That there is arbitration enforcement is better than the alternative. In the grossest sense, ARBMAC /AA2 have gotten it done. However, it has engendered an emerging cultural shift of favoring those who can "game the parent", so to speak. POV trolls aside, there are legitimate content disputes that need a level and clear-cut path to resolution that alienates neither (or any) side more than necessary. Vested contributors are not sacred cows, but do deserve a more responsive and collaborative policy. EBY (talk) 02:13, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
23. per Shell above. Civility should go hand in hand with being informed about the content. If you don't bother getting informed, how can you hope that the article you help clearing of disputes would deliever information for the genereal reader? There is a proverb: you cannot teach something you don't know. Dc76\^talk 18:30, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
24. As far as my experience of various Bosnian War-related articles is concerned I would endorse the above. Administrators who have no understanding of the issues or of the significance of specific words and expressions can fuel problems rather than resolve them, particularly when their notionally neutral intervention in fact weighs down more heavily on one side of a dispute than the other. When the administrator is seen to be knowledgeable about the problem they are more likely to be regarded as fair as well and their interventions command respect even when people disagree with them. Opbeith (talk) 18:42, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
25. I endorse the view but the question is what to do? Are interventions to be limited only to subject knowledgeable administrators? Disputes on historical articles are sometimes only truly decidable by an academic with many years of training. It seems a stretch that Wikipedia could find such an expert in every case, moreover, one willing to get involved in bad-tempered disputes. SpinningSpark 10:11, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
26. Endorse. Phatom87 ^{(talk • contribs)} 00:23, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
27. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:39, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

View by GRBerry #1

Article and topic bans have proven a useful tool. GRBerry 17:31, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary

1. In general, yeah, I agree. MastCell ^Talk 18:40, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
2. So has 1RR. 0RR I remain much more skeptical about. Moreschi (talk) 20:31, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
3. I agree to a point I guess, 1RR & 0RR I am very questionable about since biases can be drawn in easier this way. I say stick to the 3RR policy we have. --CrohnieGal^Talk 15:25, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
4. Extremely useful tool, yes. --Elonka 21:09, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
5. When reasonably applied, absolutely! -- Levine2112 ^discuss 23:06, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
6. per CrohnieGal above. Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:33, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
7. partial endorse They have proven useful but a lighter sanction should be used when possible, with this as a fall-back should the lighter sanction fail. Lighter sanctions include things like 0/1RR, mandatory discussion/talk-page-notice before making edits, mentor approval for edits, etc. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:36, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
8. Yup --Tznkai (talk) 19:09, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
9. Yes. (Article and topic bans are lighter sanctions compared to blocking, which was the only remedy available before discretionary sanctions were created.) Thatcher 12:57, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
10. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 04:37, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
11. In theory, yes. In practice, I wish I'd see more of then on EE topics, but we get either outright bans or no enforceable rulings at all, on editors who could be a good asset if they would just be prevented from fighting in their favorite mud ring.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:26, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
12. with Moreschi's caveat, yes, definitively. Dc76\^talk 18:34, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
13. per Moreschi. Dlohcierekim 20:38, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
14. Endorse with hardly any reservation. xRR as needed. This isn't brain surgery—the worst outcome I can imagine is increased drama at ANI. / edg ☺ ☭ 20:13, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
15. It is good when not wikilawyered to death after enforcement. MBisanz ^talk 12:42, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
16. Endorse LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:48, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
17. --Aude (talk) 01:51, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
18. Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:05, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

View by Tznkai #1

I have more thoughts in depth in progress elsewhere, but I wanted to get the main points underway, so here goes.

Discretionary sanctions, topic bans, and the like give admins varied tools and a strong implied threat to try to manage problems. When there are only a few good admins working hard, this is Very Good, gives them procedural cover where in normal disputes, you would expect other admins to step up to the plate. Bottom line: discretionary sanctions are (in the right hands) very helpful.

Users who endorse this summary

1. Agree. Discretionary sanctions serve a useful purpose, and give administrators the additional authority that they need to solve complex disputes. Sometimes when stepping into a dispute, I've been challenged by the editors there, "What gives you the right to impose a revert restriction? That's not the wiki-way," and then I point them at the discretionary sanctions. With authority asserted, often the article can be stabilized without imposing any sanctions at all -- it's simply the implied threat of sanctions which causes the editors to climb out of their rut, and work harder to solve their own problems. --Elonka 04:03, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
2. Agreed. Xavexgoem (talk) 04:31, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
3. Thatcher 12:58, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
4. Agreed. I have not read "elsewhere" however, so I am not endorsing the depth of that statement here. / edg ☺ ☭ 12:26, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

View by Tznkai #2

Related to the above, but broken into a separate section to allow others to endorse specific parts if they wish.

WP:AE has been somewhat effective at containing disputes. It has not been good at solving them, so its important to remember: the primary work of Arbitration Enforcement isn't Dispute Resolution, but dispute management. Within that context, certain things work extremely well: Discretionary sanctions and a dedicated admin corps can contain disputes, usually moving the drama generation away from SPI, AN, ANI, WQA and the articles themselves. Problematic editors are constrained by topic bans from the articles where they are the most disruptive, and behavior is often kept checked - but seldom if ever improves. Essentially, AE keeps warriors from disrupting many articles and tying up extra adminstration hours - at the cost of a few articles becoming battlegrounds and the sanity of the small handful of AE admins.

Users who endorse this summary

1. GRBerry 03:40, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
2. Xavexgoem (talk) 04:34, 26 January 2009 (UTC) - however, I don't think it does it very well, which I [think?] is the point being made.
3. Regrettably, agreed. I would not be so regretful if something existed would act as Dispute Resolution, but this may not be possible (or by some principles, desired) on Wikipedia, per WP:CCC or something. / edg ☺ ☭ 12:26, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
4. Very good points. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:49, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
5. Agree. BigDunc^Talk 15:31, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

View by Tznkai #3

Related to the above, but broken into a separate section to allow others to endorse specific parts if they wish.

Discussions on WP:AE have occasionally developed new creative enforcement techniques. This includes a universal 1RR on troubles articles and a planned special sanction on Naked Short Selling. It should be noted that these remedies are usually born out of admin frustration and are actually outside of AE's mandate. Procedurally, there isn't actually a lot that allows these sanctions to happen except the consensus of those who show up. AE's few admin readers (in contrast to ANI) and the failure of enforcement to contain or solve a situation sometimes leads to brilliant insights. Its a very dysfunctional upside, but its sort of an upside.

Users who endorse this summary

1. True, but this is adequately dysfunctional that it really doesn't belong listed in the things that are "working well". GRBerry 03:42, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
2. I expect that some will object to "new creative enforcement techniques". I'm all for it. At least one ArbCom member has suggested they refrain from certain sanctions because they are outside of AE's mandate; unless someone has a better idea, I would favor loosening the leash by expanding ArbCom's powers in some (of course carefully considered) ways, including the "creative" sanctions toward which they seem to be already heading. / edg ☺ ☭ 12:23, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

View by Telaviv1 (talk) 16:39, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I edit Israeli related topics and we get a lot of complaints or disputes. I take the view that an article on "Israel" should show empathy to Israel while maintaining adherence to neutrality reliability and truth. An article on Palestine should show empathy to Palestine etc. some articles are no-mans land but in my expereince they are usually fringe issues. This might be described as a post-modern view of the conflict.

1. I suggest keeping a record of disputes leading to intervention thus allowing admins to monitor the history and keep statistics.
2. National pages can't be used for propaganda but some protection from extreme POV editing by "national rivals" would help
3. article and topic bans are necessary. In our corner of the woods we feel strongly about many things and sometimes take offence and lose our cool.

Telaviv1 (talk) 16:39, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

View by LessHeard vanU (talk · contribs)

AE is the process by which the decisions reached after an ArbCom Request, and following involvement by all interested parties - involved or not, are enforced when they are violated, and can therefore be regarded as the enactment of the communities will. AE should then be the instrument of ultimate (to borrow Tznkai's phrase) dispute management, and remarkably often is. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:59, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

1. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:59, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

View by User:SirFozzie

We need more administrators who don't mind getting knee deep in the muck, so to speak, to patrol AE and to assist the admins who bring a number of the cases at AE.

Users who endorse this summary

1. I was going to say that more sitting or former arbitrators need to be willing to jump in and hand out blocks in response to reports to the enforcement noticeboard. Cla68 (talk) 00:20, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
2. Yes. You don't have to stick around forever, just long enough.--Tznkai (talk) 00:26, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
3. Yes, with the caveat that we need more administrators with a track record of discretion, good judgment, and community confidence on the board. It's the most demanding area on Wikipedia for an admin, period. The model AE admins were people like Thatcher and GRBerry, both now presumably burnt out. OK, SirFozzie too :) The combination of wide discretionary powers, poor judgment, and lack of self-awareness is a recipe for disaster - the board needs more admins, but it also needs the right sort of admins. MastCell ^Talk 00:48, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
4. Per Mastcell. Admins should ideally have the confidence, or at least the respect, of both sides in a dispute. PhilKnight (talk) 00:51, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
5. This is true, but I don't think this is a solution that can be imposed. Perhaps there is a way to empower those admins with a "track record of discretion, good judgment, and community confidence" so that they aren't burned out by the stress? I'd be interested in proposals that explored how the committee or the community could select administrators with good judgment to temporarily give them a wider array of discretion, without causing the problems that sometimes arise with self-selected administrators enforcing discretionary sanction remedies. Avruch ^T 02:52, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
6. Agree, looking at it from this end. Also having more that are familiar with a particular page means more discussion for borderline situations. Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:09, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
7. Moreschi (talk) 13:03, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
8. With the caveat that the only admins needed are those that are percieved as fair-dealers by both sides of the conflict. Hipocrite (talk) 13:50, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
9. Obviously. rootology (C)(T) 14:26, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
10. I agree. And we need to be more supportive of those who are prepared to do so. "Show the door to vandals, trolls and those who would waste your time", isn't it? People who are here only to fight external battles should be restricted firmly and early, however polite they may be. Guy (Help!) 17:17, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
11. We certainly need more involved admins. More good ones would be excellent, but even mediocre efforts would be helpful. I think Hipocrite's dream of having only admins that are perceived as fair dealers is unattainable. Some of the warriors appear to consciously have adopted a tactic of painting anyone that sanctions them as biased. Even when they are wrong, such efforts by partisans will eliminate the perception of fair dealing. GRBerry 18:31, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
12. --Folantin (talk) 19:08, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
13. Endorse - Admins! What are they good for? ... - Shot info 00:00, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
14. Agree per addition by User:MastCell --CrohnieGal^Talk 15:27, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
15. Strongly agree. There is more work than there are admins to handle it. --Elonka 21:10, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
16. Without doubt. The more help the better. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 23:07, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
17. Yes and second GRBerry's comments as well - we need to get away from a culture that allows these warriors to continue throwing claims of "bias" until something sticks. Shell ^babelfish 00:04, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
18. agree, per Guy and Avruch above. Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:30, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
19. I try to help with this where I can, but I can only do behind the scenes stuff, mediate, try to calm people down, etc, because I lack sysop status at en. Tensions are high because of the small pool and people can easily be singled out. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:21, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
20. Agree, depending on definition of "knee deep" and "muck" (so quite possibly I disagree) Xavexgoem (talk) 04:35, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
21. Per MastCell and Xavexgoem. But in any case, if it's a problem of having few admins that are willing to trudge into these waters, perhaps participants at RFA need to look at users who have a record for going into disputes, and would continue to exert such willingness - pure content contributions are not enough. Opposing candidates due to a few controversies may be the very reason we're in this predicament today. Ncmvocalist (talk) 04:01, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
22. Although endorsing this statement is like saying starving people need more food. Thatcher 13:00, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
23. I support more food for starving people, and this. Dlabtot (talk) 03:33, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
24. Endorse per MastCell. The more involved admins there are, the easier it is to bring in a neutral admin. arimareiji (talk) 19:01, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
25. Of course. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 03:00, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
26. Many adminships are handed out for being good at editing articles, but we sorely need more admins that are willing to get properly stuck in and enforce policies consistently. --HighKing (talk) 15:02, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
27. We do. Read here why we don't have them. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:21, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
28. Strongly Endorse EBY (talk) 02:21, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
29. Endorse Per MastCell...we need more administrators with a track record of discretion, good judgment, and community confidence. W/a good History Book (of the articles topic) and Dale Carnigie's "How to Influence People' in their backpocket--Buster7 (talk) 05:06, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
30. Endorse The "willing to wade in" is as important as the "more admins" part imo. We need admins that will spend time looking at the dispute in more than cursory detail, and apply sanctions where needed, not to all editors involved. This takes dedication and undertanding of policy and a willingness to enforce all policies (not just 3RR or civil)Yobmod (talk) 08:57, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
31. Endorse: more participants would help, especially neutral, disinterested, and experienced participants. Randomran (talk) 20:47, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
32. This is true. MBisanz ^talk 12:45, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
33. Endorse - more admins, along with current and former arbitrators, helping with arbitration enforcement would be good. That said, admins who step in with arbitration enforcement are put at risk of harassment and thus arbitration enforcement duties are not for everyone. --Aude (talk) 01:56, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

View by Durova

Discretionary sanctions are seldom effective at large disputes. Call it clubbing: people with similar views stand up for each other. And whether or not they mean well the thread soon gets so tangled that it drives away newcomers. Few venture there except those already active. Wikipedia should be a collaborative environment, not gang warfare.

Users who endorse this summary

1. Durova^Charge! 01:38, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
2. Poor Durova. This is a really good point. I don't agree with the -seldom- part, because I believe that people can persevere past the group mentality. How long do they last? Well, that's another story. Note - I don't know if the club mentality causes the problem, or the problem causes the club mentality. It does seem like the current system promotes the club mentality as a way to protect yourself, as individuals are easily squashed. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:31, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
3. --CrohnieGal^Talk 15:30, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
4. Thought this was given. Apparently not...? Xavexgoem (talk) 04:36, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
5. I agree. There are times in the past when editors have shown poor editing practices. Yet, because others agree with their view points, their negative actions are overlooked and the group circles the wagons around them blocking any reasonable discussion or objections. Brothejr (talk) 16:46, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
6. Just describing human nature, really. •Jim62sch•^dissera! 02:44, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
7. Indeed. Seems to almost be a given. In the I/P area, unless the grievance is incontestable, the wiki-savvy group (wikilawyering etc) wins out at the expense of NPOV from sheer clubbing not force of argument. Tundrabuggy (talk) 22:20, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
8. Yeah - I think this shows that more in-depth solutions are required --Scott Free (talk) 23:30, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
9. Endorse: There is definitely a problem with factionalism at AE discussions. Although I think ArbCom should have some discretion with the sanctions, it is not always clear why a sanction (or no sanction at all) is applied. Even when I agree with ArbCom, I think there is a real vacuum left in their justification. This makes it really hard to predict how ArbCom will react, and thus makes these cases seem arbitrary to people who disagree with them. Randomran (talk) 20:50, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
10. Contrary to Ottava Rima, I believe many editors will not "persevere past the group mentality", but instead will dig trenches. And increasingly it seems Admin decisions are deferring to "weight", at the expense of NPOV and other core policy—I don't know if this reflects on the quality of a few Admins, or if it is an agreed-upon change in practice. I have not seen ArbCom give in this way, and I doubt it happens much. / edg ☺ ☭ 12:05, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

View by Shoemaker's Holiday

One problem with Arbcom enforcement is that it often isn't enforced. Take Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Martinphi-ScienceApologist. Martinphi was put under an editing restriction, "Should they make any edits which are judged by an administrator to be disruptive, they may be banned from any affected page or set of pages."

He was banned from exactly one page in the entire year. Every other time he got an undocumented second chance, even when he admitted that he was editing a policy page in an attempt to make it easier to get ScienceApologist blocked under his civility restriction.. Later, he began reworking NPOV, and I pointed out that someone under a restriction for POV-pushing really shouldn't be the one doing that. His response? He went over to WP:ANI, launched a scathing attack, claimed that "soapboxing" in the Arbcom's finding of fact did not mean the same thing as POV-pushing, and outed me (now oversighted but there's enough left in that I'm not going to link. I'll provide some diffs about the situation to the Arbcom on request. (I could, of course, be wrong about the outing - it's oversighted after all - but I do remember seeing my real name there, and he was banned for repeated outing on his talk page, including me, after an incident where he repeatedly restored outing of Scienceapologist to a wiki-link from his User page.)) He was warned, but nothing further happened. No matter what he did, noone, save that single time by Vassyana, was willing to do anything about it, deciding that, since he hadn't been restricted before, that it was a one-off event. This probably directly led to him becoming bolder and bolder at pushing boundaries, until there was no choice but the recent ban.

The lack of enforcement made the remedy against him essentially meaningless. Arbitration enforcement lacks archive searches, so anything put there is essentially lost, so if a second chance is given, then the problem user's deeds get dropped in the memory hole. One almost wonders if there shouldn't be an expidited Arbcom process for applying enforcement, instead of admins, because at least then everything would be documented, and the Arbcom would know of it.

Users who endorse this summary

1. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 07:55, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
2. Sadly very true in some areas, especially pseudoscience. PhilKnight (talk) 14:03, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
3. Endorse - Shot info (talk) 00:01, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
4. Karanacs (talk) 15:56, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
5. Endorse.--CrohnieGal^Talk 15:33, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
6. Yes, enforcement is sometimes very difficult, especially in cases where an administrator's actions have been undermined or where there are editors that are quick to file a noticeboard thread on every action by an administrator. So even if an administrator makes 9 out of 10 good calls, if there's even a single overturn, that gets trotted out forever in future efforts to enforce sanctions. Arbitration enforcement is a thankless job, and the admins who try to implement it often take a lot of abuse. --Elonka 21:14, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
7. Endorse - Would it be possible to keep tabs in the block log on the type of sub-actionable behavior Shoemaker describes, i.e. "XYZ action reviewed by ABC admin with this result (or non-result)"? There would also need to be clear permission for other admins to comment on or remove these entries, though, or it opens the door for the few admins who are abusive to tar anyone they disagree with. arimareiji (talk) 18:53, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
8. Endorse archive searches being available. CarolMooreDC (talk) 20:02, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
9. Endorse with the recommendation that admins be given more, narrower guidelines for resolving/sanctioning abuse of articles. For instance, dedicated editors with a long record of substantive disagreements may confound non-expert admins. In such cases, the admin should be encouraged to review the disputing editors' past behavior in edits & on talk pages of related articles as considerations when trying to decide who & how much to sanction. Lethiere (talk) 01:14, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
10. Endorse Orderinchaos 19:17, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
11. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 10:29, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
12. Endorse - Arbcom can make the greatest decision ever, but if no one follows it, it's pointless. --Scott Free (talk) 23:30, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
13. Endorse View by Shoemaker's Holiday and endorse Lethiere's suggestion in this section. / edg ☺ ☭ 12:44, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

View by MBisanz

Arbitration enforcement is a bit like the sheriff of an old west town coming into the bar and throwing some loaded handguns on the table. Sometimes a wise person gets the gun first and enforces justice. Other times a cowboy gets the guns and causes more trouble than initially existed. The problem for Arbcom is that it never knows which of the 1,600+ admins will decide to help out in a particular sanctions area. Also, because the sanctions areas are widespread through the wiki, it is difficult for the community to identify problematic enforcement of the sanctions, as is possible with the centralized RFAR pages. Some better method of enforcement of sanctions, outside of the rarely used (compared to all the sanctions being enforced) WP:AE page needs to be found.

Users who endorse this summary

1. MBisanz ^talk 13:28, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
2. Hipocrite (talk) 13:49, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
3. KillerChihuahua^?!? 14:26, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
4. PhilKnight (talk) 14:30, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
5. Yeah, basically. MastCell ^Talk 18:40, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
6. Let me put on my boots, pardner. •Jim62sch•^dissera! 21:52, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
7. Karanacs (talk) 16:10, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
8. --CrohnieGal^Talk 15:34, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
9. Wikipedia is huge.--Tznkai (talk) 23:36, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
10. Brothejr (talk) 16:49, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
11. llywrch (talk) 21:29, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
12. Davewild (talk) 22:51, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
13. Orderinchaos 19:20, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
14. The random admin lottery problem. Who will be the first to review the case and set the tone? Maybe we should only have a certified AE subcaste of admins allowed to close them? Like arbcom clerks? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:30, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
15. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 10:30, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
16. Perhaps admins should "serve 6-month terms" in desiganted topic areas. They can devote 50%+ of their admin-time (as understood by people in good faith) for the duration of the term to assisting in that topic area. At the end, the admin can receive a short "service card" which would describe whether he/she was useful or not. If at the end of the term they would behave like Cinncinatus, it might be helpful if they receive a degree of card blanche. Dc76\^talk 19:06, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
17. Endorse --Scott Free (talk) 23:30, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
18. Endorse: a little less haste would probably help, and a little more discussion/investigation. Randomran (talk) 21:18, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
19. Endorse: to paraphrase the Washington Post: "Wikipedia's [Arbitration_enforcement] resembles U.S. immigration policy before 9/11: stringent rules, spotty enforcement." (actually discussing another issue on wikipedia) Ikip (talk) 11:45, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

View by User:Hipocrite

If an admin is viewed by reasonable parties to be more than slightly involved or biased, they should not be implementing sanctions, regardless of their own personal views of their level of involvement or bias.

Users who endorse this summary

1. Hipocrite (talk) 13:55, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
2. PhilKnight (talk) 14:05, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
3. Our system of self-selecting recusal in general, from top-down to adminship to RFAR, is a bad idea, as there is no stake or claim for not doing the right thing as in other situations "in the real world" (ethics boards, legal implications, jail time, etc., to keep people hopefully constantly honest). rootology (C)(T) 14:26, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
4. KillerChihuahua^?!? 14:26, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
5. RP459 (talk) 21:03, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
6. Definitely. •Jim62sch•^dissera! 21:53, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
7. Endorse - Shot info (talk) 00:02, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
8. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:56, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
9. Strongly endorse.--CrohnieGal^Talk 15:35, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
10. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:45, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
11. Endorse in theory but something inside me says implementing this may cause more problems than it solves. All it will take is a few people or undetected sock/meatpuppets bent on admin/forum-shopping to say "I think so is too involved" and he'll be forced to recuse. It's worth a try though. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:55, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
12. Endorse in theory, as well. DR-heavy admins will often be more-or-less "involved" in any major dispute -- we've all said Troubles, IP, EE, etc, and many of us have used the tools there -- that it's likely that any admin action seen as "bad" by an editor is likely to make the admin "too involved", causing yet more drama. If that made sense... Xavexgoem (talk) 04:42, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
13. Semi Endorse If there is a clear evidence that the admin is involved, then yes. However, all too often there is not a clear understanding of what "involved" is and so we continually hear accusations of admins being too involved when there is no clear evidence of it. Brothejr (talk) 16:51, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
14. Support. When longtime editors on one side of a POV conflict repeatedly claim that an admin is one-sided, s/he should not consider themselves uninvolved.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 23:05, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
15. Of course. Dekimasuよ! 02:37, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
16. Absolutely Tundrabuggy (talk) 03:33, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
17. Support Michael H 34 (talk) 22:08, 4 February 2009 (UTC) Michael H 34
18. Support - If the topic is "Applications of vector calculus in civil engineering," "16th-century emperors in Southeast Asia," or somesuch, admins have a reasonable claim to having the necessary expertise to understand the topic. This would mean that it's unlikely another admin could easily step in for them. However, this claim is often used when the topic is one that is easily-comprehensible to laymen, but extremely contentious. In those cases the issues are more likely those of ownership and/or strong POV. arimareiji (talk) 18:36, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
19. Support - definitely. WP:AE is a very touchy issue and it doesn't help that involved administrators masquerade as uninvolved ones and make unfair decisions which are later difficult to override. -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 19:24, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
20. A good Rule of Thumb, though reasonable parties is a crucial phrase and truth is not social. I've seen cases in the past where an uninvolved admin entered and warned a disruptive user; the disruptive insults the admin, continues disrupting, and gets blocked. Then the admin is accused of abusing his/her power. No. This admin is not involved. And if the only folk to turn up at the AN/I review in the first 15 mins are this admin, one other, and 5 of the disruptive user's tendentious friends (one of whom opened it), this should have no impact on the admin's future career in the user's topic area. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 03:07, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
21. Strong support based on personal bitter experience. Mukadderat (talk) 18:47, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
22. Yes but of course "reasonable parties" is the difficult point. Davewild (talk) 22:52, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
23. Like judges in court trials, admins should feel confident to recuse themselves when their actions and opinions are disputed by a number of individuals, regardless of the topic or of the admin's position on it. Truthanado (talk) 16:53, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
24. YES!!! --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:31, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
25. The problem is that the way things are, that's all of them who are willing to get involved. Grace Note (talk) 07:14, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
26. Strongly endorse Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 10:31, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
27. Ditto - I Strongly endorse! EBY (talk) 02:23, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
28. Endorse I don't think it's that hard to find another admin to step in - sure, an editor could be crying wolf, but that would get old real quick --Scott Free (talk) 23:30, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
29. Endorse, although the key word is "reasonable" editors. Randomran (talk) 21:17, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
30. Endorse. Karanacs (talk) 20:36, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
31. Yes, true. MBisanz ^talk 12:46, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
32. Why would a "reasonable person" be subject to AE in the first place? Perhaps the ideal AE admin would be one distrusted equally by the parties? LessHeard vanU (talk) 23:04, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
33. Strong endorse See the blatant case of User:Raul654 an involved editor, in this arbitration enforcement case: Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/September_11_conspiracy_theories#Statement_by_User:Inclusionist Ikip (talk) 11:48, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

View by MastCell

Not all "discretionary" topics are created equal, and admins at WP:AE sometimes fail to recognize this. For instance, in a nationalistic dispute like WP:ARBMAC, it is reasonable to think that Wikipedia should be genuinely "neutral" and not favor the claims of any particular Balkan group. On the other hand, in areas of fringe/pseudoscience, WP:WEIGHT explicitly dictates that positions supported by experts in the field deserve greater representation than those of minoritarian or fringe groups. One size does not fit all, and problems occur when techniques useful in ethnic/nationalistic disputes are imported into areas with different ground rules and content mandates. MastCell ^Talk 20:13, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary

1. JoshuaZ (talk) 20:33, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
2. Hipocrite (talk) 20:35, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
3. Xasodfuih (talk) 21:53, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
4. You mean we can't Balkanise all of our articles?  ;) •Jim62sch•^dissera! 21:55, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
5. KillerChihuahua^?!? 01:12, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
6. Woonpton (talk) 05:02, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
7. Karanacs (talk) 15:54, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
8. Yup. Although even with, say, WP:ARBMAC, it is semi-official policy to enforce the "consensus" of WP:MOSMAC, a page our Greek nationalists take far more issue with than our Macedonian ones do. Plus, nationalism and fringe science overlap with remarkable frequency: see User:Dbachmann/Wikipedia and nationalism/Hindutva and pseudoscience. MastCell's point is more valid than perhaps even he knows...Moreschi (talk) 20:49, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

   Yup, sometimes it's tough keeping up with just how right I am... :) MastCell ^Talk 22:47, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

9. Wise words. As always, I'd add in WP:NPOV/FAQ which is explicit that not all views should be given "equal validity". . dave souza, talk 23:00, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
10. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:57, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
11. Strongly endorse.--CrohnieGal^Talk 15:37, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
12. Mathsci (talk) 04:47, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
13. Strong endorsement, except: my view is that "problems can/may/sometimes occur when techniques useful in ethnic/nationalistic disputes are imported into areas with different ground rules and content mandates." The current wording which doesn't include any italicised word, imo, implies that problems will (always) occur by default - but I'm uncertain if that effect was deliberate. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:24, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
14. Strong endorsement Verbal chat 10:04, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
15. Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:26, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
16. Endorse WP:VALID is policy. - Eldereft (cont.) 01:29, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
17. Endorse One size does not fit all. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:45, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
18. Endorse davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:57, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
19. Agreed that different topic areas require different enforcement techniques, though I wouldn't limit it to just nationalism v. science. Another factor has to do with the "wiki savvy" of the participants in a dispute. If they've never been to ArbCom before, it is usually much easier for an administrator to impose discretionary sanctions, because the administrator is acting in more of a mentoring role, instructing the editors about how Wikipedia:Dispute resolution works, and helping to get disputes back under control. For example, the Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Digwuren case applies to all of Eastern Europe, so an admin may deal easily with an EE dispute with editors that never heard of Digwuren or ArbCom in their lives. However, in areas where the participants have been to ArbCom before, the administrator's job sometimes becomes much more difficult, because the disputants are more experienced wikilawyers who may strongly resist any administrator intervention unless they're confident that the administrator is "on their side". This could occur in any type of topic area, though I've personally seen it most often in Israel/Palestine, Armenia/Azerbaijan, and Pseudoscience areas. --Elonka 17:20, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
20. Brothejr (talk) 16:53, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
21. Amen! --Ramdrake (talk) 17:28, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
22. Endorse Cardamon (talk) 09:07, 2 February 2009 (UTC)
23. Makes excellent sense. Tundrabuggy (talk) 22:27, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
24. Definitely. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 10:32, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
25. Endorse One should read the article and be familiar with the case --Scott Free (talk) 23:30, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
26. Endorse. Mike Christie (talk) 01:36, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
27. Endorse. KeynesJohnMaynard 00:15, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
28. I'm not quite sure how to solve this, but yes, I agree nationalist disputes and mainstream/fringe science disputes seem to follow different dynamics and may require different treatment. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:42, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
29. Strongly endorse. / edg ☺ ☭ 12:49, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
30. Endorse --Aude (talk) 02:13, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

View by GRBerry #2

I'm largely quoting, with an omissions, and then elaborating a statement that Tznkai made on my talk page last month.

"An arbitration enforcer is a thankless incredibly difficult job to begin with - ... Its a hard job to do right, and you do it wrong, and you get blasted for it, you do it right, you get blasted for it - sometimes even worse. That kind of pressure selects very stubborn admins - which leads to its own problems. You need to have the magical triumvirate of stubbornness, adaptability, and measured responsiveness to criticism. What admin has that all the time, let alone at all? Most people (rightfully) wimp out of the difficult problems, and the ones left often become problems in their own right. --Tznkai (talk) 23:26, 17 December 2008 (UTC)"

To do the job well, the admin has to be able to, and reliably actually do the work to, look beyond the surface complaints presented, review the history across multiple editors activity on multiple pages, and reach a reasonable opinion about how to address what is often a complex and long standing pattern of behavior. Sockpuppetry is often an issue, so they need to be able to spot it and deal with it, even in cases where the editors have previously been caught in sockpuppetry so have learned rudimentary skills for evading detection. Meatpuppetry is also occasionally an issue. They should be or develop familiarity with the topic area, which sources for it are reliable, and which are partisan or otherwise unreliable. And they often need to be able to boil all this down to one paragraph sound bites for review by a peanut gallery in which partisans will likely be the loudest commentators, while also having a reasonable discussion with other admins who have a different take on the problem(s) and/or a different proposed solution. In all of these skills the level of competence that is called for is above that possesed by the average admin. In addition to the skills, an admin has to be uninvolved in the topic of dispute. Those who are uninvolved often do get blasted as involved simply because they are doing arbitration enforcement in the area.

Ultimately, the skills needed are rarely all possessed by a single individual to the desired level, so every volunteer compromises. For example, my sockpuppetry identification skills would have been best described as nearly non-existent; I'd only catch the most blatant and obvious cases. In short, the community as a whole has made the job too demanding for the average admin to perform it at all, and too unrewarding to keep most of the admins able to perform it competently interested in performing it for long. GRBerry 06:30, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary

1. Yes. Moreschi (talk) 22:44, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
2. It feels narcissistic to endorse something quoting myself, but it would be silly not to own up to those statements. That and GRBerry is making excellent points.--Tznkai (talk) 02:25, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
3. --CrohnieGal^Talk 15:39, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
4. GRBerry (and Tznkai) have nailed it. Excellent summary. --Elonka 21:16, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
5. Well stated! -- Levine2112 ^discuss 23:13, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
6. Qualified endorse, especially the statement That kind of pressure selects very stubborn admins - which leads to its own problems, and even more especially the last sentence. The whole concept of discretionary sanctions is an ill-posed problem. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 20:39, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
7. Incisive. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 03:09, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
8. Davewild (talk) 22:56, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
9. I think that this is quite true. EBY (talk) 02:25, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
10. On Point!--Buster7 (talk) 05:19, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
11. Endorse --Aude (talk) 02:15, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

View by GRBerry #3

Discretionary sanctions have not yet yielded results from tested creative (i.e. non-standard) sanctions other than topic bans, article bans, and 1RR limits that are worth replicating on a wider scale. Nor have many even been tried. GRBerry 17:33, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary

1. If I understand this correctly, I add the caveat "yet." I'm holding out hope for the sandbox solution devised for naked short selling, but that is untested.--Tznkai (talk) 03:00, 26 January 2009 (UTC) Agreed and added. GRBerry 21:16, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

View by Thatcher, part 1

Arbitration enforcement is difficult and the editors who post there are, by definition, the most difficult editors to work with. Arbitrators should not undermine admins who volunteer for this difficult task unless they have found specific errors in judgement. Thatcher 19:22, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary

1. Question: Do you (Thatcher) intend your comment in general terms or also regarding the specific case? Regarding the general term I support; regarding the specific case I would need to know more. Crystal whacker (talk) 23:45, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

   Question answered. I support the specific instance too. Crystal whacker (talk) 00:14, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

   I mean generally, but using the specific case as a timely example. I suspect there are more, if I looked for them. Thatcher 03:30, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

2. Agree on general principle - decline to opine on any specific incidents.--Tznkai (talk) 02:23, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
3. Strongly endorse. Arbitration enforcement is already difficult enough without being undermined by arbitrators. The members of the Committee need to understand that the editors who are the targets of sanctions are of course going to complain, and that often they are going to make flat out false charges of bias at the administrators, but it doesn't mean that the charges are true. When an arbitrator accepts these no-evidence charges at face value, and says anything at all negative about the administrator, it can undermine that admin's efforts in multiple ways: Short-term undermining since the admin is probably working in many different topic areas, not just one; Long-term undermining, because the arbitrator's expression of concern is going to be diffed multiple times into the future even if the arbitrator posts a retraction; and lastly, it is extremely demoralizing to the administrator. If an admin doesn't have the backing of the arbitrators, why bother taking on the tough cases at all? Do we really have that many administrators in arbitration enforcement, that we can afford to treat any of them with suspicion and negativity? They already get enough of that from the editors under sanctions, they don't need it from the arbitrators as well. --Elonka 21:26, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
4. Constructive criticism is helpful, but must be specific if it is to be constructive, and often is better posted away from the current stage for drama. GRBerry 21:18, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
5. Certainly. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 03:11, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
6. Endorse --Scott Free (talk) 23:30, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
7. Endorse in principle, without comment on the two linked situations (which I have not research sufficiently to understand). / edg ☺ ☭ 12:54, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
8. Endorse --Aude (talk) 01:58, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

View by Thatcher, part 2

Discretionary sanctions have the effect of shifting the burden of managing Wikipedia's most difficult editors off the shoulders of the 15 (or 18) people who were actually elected to do the job and onto the backs of self-appointed volunteer enforcers, sometimes as few as one at any given time. The admins who patrol WP:AE are generally not power-trippers and make good faith attempts to process complaints fairly and knowledgeably, but there is no assurance things will stay that way. I think there are two main problems with discretionary sanctions as presently handled.

1. Used as a cop-out when blocks and bans would be more appropriate. Perhaps "cop-out" is too strong a word. But I get the feeling that discretionary sanctions are sometimes used when a case is large, complex, or has so many parties that Arbcom finds it too challenging to evaluate the behavior of individual editors. Discretionary sanctions are useful to help patrol troubled articles that attract edit warriors. But some of these edit warriors are unredeemable and should probably be topic or site banned by Arbcom rather than leaving the mess for admins to figure out.

2. Admins are too lenient. I have been guilty of this as well, handing out 1RR per week or page bans of only a few days duration. These editors are at WP:AE because Arbcom has already ruled that their behavior is so far outside the expected norms that strong measures are necessary. I have seen WP:AE reports that are longer than the articles the parties are fighting over. The reports need to be long enough so that admins can understand and evaluate the evidence, evaluate mitigating circumstances such as claims of baiting, etc.; then close it down and do something decisive. Thatcher 11:51, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary

1. I think some editors get many more chances than their behavior warrants. Karanacs (talk) 14:41, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
2. MastCell ^Talk 19:43, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
3. GRBerry 20:46, 23 January 2009 (UTC) One change I'd like to see try is to have the committee pass the discretionary sanctions as an injunction early in a complex case, then really spend time digging into individual behavior. At the end of the case, they have addressed the individuals that are party and will also have a good idea whether the discretionary sanctions will be needed even with those individuals addressed. (In places where an ongoing influx of new editors with the same biases or sockpuppets is expected, ongoing discretionary sanctions will likely be appropriate.) I also feel I've been excessively lenient in some cases. The longer an editor has had a pattern of problematic behavior in an area, the less likely a small sanction is to actually make a difference. GRBerry 20:46, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
4. Regarding item 1, this has occasionally been the case, possibly because of limits on time. Editors can help by proposing realistic sanctions on the workshop page. The problem outlined in item 2 often relates to vested contributors being cut too much slack. PhilKnight (talk) 01:37, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
5. --CrohnieGal^Talk 12:34, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
6. Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:25, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
7. This is first time I realized self-appointed volunteers were the ones doing the enforcement, which may make people assume they are more biased and increase complaints. And I've definitely seen an extremely biased admin or two. Perhaps the solution should be making it easier to recall admins in general, no matter how many buddies they have. CarolMooreDC (talk) 19:58, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
8. MBisanz ^talk 12:47, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
9. Agree to all the above, along with public hangings and pointing at genitalia, with discretion and good judgment. / edg ☺ ☭ 13:00, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
10. Endorse --Aude (talk) 01:59, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

View #1 by Elonka

One of the problems with arbitration enforcement is frivolous complaints and attacks against the enforcing administrators. Some sanctioned editors become very efficient in forming tag teams or factions to challenge any administrative action, to try and intimidate away unfriendly administrators. So anything an admin does in the "team's" topic area, may be immediately challenged with repeated admin board threads and ArbCom motions, where multiple members of the faction come in to the related threads to complain about the administrator's bias/POV/instability/incompetence etc. It can be exhausting to an administrator to know that for every simple block or ban they implement, even for something as clearcut as a 3RR block in the topic area, they may then have to deal with several days (or weeks) of attacks and discussion board threads, even if the admin's actions are ultimately upheld. Having some oversight of administrative actions is of course necessary, but something also needs to be done to rein in the time-wasting "insta-challenges" to everything an admin does. --Elonka 17:41, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary

1. Agree this is a problem in general; no conclusion about any particular case. Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:23, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
2. Agree on tag teaming problem, as I wrote above, it's discouraged me from using AE, and now find out Admins have to worry about it too! Maybe wikiscanner needs an automated program to pick up tag teaming; one of those "networking" programs that can track inter-relationships. CarolMooreDC (talk) 19:41, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
3. Clearly comes from experience, and I've seen it. Endorse. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 03:14, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
4. Not an administrator, but I have seen this happen and it was exhausting just to watch! let alone being an admin and having to go through this. There should be a rule that prevents these kinds of retaliatory attacks, even while protecting the editor's right to an appeal. Tundrabuggy (talk) 22:33, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
5. Yes. The end result: admins afraid to act against certain editors who become close to untouchable.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:33, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
6. Agree. It's really pretty obvious when it happens, and patterns are not difficult to discern here if one is technically proficient in Wikipedia history pages. Retaliation against an admin doing their job should be treated as a serious offense against the community, like assaulting a police officer or a judge. They are not literally identical but are quite analogous. Tag teaming compounds the offense (this is not WWF!, or at least should not be). Charges can be brought against an admin if necessary, but retaliation by a group is organized harrassment. U.S. courts deal harshly with frivolous cases brought just for harrassment purposes. Mervyn Emrys (talk) 21:00, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

View #4 by Tznkai

Arbitration enforcement generally resolves around entrenched disputes. These are disputes that have gone to ArbCom, generally after multiple admin intervention failures, RfCs, mediation, and other processes. In short, entrenched disputes cannot be solved by normal means. If they could, they would've been already. The tools given to AE admins are essentially beefier versions of normal means - thus leading (predictably) to failure in most cases. Sockpuppetry, tendentiousness, and mistrust are common - all of which makes AE disputes depressingly similar to real world entrenched conflicts such Taiwan/China, The Troubles, the Balkans, the Science Wars, and the Arab-Israeli question - just with lower stakes and no one dying.

Users who endorse this summary

1. Strongly agree. Very nicely worded :-) Xavexgoem (talk) 04:57, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

View #5 by Tznkai

I've already been quoted by GRBerry concerning admin selection pressures, so I'll just expand on admin burnout. A fundamental part of the wiki process, and probably the human brain, is feedback. Feedback can be positive (barnstars) negative (you suck!) and constructive (this works, this doesn't. In AE you usually only get negative feedback, sometimes you get positive feedback from people you don't want to (as one side of editor warriors rejoices when you sanction their opponents) and you get virtually no constructive feedback. In addition to that, there is inherently very little pay off. When an admin manages a dispute on a typical article, helps correct behavior and forge consensus, that admin can feel proud. They have helped improve the article. Something got done - two sides at loggerheads are working together, and content will spring forth as a result. That sort of success brings elation. This does not happen at AE - or if it does, it does so very rarely, and the victories are short lived. Answering AE problems has very little pay off, and as a result is incredibly exhausting. Oh - and you're usually going it alone.

No person can withstand that for long - at least not without some serious damage to judgment. Our best admins get used up - and the admin's stubbornness that allows success in the first place is also dangerous in its own right: admins who are trying hard in good faith often end up creating drama and problems as they desperately try to solve unsolvable situations essentially (psychologically) cut off from any useful feedback mechanism.

Users who endorse this summary

1. Endorsing the first part of this view, which is perfect. I completely disagree with the second paragraph (see also my request for data on the talkpage). I keep hearing about burned out admins, but is it really arb enforcement that's causing it? --Elonka 03:50, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
2. Even when multiple admins are active at WP:AE, we often specialize. My first inclination on seeing yet another nationalist "report" was to leave it alone, my second was to look at the case, see who has been handling it most, and go ping them. And constructive criticism among the board regulars takes place away from the board - and should because of Tznkai's sixth view. (And yes, Elonka, participating at WP:AE had a lot to do with my burn out.) GRBerry 03:54, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
3. Endorse out of sympathy (and truth) - I like mediating just for that feeling of getting something done. That AE is almost universally regarded as a pit of despair for the DR community means there is practically no incentive. Yikes. Xavexgoem (talk) 05:04, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
4. Endorse vaguely, though not every entire wording. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 03:19, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

View #6 by Tznkai

The primary participants of the Arbitration Enforcement board are warriors, edit or POV, or uncivil jackasses, take your pick, the people doing the complaints are usually part of the problem. Often, the complaints become part of the problem. Problematic editors try to arbitration enforcement - which lessens the ability of the responding admin to get a clear picture of the dispute, drives away uninvolved editors and other admins from adding in, turns AE into a battleground, and finally and most importantly eliminates the deterance value of Arbitration remedies. Instead problematic editors simply sling accusations back and forth until they all get sanctioned. Who loses? Admins, editors, and the reader (cause the articles go to hell or stagnate as a result).

Users who endorse this summary

1. GRBerry 03:53, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
2. All the views expressed so far can only lead to this result. Not good. Xavexgoem (talk) 05:05, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
3. Certainly agree with the part about "the people doing the complaints are usually part of the problem." People who know how to us the system can use their knowledge to "get" users that they are uncomfortable with. Very much like "office politics," those in the know can damage other workers for personal political gain. A truly neutral admin may give a cursory look at a complaint and assume the complainant (and his correspondent compadres) is correct. A ban under these circumstances can tilt the article, and encourages this method of dispute resolution. Admins should get involved in the talk page occasionally, and help guide, not just hand out bans when a complaint shows up at the board. Tundrabuggy (talk) 21:39, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
4. Sounds plausible. Here is my own analysis of a process I call "Model of mass radicalization and conflict generation". Perhaps it may be useful to combine both? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:36, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Encapsulating view by Tznkai

To start with, I'd like to call attention to this gem from GRBerry on the failures of AE which will help put my comments here into context: arbitration enforcement is a critically flawed paradigm that does not work. Arbitration enforcement passes the buck on difficult disputes to an increasingly shrinking pool of admins who usually come out damaged or useless. AE consumes our best admins, and makes some of our admins into serious problems in their own right. Even if AE was flooded with a large number of high quality admins to mitigate burnout and low participation problems, AE would still be the equivalent of treading water. Nothing is being solved because you can't solve entrenched disputes by detterence and simple solutions - if you could we would've done it already. Disputes end up at AE because of how difficult they are to solve. We need to think more creatively.

Users who endorse this summary

1. Xavexgoem (talk) 05:07, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
2. Endorse I think part of the paradigm problem is that things are based on the usually false assumption that an arb decision will restore a normal editing environement to the article (and the assumption that there was one in the first place). --Scott Free (talk) 23:30, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
3. Endorse. Karanacs (talk) 20:42, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

View by ScienceApologist

One of the biggest problems of AE and other bureacracies surrounding arbitration is that they generally ignore core principles of WP:ENC because there is no system in place to distinguish between good content contributors and those who are either too ignorant, too ideological, or too obsessive to write good content, distinguish between good and bad sources, actively contribute to a collaborative editing environment, or make the mundane editorial decisions necessary when writing an encyclopedia article. Essentially, AE is a giant political game of trying to parse what behaviors of editors are in specific violation of particular incunabula created by the arbcom committee. The "diff" culture at Wikipedia means that a carefully crafted and annotated series of diff-evidence will get positive attention by administrators even if the evidence is cooked or the context is lost. Furthermore, the net effect of a user's presence is completely ignored since the entire endeavor is so ridiculously piddling. Did he swear in the edit summary? Is it okay to block her even though she refactored? Is he forum shopping? Does her activity constitue edit warring if she only reverts once a day? These discussions are stupid: they don't resolve anything because they don't take into account the basic fact that everyone is skirting around: content. Every single dispute at Wikipedia ultimately boils down to content -- and if it doesn't the disputants should be told to take their dispute elsewhere. But arbcom steadfastly refuses to rule on content (except when it igores all rules and does so anyway -- generally with disastrous results). However, just because arbcom doesn't rule on content doesn't mean that administrators must be so tied. Administrators who support decent content on Wikipedia are cowed by a culture of toleration for all users. It's a culture that is, frankly, in stark defiance to WP:ENC. Administrators are forced to treat all users as equals even in the face of evidence that some user is actively harming content.

There is no reason to tolerate users who are the most destructive to Wikipedia content, and the continual insistence that describing someone's actions as being detrimental to Wikipedia content are somehow uncivil or needlessly personal, let alone actively ban or block such users, has stymied progress in many different areas. Administrators who have shown the capability of distinguishing between good content contributors and those who shouldn't be editing a mainstream encyclopedia have told me in private that they feel disenfranchised to act. Editors who are destroying or preventing the creation of good content on Wikipedia are given a free pass as long as their other "behaviors" superficially seem okay (Civil POV-pushing) because there is no acknowledgement that such activity is harmful to the encyclopedia.

Users who endorse this summary

1. I agree that Civil POV-pushers often seem to have an advantage in these disputes, which is a VERY BAD THING. However, I think we do need to have some insistence that those who follow policy and create good content do so in a way that doesn't discourage other people who are willing to follow policy and create good content. Karanacs (talk) 14:59, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
2. I agree. The rules of engagement are important, but the content is more important. People whose behaviour is a net detriment to content should not have an advantage in disputes regardless of what the rules say. Mike Christie (talk) 13:30, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
3. Strongly endorse. All too often conflict resolution seems to worry too much about certain people being offended or trying to get people to agree and not on improving the encyclopedia. Some editors here -- often the ones most entrenched in conflict -- have no interest in improving the encyclopedia following our key principles, they just want to use this project to enforce their own agenda. Our number one priority should be improving the encyclopedia, period. If someone consistently adding biased info complains that someone wasn't civil to him, fine, that's not good, but let's keep it in perspective. Way too many people run around making whatever accusations they can come up with to try to get an editor in trouble as a way to game the system. I have had tons of people being rude to me, harassing me, and whatever, but going through the process of filing complaints (or having to respond to them) is not why I am here (to improve the encyclopedia), so I don't bother to get involved with most of that. That means the people here who care more about "winning" than working on an encyclopedia make the most complaints and throw the most accusations -- I've seen it with me and countless other cases. People need to step back and look at the bottom line: what's best for the encyclopedia, not what makes certain online friends happy, what "suts u" someone who says something they disagree with, and so forth. DreamGuy (talk) 14:38, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
4. Strongly endorse. How can the project function when careful examination of sources is systematically ignored? Or leads to administrative threats (cries of SOAP, BLP in particular)? PR^talk 15:49, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
5. Endorse. I don't think everyone ignores content, but it is correct that the situation is messed up. Admins enforce disciplinary and pro-numbers policies over quality-control and content policies, and truth is defined as a social rather than intellectual thing. That's so friggin messed up when you think about it. This is indeed supposed to be an encyclopedia. Wikipedia only gets by because some high-quality users have cobbled together in formalised wiki project cabals (counter-productive sometimes) or otherwise have become experienced and bold enough to forcibly reduce the impact of mediocre editors and the social groups they form. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 03:28, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
6. Endorse with the recommendation that admins be given more, narrower guidelines for resolving/sanctioning abuse of articles. Although this is an excellent description of the problem, it does not offer solutions which can be upheld upon review, because it encourages unilateral action. I agree that willingness to grapple with content is central, but the admin who does so needs the cover of clear, specific rules for supporting one side over another. For instance, dedicated editors with a long record of substantive disagreements may confound non-expert admins. In such cases, the admin should be encouraged to review the disputing editors' past behavior in edits & on talk pages of related articles as relevant considerations when trying to decide who & how much to sanction. Lethiere (talk) 01:14, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
7. Seems quite true. I have analyzed parts of the process in some of my mini-essays: on the problem editors that are hard to touch, on how they spread the "disease", on how it affects even the admins, and on the sad, end result.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:39, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
8. Endorse. We try to be civil in order to create an encyclopaedia, we are not creating an encyclopaedia simply as an excuse to be civil. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 10:39, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
9. Endorse In theory, it's possible for an entire dispute resolution process to take place without a single administrator having any knowledge of the content of the article - Ultimately, for dispute resolution, moderators with awareness of content are needed, IMO --Scott Free (talk) 23:30, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
10. Endorse. Civility and reversion-counting are a game. What matter is content, and there are people who edit here solely to flood articles with bias. These people get a free pass, while those who try to clean up the messes they cause just wind up blocked. Spotfixer (talk) 03:40, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
11. Strong endorse. Arbitration sometimes seems to place too much weight on giving everyone equal representation in an article, as if it were a forum. There are far more average and weak editors than good editors, and there are far more POV pushers than supporters of science, so occasionally good editors will get frustrated and be uncivil. Corrections may be necessary, but only after thanking the good editors and addressing the source of the problem (namely, the erosion of articles, contrary to WP:ENC principles). --Johnuniq (talk) 07:52, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
12. Strong endorse. Civil POV-pushers get a free ride; blunt but excellent editors get a block log. Being civil is important, yes: it does NOT trump other behaviors. KillerChihuahua^?!? 17:42, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
13. Strong endorse. If there is a content issue, it needs to be dealt with. Remember, we are supposed to be writing an encyclopedia here. If there is a civility issue, it should be handled secondarily, after we handle the encyclopedia part. Treedel (talk) 10:21, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
14. Endorse So many conflicts, especially on the science and history articles I mostly work on, boil down to one side citing NPOV and the other citing UNDUE. The only way to resolve such arguments is with informed judgement based on the content involved. Determining whether a particular idea is a significant viewpoint that requires equal treatment with opposing ideas, a minority viewpoint, which should be treated in the article as such, or a fringe viewpoint that should be excluded from the article altogether requires making an informed judgement about the subject matter. Failure to make such judgements results in history articles filled with conspiracy theories, and science articles cluttered with the ideas of young earth creationists or the folks who don't really understand what Einstein said but are convinced they have a better idea. Rusty Cashman (talk) 02:08, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
15. Mostly agreeing. Keeping a level of decorum is important, but some editors easily feel "personally" attacked when their contributions or are criticized (too?) harshly. And then endless WP:CIV discussion starts, which is really a proxy war for the actual content. The difference is that in this proxy discussion the most politically skilled and well connected usually wins. Not good for content. Xasodfuih (talk) 02:40, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
16. Endorse Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not the whole internet. People who do not want to present a fair summary of the entirety of a topic may go play elsewhere. A much stronger insistance on closely following our best sources would be nice - if the quality reviews do not consider a particular aspect or objection relevant, neither should we. Additionally, intentionally and maliciously lying about a source should be a bannable offense. - Eldereft (cont.) 19:07, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
17. Endorse Verbal chat 19:29, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Comments on this proposal from users

Although I agree with Science Apologist that on one level all concerns on Wikipedia arise out of content disputes, I think that may be an over arching definition of content that serves to define "encyclopedia". In fact Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, but is also collaborative as SA notes. This means that content has also a more explicit definition in reference to specific articles, and that the decision on what constitutes appropriate information on each article is based on the decision making processes that arise out of a group. Wikipedia was established this way. This can create problems as SA also notes. Making decision as to who are the experts, who are the editors who are harming the articles, who should and should not be allowed to edit are all highly subjective decisions and are impossible to judge in an objective manner. One side in a dispute is no more able to make such decisions objective than is the other. For this to change, a drastic restructuring in the encyclopedia would have to be occur, in that, a neutral, decision making body would have to be established to make neutral decisions. I can't see that happening. In the meantime, although I understand there are concerns with civility being used as excuses for all kinds of misuse, I also see that civility and good editing don't have to be mutually exclusive. I don't see great articles being achieved when stress is introduced into the environment for any reason. Stressful situations aren't side specific, but destroy productive environments for everyone. Fundamentally, incivility is a stress creating mechanism and as such damages whole discussions even if its directed at one user.(olive (talk) 20:49, 22 February 2009 (UTC))

View #2 by Elonka

One problem with arbitration enforcement, is that sometimes administrators become entrenched and start enforcing their own bias. The admin decides for themselves how the articles should be written, and supports those editors that they see as having the "right" view, and rapidly blocks (sometimes indefinitely) those who they see as having the "wrong" view. Bans and blocks may be issued with little or no warning to perceived "bad" editors, even to new editors, with a rationale of, "If they start off bad, they'll always be bad, let's just rid of them quickly." An exacerbating problem with this situation, is that even good and genuinely neutral administrators are frequently attacked with frivolous complaints of bias. So it becomes very difficult to sort out the valid complaints about a biased admin, from the routine noise that always surrounds even the non-biased admins in arbitration enforcement. I'm not sure what the solution is here (ban people who make frivolous complaints, from making further cry wolf complaints?), but I did want to point out the problem. --Elonka 17:47, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary

1. Endorse with two caveats: first, these admins are sometimes right, which makes the behavior more problematic really. Second, no one can ever agree on who the neutral admins (or editors) for that matter are.--Tznkai (talk) 19:03, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
2. Endorse with the caveat that it's ironic coming from Elonka, as she and her friends seem to be the worst offenders of taking biased actions and attacking neutral editors -- in fact, one of her main supporters (User:William M. Connolley) just did so in the last 24 hours. The mere idea that she suggests banning people who make frivolous complaints is funny, because she labels any complaint against her and her friends to be frivolous. When she ran for admin the time she finally got through after failing many times for her history of personal conflicts with others and questionable actions she promised to step down if a group of editors raised concerns that she abused her power. Then, when more than her self-set threshold complained, she refused to step down because she just arbitrarily declared the complaints frivolous and in bad faith. If she wants to be taken seriously with her comment above, she ought to step down as an admin immediately and request that User:William M. Connolley and others do so as well. DreamGuy (talk) 13:58, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
3. Endorse with the identical caveat as DreamGuy PR^talk 15:32, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
4. Endorse with the idential caveat. As I've said before, it's always helpful when people provide their own evidence. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:45, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

   Could I ask you lot to refactor your comments so its a bit less personal? If you want to complain about particular editors ( no comment as to what grounds exist or do not exist) WP:RFC/U is a click away.--Tznkai (talk) 15:50, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

   I respect you, Tzn, but people have been there, been ignored. KillerChihuahua^?!? 17:52, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

5. Endorse with the comment that it is disappointing to hear such attacks on the messenger. Since I have been at wiki, I have seen that she has always given those whom she has sanctioned warnings and guidance and even further opportunities to mess up before issuing those sanctions. Would that other admins were as careful, civil, and fair as she. Tundrabuggy (talk) 21:04, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
6. Per DreamGuy (with exception of WMC comments). As Elonka is the worst offender, I'm thinking she'll be the first banned if this receives support. Which would be justice, I suppose. KillerChihuahua^?!? 17:45, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
7. Per KC, DreamGuy (except I think WMC is a great admin), and Arthur Rubin. I'm happy that Elonka finally realizes the error of her ways, and I'm hoping she will resign immediately. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 18:30, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
8. I agree with Elonka here. Doesn't the policy on no personal attacks apply to this RfC as well as the rest of Wikipedia? Aren't the statements above evidence that proves Elonka's first comment about tag-teaming in this RfC? Funny how the same small group of editors seems to crop up together on so many controversies. I think you folks should be ashamed of yourselves for making these comments here. You have just proven Elonka's case for her. Mervyn Emrys (talk) 21:09, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

View by PalestineRemembered

Arbitration Enforcement at the Israel/Palestine topic has been disastrous (to anyone seeking to write good articles, anyway). The imposition of an "0RR" at some articles has led to dreadful bloggish sources being inserted, and the selective chasing off of editors still attempting to write to policy. At other articles, the problem is the rejection of good sources, and selective enforcement against people trying to include them. Meanwhile, there are newly arrived and seriously deficient editors being encouraged. Details available of all of this and more if interested. (Later - see this discussion for the chaos caused by 0RR, from which the article in question has never recovered). PR^talk 15:30, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary

View #3 by Elonka

One problem in arbitration enforcement is an echo of a problem in other (non-enforcement) areas of Wikipedia, where our community is still wrestling with the question of how to deal with an editor who may be a valuable academic but also have such poor social skills that they end up antagonizing other editors. Painting with a broad brush, some members of our community seem to classify all editors into two main camps: "smart" (being people who have advanced degrees, or are recognized experts in a subject area, or claim to be), and "dumb" (the hobbyists who pick up their knowledge in a more amateur and casual style). The philosophy being that the "smart" editors should be empowered, and if their social skills are poor, they should be tolerated because of the quality of the articles that they create. The philosophy further says that if there's a dispute between a "dumb" and a "smart" editor, the dumb editor should be rapidly ejected from the dispute, article, and/or Wikipedia entirely. Often an article in dispute seems to boil down to two camps of editors, with the "smart" side saying, "We're academics, we know what we're talking about, stop trying to insert pop culture nonsense," and the "dumb" side saying, "You say you're academics, but you're using limited sources, or garbage sources," which results in counter-charges of, "No, your sources are garbage," and this goes back and forth. In the case of arbitration enforcement, some editors of this "smart v. dumb" philosophy seem to feel that sanctions should be used only to kick out the "dumb" editors, so as to empower the "smart" editors. So when an admin attempts to sort things out, if the admin takes action against someone perceived as an "academic", even if the academic was being disruptive, edit-warring without discussion, issuing personal attacks, etc., then the admin may be attacked for "empowering POV-pushers". Even if the admin is administering warnings equally to both "sides" in the dispute, there is still sometimes a perception that academics should receive fewer (or no) warnings, simply because they're academics. --Elonka 20:00, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary

View by Deacon of Pndapetzim #1

In the ArbEnforcement-relevant areas wikipedia is a giant game. People in these areas follow the natural human urge to form groups for mutual benefit. The fact that truth on wikipedia is social rather than intellectual, along with number-favoring policies such as WP:Edit war and WP:3RR, and the general preference of discipline over content policies not only forces, but positively recommends that people collaborate off-line. This is as natural as any real world scenario where one person chats about another behind their back, and many theorists believe that the human brain grew its present size mainly for this purpose. Those that resist this because of values derived from elsewhere get more often that not the "Sucker's payoff". These facts, while not particularly nice, are real. Wikipedia's policies on handling such areas don't in any real way take account of this, of what were recently labelled "tag-teams" (formerly called "cabals") who co-ordinate moves by IMs, IRC and email. How could a system possibly work if, through moral blindness, it continued to ignore, as it currently does, one of the forces that shape it most? It obviously couldn't! Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 07:05, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary

1. Cabal exists, however we define them. But are they evil? Or maybe they are forced by editors who cannot figure out how to defend themselves against another cabal accusing them of being a cabal? :) See also my essay. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:42, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
2. This tendency is normal IMO, that's why there are policies and guidelines to counteract this, and as such I think they are a sound. --Scott Free (talk) 23:30, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
3. This problem is most apparent when policies like WP:UNDUE and WP:RS are involved. Contrary to the belief of some, these policies do put the wiki editor in the position of a self-appointed expert that judges sources. Even in areas where WP:RS is better contoured, e.g. WP:MEDRS, for contentious topics the inclusion or exclusion of sources sometimes comes down to a vote. Xasodfuih (talk) 00:41, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

View by Deacon of Pndapetzim #2

Arbitration committee decisions are often unenforceable on powerful users. On the relevant AE or AN/I thread anyone with enough friends can have the most sensible decision overturned based on a use of WP:CONSENSUS. In this manner Wikipedia often resembles an early medieval court, where you are tried or convicted based on the number and status of the armed friends who turn up at the hearing. Hence, if all you have to worry about is lone admins, and you know you enough friends to prevent any ruling ever being applied, what is the incentive to obey arbcom rulings? Likewise, if you are the lone admin and know user x has enough friends to avoid it being enforced, why waste your time taking the shit for it? That is obviously a serious flaw! Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 07:21, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary

1. Endorse, though I wouldn't use quite the same language. It's a genuine problem though, that sometimes the view of consensus can be distorted by "who has more friends", or even "who has more friends who have more free time to spend on-wiki". I have many times seen discussions de-railed by editors who spend many hours on Wikipedia each day, and post frequent messages to drown out the less frequent posts by those with the smaller support networks. Even on ANI, there have been times that I have been less likely to want to speak up in a busy thread, simply because it would be exhausting to try and keep up with the dozens of posts being inserted by the "sanctionee" and the sanctionee's wiki-friends. --Elonka 23:19, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
2. Endorse partially. In my experience, the numbers and eloquence of supporters is not that important. It matters more who are they in the world of wikipolitics. Are they nobodies (read: editors who dedicate themselves to creating content and are unknown on AN/I, ArbCom and so on)? Or are they scary wikipoliticians, who can orchestrate long term campaigns against those who they dislike, with much knowledge how to bend the rules and make Wikipedia a living hell for the other side? Editors who have friends in that second group, or belong to it, are the real problems, and we need to find a way to cleanse the project out of those "evolved trolls" who hide behind masks of "experienced editors", when in fact they are not building an encyclopedia, but destroying it while rising their own little empires. See also my mini-essays on problem editors and why admin are afraid to deal with them.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:47, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
3. WP:WHEEL makes it hard for a "lone admin" to impose any sanction on an editor who has another admin on his side. The only way to sanction such an editor is some big drama on WP:AN(I). Arbitration Enforcement is supposed to be the exception to the general WP:WHEEL rule, which might be the reason why some hope to "score" a sanction of that kind agains the opposing party, i.e. it's more work to have it overtunred. Xasodfuih (talk) 00:49, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

View by Mukadderat

Just like any other wikipedia bureaucratic gadget, enforcement of broad topic bans may actually be used as a tool against opponents by ingenuous corner cutting, selective shut-eye, overreacting, etc.

Scenarios involving an opinionated admin teamed with rank-and-file POV-pushers abound, myself being hit swift and hard in one when I occasionally stepped into Prem Rawat zone without any real interest in the topic. Adding insult to injury, user:Jossi was commended by arbcom for alleged "self-imposed restriction" while he continued to orchestrate ousting the opponents of his favorite guru. Mukadderat (talk) 18:58, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary

1. Endorse I think there needs to be controls to prevent this --Scott Free (talk) 23:30, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

View by Gurch

Arbitration enforcement is a silly idea in the first place. Administrators should be doing things because they think they're the right thing to do in the circumstances, not because some committee told them to -- Gurch (talk) 17:53, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

View by Piotrus

AE works in uncontroversial, simple cases. Anything complex (violating rulings on incivility, creating a battleground, wikistalking, bad faith, etc.) risks one of the following problems:

• tag team disruption: an editor might have violated some less clear arbcom rulings, but he has friends (WP:TAGTEAM, or just friendly admins sharing similar POV - or simply following a policy "enemy of my enemy is my friend, so I help to help enemies of my enemies"), who will try to defend that user, either by creating enough confusion to create the impression of no consensus, or at least slander the reputation of the victim (and maybe get him warned/blocked/restricted/etc. in all the confusion).
• random admin lottery: some admins may not see eye to eye with arbcom, and even in best faith, will interpret arbcom rulings differently. This may be influenced by the rulings being unclear (incivility, for example, is in the eye of a beholder), and by tag team confusion. Further, certain behaviors lead to negative admin selection, which overtime may lead to worse and worse decisions on AE, ANI and so on (read my mini-essay on why).

In addition, I'd like to briefly point out two more issues the arbcom should address, which while slightly less related to AE, are quite crucial (as became clear to me in the EE arbcom aftermath):

• we need much more interaction between arbcom members and parties in the case. Specifcally, arbcom members should comment on all proposals in workshop, comment on evidence presented (this would cut down on useless evidence and workshop proposals), and should reply to comments on arbcom talk or their talk pages. EE gave me the impression that most arbcom members did not read most of the evidence, workshops, talk and even ignored direct queries on their talk pages. Current lack of involvement leads to a widespread view that arbcom doesn't care about editors.
• arbcom should not lose the sight of Wikipedia's purpose: we are here to promote behaviors that leads to encyclopedic content creations. One of the questions that arbcom should ask when making rulings is "will this ruling make Wikipedia a better place?" In other words "after this ruling, are good content creators likely to feel they are respected and needed, or will they feel we don't care about them"? Are we creating a heartless bureaucracy and playing wikipolitics games, or do we care about editors? Something to keep in mind.

See also my summary to EE arbcom, and my mini-essay here.

Solution: #Proposal by Piotrus

--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:13, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary

1. Endorse --Scott Free (talk) 23:30, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
2. Endorse And the committee should be clear enough in their wording of cases that admins working AE and editors subject to sanctions don't need to be kremlinologists. While we don't always need to, sometimes we do, and even one time is too many. GRBerry 19:13, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

View #4 by Elonka

One problem with arbitration enforcement, is that it seems to work backwards from other parts of Wikipedia. For example, bans v. blocks. In some AE areas, if an administrator posts a temporary editing restriction on an editor, this is seen as more controversial than if the administrator had entirely blocked the editor's account access. When an editor is blocked, they are restricted to their talkpage. When an editor is banned from one article, they will often immediately go to ANI to challenge the ban, which results in the usual drama-fest. Another contradiction in the way that arb enforcement works, is that bans are only authorized in very limited areas of the project, such as Eastern Europe, Armenia/Azerbiajan, September 11th, Pseudoscience, Israel/Palestine, etc. If a problem occurs in some other non-AE areas of the project (for example, an article about a religious cult), administrators have fewer tools available to them. To deal with a disruptive editor, an admin's only real option is to warn and block, since the admin is not authorized to place a more limited restriction such as a ban or a revert limitation. As the saying goes, "When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." So the block "hammer" may be used on editors, when a lighter remedy such as a ban from one article might have been all that was needed. This also causes the problem that when an editor is being mildly disruptive, but not so disruptive that a block is warranted, the administrator's hands are tied, since their only options are (1) warn (and see the warning ignored); or (2) Block (and risk the block being overturned as too strict). So the dispute at an article or topic area may just continue to escalate until it lands on ArbCom's doorstep, at which point, ironically, milder bans may finally be authorized. I'd like to see things flipped around, so that uninvolved administrators are authorized to place limited bans in non-AE areas, before a dispute escalates to the level of requiring arbitration. Giving administrators more "tools in the toolbox" when managing complex disputes, will be more likely to nip problems in the bud, and make disputes less likely to rise to the level of RfAr in the first place. --Elonka 21:32, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary

View by User:Tbrittreid

I agree with User:Cla68 that the case of Martinphi-ScienceApologist (properly linked-in by Shoemaker's Holiday) is worrisome. I disagree thoroughly with the outcome--Ruling 5, that arbitration was not "to settle good-faith content disputes" was irrelevant, given Martin's unrefuted and seemingly well-supported claim that Raul654 abused his authority by protecting a page to keep his own disputed edits in place, rather than engage in discussion of them. I have no doubt that if administrators still had the authority to block editors unilaterally (several talk page discussions I read some time back indicated quite clearly that this had been the case; they included the complaint that once blocked you can't defend your actions because you're blocked [emphasis theirs]; that is what is being suggested here, is it not? If I am wrong, my apologies for misinterpreting the point here) I would have been blocked several times, just for pointing out behavior detrimental to the encyclopedia. Such is clearly Wikipedia business but each time was labelled a "No personal attacks" violation by one or another admin (also each time, the involved admin[s] eventually dropped the matter without comment, presumably recognizing but refusing to admit the legitimacy of the distinction). The regs do in fact acknowledge reporting bad faith behavior as an option, but in what I can interpret only as another instance of this attitude making itself known, all that is said there is a warning against making a false report of such, no description whatsoever as to where and/or how such reports should be made. It is bad enough that such an indefensible resistance to dealing with such behavior is widespread among administration, but for individual admins to possess the authority to act upon it with no checks and balances would probably result in the knowledge, sources, and abilities of many good editors being lost to the project. --Ted Watson (talk) 22:58, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

The problem in a nutshell by MastCell

Read through this thread. Count the number of bytes contributed by uninvolved admins. Compare that to the volume of noise contributed by various familiar partisans. MastCell ^Talk 04:14, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

1. Well, this is a general problem with editorial conflicts between highly involved editors. Take for instance the recent kerfuffle on fluoroquinolone toxicity. Who wants to read 2x100Kb talk pages generated in less than a week? Just dealing with a 100Kb article spawned in about a week is time consuming enough. Xasodfuih (talk) 02:51, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

   zOMG why do we have a POV fork on "fluoroquinolone toxicity"?!? Sigh. You're bumming me out. MastCell ^Talk 04:07, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

   With the risk of getting another zOMG out of you, this version of the AE page speaks of its (f)utility: mostly involved editors blowing off steam, with no concrete results (other than being told to bugger off via on-page archiving). Xasodfuih (talk) 23:22, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

View by User:Aude

The arbitration enforcement process is ineffective in dealing with cases where private, sensitive information is involved that cannot be presented onwiki (e.g. personally identifying information of users, some BLP cases, and cases where harassment — including off-wiki or by e-mail — is involved). Such cases are complicated and difficult, and not something that an ordinary admin might want or be able to handle. Yet, the arbitration committee rarely is involved in arbitration enforcement, and prefers letting ordinary admins deal with arbitration enforcement. --Aude (talk) 01:48, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

View by Deacon of Pndapetzim #3

In many of the AE threads the discussion the issues become opaque because there is no ready way to distinguish between the involved and the uninvolved. For instance, a user posts an AE issue for administrator attention about user x. User x's allies turn up with their perspectives, clouding consensus, or user x' enemy user y and his buddies turn up clouding consensus. When this happens, as it does as often as not, it is often obvious to the admins seasoned in the area; but isn't to everyone else. As well as making it more difficult to arrive at the right decision, it may discourage the wider administrator attention that is needed. In some areas it is a problem that the same administrators supervise the same disputes over and over again; in one area at least I think this has led to bias because the administrators in question have bonded with some of the parties over time by email and elsewhere, and have created their own subculture that some are able to benefit from more than other; the prejudices created consolidate themselves over time by confirmation bias; and when that is the case, it hurts fairness. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 01:57, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Users who endorse this summary