User talk:GregJackP/ACE2013

"You take the case, every time"

Although I'm not getting involved in publicly evaluating candidates, I have to ask whether you mean literally that when a request for arbitration is filed alleged abuse of administrator rights, "you take the case, every time." I understand there were some borderline cases that we declined this year where there is an argument that we should have accepted the case for review. But read literally, your guide comment on 28bytes suggests that the ArbCom should open a full case every time an editor comes to the RfAr page alleging administrator misconduct, even where the dispute involves an entirely isolated incident that was quickly resolved, or where the allegations of misconduct are frivolous on their face. I expect that that is not what you meant, and suggest that you might want to reevaluate your comment in that light. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:52, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

No, I don't mean that you open a full case on it every time, but by the same token, you don't blow it off. ArbCom is the only location to go that can really discipline admins -- and it is run by admins. I can think of a number of cases that should have been looked into by full case or motion, but were blown off, and nothing happened to the admin who misused the tools, for example:

• Adam Bishop [1] 3 accepts, 7 declines, and he walked away knowing that there are no consequences to blocking someone improperly.
• GiantSnowman [2], unanimous decline, and while it looked like GS was OK in his tool use, there's no way of knowing, and ArbCom issued threats that chills open discussion of problems with admins. That's not appropriate unless a case has been opened and there is evidence to support it.
• Jmh649 [3].
• Pratyeka [4], misuse of bit, declined because Prat was on trip for 3-4 weeks, and of course nothing happened since. Big surprise there.

I could go on and on, but the fact is that ArbCom will not take cases involving alleged admin abuse unless someone died and the admin is on video doing the deed. So part of my evaluation is how the candidate looks at dealing with allegations of admins accused of abuse. And blowing off the complaint is not acceptable. If you have a reasonable 'explanation on how the above cases were handled properly, I would be interested in hearing it. GregJackP Boomer! 02:10, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

You mention only admin-conduct requests that the Committee declined, and not any that the Committee accepted or resolved by motion, thus skewing your sample. As for the requests you list above, I do not agree with your evaluation of these cases, and I stand by the votes I cast at the time each was brought.

With respect to Prayetka, Jmh649, and Adam Bishop, I understand the arguments that were made (and were accepted by some of my colleagues) in support of opening each of the cases. In each case, we took into account input suggesting that if we did not open a case, any alleged abuse of administrator rights was unlikely to recur. Significantly, in none of these cases am I aware of any allegation that the administrator has done anything wrong in the months since we declined the case. That suggests to me that while others might have dealt differently with the case requests, the Committee's vote to see if things could be addressed without a case wound up having a satisfactory outcome in each instance. If further, well-supported allegations of continued misconduct had followed, the ultimate outcome would likely have been very different.

With respect to GiantSnowman, the request was completely frivolous and rejecting it was the only sensible outcome. There is no reason to open a case to examine the conduct of an administrator who appears to be "OK in his tool use" (and not to have done anything else wrong, either). I do not understand your statement that while GiantSnowman seemed to have acted properly, "there's no way of knowing." Unless there is non-public information involved, all the evidence of administrators' behaving properly or improperly is right there on-wiki; if there was stronger evidence of misconduct, someone would or could have pointed it to us.

Finally, I do not think your repeated use of the term "blow it off" is a fair description of the attention we gave these case requests, regardless of whether you agree with the outcomes. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:13, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

NYB, I think that you misunderstand my point. First, to be honest, I didn't look at who voted which way (I just looked at the summary, 3/7/0/0), nor did I particularly care. There is no need for you to explain your particular vote, and if that's what you believed I wanted, I apologize. I was not looking for a study, just some examples.

My point is that you are focused on only part of the issue. Think of it as common law and equity. Everyone likes common law, it is easy to understand and has nice, easy rules to follow. OK, so the ¶ didn't go to DR, he doesn't get his case heard. That's the rule. Equity is about justice and fairness. Sort of a IAR concept. That the Δ doesn't walk because the ¶ missed dotting an 'i' or crossing a 't'. It's much harder to do correctly, but has a much better chance of affecting future conduct than common law does.

Looking at just one example, Prat, do you really think that he learned? Take a look at his user page. I don't see any change in his attitude, just that he avoided any responsibility. Looking at Adam, sure, he may get the point, but what about the user who was blocked? (OK, what if it were someone besides BB). Wikipedia is losing editors. Is this part of the problem?

I have compared admins to cops and ArbCom to Internal Affairs. What does it look like? To the editors? It looks like nothing will happen to an admin, and that ArbCom isn't that concerned about it. We need to change that, because I don't believe it is true that ArbCom doesn't care. I think that y'all are stuck in a way of doing things, and need a different approach, which is why I evaluated candidates on the issues I did and the way I did.

Looking at it another way, is it better to handle it the way it is right now, with no admins having anything to say on it, or to have ree. editors on the committee? Is it better to tassume that the unpresented facts support the admin moving for dismissal or the non-movant? Is it better to take a few moments extra to insure that our admins are performing properly? Perhaps "blow it off" is not the best phrase for what I am trying to convey - what would you suggest I use? Regards, GregJackP Boomer! 22:53, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

I think we have both made our points sufficiently for purposes of this page. Thank you for your clarifications, and I expect we'll have the opportunity to continue this discussion in the context of a new case request at some point. Case acceptance will always be an art, not a science, and there are always calls on which reasonable people can disagree. Newyorkbrad (talk) 04:12, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Very true. Thank you for talking about it here with me. GregJackP Boomer! 16:38, 25 November 2013 (UTC)