Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/RickK vs. Guanaco

Case Closed at 04:20, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Please do not edit this page directly if you are not a participant in this case. Comments are very welcome on the Talk page, and will be read, in full. Evidence, no matter who can provide it, is very welcome at /Evidence. Evidence is more useful than comments.

Arbitrators will be working on a proposed decision at /Proposed decision.

Statement of complaint

User:Guanaco is not only unblocking User:Michael in direct contravention of Jimbo's explicit hard ban and repeated hard ban just two days ago, but when I attempted to revert Michael's additions as User:Mike Garcia, Guanaco listed me as a vandal on Vandalism in progress. RickK 04:24, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)

I'd actually like someone to deal with Guanaco's arbitrary and unilateral unblockings of blocked users. Can this be handled with this same arbitration? And my reverts WERE ad hominem, because Michael is hard banned, though that doesn't seem to matter to Guanaco. RickK 22:13, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)

Ad hominem reverts of my edits are not acceptable. If I reinstate one of Michael's edits, it was added by me, and I am not banned. Guanaco 23:19, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Statement by affected party

The edits by RickK were vandalism. He reverted both non-minor edits by me and the edits by Mike Garcia, even when it was confirmed and noted in my edit summary that the previous version was incorrect. He is making massive ad hominem reverts and destroying content in the process. This shows how little he cares for the quality of the encyclopedia, and how much he cares for pushing his inflated view of Wikipedia policy.

Comments by third parties

Can you two explain why you accept this case and reject the one below? Has serious negotiation or Wikipedia:Requests for mediation been tried in this matter? Gzornenplatz 13:26, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)

Michael is a hard-banned user who is editing as Mike Garcia. It may not be an emergency but the question of how we should deal with this is important. Hard-banned users theoretically have no right to edit at all, let alone negotiate or mediate. Fred Bauder 13:53, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)

That is not the point. The conflict seems to be between Guanaco and RickK about how to handle Michael. Why don't you tell those two to try mediation first? It would have more chances of success than any mediation with VeryVerily. Gzornenplatz 13:59, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)

I don't think mediation is right for this. The Michael issue doesn't involve only RickK and Guanaco. There are a lot of views about this being expressed at Wikipedia:Village pump#Michael.2FMike Garcia. Guanaco is not the only one having his edits reverted by RickK and RickK is not the only one wanting to block Michael. Arbitration should focus on the issue of what to do about Michael and about sysops making unilateral decisions on this, not specifically on the dispute between RickK and Guanaco. This is just my view, not that of the Mediation Committee. Angela. 18:55, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)

Actually Jimbo was trying to mediate this and contacted RickK and asked him to IRC, but RickK has never used IRC. Fred Bauder 11:46, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

Mailing list post by Jimbo

As an experiment, I am going to unban Michael and place him under the mentorship of Danny and Guanaco, who will watch after him. He will edit only under his new Mike Garcia account, and promises to make only good edits.

I ask all other sysops and users to give him a try, and try to welcome him into the community. I would like to ask those who have been directly involved with dealing with his constant problem edits to please just steer clear of him for awhile, and let Danny and Guanaco or others try to mediate and deal with him.

Essentially, banning hasn't worked very well, because he's a persistent problem. Blocking him has been problematic because he comes in on an AOL proxy, which blocks lots of other people.

This is a unique situation, and it warrants a unique experiment, and we have people (Danny in particular) who have taken the lead in volunteering to try something new.

--Jimbo _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list

Preliminary decision

Arbitrators' opinions on hearing this matter

1. Accept Fred Bauder 12:52, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)
2. Accept. James F. 13:20, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
3. Accept. →Raul654 16:40, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)
4. Accept. Jwrosenzweig 21:38, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC) (It is unclear to me whether we are merely deciding whether actions taken by sysops are all right, or whether we are taking on the more serious matter of resolving how to interact with Michael at present. I accept the first case. Unless Jimbo announces an arrangement with Michael in the next week or so, I would be willing to consider the latter case also, but I have hope our GodKing will make the latter case moot.)
5. Accept. Nohat 05:38, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC) Although it's already been accepted, I want to be clear that I intend to be participating more responsibly in the matters of arbitration.

Final decision

All numbering based on /Proposed decision

Principles

1) Wikipedia:Administrators are Wikipedia users who on the basis of trustworthiness have been granted the power to execute certain commands which ordinary users can not execute. This includes the power to block and unblock other users or IP addresses provided that Wikipedia:Blocking policy is followed.

8 for 1 against

2.5) One aspect of the responsibilities of an Administrator is to attempt to prevent disruption to the Wikipedia site and its users.

8 for 1 against

3.5) A ban is a standing order that a particular person (and all his/her reincarnations) is not permitted to edit the Wikipedia web site. This is different from an Admin-imposed block, which is usually imposed to prevent vandalism.

8 for 0 against

4) Users can be banned and unbanned by the Wikimedia Board, by Jimbo Wales personally, and by the Arbitration Committee.

9 for 0 against

5) One of the tools used to effect bans against people is to block a user account suspected of being used by them, which is a specific technical measure that stops the user account from editing; one result of this is that their IP address will be blocked from editing for 24 hours from each time that they attempt to edit with that account.

9 for 0 against

6) Users who are generally agreed to be a "reincarnation" of a banned user can be summarily blocked.

8 for 1 against

7) All Administrators are expected to abide by rulings and decrees from Jimbo Wales, the Board, and the Arbitration Committee.

9 for 0 against

8) "[Wikipedia asks] that users generally refrain from reinstating any edits made by banned users." -- Wikipedia:Banning policy

8 for 1 against

9) "If a user does knowingly reinstate an edit by a banned user, they have taken responsibility for it, in some sense, so there is no benefit in reverting that edit again, and there is the risk of causing unnecessary conflict amongst the Wikipedia community." -- Wikipedia:Banning policy

8 for 1 against

10) Wikipedia users are encouraged to responsibly identify problems, discuss them with other users and, if possible without violating Wikipedia policy, solve them.

8 for 0 against

Findings of Fact

1) At the time of the actions by RickK and Guanaco under review, Michael was under a lifetime ban imposed by Jimbo Wales.

8 for 0 against

1.1) Despite the ban, Michael, who was 12 at the time of his ban and is now 14, was highly motivated to edit on Wikipedia and continued to attempt to edit articles, most of which were deleted. To do so he created sockpuppet accounts and edited anonymously.

8 for 0 against

1.2) Michael's edits were reverted when discovered and the accounts he created and the ip addresses he used were blocked when detected.

7 for 0 against

1.3) Because Michael was using AOL, blocking him also blocked other AOL users and readers, reducing the utility of Wikipedia.

7 for 0 against

1.4) Guanaco was aware of the problem that blocking Michael also blocked other users and readers, and attempted to find a solution, ultimately trying to solve the problem by allowing the Michael-controlled account User:Mike Garcia to edit.

7 for 0 against

1.5) There was a spirited discussion, some of it at the Village Pump which users Guanaco, RickK and Danny participated in. Ultimately the matter was refered to Jimmy Wales who reached an agreement with Michael, Guanaco and Danny which permitted limited use of the Mike Garcia account with Guanaco and Danny playing a mentoring role.

7 for 0 against

2.5) In the past, Guanaco has unblocked or changed block times on a large number of blocked accounts, some of which were blocked legitimately, some less so. These unblocks were not completely unprecedented, were made in good faith, and were not forbidden by written policy. However, in some cases these unblocks were made with insufficient prior discussion and a lack of awareness of the views of other admins. For example, unblocking admin-name impersonators (user:Maximus-Rex or User:JamesByrd) for the reason that they were not likely to return. (See Wikipedia:Block log)

7 for 0 against

3) RickK's initial reverts of Mike Garcia's edits were fully supported by Wikipedia's policy, whereby admins are expected to enforce Jimbo's bans.

8 for 0 against

4) Rather than deleting certain edits of User:Mike Garcia, Guanaco checked his edits and if correct copyedited them and noted that they were correct, example.

8 for 0 against

5) In resinstating Michael's edits, Guanaco took responsibility for them, and therefore it was his responsibility to fact-check them.

5 for 2 against

5.1 Michael has a history of making edits, especially to articles on popular music, which contain errors.

7 for 0 against

5.2 By reinstating Michael's edits Guanaco implicitly assumed responsibility for their accuracy.

7 for 0 against

6) However, despite these fact checking efforts, at least two falsities were later discovered in these edits (Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Something Bitchin' This Way Comes, "There were two bands called Lock Up...")

7) As per Wikipedia:Banning policy (cited above), in cases where other users claim to have fact checked Michael's edits (Example) then the disputed edits should not have been reverted

7 for 1 against

8) This dispute was exacerbated by Guanaco and RickK not discussing the matter productively. Neither Guanaco nor RickK have engaged in adequate discussion or otherwise taken part in the expected behaviour of disputants who are respected editors. Rather, they choose to make make personal attacks and an inappropriate listing on vandalism in progress.

6 for 2 against

Remedies

2.5) Guanaco is awarded a special commendation for creative problem solving with respect to the problems created by blocking of Michael.

5 for 1 against

Enforcement

No specific enforcement.