WP:ARC

Requests for arbitration

Request name	Motions	Initiated	Votes
Rama	Motions	29 April 2019	9/1/0
SashiRolls		30 April 2019	0/8/0
Future Perfect at Sunrise behavior		30 April 2019	0/8/0

[edit]

Open cases

Case name	Links	Evidence due	Prop. Dec. due
Backlash to diversity and inclusion	(t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t)	10 Oct 2024	24 Oct 2024

[edit]

Recently closed cases (Past cases)

No cases have recently been closed (view all closed cases).

Clarification and Amendment requests

Request name	Motions	Case	Posted
Amendment request: Palestine-Israel articles (AE referral)	Motion	(orig. case)	17 August 2024
Arbitration enforcement referral: Nableezy, et al	none	(orig. case)	7 November 2024
Clarification request: Referrals from Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard to the full Committee	none	none	7 November 2024

Arbitrator motions

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

Rama

Initiated by Iffy★Chat -- at 09:46, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Iffy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
Rama (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
TonyBallioni (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Iffy

I'm going to keep this short, the article Clarice Phelps has been deleted twice (AFD 1 (Endorsed at DRV), AFD 2), and subsequently salted by TonyBallioni to prevent recreation. Today, admin Rama re-created the article without attempting to discuss the matter with the protecting admin, or at WP:DRV in violaiton of the salting, wheel warring and/or admin accountability policies. This case is being filed to consider whether Rama should be desysopped for ~~wheel warring~~using their admin tools against a clear community consensus, Arbcom is the only place that can resolve this dispute.

@Fæ: If Rama had not doubled down on their re-creation when challenged, I would not have filed this case request per WP:AGF (but someone else may have done so).

I don't have an opinion on whether the scope should only be about Rama's conduct, or if the scope should be extended to other conduct issues surrounding the Clarice Phelps article, ~~I named the case Clarice Phelps to allow ArbCom to make that decision if they choose to accept.~~

The matter of whether the article should be deleted or kept is a content dispute and thus not in Arbcom's remit, any conduct issues surrounding the editing of the article may be in scope though.

@Hodgdon's secret garden: I didn't add DGG or Amakuru as a party to this case as accepting an WP:AFC draft to an unsalted title is not an admin action (anyone at WP:WPAFC/P has this ability), and (speculation ahead) Amakuru deleted that page before DGG had a chance to revert his acceptance. Amakuru's deletion was within policy as WP:G4 exists to enforce the consensus of WP:XFD discussions.

Statement by Rama

I discovered the matter today in a press article. I then had a look at the Wikipedia biography, which I found to be far past the stub stage, and to contain almost 30 references. This made me think that the deletion process was mistaken, and, considering the potential for embarrassing press coverage, I decided to restore the article. This is an exceptional measure — I have never before seen an article with such solid references be questioned in such a manner. The nature and intensity of the reactions to the restoration have also surprised me. Rama (talk) 20:56, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
[Statement made in response to question by BU Rob13; moved here per guidelines for ArbCom pages]

My understanding is that there exists a culture of ostensibly apolitical adherence to select rules — including when the outcome contradicts official policies of the Wikimedia Foundation such as the promotion of diversity. What can be done about it is such a difficult question that the Wikimedia Foundation has several Strategic Working Groups interested in the issue, notably Diversity [1] and Community Health [2]. Rama (talk) 07:36, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It is widely acknowledged that Wikipedia has diversity problems: that amounts to saying that the usual processes sometimes bring about undesirable results — I do not think that this is controversial. Of course one cannot solve the whole issue with executive decisions such as the one I took in restoring the article, this can only be exceptional. Rama (talk) 08:54, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
To answer [3]:
- "From earlier comments Rama has made I'm assuming they felt an undelete discussion would be wrapped up in wiki-bureaucracy, and likely be drawn out, taking up time and energy, while meanwhile the media were starting to take up this incident with echoes of Donna Strickland, so there was a sense of urgency, and IAR was created for situations like this" → yes.
- I believe that I do not really understand BU Rob13's question, because it makes too many unstated assumptions, and I appear to have answered outside the bounds of these assumptions. Please clarify.
- vocabulary matters because it frames the debate. As such, I want to say that I am not comfortable with using terms such as "the community" to designate users involved in any specific incident, as they are usually few in numbers and of various opinions. Also, "diversity terrorist" is unfortunate.
- In case SilkTork is expecting some sort of declaration that I would not perform another action comparable to the restoration: that is what I meant when I twice said "exceptional" above.
Rama (talk) 09:51, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I recognise that my recent action on Clarice Phelps' biography was not ideal, I recognise the error and I will be more careful in the future. Rama (talk) 14:23, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

To answer BU Rob13 here [4]: I do not doubt your sincerity, I just find the question "what went wrong here" to be confusing. I assume that you mean "why my action triggered a backlash of this magnitude"? If that is your question, I would say because my action was unilateral and out of established processes for undeletion, the topic is polemic, and the people bound to oppose my action for the two first reasons were more numerous, organised and motivated than I expected. I hope I am answering your question, please ask further if you are expecting something that the present paragraph does not answer. Rama (talk) 15:18, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
answering [5]: I said "the topic is polemic, and the people..." because that is part of the causal chain (in the sense that if nobody had minded my action, we would not have this shitstorm; you can interpret this as me recognising the existence of other people with opinions.), and I was uncertain of what it was you wanted to hear. Administrators do not have specific authority, only specific tools. Nobody is entitled to overturn a consensus, although we do have principles and rules to address exceptional cases: WP:BOLD, WP:IAR etc. I think an administrator should clearly separate their administrative and editorial actions, which is obviously easier when one is indifferent to the subject; this being said, subjects on which everybody has an opinion should not go unattended. In this particular instance, I do not feel personally passionate about the subject, I merely acted in what I perceived to be an opportunity to protect Wikipedia from bad press in a case that I though would not prove as divisive as it turned out to be. Rama (talk) 19:41, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
PS to immediately above: I also realise that some regard administrative tools as something very serious and harbour some sort of standing suspicious that anything unusual amounts to an attempt at power-grabbing, while I am much more of the "administrator should not be a big deal" school. This was a blind spot on my part and I should have factored this — especially if I had known how polarised the people involved on this article were, which I did not expect. Rama (talk) 05:08, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
answering [6]: "polemic" is an English adjective meaning "controversial", which you can find in the Wiktionary [7]. Rama (talk) 04:26, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
answering [8]: if I had not been an administrator, I would not have done anything. The whole point of my action was that it was instantaneous: my intention was to give Wikipedia the image of an entity globally capable of hearing criticism and acting upon it. Launching into an undeletion request process would not have served the purpose. Rama (talk) 09:54, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
answering [9]: no, that would not have been instantaneous and would not have served the purpose. If I had believed that I had an unexceptional avenue to obtain the desired result, I would have done that, whether admin or not. You have it backwards: going through a process out of lack of administrative tools would indicate that the use of administrative tools would be a mere personal convenience, and would raise my eyebrows. Rama (talk) 13:53, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
answering [10]: the term "community consensus" suggests a collegially crafted decision that agrees a vast majority of people. The present discussion has revealed two embattled sides, and a state of affairs enforced unilaterally by one on the other; it has shown that one of the sides is composed of people willing to use spurious arguments (that we must delete a biography because we do not know the exact naval rank held by the subject, because our article puts its well-publicised subject at risk...), and encourage others to call their opponents "terrorists" [11]. An article with nearly 30 references by solid institutions (US Navy, Oak Ridge) being deleted in such a way is a very unusual occurrence (I have never seen this before) and I thought it was a unfortunate incident that needed a little nudge and would solve itself when the editors involved would be informed that they were making Wikipedia look like a haven for Gamergate-style bullying and misogny. I though that an immediate restoration of the page was needed to defend the image of Wikipedia in the eyes of the general public and would also act as this signal to editors; instead, I seem to have upset a hornet nest of people very much undisturbed that Wikipedia would be shown to the general population as insensitive to women and minorities, and the article on Phelps now appears to be part of a more general pattern of harassment against User:Jesswade88 [12]. As I have repeatedly said, I do realise that what I did was not ideal and turned out to be counterproductive, and if I never intended it to be a regular occurrence, seeing the outcome I am very much determined not to reiterate. Now, this being said, sanctifying the state of affairs with had on Phelps' article with the term "community consensus" is unfair. That is not "community consensus"; this is community consensus. Rama (talk) 04:51, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
answering noone: I understand that my action caused disruption and in hindsight I would not have done it. This being said, suggesting that administrators must act only to implement a strict interpretation of the rules is flawed. We have many rules that contradict each other; they are meant to be interpreted and give leeway for specific cases. Else, I am clearly and obviously at fault for bypassing the restoration rules, while simultaneously being obviously right because of WP:IAR, and many of my detractors arguably fall under WP:LW for invoking petty considerations to hinder diversity — a core value of the Wikimedia movement (e.g.: compare [13] to [14][15][16]). I acted in what I perceived to be an emergency, without a complete assessment of the situation, while hoping I was acting in the interest of the public image of Wikipedia. Note also that while I now disavow my administrative action, I have received thanks from several people for it: the narrative of a single individual battling the whole of the Wikipedia community does not reflect reality. Rama (talk) 10:19, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by TonyBallioni

As I have pointed out all tonight: no one here is looking at the impacts this dispute has the potential to have on a real human being who is in the early stages of her career and who it is likely is now most known for the Wikipedia controversy rather than anything else. An ArbCom case over this will only further that problem. A real human being has unfortunately become a political point on Wikipedia, and that is to our shame.

This was not wheel warring: it was an admin taking a particularly dumb step of recreating a salted article because of an op-ed written by someone who is apparently connected to our education program. Cool. DGG also accepted it as a draft yesterday trying to find a compromise, and I wouldn’t consider that to be wheel warring, and in that regard I wouldn’t consider this wheel warring either as it wasn’t the second reversal.

Fram has solved the content issue: it’s in draft now. It can be taken to DRV at this point and the last two AfDs and the call for salting in the second one reviewed by the community. What is not needed is an ArbCom case to document for the next month this political fight over one person who in every likelihood doesn’t want this mess. If Rama were to restore the article against Fram’s draftification that would likely require ArbCom intervention, but we haven’t gotten to that stage yet. I would urge the committee to decline this or if it feels action is warranted, deal with it by motion, but a case would do more harm than good here. TonyBallioni (talk) 11:54, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wnt, for what it’s worth, I actually agree with you. I think the concerns people have here is that there was an apparent taking sides in a content dispute and what looks like using the tools to override three discussions and without talking to the protecting admin (me). Part of the reason I’m slightly less up in arms about this than others is that my response would have been Any admin can reverse the salting if they want, but it may be better to discuss at DRV as this is controversial. TonyBallioni (talk) 12:50, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I just want to state that I fully endorse Newyorkbrad's statement, who makes it better than I could. The community can deal with this issue. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:03, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Amakuru, I was more referencing the fact that the central content dispute underway seems to be in draft space/headed to DRV and Rama hasn't overruled yet another admin and restored it again. The community has the power to deal with that dispute, and the case for a desysop on something where there appears to be little risk of wheel-warring now that the status quo has been reestablish is low. I agree that there was an issue here with regards to conduct, but I am less concerned about it since they haven't tried to force their will again on this. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:27, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement from SN 54129

Suggest this is resolved by motion; the facts are clear enough, and the only theoretically debatable issue, ironically, is the content itself, and the community has shown three times how it is dealing with it. Thus the only matter that requires Arbcom examination is Rama's conduct. A motion would also avoid relitigating the previous deletion discussions. Cheers, ——SerialNumber54129 09:53, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Re. Fae: Arbcom is not a hammer to smash community discussion; and neither is an administrator... ——SerialNumber54129 10:06, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Fae: There had already been myriad discussion for them to have tajen part in had they so chosen; to join a discussion that only starts as a result of one's own unilateral action is not in accordance with community expectations.

@GBfan: Personally, I think ADMINCOND and AD'ACCT are the relevant policies: Mara's conduct, in unilaterlaly overruling community decisions—WP:SUPERVOTE-writ large, as it were—was clearly conduct unbecoming. The'r subsequent actions, while appearing to be engaged in discussion, also doubled down on their position. And per ACCT, a breach of basic policies is reason enough for the case. ——SerialNumber54129 10:53, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, SilkTork puts it better than me: There are some errors of judgement, and confidence in this admin is now very low, so a case is appropriate... ——SerialNumber54129 09:18, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Carrite: DGG is no on the cttee. ——SerialNumber54129 13:05, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Re: Pldx1's point about polarisation: yes, it's called victim blaming, and it's an oddly out-of-place defence at most times, let alone here and now. ——SerialNumber54129 08:09, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Re: handwaves to the "real world"; it is a commonplace that, of course, every online community is part of the real world—except to metaphysicists?!—as indeed is every organised party, organisation or group; but that does not mean that "real life" dictates the internal processes of said groups. Wikipedia is built, fundamentally, on communication and consensus, and Rama'a actions overrode both those fundaments—they neither discussed beforehand nor respected consensus. Isolated incident or not, they showed—and, in their subsequent statements, continue to show—an absolute disconnection with what the Wikipedia of 2018 is is doing, and—even more imporantly—how it is doing it. ——SerialNumber54129 08:36, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement from Nosebagbear

As SN 54129 says - it's a simple issue for the article/draft/salting - the greater consideration is needed is Rama's actions. The whole discussion is cited as evidence, so I just want to highlight one line by Rama: "My undeletion of Clarice Phelps's biography is an emergency measure to answer criticism in the press and show Wikipedia to be responsive, responsible, and capable of correcting mistakes quickly."'.

This isn't even a justifiable claim of IAR - AfD had a chance to use that argument and chose not to do so. Admins can't make their own IAR calls that override community decisions made shortly beforehand. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:57, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I want to clarify that @Amorymeltzer: et al are correct - I don't think this is a case of wheel-warring. It is a case of overriding community consensus and other actions. Assuming no change of mind by the admin in question, I still think it warrants ARBCOM consideration. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:18, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by GeneralizationsAreBad

I had no involvement in the prior history, but just wanted to point out that there may be further off-wiki ramifications here. Regardless, Arbcom action is clearly warranted. GAB^gab 10:01, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Fae

This is a hasty request created literally 2 hours after the undeletion action by a requester that has done nothing to engage participants apart from issuing notices. At the time of this request being created, I do not see how the requestor could know what additional material was going to be added by WiR participants or others (therefore the issue would be moot), nor had the procedural based discussion at ANI precisely focused on this undeletion been completed, in fact the undeleting admin was actively responding to questions there, and had the opportunity to take further action after discussion.

Launching hasty Arbcom requests, is not the way to engage good faith contributors for a consensus on how to proceed. Arbcom is not a hammer to smash community discussion. --Fæ (talk) 10:02, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Iffy: Rather than "double down", Rama is responding with a reasonable amount of detail for their reasoning behind undeletion. This Arbcom request was published exactly 4 minutes after their second statement on ANI, so I find it doubtful you took that into account. I do not read those statements as defensive, and given even 24 hours for discussion, we may have seen a good faith consensus. This Arbcom request disrupts collegiate discussion and is exactly the "doubling down" that you readily see in others. --Fæ (talk) 10:16, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

With regard to locus, it may be worth Arbcom taking into account User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Clarice_E._Phelps, a discussion on an Arbcom member's page that was opened a few hours in advance of undeletion and may have swayed views about whether the article should be openly revisited on Wikipedia. --Fæ (talk) 10:23, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Serial Number 54129: Rama's actions may actually be in compliance with G4, the procedural discussion at ANI had a chance of resolving that before an Arbcom request. Per G4, it is not wheelwarring if the revised article is going to be reasonably different ("excludes pages that are not substantially identical to the deleted version"). In this case the prospective difference between meeting one of Wikipedia's definitions of notability for people or not. The conclusion at ANI may have been that Rama made a mistake based on inflated expectations, that's fair enough, misjudging how to meet G4 is not a crime, though Rama would have been better advised to discuss the undeletion with the salting party, as was already part of the ANI discussion. This Arbcom case puts a premature halt to good faith discussion and makes it virtually impossible for Rama to back down and put things right for themselves. I do not see Rama as being the one breaking community discussion, seeing as how engaging in community discussion, answering others questions in good faith, was exactly what they were doing. --Fæ (talk) 10:34, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Fully endorse the point made by TonyBallioni, that this is an Inside baseball discussion and should be handled that way. Every reasonable step should be taken to reduce the unintentional internet footprint this discussion may have for the BLP subject's name as it has no relevance to their public profile or career. --Fæ (talk) 13:08, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Mr rnddude: It's clear what you are, but the words you are using are defamatory. I am not a criminal, I have never threatened to murder anyone nor have I ever threatened damage or injury through any terrorist action. If you or SilkTork have evidence that any contributor to this project is threatening acts of terrorism, you should be writing to WMF Legal or sending your evidence to the police, not making jokes about it. It seems to me that Rama's concern about the systemic bias on this project that drives away contributors who want to do more to improve the representation of minorities in the encyclopaedia is easy to demonstrate at every level. Comments like yours make that evidence easy to find. --Fæ (talk) 09:46, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@SilkTork: With respect to your use of "diversity terrorist", please reconsider those words. It should be obvious why an Arbcom member using those words in an request to describe a party is objectionable. --Fæ (talk) 09:21, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for striking the words, even if with obvious reluctance, i.e. because it was unpopular not because it was simply wrong to call or heavily imply someone is a "diversity terrorist". In the light of a sitting Arbcom member believing it is fine or fair to deride the central party to a request as a "diversity terrorist" for their views about hosting a BLP of a woman and though striking the comment neither properly retracts or apologizes for it, the comment "Someone who presents as not understanding the role of admin, and appears to be so at odds with both Wikipedia and the community, is likely to be a poor fit for admin. It is possible that Rama is simply not good at communicating." appears to be a two edged sword. It is a pity that there is no fit and proper mechanism for asking for a governance review in these circumstances, especially considering the community has significantly higher expectations of Arbcom members than simple sysops, and how easy it would be for those with potential conflicts of loyalty to recuse from this case, or indeed, from simply refraining from using a case request to publish inappropriate and demeaning attacks on parties to that case.

Logically, your responses here are of more concern for the good governance of Wikipedia, than Rama's explanations of their single action ever could be. --Fæ (talk) 09:57, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Sitush

Motion should suffice. It is straightforward wheelwarring. - Sitush (talk) 10:07, 29 April 2019 (UTC) Or at least abuse of tools (seems to be some debate about the wheelwarring claim but it's potato/po-tah-to in this situation. - Sitush (talk) 15:35, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Rama: your comment referring to enabling the far Right is ridiculous. - Sitush (talk) 12:55, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Wnt: I can see no request from an editor for Rama to restore, serious or otherwise. - Sitush (talk) 13:13, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Levivich: my revert was while the article was not draftified and when I was myself reverted I left it alone, merely explaining things in the ANI thread - see here.- Sitush (talk) 13:52, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Worm That Turned: I'm not in a rush, although increasingly tending to think that a desysop will be required, especially after the long list of diffs just presented here by Mrrnrdude. However, I don't see what people expect to happen regarding the article - it is currently in draft space and likely to stay there for six months unless deleted as a BLP violation (which won't happen because the arguable BLP violation(s) could simply be removed from it). Yes, this is a content issue but ArbCom holding off to await a resolution of the issue will mean delaying probably for months. The chances of it moving out of Draft space seem slim to me, given the number of people who have already crawled all over it and the potential sources. - Sitush (talk) 11:15, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Mr rnddude

You know, I have no issue with keeping the article. It's a, as yet, "meh" article with, I guess, adequate referencing. The article is for the community to handle. I take issue solely with Rama and the way they are handling this dispute. The fact is the article was twice speedy deleted and even salted. Rama joined like a bull in a china shop and decided "no, we're doing this my way". Their defence is that this is an emergency measure because doing otherwise would show that "Wikipedia is not for Social Justice" attitude, which would be irresponsible and deeply suspicious. Aside from Wikipedia not being here to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, the general disregard for community processes is fundamentally incompatible with adminship. Mr rnddude (talk) 10:14, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Levivich - There's a Draft:Clarice Phelps. It might be an idea to move your findings across to the draft so that the information can be consolidated. Concerted efforts in one place ought work better than individual efforts spread out. Mr rnddude (talk) 13:20, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Fæ - ~~You're being~~ That's a tone police terrorismt. Mr rnddude (talk) 09:29, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Fae - I'm a person who cares more about what somebody means than the words they choose to express it. It's obvious that SilkTork is not referring to literal terrorism, but to [ab]using given authority to override discussion. Your "tut-tutting" their tone enables the exact same behaviour that marginalizes women in debate – Oh you said a naughty word, that makes your point irrelevant. That said, I shouldn't have called you a tone police terrorist that was over-personalizing it. It's clear what you are - My talk page is that-a-way if you want to say it. Mr rnddude (talk) 10:18, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I do not feel personally passionate about the subject - Rama

Moved from WT:A/R - GoldenRing (talk) 10:27, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This is an embarassment for Wikipedia - 07:41 29 April 2019 <- this was ~~1 minute prior to~~ 3 minutes post undeletion, before this became a dispute
Notability is ridiculously obvious - 07:42 29 April 2019
[T]he deletion of the article is a source of embarasment for Wikipedia, and an emergency restoration of the article seems quite appropriate to me to avoid making Wikipedia look indifferent, incapable of correcting its mistakes, or even militant in its invisibilisation of women and minorities - 08:51 29 April 2019
The article in question makes a convincing case that the article is victim of an unfortunately selective enforcement of notability criteria, and is an embarrasment to Wikipedia. - 09:25 29 April 2019
Wikipedia is known to have a problematic gender gap, insufficient coverage of minorities, and recently Katie Bouman's case has been indicative of deliberate attempts on the general Internet at minimising the contributions of women in science. - Previous diff (this one is here just to show "passion" on the topic, nothing more)
My undeletion of Clarice Phelps's biography is an emergency measure to answer criticism in the press and show Wikipedia to be responsive, responsible, and capable of correcting mistakes quickly. I understand that this disregards the previous Deletion Requests, but doing otherwise would amount to a dismissive and defiant "Wikipedia is not for Social Justice" attitude, which would be irresponsible and deeply suspicious. - Previous diff
there are many sources establishing notability, because there is a suspiciously selective enforcement of notability criteria on this case, and because media attention on this article - 09:34 29 April 2019
yes you are arguing for deletion, and you are also letting far-Right talking point slip - 12:14 29 April 2019 for my preceding comment striking at Rama's and the Jarvis' politicization of the deletion. Albeit Like you, the only reason the author thinks this article is necessary is because politics and social justice was my engaging in hyperbole. It's not the only reason, but it is the main one given.

Tell me again, Rama, how you are not personally passionate about the subject, in a dispute in which you've questioned everybody's good faith (calling the deletions "deeply suspicious"), repeatedly referred to the embarrassment to Wikipedia this has caused, and all the rest of the hyperbole? And if you really don't feel passionate about the subject, then what kind of a reaction should I expect on the day you do feel personally passionate about a subject?

The nature and intensity of the reactions to the restoration have also surprised me - If the above statements by you don't give you a hint as to why you received such a vicious backlash, then nothing will. Mr rnddude (talk) 06:33, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Lectonar

To be resolved by motion; straight-out wheel-warring. Lectonar (talk) 10:19, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by GB fan

I don't believe this actually is a wheel war. That says that once an Admin action is reversed the reinstatement of that or a similar admin action is wheel warring. In this case the article was deleted and protected from recreation. Those two admin actions were reverted. Now if anyone reinstates those actions (deletes the article and create protection) it is a wheel war. We haven't gotten to the third stage yet that makes one.

Statement by Fram

I moved the page to draft space. Keeping it in the mainspace lets one admin (whose admin rights doesn't make them a superior judge of content matters) overrule community decisions, no matter if these were right or wrong. Deleting it would get me too close to wheelwarring as well probably. In draft space, it can be developed and can then be brought to WP:DRV for a standard review if necessary. And it allows non-admins to see what the fuss is about, which a deletion wouldn't do. The recreation of the article was not an emergency, despite the claims by Rama to the contrary, and should lead to a desysop (for wheel-warring or for serious abuse of the admin rights by editing through salting to overturn a community content decision); but the article is not a BLP violation which needs complete deletion asap, and draftifying it works just as well for now (I have no opinion on later redeletion or a post-DRV move to mainspace). Fram (talk) 10:46, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Davey2010

I'm sure we all on occasions have disagreed with the consensus at one place or another however that's just how this place works .... In terms of AFD if you don't agree with that consensus then you have DRV - If consensus goes against you there then you simply give up and move on,
~~I personally would say this is wheel warring as an admins action has clearly been reversed,~~
Anyway the only sensible option here is a desysop with the option of retrying through RFA,

Also worth noting Rama was given the mop back in 2005 where things were a lot different. –Davey2010^Talk 10:54, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Pawnkingthree Thanks, Not the first time I've got Wheelwar wrong and certainly won't be the last!. –Davey2010^Talk 13:43, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Amorymeltzer

I have no comment on what ArbCom should or shouldn't do, but unless I am missing some other action, this is, by definition, not wheel warring. A wheel war, as Arbitrators surely know, is when sysops reverse an already-reversed sysop action; had TonyBallioni taken umbrage and reverted Rama's undeletion, that would have been a wheel war. This was a sysop taking unilateral action to reverse an apparent community consensus: that may warrant action here (in particular to avoid an actual wheel war) or it may not, but this is not a wheel war. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 10:59, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Amakuru

I'll comment more on this in due course when time allows, as I did play a minor role in the saga myself last night with a db-repost deletion of the article when it had been recreated at the slightly different title of Clarice E. Phelps. I will say now though, regarding Fae's comment above, "[this arbcom case] makes it virtually impossible for Rama to back down and put things right for themselves" - I doubt that's the case. Even though the decision to re-delete the article has been taken out of their hands, I reckon that if Rama were to back down now and apologise for their actions in overriding community consensus and several other admins, then things may not need to be escalated any further and this case can be closed down. The arbs haven't even begun to look at this yet. Thanks — Amakuru (talk) 11:01, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There's some disagreement on whether this constitutes wheel warring or not, so it may be worth explicitly stating the order of events (and correct me if I've missed anything):

31 August: Page created by Jesswade88.
11 Feburary: Deleted by Tony Ballioni following first deletion discussion. Deletion discussion was endorsed on 18 Feb.
3 April: Created again by Jesswade88.
4 April: Deleted again by Tony Ballioni following second deletion discussion.
26 April: Draft:Clarice E. Phelps was created by Hodgdon's secret garden.
27 April: Draft moved to mainspace Clarice E. Phelps by admin DGG.
27 April: I deleted the Clarice E. Phelps article as it had been tagged as {{db-repost}} by Tataral and the conditions for that seemed to be met.
29 April: Rama undeleted the original article at Clarice Phelps.
29 April: Fram moved the article to Draft:Clarice Phelps without leaving a redirect, after the opening of this case request.

Quite who is reverting whom in all that is hard to say but I don't think the question of whether this is textbook WP:WHEEL or not should really affect whether the case should be heard or not. — Amakuru (talk) 11:45, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@TonyBallioni: @Newyorkbrad: I totally sympathise with the spirit of your comments - people do need to calm down here, certainly. Personally I am not baying for blood and am undecided if a desysopping, admonishment, or a simple WP:TROUT is appropriate. Or maybe even no action at all. But it's clear that Rama's actions and their refusal (thus far) to admit that they made a mistake, and the widespread discontent with that admin action evident on this page, have created a situation that cannot be dealt with by any other mechanism. "The community can deal with this issue" is expressly not the case, because the community has no power to examine administrator conduct, that is the domain of ArbCom. On the substance of the issue itself there seem to be two points being made by Rama and others in defence of the action, namely (1) the situation was an emergency one requiring unilateral WP:IAR action, and there was no time for community consensus to be established before restoring the article to redress that emergency, and (2) that off-wiki articles and "perception of Wikipedia in the press" issues override AFD decisions in scenarios like this. I disagree on both points. There was no emergency, because there were multiple discussions ongoing in different venues since Saturday, and no consensus had been formed that the recent coverage in the press warranted a change of approach. And on the latter point, I know of no policy saying that off-wiki op-eds should influence our processes. For all these reasons I think ArbCom need to look at this. I'm not pre-judging what ArbCom might decide, but this surely sits squarely within their domain of operation. To be clear, if Rama admits they were wrong and promises not to unilaterally override community consensus in this fashion in future, then the case can be closed swiftly as far as I am concerned. But that doesn't seem to have happened. Thanks — Amakuru (talk) 14:23, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@TonyBallioni: fair enough, that makes sense. Thanks for the response. — Amakuru (talk) 14:31, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A number of people are saying this case shouldn't be heard because technically no wheel warring occurred. Although that is correct from a WP:Wikilawyering point of view, I personally disagree with that this means there should be no ArbCom case. It's fairly clear (and even those calling for no further action agree) that what occurred was a clear case of WP:TOOLMISUSE in the sense of editing through protection to impose a personal point of view that is known to lack consensus. What concerns me right now is not so much the incident itself, but the fact that although Rama has said they regard the situation as "exceptional" and therefore unlikely to be repeated, there has been no acknowledgement that what they did was wrong. Or that they would not repeat this action if the identical circumstances happened again. Their record of long service and lack of controversy so far is a strong mitigating factor, and I would stop short of desysopping if I were in charge, but I do think an official admonishment from ArbCom is in order. Just so it's clear that invoking nebulous Foundation "promotion of diversity" policies to overrule a specific endorsed community decision is not a valid use of the tools. Thanks — Amakuru (talk) 15:16, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Med

I think this arbcom request should be speedily dismissed. First and foremost, Iffy has made no attempt to engage in any discussion with Rama. The right procedure would have been first to contact Rama and discuss with him if/how the circumstances have changed (and they very obviously have, necessitating rapid action) since the previous vote. If I were a suspicious person, I would say that this procedure looks awfully like someone jumping the gun at the first opportunity in an attempt to instrumentalize the arbcom and silence a voice perceived as dissenting. So until Iffy's attitude becomes respectful and genuinely open to discussion, any arbcom request against Rama is completely unwarranted and abusive. Med (talk) 11:22, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

One thing to keep in mind is that the guidelines/rules/etc. are nothing but tools towards the goal of building an encyclopedia. They should never be regarded as anything other than that. So more than anything actions should be regarded not so much as whether they follow the guidelines down to the comma, but whether they improve wikipedia. In addition the context has to be taken into account. There have been long standing patterns of harassment coming from certain groups who are trying to instrumentalize the guidelines (and various hastened decisions by a ridiculously small and non-representative fraction of contributors) and turn them into something absolute in an effort to turn wikipedia into their political platform (e.g., the harassment of Dr. Jess Wade by people focusing on a narrow range of articles in order to push a clear political agenda, negating their claims of being apolitical). Is wikipedia richer by having an article about Clarice Phelps? Certainly. Does having an article about Clarice Phelps hurt in any possible way any aspect of wikipedia? Certainly not. It does not remove anything from any other article, quite the opposite. Wikipedia is rich with articles on far more obscure and niche subjects than Clarice Phelps. So, given the circumstances, internal and external, I believe the actions of Rama, while bold, were warranted. From what I have read, he understands he should have nevertheless been more cautious, which should be enough to close the topic. That this affair is growing to ridiculous proportions for the actual article at stake here, suggests a coordinated pattern mentioned earlier. This sort of systematic procedural attack creates an overall toxic environment around the documentation of scientists, deterring good-faith contributors from enriching the encyclopedia we love. Kisses. Med (talk) 12:43, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SoWhy

One might dispute whether this is wheel-warring or just wheel-warring adjacent but the facts are that an admin implemented community consensus and another admin reverted consensus because they believe they know better. Call it what you want but I think we can all agree to call it unacceptable. Whether the subject in question is notable or not is irrelevant though. It's clear that this was deliberate and not just a simple misunderstanding but rather Rama using their admin tools to fix a perceived "embarasment for Wikipedia". All admins are permitted to consider the outcome of a community discussion "unjust" but it does not mean they are allowed to ignore them. So as many have said above, a motion to desysop Rama for obvious abuse of tools seems to be necessary here.

And with all due respect to Med just above, there is nothing Iffy could have done more. Rama was aware of the problem because Sitush challenged their action. They defended it without going into details why they had to override clear community consensus. Regards So Why 11:33, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Wnt: I don't think anyone here is arguing that SALTing is some kind of irreversible decision. The problem was not that Rama edited through protection but that they did so without consulting the previous admin (WP:RAAA) and without any pressing need to do so before consulting said admin. And when they did, they restored an article without making any changes to it, merely asserting that "Notability is ridiculously obvious". The problematic violation of community consensus that ArbCom needs to review was restoring an article twice deleted because they thought the consensus was wrong. Regards So Why 12:50, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@ArbCom: I would also strongly urge this case request to be renamed to "Rama" or something along the lines. As Tony rightly points out, the article that caused the behavior is only tangentially relevant to this case request and her name should not be associated with the actions of a lone admin, not the least because BLP requires us to think about the real-life impact it might have if this takes longer and is covered in news outlets. Regards So Why 12:55, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Newyorkbrad: While I am not completely against considering "how it will look if we do this or that", the focus should imho always be on what will happen if we let outside considerations dictate our internal processes. After all, administrators have to make 1001 unpopular decisions before breakfast and if they had to consider their actions from a PR standpoint as well, I don't think many would still be willing to do it. Wikipedia is a truly one of a kind project with people from all around the world participating. That requires that some rules are followed by all, especially those tasked by WP:ADMIN to lead by example. If we start to consider whether an action was made with the "subjective intent of benefitting the project", the whole system will sooner or later come crashing down. Yes, Rama acted because they felt Wikipedia were better off with this article than without it. But they also clearly and explicitly ignored consensus to the contrary without any need to do so. Declining to review this obvious abuse - compounded by later refusal to acknowledge that such behavior was problematic - because it might be received incorrectly by off-wiki media sends the wrong message. Whether at the end of such a review Rama is desysopped or merely admonished is for the Committee to decide. Regards So Why 14:58, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Rob asked Rama if they understand why people are upset of them using tools to interfere in a content dispute. Rama replied (ignoring the large "Kindly read before editing this page" edit notice telling them to keep in their own section (which is also troubling for an admin)) talking about a "culture of ostensibly apolitical adherence to select rules" and "official policies of the Wikimedia Foundation such as the promotion of diversity" without addressing the question asked. With all due respect to SilkTork and Premeditated Chaos, do you really think there is nothing to investigate when an admin is not even able to reflect on their own actions in the face of criticism? Regards So Why 08:20, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

One last thought (hopefully): Hydronium Hydroxide has helpfully pointed out that Rama has in the past already be sanctioned for edit-warring against consensus and a WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT attitude (I apologize for forgetting to remember and mention my involvement back then). If this moves to a full case, which I think it should and it looks like it will, the Committee should especially take a look this latest comment by Rama (which also reminds us how helpful the preview button is). This comment shows a fundamental misunderstanding of consensus (which apparently only exists if an AFD is snow closed in favor of their position) and that Rama did explicitly want to use their tools to change the outcome of a content dispute because they felt the outcome was enforced unilaterally by one [side] on the other. Calling those of us (including myself) who are (rightly) critical of any admin using their tools to enforce their will on any discussion very much undisturbed that Wikipedia would be shown to the general population as insensitive to women and minorities betrays a mindset of "us vs. them" that is unbecoming of any admin. As Joe Roe has so eloquently said, Respecting consensus isn't a procedural minutia, it's the core principle that allows us to collaborate. Apparently, Rama does not understand that. Regards So Why 07:25, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Winged Blades of Godric

The arbs are yet to start voting and I strongly concur with Amakuru. A case over here will be an invitation to an even bigger mess in light of the recent rise in long-inactive accounts, popping out of nowhere and casting random aspersions at those involved with the deletion.

But, shall Rama not apologise for a blatant misuse of tools (and then standing by his misuse), I believe that a desysop is in short order. ∯WBG^converse 11:36, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The political overtones evident in Rama's handling of the issue is also deeply concerning. ∯WBG^converse 13:36, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I note that Rama has been active over Wikimedia-sites since the initiation of the case (from adding material at Phelps' page to accusing others of being in a right-wing conspiracy to uploading photos over Commons and deleting her other photos) but is yet to respond over here. ∯WBG^converse 17:28, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Carrite:--Err....Where from shall DGG recuse? He ain't an arbitrator, anymore.∯WBG^converse 13:00, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Carrite

Unilateral restoration of a deleted and salted article in this manner is a blatent example of tool abuse. Pull tools of Rama by motion, invite a new RFA, move along to more important matters. Carrite (talk) 11:48, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

~~I am a little puzzled why DGG has not recused from this case within the first six minutes of this request being launched. He is virtually — and arguably should be — a party.~~ Carrite (talk) 12:58, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Whoops, my bad. Thanks for the clarification. Carrite (talk) 13:09, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, DGG opined Delete and I opined Keep in the original AfD debate. This should not be a content discussion or a political discussion, but a discussion about process. Tool abuse to supervote is not a valid instance of IAR. Carrite (talk) 13:09, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Black Kite

First of all, this isn't wheel-warring, as it isn't a reversal of an already-reversed admin action. But it's fairly flagrant tool misuse. Not only has Rama unilaterally - without any discussion with the deleting admin or anyone else - restored an article that's been deleted through AfD (and DRV), but it was also salted, so they've edited through protection as well. And when asked in two venues to reverse their action, they've refused. This can be dealt with via motion. Black Kite (talk) 11:55, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'd just point out that Rama has been editing since this case was launched, but has not answered here; they have added material to the Phelps Draft article, and to say this on the Draft talkpage, to another editor who thinks the article should not be kept. Is this really what we expect from an admnistrator? (Not to mention that it probably makes Rama WP:INVOLVED as well as everything else). Black Kite (talk) 15:52, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Nick

Desysop Rama by motion. Nick (talk) 12:12, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Wnt

GB Fan is right: this is not a wheel war, because it one admin undoing the first admin's action. Undoing the "salting" of the article is also not a violation of community consensus, because there was no community consensus to salt. Yes, there were three in the second AfD who said to salt, but another said not to, and some of the other comments that didn't lean either way could be inferred to be against salting (if someone says 'delete because there is no substantial change', that would seem to suggest a changed article would be acceptable). Not being able to view the text, I don't know if there was an attempt to substantially change its content from the AfD'd version or not - if there was, it may not be a violation of community consensus, otherwise it might be.

My main concern is that I don't want a minority of participants in an unannounced poll (it's not "Articles for Salting") plus one admin's more or less arbitrary action to become an irrevocable ban on covering a topic area. Nor should it be necessary to have a special RfC to undo a restriction when there was no special RfC to enact it. Wikipedia's primary purpose is supposed to be about sharing information, not concealing it. So admins should have and retain broad powers to un-salt articles based on any serious request from an editor. Wnt (talk) 12:40, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The responses by SoWhy and TonyBalloni are pretty persuasive. So long as this is phrased as a matter of ignoring the consensus on the AfD and/or not giving notification per WP:RAAA, rather than saying that an admin can't de-salt an article without 'wheel warring', my concern is satisfied. I do mean giving notification rather than getting consent -- if one admin salts and another disagrees after a discussion, then the second should be free to cancel the first and leave it unsalted, at least unless some larger consensus is brought in. Wnt (talk) 02:38, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Levivich

Extended content

Less than 12 hours ago I created User:Levivich/Clarice Phelps (which is different from the draft that was undeleted) and asked Tony if it was enough to unsalt. He said no, which I expected, and my intent was (and still is) to appeal that to DRV to seek recreation to be allowed.

The second AfD–the one that resulted in the salting–was only open for 8 hours, and several people (I was one of them) were against salting. I don't see how anyone can claim that this was salted as a result of "consensus" in such circumstances. Also, when DGG approved Clarice E. Phelps through AfC, Amakuru deleted and salted it. How is that not wheel warring, but undeleting what Tony deleted/salted is wheel warring? (I don't think it's wheel warring in either case.) Leviv ich 13:07, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Mr rnddude: Yes, and normally I'd do what you're suggesting, but there are already editors removing sourced content from the draftspace draft, including wholesale removing the new sources calling it "myth" (Sitush, here). #1 I don't want to touch that draft with a ten foot pole in the middle of an arbcom case request, #2 I don't want to edit war and there is going to be zero chance of coming to consensus on that talk page of that draft (note that editors like Winged Blades of Godric are already editing on that draft with edit summaries like "learn how to write better", so that will give you an indication of how well a talk page discussion would go), and #3 I don't want to take a "mangled" draft to DRV. As I understand it, the procedure (or one procedure) for seeking restoration of a salted article is to create a draft in userspace that you think is sufficiently different from the prior version, and take it to DRV requesting "allow recreation" (if the salting admin won't agree to unsalt). That's my intent. I'd like to have a (calm) discussion about the new sources and whether they sufficiently establish notability (I think they do). Of course, anyone else is welcome to take any part of my userspace content and incorporate it into the draftspace content if they want to. I just don't think that's going to a useful expenditure of time, given that editors are deleting sourced content already. Leviv ich 13:40, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I also think the committee should decline this–not with an admonishment, but a straight decline. "No firm rules" is a pillar, IAR is a policy. IAR says, If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. It doesn't say, "go ask for permission first." It doesn't say "except for admin." It would be an entirely different story if it was repeated IAR, but it was a one-time thing.
It can't be that when someone IARs, the consequence is that they must promise never to IAR again. It can't be that when someone IARs and in retrospect it's considered a mistake, they must promise never to IAR again. Either one would vitiate the IAR policy and 5th pillar. If you punish editors in any way for a one-time IAR, they will never IAR again. And that's not Wikipedia.
It's not accurate that this move was "against consensus". There is not the consensus that some claim there to be. The new sources came out after the second AfD, so whether they change anything has not yet been discussed by editors (that discussion is happening now at the Draft talkpage and RSN). This was a bold move, in the absence of any consensus one way or the other. It does not merit an arbcom case or motion, or any action. The best thing here would be to decline the case and for the community to move on from conduct disputes surrounding this article, and focus on the ongoing content discussion. Leviv ich 14:39, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Alanscottwalker

Yes. Open a case, and Rama's actions seem wrong to me on multiple levels, but the committee is going to have to deal with admin actions and WP:IAR and WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY, now. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:09, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

For the record I don't think I have participated in any discussion concerning the article, and I have not commented in any discussion concerning Rama, before this. (I am certain this can be handled without deciding the article's fate). -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:23, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Rama: You used a BLP as a football, not only is that egregious, it is unethical and possibly cruel. Do you not know that in the real world having a Wikipedia article is not always a plaudit but an invasion. Having read everything you have written on this (here, ANI, the draft article talk page), it is apparent how little judgement you had, here. That you are surprised is practically impossible for anyone who is demonstrating good judgement. And if we are to believe @Opabinia regalis:, not only did you disrupt Wikipedia to make a point, but you did it over the most banal of ideas, that you could not stop to talk to other pedians. Analogizing this to civil disobedience, not only suggests a very low opinion of civil disobedience, but a disconnect with why civil disobedience has some power -- it's the willingness to risk involved -- you risked nothing, real or imagined. The idea that this was an emergency is plainly preposterous. 'It's too much an emergency to talk to other Wikipedians' is your defense, which is nothing but bringing the project into disrepute, since this is a project of communication. Not only were your actions arrogant, you damaged the very idea of collegiality, respect, and communication, here, and most reprehensible used someone's bio to do so. --Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:05, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Rama: The topic of the article? A living person, not a polemic. It is required, we not forget. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:30, 30 April 2019 (UTC) Well, Rama, thanks, I still don't know what "subject is polemic", in fact that phrase makes even less sense to me, now, thanks for responding, though. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:02, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Rama:: Really? You are getting in the territory of what we call aspersion. Some of us have actually written Wikipedia articles about women and minorities, and given topic ideas and sources to a project that writes articles on women. So, not only could you be more wrong in your baseless suggestions about what disturbs other editors, here, but it suggests further negligence for you as an administrator. Your tools are the community's tools, they are not given to you to dictate content, whatever your shallow understanding and assumptions of others is. Nor are content decisions made to punish an alleged harasser -- a functioning administrator knows the effective and useful ways of how to and where to address harassment. If there is harassment, let us welcome the opening of this inquiry, so you can bring your evidence. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:14, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Pawnkingthree

Desysop by motion. It is simply unacceptable for an administrator to edit through protection to restore an article that has been deleted twice by community discussion, without even notifying the deleting admin, or reversing their action when challenged. If the case is accepted it should focus only on Rama's admin actions, not on whether Clarice Phelps deserves a Wikipedia article, as this is out of Arbcom's scope. -- Pawnkingthree (talk) 13:10, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Davey2010: Reversing an admin action is not wheel-warring. Wheel-warring is re-instating an admin action that had been reversed.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 13:24, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Newyorkbrad

Contrary to the majority opinion so far, I think this should be declined at this time. First, I have always disfavored desysopping for a single administrator action taken with the subjective intent of benefitting the project, except perhaps in truly extraordinary circumstances. Rama has been an administrator since 2005 and I do not recall encountering him before on the noticeboards or the arbitration pages. While high-profile, especially in the short-term, this appears to be an isolated incident.

Second, without getting into the merits of the underlying notability/deletion dispute, it is undeniable that rightly or wrongly, for better or worse, this situation has received and will continue to receive significant publicity off-wiki. While Wikipedia's decision-making should not be dependent on off-wiki descriptions or discussions of our policies and actions, neither should we be entirely tone-deaf to them. Those of us who are familiar with our processes and procedures can evaluate this matter based on notability and deletion and administrator-accountability policies, but others off-wiki lack that background. Inevitably, a desysopping here would be described off-wiki as "next, English Wikipedia's highest authority removed an administrator as punishment for seeking to rescue this article." There can be little doubt that such an addition to the narrative would, unhelpfully, further compound the notoriety that this matter has already incurred. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:00, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum: Rama's comments above, including that this was an exceptional action that he has no intention of repeating, further militate against any perceived need for a case or even a motion. Beyond that, I hope it is becoming clear that this single action was not so untenable or destabilizing as it might have seemed yesterday at this time. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:49, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Ad Orientem

I recommend this case be declined. There is no need for Arbcom to become involved here. The article is now in draft space and a discussion (yet another) regarding its suitability can now take place. Further, as pointed out by others, this was not wheel-warring. All of which said, Rama's actions were clearly a serious lapse in judgement. A strongly worded variant of "Don't do that again..." coupled with a large serving of Trout should suffice. The bottom line from my perspective is that while this was a bad judgement call, it was not a malicious misuse of the tools. Unless there is evidence of a serious pattern of poor judgement, opening a case to deal with this would be a serious overreaction and an unnecessary time sink. -Ad Orientem (talk) 14:26, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Cryptic

Even if this wasn't wheel-warring, use of one's extra buttons to gain advantage in a content dispute, against pre-existing consensus, is surely as bright a line. —Cryptic 15:06, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Hodgdon's secret garden

Point of order. Inasmuch as after the 2nd deletion at the Clarice Phelps article space another draft at Clarice E. Phelps [17] was accepted by the admin user:DGG, an action that was summarily reverted by [edited: user:Amakuru ], Why is user:DGG [/User:Amakuru ] not also a party here? Must one initiate/ cajole heaven forbid that a parallel one be opened?--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 15:16, 29 April 2019 (UTC)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 15:53, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

So @Iffy: if I follow u correctly - Admin A reads consensus to salt Clarice E. Phelps née Salone with diacritic therefore it's entirely proper for any editor including Admin B to accept a draft at Clarice E. Phelps née Salone, in that it's without one? How so (w/o failing the if-it-hops-like-a-bunny-has-ears-like-a-bunny-and-hides-eggs-at-Eastertime-it's-a-bunny test)?--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 17:14, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Natureium

Whether or not this is technically wheel-warring, using sysop tools to say "Screw all of you and the multiple discussions that have taken place, I'm going to do what I want." is a big problem. He has made this whole mess worse. Not to mention the fact that we have Wikipedia editors using the press to write opinion articles to try to create notability for someone whose article has been deleted. This is a real person's name that they are using for political reasons, and it should be clear that this is morally unacceptable. Natureium (talk) 15:18, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Robert McClenon

I think that many of the statements being made are not really about whether ArbCom should take this case, but are efforts to decide whether User:Rama engaged in wheel-warring. ArbCom should decide whether there has been wheel-warring. Those who say that this is a clear case of wheel-warring that should be decided by motion are making a good-faith mistake, and those who say that this case should be declined are making a good-faith mistake. This case is not open-and-shut, and that is precisely why ArbCom should accept it and consider it deliberately. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:31, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A Thought

The essay User:Robert McClenon/Administrator Abuse Cases explains that it should not be necessary to decide that Rama engaged in wheel-warring or other administrator abuse in order to accept the case. It is only necessary to decide that the case is worth deciding. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:41, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jayron32

Let's not pillory a good admin for a debatable position. Rama has been an admin with a spotless record for 14 years, and acted in the best interest of the encyclopedia. Process wonks and overly officious editors are now clamoring for his head over a minor dispute. I urge the committee to either a) outright decline this case or b) if they accept it for the purpose of making a motion, to at worst admonish or censure Rama without otherwise removing his tools. There's nothing to see here; it isn't even wheel-warring by definition, and it isn't the sort of thing we should be taking people's heads off of for. I'm not even sure I disagree or agree with either the deletion or the restoration. I was not involved in either debate, nor with the follow on discussions after Rama restored the article, but for real, this is not worth all this drama. --Jayron 32 16:16, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by DGG

I accepted from what I thought an acceptable brief version, hoping that people would think it a compromise. When another admin deleted it I considered that I might ask him to revert himself and bring another AfD, or that I could go to DelRev. Even if I had reverted it myself I don't think it would have been wheel warring, though it's not something I would have ever considered. From subsequent comments made to me, I realized that my compromise probably did not have the clear consensus I thought it did, so I decided to let the matter rest. I don't think Rama's action was judicious in the circumstances, but I don't see how it was wheel warring. Nor would the reversal of his action be wheel-warring. A subsequent insertion by him would have been. As for acting against consensus, it's not acting against consensus to make another try, especially as the consensus on this was not very clear, and still is not very clear. It can, of course, sometimes not be a good idea. What will establish consensus on this will be an eventual well attended DelRev. It occurs to me that nobody has asked the subject if she wants an article. It's part of BLP policy that when notability is uncertain, we take a living subject's opinion about this into account. DGG ( talk ) 18:52, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by El_C

I agree with Black Kite that this isn't wheel warring (not administrative reverts of reverts). I have no strong opinion about whether the Committee should accept this case. But in case it does, I'd like to skip to the end and say that this warrants an admonishment rather than desysoping. El_C 21:07, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Barkeep49

There is a reason that DGG was not brought to ArbCom when he attempted to make an article on this topic - he did not use his sysop toolset in these actions and responded appropriately when concerns were expressed. That was WP:BOLD editing. Rama chose a different path by explaining process in their response to concern (which was admittedly accompanied by a threat). This would make sense if they had chosen to follow process themselves when attempting to improve encyclopedic content. They did not. While consensus can change, the fact that the most recent AfD - a log of which they had in front of them at multiple points in this process - was less than a month old clearly suggests this is a complex controversial subject and thus according to the guideline itself BOLD editing is/was not the right path. No part of the response to their decision, including the possibility of an arbitration case arising should have been a surprise. Sysops should be using the toolset to protect consensus based decisions and not themselves attempting to RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:34, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone who reads a criticism of Wikipedia and acts on it is doing so in the good faith belief that they are improving Wikipedia. Sometimes this is helpful, sometimes it is not. A sysop, as opposed to Never-Edited-Wikipedia should be able to tell the difference. Regardless of whether it was wheel warring or not (I don't think it was which is why when I first read this request I thought it should be declined) Rama took actions available to them only because of their possession of the sysop toolset - they viewed deleted content and restored content over a full protection. No full case is required for ArbCom to pass a reminder, a warning, a caution, a whatever word of admonishment ArbCom chooses, to act in an area where it has domain that the community does not.

I would, however, strongly agree that "Diversity terrorist" is an awful chose of label to apply to Rama and suggest SilkTork strike it. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:24, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Pldx1

Admin Rama has stated that Rama's actions were motivated by an [undark.org] article. This is a first failure. A WP's admin is supposed to act on behalf of WP, not on behalf of any external lobbying group. Moreover, before using Draft:Clarice Phelps as an hill to die, it would have been expected to consolidate the said hill. This has not been done, another failure. When looking at Draft:Clarice Phelps, we have:

After graduating from Tennessee State University, Phelps joined the United States Navy, where she served in the Nuclear Power Program. And then we are told why Navy uses Nuclear Power. Not a single word to describe the place Phelps occupied there. Serving as seaman is not the same as serving as admiral, but only weasel words can be found here.
Phelps was involved in the discovery of the second-heaviest known element, tennessine (Element 117), serving as part of the team that purified berkelium used to confirm the discovery of tennessine [1][11][12][13]. Yet another bunch of weasel words.

Discover is not the same as confirm the discovery. Moreover part of a team says nothing about the position in the team, from leader to auxiliary technician.
[12] is a book, to be published Jun 13, 2019 (source: google books). [13] is a 3 min youtube video, Phelps is never there. [11] is written by some mediacontact and centered about outreach activities.
The only source given for involved in discovery is [1], a rewrite of an YMCA article by some PubRel. Seems to be the source of what appears to be an hoax.

In summary, user Rama relaunched, without any thought, a process that harms both Wikipedia and the person under the projector. In any case, Clarice Phelps is not guilty of this fake news campaign launched by political warriors. It is a shame that Rama used Rama's admin position to commit such an act. What confidence can remain after that ? A case is in order. Pldx1 (talk) 11:07, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Let us assume that the following statement was issued in Good Faith by User:Rama: especially if I had known how polarised the people involved on this article were, which I did not expect. The conclusion is that admin tools can't been left in the hands of someone that don't perceive why the fiat reversal of THREE successive deletion processes could polarize anything... and now is faulting the polarized people. Pldx1 (talk) 07:40, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps, the following homework can help understand what happened.

User:Rama	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
edits	1402	7173	3822	6767	4164	3719	1745	476	2118	2281	171	1716	1497	369	613	343
admin		361	149	353	194	120	73	2	3	2	1	7	4	0	6	4

The admin line comes from [public logs] by removing the moved/created/uploaded lines. The figures for 2011-2019 seem so low that I have perhaps missed something. Pldx1 (talk) 10:24, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Sphilbrick

Arbcom should decline this case, not because it is unserious (it is very serious), but because community processes for dispute resolution have not been exhausted. One exception to this general rule is if wheel-warring occurs, because only Arbcom can adjudicate wheel-warring issues. However, many in the community (including many admins) mistakenly think that wheel-warring occurs when an admin reverts another admin action, but that's not true. This case was filed in good faith, on the mistaken belief that it involved wheel-warring, which truncated ANI prematurely. Now that it is understood that this was not wheel-warring, decline the case, reopen ANI or open a new ANI, and let the community attempt to resolve the issue.--S Philbrick (Talk) 11:30, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Deryck

There was a single out-of-turn admin action, not a wheel-war, and no transgression worthy of desysopping.

Rama restored an article despite the past deletion discussions and salting, but out of good faith. When Rama restored the article at "Clarice Phelps", there was no a priori reason why Rama should have known about any discussion or admin action which occurred after 4th April, because those subsequent discussions and deletion logs were located at other page titles. That gave a time-span of three clear weeks before Rama's undeletion, during which there was significant media attention which could have affected the applicability of Wikipedia's policies to the article subject. Rama was right to attempt a WP:BRD cycle, restoring the article as he saw appropriate, and attempting to defend his position in subsequent discussions. Even if the community decides that Rama's undeletion was wholly inappropriate, this was a single out-of-turn admin action, not wheel-warring, because nobody has redone a sysop action after having been reverted. Rama should be given the benefit of doubt here, which I don't think has been pointed out in the statements above.

ArbCom should decline this case because it has no jurisdiction over content, and it is unduly harsh to desysop for a single out-of-process admin action. As Newyorkbrad elegantly put in his statement, Inevitably, a desysopping here would be described off-wiki as "next, English Wikipedia's highest authority removed an administrator as punishment for seeking to rescue this article." There can be little doubt that such an addition to the narrative would, unhelpfully, further compound the notoriety that this matter has already incurred. Deryck C. 14:21, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jehochman

Admonish by motion and move on. There should be an RFC about our Byzantine notability guideline for academics. Jehochman ^Talk 14:11, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Seraphimblade

As far as the action by Rama, it was certainly not optimal. Admins have their tools to implement and enforce the consensus of the community, not to overrule it. But I think that's understood now, and I don't think anything more than perhaps a mild warning is warranted for that; certainly not desysopping for a single good faith mistake. My more substantial concern is the rationale behind the action, which was "Evidently notable, deletion of the article is a major embarassement for Wikipedia : https://undark.org/2019/04/25/wikipedia-diversity-problem/". "What will the newspapers think?" should never be a consideration in any action we take on Wikipedia, but especially not a controversial admin action. This probably isn't the place to resolve it, but perhaps the community should clarify that potential negative press is not a rationale for anything at all. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 01:30, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by The Blade of the Northern Lights

All this shows is how Wikipedia people take themselves way too seriously. Someone restored an article, it was reversed. As someone unacquainted with this little non-issue until just now, do you have any idea how ridiculous this looks? The only motion should be an apology for the mass murder of words and electrons above. Lighten up, the world actually doesn't care about individual Wikipedia editors or their actions even if we all wish it was true. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:15, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Feminist

Apologize, resign, wait a few months for the dust to settle, then run for RfA again. In the meantime, create more articles on marginalized figures. Or improve them. feminist (talk) 10:59, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by 28bytes

I agree with Jayron32's statement 100%.

Regarding the alleged impossibility that "we [the community] were at fault, and Rama is the one doing the right thing" I will just say that I am reminded of the ridiculousness of the Star Trek Into Darkness capitalization wars, in which the outside world was scratching its head at "the community"'s seemingly dumb decision, a bold administrator agreed that it was dumb and unilaterally overrode it, everyone (myself included) howled at him for acting outside of established procedure, no one got desysopped, the world didn't end, and we all moved onto other things. That's probably a good model to follow here. 28bytes (talk) 12:20, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Seraphimblade: Regarding perhaps the community should clarify that potential negative press is not a rationale for anything at all, I have to respectfully disagree with that. If multiple articles are suggesting that we are doing something dumb or harmful, that is a rationale for double-checking that what we're doing is not in fact dumb or harmful. That's not to say we should blindly follow whatever the popular press is suggesting we do, but neither should we stick our fingers in our ears and not even consider that they may have a point. 28bytes (talk) 12:02, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by JFG

In their latest reply to an arbitrator's question, Rama wrote: if I had not been an administrator, I would not have done anything. This statement reinforces the case for a willing misuse of the tools. If I were in Rama's shoes, and genuinely concerned about Wikipedia's reputation while not being an admin, I would have urgently pleaded the case for undeletion to various admins who had been involved in prior decisions. Instead Rama acted unilaterally just because s/he had the tools to do it. This is regrettably disqualifying from admin tenure, at least within today's best practices, although such bold IAR action may have been totally acceptable, or even encouraged, in 2005. — JFG ^talk 13:38, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Hydronium Hydroxide

From late 2009 to February 2010 there was Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Rama and then Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive596#Rama_-_again. Though these are ancient it does mean that this kind of supervoting behaviour is not a one-off, and since Rama appears to have made very few administrator actions (<40?) in the intervening period, there have been few other opportunities to have gone wrong with the tools. As LessHeard vanU wrote at the RFC: "Administrators are (supposed to be) vehicles by which Community consensus, be it via discussion or agreed policy or guideline, is enacted and not its interpretors... As an editor, and as an admin, Rama is permitted to hold a minority viewpoint - and sincerely believe that only they are interpreting policy and consensus correctly - but has no authority to substitute their understanding over that of the community... In short, Rama cannot argue that the agreed consensus is incorrect and then act upon their interpretation. Rama should withdraw from using the tools in pursuance of their own interpretation of policy where it is the minority viewpoint". (!voted delete at AFD1, no previous known interaction with Rama) ^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)~ 16:46, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Icewhiz

The latest from Rama - combined diff - shows not only a misunderstanding of consensus but of Wikipedia:Notability and WP:V. I quote specifically - "An article with nearly 30 references by solid institutions (US Navy, Oak Ridge) being deleted in such a way is a very unusual occurrence (I have never seen this before) and I thought it was a unfortunate incident that needed a little nudge and would solve itself when the editors involved would be informed that they were making Wikipedia look like a haven for Gamergate-style bullying and misogny". Never mind that an employer (Oak Ridge) is not independent - I want to focus on the US Navy (which is also not independent in regard to Phelps' service). There were two refs in the article as recreated by Rama from the navy - Nuclear Power: A Satisfying Career Fulfilling the Navy's Needs, Superior Training and Opportunity: Navy Nuclear Power Program - this is recruitment PR. It doesn't even mention Phelps. These two sources were sourcing the following stmt: "The Nuclear Power Program operates and maintains the nuclear reactors that power the Navy's submarines and aircraft carriers." (not quite supported by the references which describe the Nuclear Power School and not operations) - and do not establish notability of Phelps (or any other nuclear technician employed by the US Navy). This was also clearly stated in the AfD(s). An admin challenging consensus, and asserting optics of "bullying and misogny" based on references that do not even mention the subject ?! Icewhiz (talk) 08:30, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Adding that an analysis of the sources was present in - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Clarice Phelps (2nd nomination) (on almost the same version Rama restored) - which specifically says in the nomination: "ref7, ref8 - US navy, doesn't mention the subject." (and addresses every other ref than was in the article at the time). As an AfD regular I'll further state that an abundance of low-quality references is generally a sign of Wikipedia:Citation overkill#Notability bomb - personally, if I see an article with many low-quality references I suspect that higher quality ones are lacking (of course nominating for AfD is time consuming - as on top of the normal WP:BEFORE - one has to go through every single one of these passing mentions (or in Phelps case - even no mentions)). In any case, the sourcing situation here should've been clear had Rama read the AfD discussions. Icewhiz (talk) 15:52, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Guerillero

I don't think that it is possible to look at the three discussions on the article that is the locus of the current dispute and think that we need to re-run another week long discussion. While consensus can change, it is doubtful that it has in less than a month. Forcing another AfD would be running the process again and again until a desired outcome has been achieved. The fact that motion 1 seems to encourage this behavior is worrying. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 08:34, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

RE motion 2, having a scope that thin is worthless. You are setting up a fatal accompli where the only outcome that the committee will agree on is a warning or admonishment. --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 08:40, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Leaky Caldron

It is concerning that even in the most blatant of red-line issues Arbcom seems determined to find a way to delay and obfuscate. Arbcom is mandated NOT to involve itself in content disputes. The idea that waiting to see how the content aspect is resolved by the community should not influence the decision required on the Admin. abuse. If it does influence that call, then it is indirectly breaching the "no content involvement" Arbcom tennant.

Statement by {Non-party}

Rama: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Note that I have renamed this case request to avoid it being named after a living person who is not involved in the dispute. GoldenRing (talk) 13:47, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Recuse --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 08:34, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Rama: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <9/1/0>

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse)

I'm leaning towards acceptance here, but would like to hear from Rama about their view before we go further. Noting that we would need to be careful with the scope which should go no further than the admin action, not whether the article should have been deleted in the first place. Worm^TT(talk) 12:05, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Accept I'm in no rush here and see no benefit to opening the case at this precise moment. Arbitration proceedings are slow by design, so that it comes to the best outcome, rather than a knee-jerk one. I will not complain vociferously if the case is opened immediately, but I support giving the community a week (or even more) to come to any further decision on the article before opening the case. Worm^TT(talk) 11:07, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sitush you may be right, however I have seen editors talking about further DRVs and similar discussions. My concern is that the focus of any Arbcom case should remain on the actions of Rama, rather than the article. Arbcom should not be making content decisions, and if a week allows the focus to be on the case, I don't see a problem with that. Worm^TT(talk) 11:21, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Accept on the admin actions only. RickinBaltimore (talk) 12:46, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Accept because there is a plausible case for misuse of admin tools and we need to take that seriously. At this point it looks like this is an isolated incident, so if we can reach a quick resolution by motion, I wouldn't be opposed. – Joe (talk) 16:27, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think this case is about wheel warring or breaking this or that "rule". The problem is that Rama came across a consensus that they personally disagreed with and, instead of joining the debate as an equal participant, used their admins tools to impose their preferred outcome. Respecting consensus isn't a procedural minutia, it's the core principle that allows us to collaborate. – Joe (talk) 09:26, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Accept Based upon statements above and Rama's statement at ANI, we should evaluate only whether or not the administrative tools were used to implement a personal editorial position against community consensus and in contravention to WP:TOOLMISUSE. Mkdw ^talk 17:11, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@SilkTork: Misuse of the tools is not always caused by malicious intent. Sometimes it can be accidental or negligent. Administrative conduct should be evaluated when reasonable concerns are brought forward, even in isolation and without seeming malicious intent. Moving to a case is not a forgone conclusion of anything and could result in no action or warnings. It simply means the arbitration process is enacted to further evaluate the situation. Nonetheless, accountability fundamentally requires a check and balance process with the potential for repercussions. Administrators should not be using the tools because they have no fear of accountability; it is a permanent requirement. I agree that not all actions result desysop, but that is something worth a review. Mkdw ^talk 18:57, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

We are at a majority and most likely looking to move to a full case. Neither proposed motion is currently passing so it will be for the case to define the scope and how things will proceed forward. Mkdw ^talk 00:36, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

~~Decline~~. I think it's OK for people to disagree with each other, including admins, regarding content. I'm not seeing this as seriously malicious, and I understand the rationale given. If wheelwarring was involved, if there was a history of controversial actions by this admin, if the action was detrimental to the project or clearly something harmful or outrageous, then yes, let's look into it. But I'm seeing this as "...an explanation that shows the matter has been considered, and why a (rare) exception is genuinely considered reasonable." I don't think it was wise to do it without consultation, and if this admin ever did anything like this again, I would support opening a case, but at the moment I accept that this was done with the project in mind. We recently had an admin reverse an AE action, which is a bright line for desysopping, and that admin was (rightly) not brought to Arbitration. Sometimes, we need to allow an admin to do something they feel is in the best interest of the project and IAR without fearing that ArbCom will take away their tools. SilkTork (talk) 17:53, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

While my preference is still for this to be a decline, I'm not averse to dealing with this by motion as I understand the thinking of those who feel that Rama should have communicated first. From earlier comments Rama has made I'm assuming they felt an undelete discussion would be wrapped up in wiki-bureaucracy, and likely be drawn out, taking up time and energy, while meanwhile the media were starting to take up this incident with echoes of Donna Strickland, so there was a sense of urgency, and IAR was created for situations like this; but they are not making that clear. Instead they are taking up a battleground mentality, as if they wish to martyr themselves on the cause of diversity against the biased hordes of Wikipedia. I think it's important to have an admin diversity champion on Wikipedia, but not one who is going to be disruptive. As such I urge User:Rama to reflect more carefully on BU Rob13's question, and to give a more considered response which indicates that while they are standing up for diversity, that they also understand the community's concern, and moving forward they will ensure they are championing diversity in a measured and productive manner. In short, I think we'd like you to reassure us that you are going to be a diversity champion, not a ~~diversity terrorist~~ someone who is going to disrupt Wikipedia to make political points (no matter how valid). SilkTork (talk) 09:08, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I have struck the term "diversity terrorist" as it appears to be unpopular, and is diverting attention from the point I was hoping to make.

Meanwhile, I'm not being reassured by Rama's responses. Indeed, I am growing concerned as it appears there is a lack of understanding of the responsibilities of the admin role, the impact of what they have done, and the very nature of the Wikipedia community. There appears to be a dissonance here, with Rama not understanding our messages, and us not understanding Rama's. I would take "exceptional measures" to mean something that is done rarely, rather than not done ever again. I understand the motivation for the undeletion, and the overlooking of procedures in a strong belief that this was done for the greater benefit (IAR), but we cannot have admins repeatedly (albeit exceptionally) taking the moral high ground and feeling that they know better. The essence of the Wikipedia community is communication and consensus. And we either follow consensus (even when we disagree with it) or we leave the community. I welcome admins who question and challenge. But not when they use their tools disruptively to make a point.

User:Rama, this for me is an important question, so please consider your reply very carefully: What would you have done regarding the Phelps article if you had not been an admin? SilkTork (talk) 18:07, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

My concerns regarding Rama's responses are growing. My thoughts initially were that Rama made an IAR undeletion in full awareness of what they were doing, but it now turns out this was not the case. I'm still OK with the undeletion and the rationale for it, but it appears that Rama did not understand that this would be a controversial action, and is, even with all the wordage and advice on this page, still acting partly bemused and partly morally defensive, attacking Wikipedia and the community as though we were at fault, and Rama is the one doing the right thing. Someone who presents as not understanding the role of admin, and appears to be so at odds with both Wikipedia and the community, is likely to be a poor fit for admin. It is possible that Rama is simply not good at communicating. There is some misunderstanding by Rama of comments and questions asked by ArbCom and the community, and we in turn are struggling to parse what Rama is saying, with a differing understanding of common words such as "exceptional", "polemic", "community", and "topic", etc. This may be because Rama is under stress right now (and understandably so), but it appears to me that we cannot get a clear answer to the situation just by using this format. As such, motions are not going to be appropriate. Desysopping may be appropriate, not for the undeletion itself, but because that action has revealed someone who is possibly not a good fit for an admin in today's Wikipedia. However, it would take a case to discover that, and I think we need to take the time to look more closely at Rama, and give them more space to explain themselves. Accept. SilkTork (talk) 09:03, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Accept for the admin issue only. Overturning the consensus of not one but two AFDs is suboptimal. I'd love to hear how this is acceptable under ADMINACCT. Katie^talk 18:18, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Accept on the basis of Rama's response to the issue as raised on their talk page and at ANI. The statements suggest that Rama believes they have the authority as an administrator to unilaterally override community consensus at AfD. That, if nothing else, warrants attention. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 19:38, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- @Rama: I think it would be extremely helpful if you could explain your understanding of what's happened here. In particular, do you understand why people are upset? What would you take away from this experience to prevent a similar issue in the future? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 03:04, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  - @Rama: The question isn't intended to have any underlying assumptions or tricks to it. I just wanted to hear your understanding of what went wrong here and how to avoid it in the future. I think that speaks to whether a full case is needed here or we can dispense this by motion. If this was a mistake/misjudgement that has been learned from, that's one thing. If you fundamentally do not understand why this case request was brought and why editors are upset at the actions you took, then that's a deeper issue that warrants a look. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:55, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    - @Rama: The first part was what I hoped to see – that you unilaterally overruled consensus based on your own opinion. The second part concerns me, because I don't think the specific topic area had much, if anything, to do with the reaction. This reaction would have likely occurred whatever your reason for ignoring consensus and in whatever topic area it occurred within. To put this bluntly, do you believe you faced the opposition that you did because of a bias on Wikipedia against the coverage of diverse individuals? It sounds like that is your position based on some of the comments you've made, and if it is, I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of the criticism here. Further, do you believe an administrator has the authority to unilaterally overturn consensus? Do you believe an administrator should use their tools in a topic area they feel strongly about on a personal level? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 18:44, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
~~Decline~~, per SilkTork and also TonyBallioni. Rama's action was not so egregious as to require immediate action, and there is no indication that it is part of a pattern of misuse of the tools. Escalating this single action to a full case is unnecessary, and I agree with Tony that it would be a disservice to the BLP subject. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 03:18, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Change to accept - I found Rama's statements on the matter concerning rather than reassuring. if I had not been an administrator, I would not have done anything certainly seems like an admission of intentional misuse. Although they say they disavow their action, their argument is that they were obviously right, which is as close to a non-apology as you can get. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 14:42, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Decline. On one level, yes, this is a straightforward case and Rama shouldn't have used admin tools, but on another level that's a bit like saying protesters shouldn't have blocked traffic or yelled rude things at politicians. It's missing the point of the action. I think - I hope! - we all have some boundaries like this, where we'd be willing to stick our necks out if we genuinely believed that not doing so would bring the project into disrepute. We even have a rule about not always following rules, which is surprisingly under-cited on this page. I agree with the above in thinking single instances of apparent admin misbehavior should not generally be met with dramatic sanctions unless they are truly egregious - malicious or destructive, rather than simply ill-advised. In fact, I'd go one further and say that a single instance of apparent misbehavior by a long-standing and otherwise reliable admin is a potential signal of broader and more serious underlying issues [edited to add: by that I mean issues in the community's processes and decision-making]. Yes, sometimes an admin deciding to override their colleagues is arrogance or self-servingness - but sometimes it's also a sign of genuine problems, and I hope we don't let the internal minutia of who broke which WP:ALLCAPS distract from serious community efforts to work through those problems. To inject a dose of reality into this all-too-Wikipedian conversation: I'm a woman in science. I've been the only woman in R&D since I started my current job (but hey, we grew by 100% this month!). I haven't faced half the barriers Ms. Phelps has, and I haven't been on a team that discovered an element, either. I actually thought that the original AfD close was very reasonable. But I also see how non-Wikipedians have been reacting to this controversy and wow, we are not coming off well. That's not going to be improved by spending weeks flinging WP:OMGWTFBBQ at each other. (FWIW, since I just saw this in preview: I don't think the WMF is a relevant factor here. In fact, I'm rather more worried about the idea that someone might have in their head that we should be taking content direction from their "official policy" than I ever would be about community content disputes, which at least have public, transparent feedback mechanisms when someone gets a bad idea in their head.) Opabinia regalis (talk) 08:25, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Accept with a strong preference for also passing #Motion to open: Rama. AGK ■ 20:32, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Motion to open: Rama

For this motion there are 11 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.

Proposed:

Having considered the arbitration case request, the committee:

Opens a case to examine the administrator actions of Rama (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA). Accepting the case is a means to review whether Rama reversed a decision of the Wikipedia community without following the established processes. Under current policy, the committee is the only formal vehicle for reviewing administrator conduct. The committee's opening of this case does not constitute its involvement in the article that forms the setting, nor is it a comment on whether this article should be deleted or kept on Wikipedia.
Suspends this case for 1 week, to permit the Wikipedia community time to complete its ordinary editorial processes about this article subject. This period of suspension may be extended by further motion.
Instructs Rama not to undertake any logged administrator action – including (un)deleting, (un)blocking, and (un)protecting – until the case pages are marked as unsuspended after 1 week by an arbitrator or an arbitration clerk. Should Rama breach this instruction, the committee may remove their permissions by summary motion.

The case will be named Rama and should have its case pages closed to all non-clerical edits during the period of suspension. At the lifting of suspension, the case will proceed in the ordinary manner with further guidance from a drafting arbitrator to follow.

Support

Proposed. In this request, we have (A) a content dispute that would be overshadowed if an ArbCom case were opened and (B) a case of clear administrator misconduct that we are obliged to hear out. The dilemma is obvious. To deal with one issue, we must open a case. To deal with the other, we should stay away. Dealing with the first issue in normal fashion (as a community) then handling the second issue afterwards (via the committee) seems to prevent either issue from being handled inappropriately. AGK ■ 19:30, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I second this. The focus for any case, if accepted, is admin actions, not the article itself. The content dispute can be mitigated by the community, then the admin issues can be handled by the committee. RickinBaltimore (talk) 19:33, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Katie^talk 19:48, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Waiting a week is not a big deal in Arb case terms, but it will give things time to settle further on the content side of things, which will in turn give the case more clarity. Worm^TT(talk) 11:09, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

I don't see the need for this. There's no ongoing process that would be overshadowed by ArbCom, as far as I'm aware. Everyone agrees that we have no say on the content dispute. If anything, we should be moving to resolve this case faster than the normal proceedings. – Joe (talk) 20:02, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Joe, and I'll propose an alternate motion in a moment that makes the obvious clear. We don't do content, and this is to resolve issues related to the administrative action only. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 20:05, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I see the point AGK is making, but as we're to open this case (and I accept the reasons why we should look into the action), I feel we should get on with it rather than drag this affair out. While there may be some overlap in information between the content dispute and the admin action neither is reliant on the other because the focus of each is different. Rama's rationale, for example, is useful information in both cases, but for different reasons - in the content situation, it's an argument for why the content could be undeleted; in the admin action, it's an explanation for that action. If the community decide to undelete the article, that should have little bearing for us regarding if Rama's action was acceptable or not as the community have long upheld that the end does not justify the means. SilkTork (talk) 20:43, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Abstain

Alternative motion: Rama

For this motion there are 11 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.

After considering the current case request, the Arbitration Committee resolves that:

A case will be opened to examine the administrative actions of Rama (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA). The scope of the case shall be initially restricted to the actions of Rama in restoring the Clarice Phelps article and related community discussions. Requests to expand this scope may be made either by email to arbcom-enwikimedia.org or directly to the drafting arbitrators once announced. Generally, requests to expand this scope will be considered as they relate to any potential pattern of unilaterally overriding community consensus, but are unlikely to be considered for actions entirely unrelated to the initial scope of this case or a related pattern of administrative actions.
The Arbitration Committee does not have jurisdiction over content or conventional deletion processes. The Arbitration Committee notes that the typical venue to overturn or review the consensus at an Articles for deletion discussion is Deletion review.
Current arbitration proceedings should be taken to have no effect on any community discussion regarding content, including, but not limited to, whether the Clarice Phelps should be restored or recreated. The community is encouraged to continue any necessary content discussions without regard to this arbitration proceeding. In particular, this arbitration proceeding does not prevent any administrator from taking action to implement the consensus of any content-related discussion that is tangentially related to this dispute.

Support

Alternative motion. This is intended to set out a narrow scope to prevent this from turning into a "dig up every minor mistake over the past decade" slug-fest. We should stay on-topic with the issue that was brought to us. Further, this motion makes abundantly clear that we don't do content and are not pre-empting any community discussions that may emerge from this. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 20:19, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

At least for me, whether a misuse of admin tools was a one-off occurrence or part of a pattern is a major consideration in deciding on remedies. Restricting the scope in this way would seriously impair our ability to make a balanced assessment. I also don't see why we need to restate principles that are already a core part of WP:ARBPOL and which everyone who has commented has agreed with. – Joe (talk) 21:33, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
This motion does nothing of substance and I oppose progressing it for that reason. AGK ■ 20:31, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Abstain

I see nothing in here that I oppose, however, I prefer the former motion, so will abstain here. Worm^TT(talk) 11:10, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

SashiRolls

Initiated by Kolya Butternut (talk) at 07:46, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Kolya Butternut (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
SashiRolls (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Snooganssnoogans (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

[18]
[19]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Kolya Butternut

My dispute with SashiRolls occurred in the above AN/I discussion for Snooganssnoogans. As it did not occur in an actual article, if my understanding is correct WP:AE is not the appropriate venue. SashiRolls has demonstrated a WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality: as in the previous arbitration request concerning SashiRolls above, he is continuing same exact behavior as in previous blocks: Pattern of engaging in personal attacks, WP:Casting aspersions, ad hominem. As can be seen in their unblock request from December, this pattern has been ongoing for years.

My short experience with SashiRolls can be understood by reading the short thread in the above AN/I discussion for Snooganssnoogans where I react to SashiRolls' false accusation that Snooganssnoogans was stalking him. The thread can be found by searching for the text "6) Another example of !stalking that maybe Mr/s Butternut will explain." and reading all of my links and diffs there.

Another example of SashiRolls falsely accusing Snooganssnoogans of stalking can be found at the above AN/I discussion beginning at the line "5) Snoogans, you seem to want to give me the reputation of a stalker".

In summary, SashiRolls made false accusations that Snooganssnoogans was stalking him, and accused me of being a sock and a liar [20] after I researched some of his accusations against Snooganssnoogans which seemed suspicious to me. After researching the sock who SashiRolls insinuated that I was, (Cirt), I learned of SashiRolls' past history/behavior and I feel the way he treated me in our short interaction shows he has not changed. I know that my behavior in my four months of active editing has had problems, but I feel like someone has to take action, and I hope this won't boomerang on me because I have only just learned about WP:BLUDGEONING and WP:NOTHERE. I intend to improve moving forward by avoiding wikidrama.

SashiRolls has just now made more accusations against me [21] which seem similar in nature to what commenters in his above referenced December unblock request have described as conspiracy-theorizing about other editors. Kolya Butternut (talk) 17:27, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to withdraw my request. After having gained a better understanding of the dispute resolution steps I have decided to continue the AN/I discussion above. Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:58, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by SashiRolls

When appropriate, I will respond to this case at User:SashiRolls/SWAPP. I hope there will be no deadline. SashiRolls ^{t · c} 16:17, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Snooganssnoogans

Statement by Mr Ernie

I recommend the committee decline this case. The linked discussion is still open, and there does not seem to be any appetite in the community to sanction either editor. Mr Ernie (talk) 10:23, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Objective3000

Not a party to this particular issue; although I've had problems with SashiRolls before and find them disruptive. But, this is a community problem and would suggest that the filing be withdrawn to save time. O3000 (talk) 16:29, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by JFG

Inappropriate forum-shopping; I would recommend that the initiator be presented with a healthy serving of WP:TROUT. — JFG ^talk 16:51, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Tryptofish

It's certainly not ArbCom's fault, but the ANI mess should have been closed days ago. The underlying disputes arise out of the American Politics topic area, so this really belongs at WP:AE, not here. I do think that the filing party's concerns are valid, and require some attention, but opening what would end up as yet another Am Pol case would clearly be a waste of the Committee's time. I do hope it gets examined at AE. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:25, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Robert McClenon

I concur with User:Tryptofish. This is exactly the sort of case that Arbitration Enforcement was developed for, a battleground area that generates too much heat and noise compared to any light or signal to be resolved at WP:ANI, but should not require the time of the arbitrators to resolve it when they have already created a misdemeanor court at Arbitration Enforcement. I see that the filing party is withdrawing this case, but I would advise that they take it to Arbitration Enforcement, which is designed for cases like this, rather than another fight at WP:ANI. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:04, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {Non-party}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the case request or provide additional information.

SashiRolls: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

SashiRolls: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/8/0>

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse)

It is my understanding that SashiRolls is not currently under any arbitration remedy, and so I don't see how we have jurisdiction here. This belongs at ANI. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:57, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Decline. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 18:45, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Decline As the matter does belong at ANI as Rob has already stated. RickinBaltimore (talk) 15:31, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Decline. SilkTork (talk) 18:38, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Decline. Bringing this matter to arbitration is premature and the ordinary steps for dealing with conduct issues should now be used. AGK ■ 20:28, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Decline Mkdw ^talk 22:00, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Decline as premature. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:53, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Decline there are further steps which should be taken before this case reaches Arbcom. Worm^TT(talk) 11:11, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Decline as premature. Opabinia regalis (talk) 16:26, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Future Perfect at Sunrise behavior

Initiated by gogo3o at 14:59, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Involved parties

Gogo303 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), filing party
Future Perfect at Sunrise (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Future Perfect at Sunrise

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

Statement by Gogo303

A discussion about Requesting_the_removal_and_replacement_of_the_Ohrid_insurginent_flag_from_the_Ilinden_uprising_section started several days ago, without clear resolution on the matter. The image and caption were removed without notice today by one of the persons in the discussion. I've reverted that edit since no consensus had been reached, stating also that it's a vandalism. Future Perfect at Sunrise reverted in turn my edit, then I wrote on his Talk page, looking for explanation and asking him to remove his edit. He refused and deleted 2 images I posted to illustrate vandalism in real life and to make comparison to wiki vandalism. I asked him why he didn't discuss that first in the NM talk page, but he ignored me and didn't reply. Next, I've posted the same info on the NM Talk page, and I'm receiving a final warning. I have never been warned or been in a serious dispute on nearly 2000 edits over several years.gogo3o 14:59, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

OK, seems that I have to leave the community for good. This really discouraged me from contributing further. I believed admins are expected to lead by example and to behave in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others. Wish you all the best, --gogo3o 18:50, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Jayron32: First I tried to resolve it on his talk page, I was denied and some of my comment (including images was deleted by him). Then I posted on the talk page of NM article and received the final warning, without any previous ones, which I find frustrating, given the fact that I did not have any others before. gogo3o 17:30, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Jayron32: OK, but prior to the removal consensus hasn't been reached on the discussion and, despite that, the image and the caption were removed. Not by the admin initially, it was removed by another user, you can see it here. --gogo3o 18:15, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Jayron32: You are right, but how can I continue the discussion, when I'm getting final warning for defending my opinion in the talk? That means the admin will ban my account or not? --gogo3o 18:34, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Serial Number 54129: Sorry for for notifying him, just do not know how to do that. It's the first time I file here. Please note that the removed material has been part of the the main article, Ilinden–Preobrazhenie Uprising, for a long period, and it is duly sourced. gogo3o 17:37, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Serial Number 54129: I did not start the discussion in the NM talk page. It was started by User:Anti political shills, newly registered user. Can I ask you something? Why did you remove some content in my talk page, added by 62.31.126.158. Seems that the content is about the admin in question. gogo3o 17:55, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Future Perfect at Sunrise

BU Rob: Of course I wasn't acting in any admin capacity here. Any user can issue warnings. What a heap of rubbish. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:16, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

AGK: Another heap of rubbish. There was nothing to "separate"; I never even once hinted at my own role as an administrator during this episode. I told that person exactly what he needed to be told, in exactly the form he needed to be told. Patiently and politely at first, somewhat more terse when he repeated his personal attacks for a third time. There's nothing more to add here. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:44, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Jayron32

Question for @Gogo303:: Other than 2-3 comments on a single talk page, what methods have you tried to resolve this dispute before filing for arbitration? --Jayron32 16:26, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Clerk note:: reply moved to own section
  - No, you didn't try to resolve a dispute. First, you misused the word vandalism when you called his actions vandalism. His actions were not vandalism. Calling his actions vandalism was the wrong move, and basically invalidates anything you say after that. Instead of trying to win by delegitimizing a person who disagrees with you, you should instead give reasons for your position, and then wait patiently for other people to chime in and contribute towards building a consensus. Instead, what you did was call a good faith edit to an article vandalism. That is wrong, and you should never do that. Vandalism does not mean "a change I disagree with". Unless and until you understand that, I'm not sure what else there is to do. --Jayron32 18:05, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    - Clerk note:: reply moved to own section
      - So? Forget what happens to the article for a while. Discuss the matter. Let other people be blocked for edit warring. Use the discussion page, ask for outside help in breaking the dispute, something like that. Don't call his actions vandalism when they are not. When there is a dispute, stop editing and start discussing. If someone else is going to do the wrong thing by trying to edit the article under dispute, let them. Then establish consensus. If you are correct, everyone will agree with you. Give them time to agree with you, then you'll have the force of consensus behind you. --Jayron 32 18:28, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        Clerk note:: reply moved to own section

Statement by Serial Number 54129

Clearly, this will be declined; as Jayron points out, so little discussion has taken place that one is forced to conclude that Arbcom is being wielded as a weapon in an ethnocentric POV dispute. For that, boomerangs should fly.

As well as the fact that the filer has not as of this point in time notified FutPerf of their filing this case; a breach of courtesy if not policy.

Furthermore:

GoGo303 has now been advised as to WP:DSMAC.

The reinsertion of that image, so far from its removal being vandalism, is a serious breach of MOS:SANDWICH (thus WP:ACCESS) on a page that is already a serious breach of MOS:SANDWICH. Images, frankly, should be getting removed, not added.

The discussion that GoGo304 (under)states began "several days ago" is clearly still ongoing—he and FutPerf were still discussing it this afternoon!

A foolish filing, to be sure. ——SerialNumber54129 16:35, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk note:: reply moved to own section
- @Gogo303:
  a) Please keep your replies in your own section; this is not a threaded discussion. As it says in the big yellow box at the top of your editing page, to respond to a statement or remark by another editor, do so at the bottom of your section.
  b) Could you please sort out your signature? It is impossible to read and per WP:SIGAPP, please ensure that the result will be readable by people with color blindness, defective color vision, and other visual disabilities; please see MOS:CONTRAST on the standard to stick to and WP:ACCESS for your reasons why.
  c) That[22][23] material was added by WP:LTA/VXFC; they have been community banned and, when they indulge in their not irregular hobby of casting aspersions, should be reverted on sight. In any case, their support will hardly provide you, you would find, with the support you may expect :) more likely, in fact, the opposite.
  Suggest withdrawing this and returning to the talk page to continue the discussion which, by your own admission, someone else started.
  Cheers!——SerialNumber54129 18:21, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Banedon

Does the committee consider previous ARCs involving Future Perfect At Sunrise as prior attempts at dispute resolution? Looking through the history this is the most recent one (declined just a few months ago), the Fred Bauder case [24] and I vaguely remember seeing more but I can't figure out how to search the archives efficiently. Banedon (talk) 23:05, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Robert McClenon

The ArbCom is not deciding whether to accept this case based on whether FPAS has abused their administrative tools. As I explain in User:Robert McClenon/Administrator Abuse Cases, the question is whether there is enough of a reason to warrant considering whether FPAS has abused their administrative tools. In this case, the efforts to resolve the dispute have been inadequate, and the evidence of administrator abuse is too little to warrant further consideration. ArbCom should decline this case. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:30, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Signature Complaint

User:Gogo303 has a signature that violates the policy on the appearance of signatures. The solid background completely obscures the signature so that the only way to read it is by mouse-over. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:30, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

User:BU Rob13 and anyone else - Well, well. (Redacted) Robert McClenon (talk) 17:47, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by {Non-party}

Other editors are free to make relevant comments on this request as necessary. Comments here should address why or why not the Committee should accept the case request or provide additional information.

Future Perfect at Sunrise behavior: Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

As a reminder to all participants requests for arbitration only allow comments in your own section. You may not reply to users in sections other than your own, you are however welcome to reply to statements made by posting your response in your own statement section. --Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ ^(Talk) 20:51, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Future Perfect at Sunrise behavior: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <0/8/0>

Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse)

Decline There doesn't seem to have been an attempt to resolve this through other means prior to bringing this to the committee. RickinBaltimore (talk) 16:59, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Decline as premature. Few attempts at dispute resolution have been attempted without any appeals that have gone before the community, as required by WP:DR. Mkdw ^talk 18:01, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Decline, clearly premature. – Joe (talk) 18:23, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Decline SilkTork (talk) 18:39, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I am less clear that we should auto-decline this, because it should be viewed as part of a potential pattern of administrative conduct. In early 2018, FPaS was admonished for edit-warring and using their administrative tools to "win" that edit war. See here. I am surprised, then, to see FPaS issuing "final warnings" in the midst of a clear content dispute that they are a part of. Without any comment on the dispute itself, this seems very reminiscent of the circumstances surrounding the admonishment. FPaS reverted a revert, which is arguably edit-warring, then issues a final warning and appears to threaten a block. FPaS' "administrative hat" should never have gone on here. The only saving grace is that this didn't get so far as an actual block. I will await FPaS' statement on these circumstances, which I expect per WP:ADMINACCT. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 18:56, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Decline. I am both unimpressed with FPaS' "final warning" and with their rude response to multiple arbitrators who are trying to get a handle on this situation. (Tangentially, I'll note that FPaS has also received a warning from ArbCom for their civility in the past multiple times. Here and here.) At the end of the day, being unimpressed doesn't warrant a case, though. I do hope FPaS considers the chilling effect of an administrator threatening a block in the midst of a content discussion they're involved in. This is one of those cases where clarity matters, and it would have gone a long way if FPaS had specified that further throwing around of the term "vandal" would be reported somewhere rather than actioned by FPaS themselves. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 22:45, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- @Robert McClenon: The filer noted on their user talk that they are retiring, but also that they have changed their signature. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 16:04, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: It's not really that simple, Fut. Perf, as I think you know. As an administrator, you would affect even the most witless user when you issue final warnings for a "blockable offence". Sure, anyone can issue a warning, but we are talking about you, who has the tools to follow through. This type of conduct has a chilling effect. We don't want administrators needing to wave a big "recused!" flag every time they open their mouth. But you have history of acting while involved, and I will have no truck with admins who measure and calculate their wording just enough for it to go unnoticed by everyone other than the recipient. Do you have nothing to say about whether you could have acted more judiciously, or better separated your roles of editor and administrator? AGK ■ 20:24, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- Decline. This administrator is not taking on board concerns about this matter, which bodes poorly. However, like colleagues I do not see this matter as part of a more troubling pattern. AGK ■ 17:57, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Decline I'm in a similar position to BU Rob13. I find FPaS's actions have left a bad taste in my mouth, creating a chilling effect. However, as written, there is no case here that the community cannot handle, and so at the moment, I am declining the case. Worm^TT(talk) 11:16, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Decline. This is premature for arbitration. Seems like a pretty common pattern - less experienced editor gets involved with a hot-button topic in good faith, more experienced editor takes a long-suffering, world-weary, heaves heavy siiiiiigh kind of tone, everybody gets confused and annoyed. This isn't arbitration level, but the solution to that pattern really is as simple as "don't do that". (What I remember really clearly after I became an admin again: all of a sudden I'd lost my ability to warn people about things, because a warning delivered by someone with the power to enact it sounds like a threat, even if it isn't meant that way. Then I joined arbcom and lost the ability to make any kind of prediction, because it would always be received as either an oblique threat or a statement about arbcom's intentions even when I thought it was obviously just my own thoughts. If you have a position of "power" - even a really minor one - you really do need to be aware of that dynamic when interacting with people without the extra hat on.) Opabinia regalis (talk) 16:51, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Abstentions	Support votes needed for majority
0–1	6
2–3	5
4–5	4

Abstentions	Support votes needed for majority
0–1	6
2–3	5
4–5	4