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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by MiszaBot II (talk | contribs) at 06:47, 18 October 2009 (Archiving 2 thread(s) from Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
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Apology from John Vandenberg

Original announcement

Are you talking about your own abuses or someone else's? ChildofMidnight (talk) 19:21, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
CoM, that was in no way helpful. Your case is being dealt with elsewhere; please confine your remarks here to the issue currently being discussed. Thank you. GJC 23:20, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
You're probably right Gladys, but the double standards and hypocrisy can be a lot to witness without feeling a need to comment. ChildofMidnight (talk) 06:16, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
  • We need to know that emails sent to the Committee or its members are reviewed and handled with the appropriate urgency and consideration. The current Committee has made strides in putting in place proper procedures for handling emails and time management. It looks like there is still work to be done in these areas, and until effective procedures are in place and are followed, mistakes like this are bound to occur. That said, arbitrators qualified, committed and able to function with integrity are far too rare to be dispensed with for such lapses of judgement. I have full confidence in John Vandenberg's explanation and continued service as a member of the Committee.  Skomorokh, barbarian  09:54, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
  • As you all know, I am not one to dance on graves and enjoy the misfortune of other; indeed no. However, I would like to point out that I am on hand, should the Arbcom want to fill any of the numerous vacancies. I will do my patriotic duty and guide the good ship Wikipedia back into safe and calm waters. Lady Catherine de Burgh (the Late) (talk) 09:57, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Both Duncan and Lady Catherine's Ghost (aka Giano) make good points. This error is an understandable as it is regrettable and there is nothing to do but move on. Eluchil404 (talk) 10:19, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Concur with Sandstein; you surely receive a great many emails and if you missed one, or scanned it and missed the thrust of the content, then that is a regrettable oversight but hardly a damnable one. No recusal necessary so far as I can see. KillerChihuahua?!?Advice 11:53, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Yes, I generally feel that this was a forgivable oversight. To be honest, given that John Vandenberg didn't have any particular previous involvement with the situation, I would have thought that the functionary in question probably would have been better served emailing the committee list as a whole rather than an individual uninvolved arbitrator... but either way I do not feel this warrants resignation in any way. ~ mazca talk 11:56, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Hardly even worth an apology, No doubt lessons will be learned and I personally think that its the kind of thing that should be emailed to the arbitration mailing list rather then left to one arb to deal with. Spartaz Humbug! 12:00, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
  • No resignation necessary, as this was presumably a simple clerical error. I imagine that we've all missed a message in our inboxes once or twice. It was probably a bit sloppy on John's part, but the functionary involved might have chosen to send a followup message when there was no action or response to his original email. While I'm certainly not inclined to cry shenanigans here, recusal from the issue may be appropriate simply to avoid any appearance of bias or misconduct. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 12:37, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
    this is why I am recusing. I felt like shit this morning, because before I had slept I had said, quite emphatically as is my style, I didnt know about this to the committee and functionaies, and between 07:00-08:00 (oz time, drinking coffee to wake up) I had been asked twice via gtalk by non-arbcom members whether I knew about this, and I said again that I didnt know, both times with the caveat that I had 100 odd emails to read (the joys of waking up). While reading those emails I find that I should have known. I have since apologised to those two people.
    But with such a heavy heart, I am emotional, and so I defer to others to tackle this. John Vandenberg (chat) 14:13, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
  • In the past I have asked the committee to install help desk software. Inbound requests should be logged, updated, and closed as they are processed. No correspondence to ArbCom should be subject to being lost because one person overlooks it. This is not John's fault. It is a systemic failure that can be improved through the use of readily available open source software. Jehochman Talk 12:40, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Right now we have a runaway freight-train that no single individual person can stop. Folks throwing themselves in front of it aren't going to help matters. It's time to step up, learn, improve, grow, and move on. If there's a problem - we have a template: {{sofixit}}. If the Arbs have a problem with too much email - create a board (AC/C = Arbcom Communications) that folks can note a "You've got mail" thing like AIV or RFPP - when one of you gets to it - mark it  Done. I greatly appreciate all the folks stepping up and saying "I goofed" - OK - Thank you ... now let's move on to the matters at hand. Let's get to work fixing the things that are broke. — Ched :  ?  12:59, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
  • This isn't the kind of error that erodes my confidence. A single person can't manage to fulfill the obligations of ArbCom. If confidence in the integrity of the Committee as a whole hadn't fallen so low, these kinds of issues likely wouldn't be ending up in personal mailboxes where there is no one else who around to correct one individual's oversight.--BirgitteSB 15:57, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
  • I think two things drive personal emails like these. First, it is my understanding that the arbs get about 200 list-based emails a day (arb-l, clerks-l, func-en, etc), so a personal email tends to stand out more. Second, there have been instances in the past of the arb-l list being leaked and of course there are over 30 people on clerks-l and more than 60 on func-en, so the sender may not trust at least one person among those large sets and prefer a personal email to avoid a direct confrontation with someone they do not trust. MBisanz talk 16:00, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Really? Really? On one hand, we have an arb who knew of the situation and chose to do nothing about it. On the other, we have an arb who should have known about it, but didn't, because he didn't see the email. Apology is sufficient, no resignation or recusal necessary. Suggest we all just move on. The Wordsmith(formerly known as Firestorm)Communicate 16:58, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
  • John: Thank you for your honesty and openness. I hope your immediate honesty here without delay or obfuscating sets an example for other arbitrators in future. I also don't think you need to recuse, resign or be recalled as it sounds like this was simply an honest oversight rather than anything deliberate or intentional or an attempt to cover-up or aid someone you like or have a personal friendship or to try to give them favourable treatment. I don't think you need to recuse but I know you are a man of integrity and will do whatever you think is the right thing to do. Sarah 02:05, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
  • It seems to have been a simple oversight. The situation would have been quite different if the functionary had have elevated to arbcom-l and nothing was done (note I am not suggesting the functionary at all erred - it sounds like the system is the problem rather than anyone's actions under it), but to the personal contact of an arbitrator known to be real-world-busy, yes, things do get missed sometimes, despite one's best efforts. The apology is both welcomed and sufficient in my view. Orderinchaos 08:41, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

DuncanHill hits the nail on the head here. Disappointing, but at this rate there's a serious risks of running out of Arbs and I do believe that John is one of the best. Seems unlikely to make this mistake twice... WJBscribe (talk) 17:57, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Question for John

Thanks for explaining this. I see no reason you should resign for a simple oversight. But I'd like to ask you why the functionary was telling you by email that Law was The undertow, and didn't simply block him, or take it to AE. This seems to me to go to the heart of the problem here. There's a feeling that The undertow was being treated differently from any other editor violating a ban, and it would be good to know why. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 12:52, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Who was the functionary? This should not need to be confidential. Jehochman Talk 12:55, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
It was MBisanz. DuncanHill (talk) 12:57, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
No it wasnt Matt, and I am not going to say who it was at this stage. The functionary elevated it appropriately to me, and it is my fault that it was not dealt with after that. The functionary would like to avoid being caught up in this, and I respect that as they did the right thing. There are other functionaries involved, and I hope they speak up. John Vandenberg (chat) 13:11, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Nope, not a functionary and wasn't involved in the Law/Undertow matter. MBisanz talk 13:50, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Clearly I misconstrued some of his comments here and on your talk page. My apologies. Could you let us know what the other similar cases were that he referred t previously? DuncanHill (talk) 13:14, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
John, can you explain why the functionary didn't act himself? It's not clear that he elevated it appropriately, or that "elevated" is the right way to look at this. There had been an ArbCom ban, it was violated, and an illegitimate adminship had been gained. The person behind it needed to be blocked. I need we need to know why it was dealt with privately by email to one Arb, and then not followed up. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 13:16, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
(ec3) Well, that's interesting. I count roughly sixty functionaries at WP:FUNC. Now that you've cast some generic suspicion over all of them, what's the next step? What possible use was there in making a useless announcement like that? Are you asking for a community witch hunt? Was Casliber correct in his behaviour inasmuch as the ArbCom couldn't be trusted to handle sensitive information without making premature, incomplete, drama-generating pronouncements? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:29, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
np DuncanHill. Matt has identified a few problems, of various severity. Some are very important and some (I think) are the run of mill admins overstepping appropriate boundaries. Admins do this regularly, often with the encyclopedia at heart. An occasional overstepping is "testing" the boundaries, and can be excused as admin discretion. I appreciate Matt (and others) highlighting these to the committee (or myself directly), as a pattern of overstepping the boundaries, even with the best of intentions, is an indication that an admin is on a mission which is at odds with the community at large. A pattern of that is an admin that is going to incite a counter-offensive from the community, and that admin needs to be alerted to the end game of their actions.
Some of the problems that Matt identified had not made it to my inbox until this morning, and some have and not been adequately actioned (yet?, again, my fault). I have long known that there are people like Matt who knew of problems but I have not gone seeking to learn of them. (my fault again, as this is what I had hoped to fix).
In part this is because we (the committee) haven't been short of problems to do deal with this year. We have been progressive in some areas, but still reactive in many areas. Sadly this morning Matt let me know about a few issues which shocked the crap out of me. A few other emails have also come in letting me know about issues that were not on my radar. There is more work to do; I hope the community feels I am still part of the solution. John Vandenberg (chat) 13:43, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
SlimVirgin, the functionary who told me thought that they had offloaded it ... onto me. They did the right thing. It is my fault that I didnt action this email, and I think they did the right thing by staying silent afterwards. They could have poked me to see if I had understood the email, but I can understand that they wanted nothing further to do with this mess beyond letting me know. John Vandenberg (chat) 13:17, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Who was the functionary? Why is this information secret? If people have acted properly, they have nothing to hide. Jehochman Talk 13:18, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Have you considered the exceptional chilling effect outing anonymous tipsters would have? We don't know why they wanted to remain anonymous, but can we respect their wishes? –xenotalk 13:19, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Per Xeno. Durova320 13:22, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
(ec) Xeno, the thing is that a functionary is an admin plus a CU or oversighter too. They're elected to deal with these issues, so the "anonymous tipster" analogy doesn't really hold. John, with respect, I don't think this is a good time for secrecy. Would you please ask the functionary to step forward and explain? We need to know why issues involving The undertow seemed so hard to sort out. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 13:25, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
(ec2) Anonymous tipster? Just above I read that this was a functionary, not a tipster. If a checkuser was run, that checkuser should be prepared to explain their actions. It's a reasonable question. (Durova, would you please stop stalking me.) Jehochman Talk 13:28, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Jehochman, please keep it topical. Xeno raises a good point about chilling effects. When two active editors disagree it is probably because they have different wikiphilosophies. Maybe I should say no more but I will: the thing that sparked my interest in this particular situation is that Law happens to live in my geographic area. We've made several plans to go to the zoo together over the last few months, but each time the plans fell through. I didn't know he was The Undertow until it arose at ANI. He's very remorseful about how his mistakes are affecting other people and I'll probably go out of my way soon to meet him in person for the first time, just to take him to Starbucks. This is not all about you. Wikipedian decisions are based upon open discussion; administrators do not get to exclude experienced editors from even writing the words "per Xeno". If the stress is so bad that you've lost sight of those fundamentals, then consider a wikibreak. Have a breather; I'd support the removal of your name from both cases if they open. Durova320 —Preceding undated comment added 19:28, 2 October 2009 (UTC).
(re both) Perhaps they are friends with the user? People have been clamouring that duty should trump friendship, and perhaps it did in this case, but they did not want to act on it themselves. Asking the functionary to step forward is one thing, and I don't necessarily disagree, but announcing it against their will is not on. –xenotalk 13:31, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Fine, let the functionary step forward. We don't need any more cloak and dagger stuff around this matter. I suspect there is a simple explanation. Nobody is calling for heads on pikes here. Mistakes and snafus are allowed. We need to understand what happened so we can strengthen processes going forward. Jehochman Talk 13:37, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
"Nobody is calling for heads on pikes here." What? Did you forget "yet"? I'm sorry, Jehochman, but I simply don't trust that if someone steps forward, you're not going to file yet another Arbitration request. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:03, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Functionary A noticed in a log that functionary B had done something that was potentially unusual, and A emailed John. John failed to follow up until now. Either Arbcom or the Audit committee will be looking at B; the referral is at a very early stage. Obviously no good will come from identifying A against his/her wishes, as it might discourage future good faith reports of potential concerns. It is also much too early to identify B, as we don't even know if B did anything wrong. (There may be an innocent good faith explanation.) There is a very important question about different levels of culpability that has not been properly addressed. We have:
  1. An arbitrator who knew Law was a ban evading sockpuppet, objected to his RFA but did not take effective corrective action, and endorsed Lara as an oversight candidate knowing that Lara was enabling a ban-evading sockpuppet.
  2. An admin who nominated Law for RFA knowing he was a ban-evading sockpuppet.
  3. Multiple admins who knew Law was a ban-evading sockpuppet and supported his RFA without saying anything.
  4. Possibly additional admins who knew Law was a ban-evading sockpuppet and either were silent on the RFA, or who found out more recently, and remained silent.
  5. An arbitrator who was informed of a functionary action that suggests the functionary knew Law was a ban-evading sockpuppet.
What are the appropriate responses for each of these levels of knowledge? Should A be held to the same standard of responsibility as Cas simply because A emailed one arbitrator instead of filing a public report? Should Jayron, who has admitted voting for Law knowing he was a ban-evading sock, be held to the same standard of responsibility as GlassCobra, who nominated him? What about the many many other incidents involving Admin friends who stick together, but which did not rise to the level of a misleading RFA? Friends stick together, apparently, and I don't know of any easy answers to these questions. Thatcher 13:51, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I dont want secrecy. Lessons will only be learnt if we can unravel this mess and have a frank discussion about it. However the functionary involved did the right thing, and wants to stay out of the limelight, and I don't see any benefit in denying them that for the time beaing. It is my fault that their action wasnt actioned.

fwiw, they functionary who informed me is asleep right now, and I am not going to mention names until I talked with them, and I am not going to ask them to put their name on the dotted line unless they are happy doing so, unless I see some reason to do so. I will probably be asleep before they are up, so the curiosity may have to wait quite a while. Enjoy the delicious wait ;-) I should mention that at the same time that I informed arbcom, I also informed all functionaries-en of who it is. (minor guess work involved..) bear in mind that there are still functionaries who have not stepped forward yet. John Vandenberg (chat) 13:58, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

There's a related issue that's relevant to the admins who found very late game that Law was Undertow and didn't do anything. If I (and I suspect many other people) saw that a given person was a returned individual who had now passed RfA and that people who knew him in real life hadn't said anything I would very likely have assumed that the process had been quietly oked by ArbCom or others who were relevant. We shouldn't have a witch hunt for people who didn't have all the facts post the RfA. JoshuaZ (talk) 14:01, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
I am leaning towards agreeing with Joshua here. Knowing at the time of the Rfc is one thing; puzzling it out later might lead to the impression that undertow was given a discreet "fresh start" by ArbCom. KillerChihuahua?!?Advice 14:19, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I have a question for John, in your apology you write: I can't be certain that I had even read the email until this morning. What exactly does that mean, couldn't you see whether you have opened the letter before this morning or not? Loosmark (talk) 14:21, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

If his program is like mine, once you click there is no telling whether you'd previously viewed the email - there is no datestamp for "first clicked on". Also, there is the scan, scan, scan method of going through a long list of emails - he could have clicked, scanned, missed the import, and moved along. That could hardly be called reading the email. In short, I don't see how anyone could reasonably expect him to answer this. KillerChihuahua?!?Advice 14:30, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Well then you have a different program than me. In my program the subject of the letter is bold until you have opened it at least once and personaly whenever i open an email i always read it. But anyway I didn't mean to imply anything I was just curious that's all. Loosmark (talk) 14:36, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
I can't determine whether I had read the email, and I can't recall whether I did either.
I use gmail. The email that I received yesterday morning from Keegan was a reply to the email that he sent on August 21. I had starred the original email, which means that when I clicked on the item in my Inbox yesterday morning, both emails were displayed. As far as I know, there is no way to find out when I opened it. If I had opened it when it arrived, it was promptly pushed onto the todo list, and then not done. John Vandenberg (chat) 23:47, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
(ec) Thatcher seems to be saying that functionary B appears to have used CU or oversight in the interests of The undertow/Law on or before August 21, though there may be an innocent explanation. Have I understood correctly? SlimVirgin talk|contribs 14:28, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Broadly speaking, yes, although we don't yet know the circumstances, and Joshua raises a good point. Thatcher 14:39, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Okay, thanks. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 15:04, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Does this concern the oversighted revisions made on 16 August 2009 at User:Law and User talk:Law ? Cenarium (talk) 20:49, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

For a supposedly flat project governance system, and for a culture that generally aspires to openness, all this secrecy and anonymity sounds a pretty discordant note for me. So and so knows this, but can't say, and other people knew this, but we can't tell you who. Even I got caught up in it on this board, because someone relayed to me the comments of a checkuser that admin socking had been discussed and dismissed on mailing lists. I don't want to identify the people involved, and I understand the impulse of John and Thatcher and others to protect the identity of people who haven't necessarily done anything wrong but who would nonetheless be subject to some vilification if their name came up here. Yet the whole atmosphere of secrecy here, of withholding information when you've decided everyone else doesn't need it, leaves me cold. It also may contribute to why some administrators believed they could withhold obviously relevant information from the community based on their own personal evaluation of "need to know." Nathan T 16:35, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I think that we have an obligation to determine whether there is actual wrongdoing before naming names, particularly in an atmosphere where head-hunting is a predominant theme. Thatcher 16:50, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
That's a general principle I agree with, but I can't say I like the atmosphere we've got now where practically any information is withheld unless there is a strong, continuing demand for its release. Everyone is afraid of being hung out to dry for minor errors or nothing at all, so nothing gets said. Protonk's statement on the case request should be required reading for practically everyone, perhaps. Nathan T 17:19, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
I think Nathan makes a very good point - and let us not forget that it was in large part poor communication and secrecy that led last year's Arbcom to virtual implosion. DuncanHill (talk) 16:53, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Oh, come on. Suppose I run a checkuser on a vandal and find he shares an IP with you. Should I publish that fact before or after I discuss it with you and you tell me it was a public library. Thatcher 17:06, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
(ec)I'd rather you published straight away than made nebulous "we know something, but can't tell anyone" or "An accusation has been made by someone who won't say who they are, against someone we won't tell you who it is, and anyway we don't quite know if this is covered by policy anyway" type statements. And again, it was poor communication and secrecy that nearly scuppered Arbcom, please don't let the same cock ups be made again. DuncanHill (talk) 17:14, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
What you describe is nothing like the situation we're dealing with here, in which admins and arb(s) knew for certain what was going on. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 17:09, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
I find the head-hunting atmosphere here quite disturbing. You might want to address yourselves instead to my comments above about different levels of culpability. John V. received an email containing a suspicion and did not act on it. The sender suspected the accounts and sent a message to an arbitrator rather than blocking the account directly. Someone else took action that looked suspicious but which has not been investigated yet. Do you really want to hold those people to the same standard of responsibility as a person who submitted an RFA nomination that was fraudulent by omission? I don't think any further comments by me are likely to be helpful at the present time. Thatcher 17:32, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Quite aside from the fact we are not looking at criminal investigation standards but rather alleged misbehaviour on a website. I agree with Thatcher's comments on cautious disclosure - I was once at the wrong end of one such disclosure by a checkuser some years ago and it took several hours and a lot of drama to get it sorted out, and there is a permanent "mark" on my record as a result of it. If someone had have contacted me and asked me straight out, I could have told them. Had I clearly not been straight with them and the evidence was rather clear, well, the ball would have been in their court to reveal to arbcom or AN/I as they saw fit. Some lessons were learned from my case and I hold nothing against any of the individuals involved, some of whom I actually get on well with today. Orderinchaos 08:50, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

In the interest of disclosure, I believe I fall into category 4 (out of the 5 categories listed by Thatcher above). I didn't reveal that Law was the_undertow when I knew and I'm not apologizing for not saying anything. There are a great deal of other secrets that I know as well that I won't be revealing. Focus on creating an encyclopedia. If the actions of others cause an issue doing that, I'll be first in line to speak up against the troublemakers. Otherwise, assume every user is a sock of another and stop caring. Good grief. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:07, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Then we have a problem. At the very least you should not have participated in defending Law here[1] against a claim that he was acting like a cowboy administrator, if you knew he was The undertow, and that's why he was blocked in the first place. Further, the conversation also involved discussion that the editor Law blocked was a sockpuppet. In so doing you effectively played other participants in the conversation for suckers. The right response would have been to say that you endorsed the block, but the administrator doing it is himself a sockpuppet and should not be blocking anyone -- or else, if the community decides this is okay, simply recused yourself because of your familiarity with the parties. Wikidemon (talk) 20:33, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
I'm not really going to dignify your reply with a response other than to say that I think it's time you found a new hobby. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:38, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
A while ago you defended Law on a notice board, knowing that Law was a ban-evading sockpuppet of The undertow. You announce above that you held that and many other undisclosed secrets but you will continue to hold them and have nothing to apologize for. I don't think it's okay to knowingly defend a ban-evading sock so I feel my question is reasonable. It's not a huge transgression under the circumstances but it's something that I don't think should happen. You seem to think it's okay. If you don't want to answer that's your choice. If you think my analysis is wrong you're free to set the record straight. But you seem to be accusing me of something for asking the question. Do you think the question's wrong? As others have noted, a number of administrators shielded or supported Law, or looked the other way, and there are probably other undiscovered socks as well. Either we're going to have a policy against sockpuppet administrators or not. If we are, we must ask administrators have to honor and enforce it - who else can enforce that policy? We're not going to de-sysop every admin who knew the truth about Law, but some amount of coming clean, rooting out any other known cases, and agreeing that this will not happen again, is necessary if we're going to bother with that policy. Wikidemon (talk) 22:40, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
As an admin or long term user one comes to know a hell of a lot of stuff that one doesn't necessarily need or want to know. (Note I say "I" here but it could be written by just about anybody - and I knew nothing about this Law situation until after it broke.) I know a fair bit of secret information. Much of it is hearsay, a fair bit probably false, some of it is more than likely true but only on the basis of very esoteric circumstantial evidence or a gut hunch. If I was to reveal the information I know, those who told me would not feel comfortable telling me more information, the people it's about could rightly say it is hearsay, probably false and with only esoteric circumstantial evidence or a gut hunch, I would probably be hunted down by the AN/I lynch mob and have to face days of drama for making unsustainable accusations against people with lots of friends, and nothing would happen to the person at the centre of it all. There is a difference between "transparency" and "appropriate discretion". Nevertheless, I do take the point that *acting on such knowledge* (as in, aiding and abetting) and *simply knowing it* are two different things - the former has some level of involvement or investment whilst the latter is probably a wish to avoid Wikipolitics as a domain in favour of more productive uses of one's time. Orderinchaos 08:55, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Beyond this case

The Committee is important to Wikipedia. We all need to have faith in it. While the Committee can't do much about e-mail sent to individual members, an idiot-proof system to avoid lost and ignored e-mail sent to the list should have top priority. Reduced faith in the Committee is one side-effect. (In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the functionary above mailed JV instead of the list, thinking that mail to an individual was less likely to get lost.)

More important than the Committee's reputation is the resulting time-wasting. In a totally unrelated case, something ArbCom should have done 6 weeks ago isn't done yet because an e-mail wasn't registered. One Committee member has spent hours trying to track down the e-mail, keeping people updated, trying to make good again. Those hours could have and should have been better used; nothing else will get done if arbitrators have to play catchup with many similar cases. This isn't rocket science; clerical routines are essential to avoid bad outcomes and serious time-wasting. Above, users Skomorokh, Jehochman, Ched Davis, and Boris (at least) have made similar points. The Committee needs to solve this problem! - Hordaland (talk) 16:04, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Hordaland, this problem has been solved, and was one of the first things we resolved this year. All mail being received at the official Arbcom-L mailing list is logged and tracked and responded to. There are sometimes delays, but they are taken care of. We recently identified that there were problems receiving mail from certain domains, and we have done some reconfiguration to reduce the likelihood of recurrence. We have usurped User:Arbitration Committee and User:Arbcom specifically to provide an easy way to send emails to the Committee itself; the accounts exist solely as a conduit for communication with the committee. Those who want to communicate with the Committee should find no difficulty in doing so.
Each of us, as individual arbitrators, receive upwards of 100 emails a day, between mailing lists and those addressed to us personally. If someone needs arbitrator action on something, their best bet is always to send it to the committee address, where there's a very good chance someone will read it and respond within a day or so. I won't speak for anyone else, but I know it can take me several days to respond to personal emails. Risker (talk) 16:14, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for responding. Because of the above-mentioned case, I'm not totally convinced. Hoping for continued improvement, yours, Hordaland (talk) 16:34, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Hordaland, the email that John mentions was sent to him personally, not to the Arbitration Committee mailing list. Risker (talk) 16:50, 2 October 2009 (UTC) Please note correction below. Risker (talk) 17:39, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
The email I sent in August was to the clerks list. Has that problem "been solved" too? I don't know the relationship between the various lists and who's responsible for them. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 17:06, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Do you have the date of the email, I can check the archives quicker. MBisanz talk 17:07, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Actually I found one for Sun Aug 2 16:47:59 UTC 2009, but the issue is moot, no? MBisanz talk 17:10, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Moot in the sense that the specific email has now been acknowledged, yes. Moot in the larger sense of measures having been put into place to keep email to the clerks falling through the cracks, as well coordination/management the various mailing lists for arbcom, the clerks, etc. -- well, that's what I was asking about. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 17:14, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Ahh, nope nothing official on that front, although now that arbom just brought in new clerks, we are discussing ways to better ways to manage emails, so hopefully the clerks-l will be a bit more responsive to requests. And well I have nothing to do with the other lists out there (unless you are counting dal). MBisanz talk 17:25, 2 October 2009 (UTC).
My apologies to you Hordaland. My colleague Carcharoth has correctly pointed out to me that you were speaking of a very specific situation. Indeed, that is the situation I allude to in my message, where we became aware that messages from a specific user were not getting through. The email domain he used, one that is frequently associated with mass spamming, had been placed in the spam filter at some time in the unknown past; none of the current list admins had added anything to the spam filter, but when it became apparent this might be the problem, we wiped the spam filter completely and are going to let things run for a while to see if any specific domains really need to be included. So far, I don't think we've identified any. Risker (talk) 17:39, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Aaahh, that explains a good deal. Near perfection is as good as it gets. Keep up the good work. - Hordaland (talk) 18:53, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
There is a little bit more to it than that. I believe I am the arbitrator Hordaland is referring to above, when saying "One Committee member has spent hours trying to track down the e-mail, keeping people updated, trying to make good again." It will take a while to lay out what I think happened here, but because of the nature of the problem, I think it needs doing. I'll do that in a new section. Carcharoth (talk) 21:10, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Thank you so much. This needs to be done for folks like me. Regards, —mattisse (Talk) 21:26, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
My advice is, if you want all the Arbs to know something send it to several of your favourites individualy, asking them each to send it to the mailing list. Don't trust emailing it the mailing list yourself, and I have reasons for saying that, trust me on that one. Human error occur, errors of judgement occur and so does downright deceit. Just cut out the middle-man and hedge your bets. Giano (talk) 21:46, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
The arbitration clerks also have direct write access to the Arbcom mailing list, so their messages don't get queued or filtered. Asking a clerk to forward a note to the Arbcom list will ensure that it gets posted properly. Thatcher 22:56, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Then I am glad to hear that things have improved over the last few years. For that was not always the case! I shall certainly always continue to use my own methods. Giano (talk) 23:00, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
I know I took a while to write the promised section that goes into more details (I'm about to save it after reading through it one more time - did I say it was long?), but you guys could have waited. Mattisse and Giano, this year at least, there have been several list moderators and only one example that I am aware of where there was an accidental discarding of a message that should have gone through. If you suspect that any e-mails you sent have not got through, now or in the past, just submit details and that can be checked against our archives - it is a trivial matter to carry out such checks going back many years. Thatcher, although clerks do have write-access, it seems that some actions of the spam filter can over-ride that. It is possible that only list-member access can over-ride spam filter settings, though maybe not even that. I could test that, but don't want to play around with the settings too much and end up blocking half the committee from the mailing list. The point is that the results seen by a sender with write-access (nothing) is the same as that seen by someone discarded by the spam filter (nothing). Ideally, someone with write-access who is not a list member would still get confirmation from the software that their message was accepted and got past the spam filters, but it seems they don't. It is easiest, in my view, to just turn off the spam filters. Carcharoth (talk) 23:43, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Keegan

Wow, y'all have been busy.

I am the functionary that emailed John, I'll go through the sequence of events from my perspective.

I didn't know Law, except for participating in his RfA and doing a couple other wiki-related things with him. I had no idea that he was the undertow, nor any suspicion, nor any reason to suspect.

What occurred was that I was looking through a log trying to find something I did as a noob functionary to submit it for review. I accidentally discovered that an IP had "outed" Law on his talk page. Please note at this point that I was not a participant in any of this action, I just saw it. At that point I sat back for a couple minutes and thought about how to proceed, and for what reasons behind everything in the decision that I made. I decided that the best course of action was to email someone on the AUSC, and selected John to email. My email was two sentences and a link, as he stated it was not explicit nor accusatory, more of a "Hey...uh...I hope you guys know this/see this just in case the shit hits the fan."

At the time my concern was for both our community's integrity as well as for Law himself. It was posted by an IP, so obviously the secret was if not out, going to be out. But, I did not know if the allegation was true. If it was not, it could have damaged his integrity just as badly as if it was true. I didn't email the committee as a whole, because this was all new to me and I thought I'd send the buck up one ladder before trying to make a mountain out of something that might not even be true. I never heard back from John, and I never told anyone I emailed him out of the interest of Law's privacy, not my own. The purpose of the email was not to snitch, but to inform in case this was true and would subsequently needed to be handled by the committee in the most prudent way possible. The fact this one email got lost in the cracks seems to have resulted by the actions of others in the very drama that I was hoping to avoid.

A day or so later I ran into Law off-wiki and talked to him on the phone for about an hour. My concern was that he had put a retired template on his page the same time the "outing" occurred and announced intent to leave Wikipedia. I was interested in maintaining his privacy should this all be subject to off-wiki harassment and how much this might impact his life. Law informed me his retirement was unrelated to anything that may have been said, and he never confirmed to me himself that he was the_undertow.

Since Law said he was retiring and was okay, and I had emailed John, I put the whole gruesome affair behind me and moved on since I had done my duty as a Functionary (at least I believe so, I hope others do). I honestly assumed that the Committee knew, and was working on a strategy to take care of all this in the aforementioned least drama-prone way, as this was going to come up eventually I thought they were prepared. It seems not, I was honestly surprised that the Committee didn't know, and I expressed this surprise to which John wanted to know whom I had emailed. It was him, oops :) He's apologized to me for the miscommunication, and that's an apology I accept. We get a lot of emails, we read a lot of emails, we have lives, and there's only so many hours in the day. I'm not going to discuss the private information about suppression, that's none of my business as I accounted for myself.

Professionalism and integrity is how I try to conduct myself at all times. I am not perfect, I make mistakes like everyone else. I do not expect anyone else to not do the same. This is a colossal sequence of events to lead up to this, as are most major things in history. Hindsight is 20/20, I know I did the right thing and I know that others would have done so as well had they the opportunity.

I love you all, happy editing to you. Keegan (talk) 20:01, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

*hugs* --MZMcBride (talk) 20:13, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Hi Keegan, thanks for stepping forward. Can you clarify the issue that Thatcher raised, namely that functionary A saw in the log that functionary B had done something in relation to User:Law that A felt it wise to report? I'm not sure whether Thatcher was talking about you (as A) or someone else. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 20:37, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure Keegan was "A". Thatcher 20:38, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
I am A, and I still assume that B was acting in good faith for basically the same reasons that I was. Keegan (talk) 20:47, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Okay, so piecing this together, Keegan saw that an anon had outed Law as The undertow on Law's talk page. The talk-page history shows that two edits were oversighted on August 16, the page protected, and the anon blocked. The implication is that someone used oversight to hide that Law had violated an ArbCom ban and had gained adminship by lying to the community. And that other admins blocked the whistleblower and protected the page against further revelations.
If the above is anywhere near correct, this isn't something anyone should be covering up. I appreciate your point about the atmosphere of heads rolling, Thatcher, but this is not a good situation. I'm thinking in particular that these admins and the oversighter wouldn't have helped someone violate an ArbCom ban unless they believed the ArbCom was okay with it. What's puzzling me is what was special about The undertow that this would happen. Is it just that he was friendly with people on IRC, or am I missing something? SlimVirgin talk|contribs 20:55, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, just to be clear, was Law outed as The undertow, or was his real name posted, or both? SlimVirgin talk|contribs 20:58, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
I'm about to be afk for a few hours, so I'll try to help you out with this. I have no idea the motives of B, I assume good faith. I know that my motives were for the better of Wikipedia's community in how I approached the situation. There was no real name released, just linking the accounts. I fell into this whole thing by accident, but could not reasonably turn a blind eye. Following that, I did what I thought I should and moved on from the whole damn mess. Did I run into Law on IRC? Yes. Do I pal around with him there? No. I idle in #wikipedia-en for the !oversight and !admin pings, I saw him there. That's the extent of my IRC participation in this affair. Hope that helps. Keegan (talk) 21:09, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Thank you, that's helpful. You told someone, Keegan, so you did the right thing. As for the oversighting, I can't think how that wouldn't be a clear misuse of it. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 21:13, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Keegan and SlimVirgin, the Audit subcommittee was made of aware of the matter today by John and we will be reviewing the situation according to our usual practices. FloNight♥♥♥ 21:18, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Thank you for the clarification, Keegan. You clearly made the right moves with this situation. JamieS93 21:53, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Keegan's explanation is perfectly reasonable. If B would step forward with their explanation, that would help eleminate speculations. Jehochman Talk 21:17, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't see anything wrong with Keegan's actions. But I am beginning to notice that many of the participants on both sides of this matter either attended the Nashville Meetup last month, or belong to the Bathrob Cabal.   Will Beback  talk  23:16, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
The timing of this event taking place two weeks before the Meetup is completely coincidental for me, you have my word on that. Keegan (talk) 23:36, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
I totally believe you. That observation includes several people - I just happened to post it here. Nothing personal. Another non-personal point: You say you saw a posting on Law's talk page from an IP which revelaed that Law was The undertow. I checked the history and can't find any such posting. I do see that two edits from an IP on August 16 were oversighted.[2] Does anyone know who oversighted those postings, and why? If it was to hide Law's on-wiki identity then it was probably inappropriate.   Will Beback  talk  23:57, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
FYI, I've sent a message to the Audit Committee regarding the oversighting so no answer is needed here.   Will Beback  talk  00:39, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

For communal information: I checked the link above and found the suppressed items. They were correctly suppressed; containing attempts to post purported real-world private information that I have no idea if accurate or not, as well as a long string of invective and offensiveness, gross sexual insults, and several occurrences of "fuck" and "shit".

They mentioned undertow but only in an irrational and mis-spelt context that nobody would necessarily make sense of; for example in the middle of various ramblings, one of them did state "...<blah hate attack><Blah Fuck>Law is the underto!!!!Fuck<blah more hate attack>", which, mis-spelt and in the middle of an outing post and irrational/lengthy swearing and attack vandalism, I would be amazed if anyone specifically noticed or saw other than as meaningless rant. There was no statement in either to alert a reasonable reader that Law was socking; this was in August and both would appear to be strings of random invective plus purported real-world information to any normal oversighter review unless the oversighter had clear prior information of some kind.

The oversighter was not an arb. FT2 (Talk | email) 01:27, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining that context, which relieves the concern that the oversight was an attempt to hide the previous user name.   Will Beback  talk  03:02, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
Agree with Will; that information eases my concerns as well. KillerChihuahua?!?Advice 12:34, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
The Audit Committee completed its review and posted its report here: Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Audit Subcommittee/Reports#User:Law and User talk:Law.   Will Beback  talk  11:25, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Arbitration Committee mailing list (missing e-mails)

Apologies for the length of this, but I think the details are important here. In a section elsewhere on this page, Hordaland raised the question of 'lost and ignored e-mails'. My response there was this, stating that I would lay out in more detail what I think has happened here (Risker has already stated that the problem was likely to do with the spam filter - I'm going into more detail here and correcting a few mis-statements). The intention had been to prepare a formal notice, but this will have to do.

I first got an inkling that there might be a problem with e-mails to the Arbitration Committee mailing list (arb-l) going astray when, towards the end of the Abd-WMC case, TenOfAllTrades said he had asked Hersfold, one of the arbitration committee clerks, to forward an e-mail from him to arb-l. This was on or around 9 or 10 September 2009. I looked through my records and the archive of arb-l, and could not find this e-mail. So I confirmed with Hersfold that he had indeed forwarded this e-mail but it had never arrived at our (ArbCom's) end, so I asked him to try again. After a bit of testing and back-and-forth, we failed to replicate the problem sufficiently to identify what was causing it. I remained concerned, and said as much to my colleagues on the committee, before moving on to other matters. I did, however, make a mental note to try and sort this out if it happened again.

The next chapter in this story started when an amendment request was filed in September regarding the ADHD case. During that request (which is still open) the issue of mentorship for one of the parties to that request came up. That party (Scuro) said he had e-mailed the arbitration committee on 8 August 2009, saying he had failed to find a mentor. He has since confirmed that he also e-mailed several times earlier, during the actual ADHD case. As far as I can tell, none of these e-mails arrived at the arbitration committee mailing list. While trying to track down the e-mails, I asked Scuro to e-mail the Arbitration Committee again, and to copy me in individually. The e-mail to me arrived, but the copy to the arbitration mailing list did not arrive.

Convinced now that there was a real problem, I went back and looked more closely at the set up of the Arbitration Committee mailing list (I am one of several arbitrators with list admin access). Risker (another list admin) said she thought Scuro might have accidentally been placed on the auto-discard list (a list of e-mail addresses where e-mail from those addresses is automatically discarded), and cleared that list, and added Scuro to the auto-accept list (a list where e-mail from those addresses is, funnily enough, automatically accepted). This didn't, however, fix the problem (yet another e-mail I asked Scuro to send didn't arrive - apologies by the way for asking Scuro and others to send test e-mails, instead of setting up a test account myself, and thanks to Scuro, Hersfold and TenOfAllTrades for being so patient during the testing).

Eventually, I thought to look at the spam filter settings, and was surprised (horrified, actually) to discover that a list of 19 e-mail domain names of varying sizes and popularity (mostly yahoo ones) were in the spam filter, with the setting set to "discard". I suggested to my colleagues that this was the cause of the problem (both Scuro's e-mail address and TenOfAllTrade's e-mail address were from one or other of the domain names there, and seem to have triggered the spam filters). Following my suggestion, the spam filter 'action' setting was switched from "discard" to "hold" (for a moderator to review), and this seems to have immediately fixed the problem.

To confirm this, I asked both Scuro and Hersfold to e-mail again (with Hersfold copying in TenOfAllTrades) and the e-mails both got through this time, with scuro confirming that the e-mail he sent had triggered a moderation message saying his e-mail had triggered a "rule" (i.e. triggered the spam filter). The difference is that the messages were now being held for moderation, not silently discarded (previously, neither Scuro and Hersfold, or the list admins/moderators, had received any notification at all that theses e-mails had not arrived and had been discarded). One of the reasons this may not have been picked up earlier is a presumption that "discard" generated an "auto-discard" notice to the list moderators. It seems that this is not the case for discarding that is done directly by the spam filter (as opposed to discarding done by the auto-discard list).

This all happened around about 8 days ago. Because I was still not 100% sure of this (I don't really know on a deep level how such things work), I suggested doing some more testing to be sure, and asked some of my colleagues with more experience in dealing with such things to comment. Several have since commented, but as some may be aware, the committee has been very busy recently dealing with a series of incidents and large cases. This is partly why I am bringing this here now, as I don't think the follow-up to this should be delayed much longer (I would normally clear a posting of this length and of this nature with my colleagues, but have not done so here, as I think this needs addressing now, with no further delay).

To be clear, the problem seems to have been fixed now (i.e. it is unlikely that e-mails will be lost or discarded in the future for this reason), though to be absolutely sure, I would be happier if someone who understands this more than I do did some proper testing. However, it is not clear how large the now-fixed problem was and what the effect was. The big problem here, as Risker mentioned earlier, is that we have no clear idea how long the spam filter was set to reject e-mail from this range of 19 e-mail address domains, or even when each domain was added to the list (the list can be published - as I said, they are mostly yahoo ones). What I think should be done at this point is the following:

  • (1) Try and find out when the settings were put in place and how long this has been a problem for. Currently there are two known examples of people whose e-mails were caught by the spam filters, the two described above, from August and September 2009. As there is no way to reliably tell from the mailman software (to my knowledge) when these spam filter settings were put in place, I think the presumption should be that those settings have been in place all through this year, and possibly further back into previous years as well.
  • (2) The list admins (there are about 4 or 5 of them) could be asked if they changed the settings, but this hasn't been done yet (it is also possible that list admins doing something in one part of mailman affected another part without realising what they were doing). For the record, my actions as list admin have been largely limited to moderating mail through to the list, and I never touched the spam filter settings.
  • (3) Examine various archives. My initial searches through my records from this year (looking for e-mail from these domains) indicate this has probably been a problem all through this year. There are various ways to search further back (into 2008 and 2007) to find the last time an e-mail from each domain name arrived at the Arbitration Committee mailing list (this sort of search has been suggested but not done yet).
  • (4) Try to identify which e-mails and from whom, failed to arrive. This might involve technical investigations, such as looking at Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) logs to compare what arrived at the WMF servers, with what the settings of mailman (the WMF mailing list software) let through to the list members. As I only learnt a few days ago what an MTA log is, I have no idea whether this would work or not (I suspect such server logs are discarded at some point).
  • (5) Appeal for people with e-mail addresses from the domain names in question, who know they e-mailed ArbCom over the past 2 or 3 years and never received a reply, and who still have copies of those e-mails, to resend those e-mails, including full headers. These e-mails can then be compared to the archives to see whether the e-mails ever arrived. That would provide clear evidence of how far back this problem went.
  • (6) Set up a manual log of changes made to the mailman software settings. This has now been done (whether the list admins remember to record the changes they make is another matter). Ideally, a system would be used that kept a record of what changes were made to it, by whom, and when.

One point I do want to make here is that one of my aims this year has been to to help improve the communications of ArbCom, and I am angry that some of the impression of poor communications from last year and this year may have been due to poorly configured spam filters, possibly ones that were configured last year or even further back than that, and just never looked at or properly discussed by the list admins. One of the things I speculated about, when reporting on this to my colleagues, was whether this explains some of the feeling over the years that people were not getting replies from ArbCom? It wouldn't explain all such feelings obviously, but maybe some. If it is confirmed that some failure in the configuration of the spam filters has caused more than just the two failure points I described above - and I should note that not all my colleagues agree that this is the problem I am making it out to be - then I hope that this report helps explain what has happened here, and show that once discovered, steps were taken to identify and correct the problem. I will wait for comments here, and then move forward with further responses and an appropriate formal notice (including posting a list of the e-mail domain names that were affected) as needed. Carcharoth (talk) 00:04, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Short version for readers who are not FT2 or Newyorkbrad

  1. Arbcom-L has a spam filter.
  2. The spam filter was set to discard messages from some significant email domains without notifying anyone.
  3. It is not known who set the filter this way or for how long this was happening.
  4. It's fixed now.

-- Thatcher 00:25, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Could we please set up a ticket tracking system (aka help desk software) to log requests to ArbCom? You need a system that protects against people deleting, filtering, or ignoring correspondence without a log of the action. Jehochman Talk 00:29, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
The point is that a tracking system was put in place this Spring by the new arbcom but the spam filter was discarding messages before they even hit the tracking system. Thatcher 00:31, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
Does the user interface say "You will receive a receipt for your submission. If you do not receive a receipt, then your message was not received." What happened here should not have happened in a properly designed system. Email transmission failures are commonplace, even if the spam filter is set up correctly. Jehochman Talk 00:33, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
The mailman interface has these options for messages matching the "spam" regexp: Defer, Hold, Reject, Discard, Accept. I assume, based on Carcharoth's text, that "reject" would send a reject message and "discard" dumps it without a message, while "hold" puts it in the queue and notifies the list mods. I have not tested this behavior myself (I am a mod on the audit subcom mailing list and am just now poking around the interface). Thatcher 00:42, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow. You need more testers. Jehochman Talk 00:46, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
As long as all the filters are turned off, no testing is needed. If the filters ever are turned on again, for certain words or domains, then definitely testing is in order. Thatcher 00:58, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
If the filters are turned on, then it would be helpful to maintain a public page where people can validate their suspicions i.e. if you are using this.domain.com, your mails are liekly being discarded. Filtering based on word content (presumably for things like "Viagra4free" in the subject line) is a little more problematic, but it's not likely that Arbcom or functionaries are primary targets of spammers selling porn or male-enhancement products. Surely the best solution is to publish the filter rules on a public wiki-page so that we can all check if we suspect that our emails aren't getting through. Franamax (talk) 02:55, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
You are sadly mistaken. We are also apparently prime targets for diploma mills, hotel rooms in Ulan Bator, and Russian mail order brides. In any case, the spam filter has been completely wiped for now. Risker (talk) 03:46, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
The simplest solution, if the spam filter is needed again, is to set it to reject instead of discard. Then the sender gets a rejection letter. If the sender is a wikipedia user, he or she can use other means to contact the committee (ideally, advised by the rejection notice). Thatcher 04:07, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
I bought one of those brides! Sadly, the ocean shipping was too much for her glistening cardboard cheeks. ;) My point was that there would be no particular harm in making public the filtering rules, i.e. spam is spam, it comes from one of many generic maillists that spammers buy and sell. Once any given email address gets on a spamlist, it never comes off - however, I rather doubt that any spammer would target a filter list published on Wikipedia to develop strategies meant only to target such a small set of addresses. Thus, I see no great problem in making public the filtering rules, which any legitimate wiki-editor could check to see if their own important email may or may not be getting through. If I understand the recent concern correctly, the sender would have been able to check against the filter rules and realize "hey, I use that mail domain, maybe my mail was blocked".
Thatcher's proposed solution works too, but in my corporate (or any) life, I've always discouraged sending out "rejected" messages, since they are a direct indication to the spammer that the mail address is "live" and thus could prompt resale and/or better techniques for getting spam through. For a large-scale and public site such as this though, "reject" may indeed be the best strategy. Franamax (talk) 04:42, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Seems like the institutional memory here for the arb mailing list probably resides in David Gerard's head - might be worth asking him about this particular subject. Nathan T 01:31, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

If I thought he could remember who the list admins were in 2007 and 2008, and what the many different mailman settings were at the time he stopped being an administrator of the mailing list, I would have indeed asked him. I think publishing a list of the e-mail domains in question would better allow people to check their records, send us details, and allow us (well, me actually, it seems) to check the archives, is a better option. Carcharoth (talk) 11:39, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
This is a dumb question, but sometimes dumb questions need to be asked - do you not actually keep a record of who the admins are? I can't afford to give the foundation any money to help with this, but I could probably spare a pen and some sheets of paper to note things down on if it would help in future. DuncanHill (talk) 16:43, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
For the two WMF-mailing list I am an admin on, I can verify that the software has no way of tracking who was a former admin. And paper only works if the person with it is still around, usually a new admin is made because all of the past admins have gone inactive. MBisanz talk 16:46, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
Hmmm, maybe if there was some kind of easily editable website, which could have pages protected so that only certain editors could edit them, a record could be kept on that? DuncanHill (talk) 16:48, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
You could keep a list anywhere, the real problem is keeping it up to date. (Although I'm not sure wikipedia project space is a good place to host administrative details of dozens of mailing lists.) What would really be nice is for the software itself to be more wiki-like, logging changes to the filters and other preferences and who made them. Thatcher 00:09, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Both technically and procedurally, Jehochman's suggestion of help desk software sounds like the most reliable solution. It is designed just for this situation, logs everything, can (I think) send rule-based notices to those who should be notified and assign due-date milestones, and keeps an "audit trail" of every step in dealing with an issue. The Wikimedia Foundation has an open source application of this kind that the Office Action people use to deal with complaints about Wikipedia articles (e.g., libel claims, copyright, etc.). So the software and the know-how for using it are already in the house. Finell (Talk) 00:57, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Appoint CU & OS auditing subcommittee

According to the agenda and election mechanism was supposed to be in place by August 15th. Would someone be so go as to point me to it, and let me know when the elections will be held? --Joopercoopers (talk) 07:22, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

The election will be taking place this month. We're just finalising the details so that accurate announcements can be made, probably in about seventy-two hours  Roger Davies talk 07:27, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks Roger. --Joopercoopers (talk) 07:31, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Thank God. Thatcher 14:44, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

(od) Update: just ironing out some wrinkles with the developers; we should be in a position to announce the schedule within 24 hours.  Roger Davies talk 01:10, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Hot damn.--Tznkai (talk) 01:12, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

(od) Okay, all. We have a timetable:

  • Applications: 7 - 22 October
  • Review period: 22 - 29 October
  • Voting: 00:01 30 October - 23:59 8 November (using SecurePoll)
  • Appointments by: 13 November

You heard it here first. I'll post the more detailed, formal announcements tomorrow.

 Roger Davies talk 20:50, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

  • Indeed. I've posted announcements at WP:AN, WT:CHECKUSER, WT:OVERSIGHT, WT:CRAT, WT:AUDSUB, WT:SPI and will give Kirill an exclusive for Signpost. Any other suggestions welcomed,  Roger Davies talk 21:40, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
I added WP:VPM and WP:AN; it could even be reposted there on a weekly basis to refresh it as it scrolls off. How about the CU, OS, functionary and wiki-en mailing lists? Also important to post each step of the process (self-nom one week to go, self-nom closed, elections open, elections 7 days to go, elections 24 hours to go). I won't touch the various mediwiki sitenotices and other popups 'cause there is some territoriality there, but it could be considered. Any other ideas? Thatcher 21:48, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the input! WT:AC, done too.  Roger Davies talk 21:50, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia Review? :) Thatcher 21:52, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
[Chuckle]  Roger Davies talk 21:57, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
I think a watchlist notice would be a good idea. (Proposed) –xenotalk 19:29, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
Some time ago, I wrote a page designed to be referred to when questions of where to publicise something arises. See Wikipedia:Publicising discussions. I would suggest WP:CENT is used a few days before the election starts, and that any discussions to put anything on sitenotices (also mentioned at the link I gave) are started early in the relevant places to allow consensus for or against adding to those sitenotices to become apparent. I would suggest a central place to announce elections might not be a bad idea. WP:ELECTIONS exists, so I would add it there as a forthcoming election. If there is a Wikipedia calendar anywhere, that might be an idea as well. Carcharoth (talk) 22:36, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks all. I have installed archive protection on the AN thread [3]. –xenotalk 19:27, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

"What did the President know, and when did he know it"?

The man who originally asked those words was Howard Baker, who was ranking minority member of the Senate Watergate Committee. As a Republican, Senator Baker was placing principle above party loyalty by asking directly whether Republican President Nixon was aware of the burglary at the Democratic National Headquarters.

After Watergate, Senator Baker became Senate Minority Leader and then Senate Majority Leader when the Republicans gained control. He served as White House Chief of Staff under Ronald Reagan and was ambassador to Japan until 2005. It would be an unkind reflection on his legacy for a Wikimedia steward to liken that famous question to a "witch hunt", except that Senator and Ambassador Baker is 83 years old and very much alive. He still works as a senior partner at a law firm.

The Wiki Witch hunts for an appropriate species of fish. Trout seems inadequate here. Durova320 15:04, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Is that directed at me? What I see here has witch hunt aspects. No disrespect intended to any wiki witches, past or present, but I calls them like I sees them. I don't recall mentioning Howard Baker or Watergate and I think your spin on this may not be uniformly helpful. ++Lar: t/c 16:34, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
I think it is directed at those using the Watergate quote, rather than the HUAC "Are you now, or have you ever been" which is what they clearly meant. Watergate IMO would be more appropriate, as this is not a witch hunt but rather trying to find out who knew and was involved in the cover up. This is nto a with hunt; it is asking for accountability from those in positions of trust. KillerChihuahua?!?Advice 16:37, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
"What did you know and when did you know it" is exactly the sentiment I wish to call out as what makes this seem to this observer to have witchhunt aspects. For the record, I'm not seeing a lot of "have you ever been a member of..." sorts of questioning. I am not alone in my perception (see above, you've engaged with some other folk agreeing with the observation) and no amount of saying "but it's not a witchhunt" can change that perception. This is not the first witchhunt we've seen here, since Wikipedia has aspects of a mobocracy. The situation around Geogre's socking had the witchhunt nature too, for example. ++Lar: t/c 16:42, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
Lar's confusion is somewhat understandable before the background explanation (a lot of people don't know much about history), but not afterward. "What did the President know, and when did he know it?" has nothing to do with HUAC, McCarthy, or inappropriate questioning. This question was one of the finest moments of American politics. By paraphrasing and likening it to the lowest moments, you do a disservice both to honest inquiry and to the living gentleman who posed the query. It really is a serious cognitive error to conflate this. Durova320 16:57, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
You're conflating it. I'm not. I do not think I'm confused either. Your rhetoric about finest moments is unhelpful. This is hardly this wiki's finest moment. ++Lar: t/c
Lar, you just said "What did you know and when did you know it" made you think of this as a witch hunt. The quote is from the highly esteemed and deeply ethical man who went against cronies to ask a hard question of the president during Watergate. There is nothing "witch hunt" about this. "Witch hunt" generally refers to either actual witch hunts, or more recently, of McCarthy era HUAC questioning. You saying the Watergate question = in your mind Witch hunt, is indeed conflation. I suggest you read Durova's concern more closely, and reconsider. KillerChihuahua?!?Advice 17:44, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
Beautifully expressed, KC. That man is still alive, employed, aware of the world around him, and capable of learning how the most esteemed action of his career has been equated with McCarthyism and witch hunts. Imagine what a man in his eighties may suppose posterity would think if this public discussion reaches his attention. Lar, please put the dignity of a Wikimedia steward to better purposes. Durova320 17:57, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
I express no such equivalence. For reference I explicitly disclaim and refute any such. You really need to stop this rhetoric, it is tiresome and distracting. YOU raised Baker. YOU raised Watergate. YOU claim I quoted him (your section heading uses words I did not use). Those who think this is a witchhunt, for whatever reason, are entitled to think so. Instead of attacking them for wording choices (and falsely at that) you two might better try to determine why they think so. ++Lar: t/c 18:46, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
Quoting Lar, above ""What did you know and when did you know it" is exactly the sentiment I wish to call out as what makes this seem to this observer to have witchhunt aspects." You're just ignorant, and happy to be so, if you don't realize you're quoting Baker. I'm dropping this; you're clearly determined to keep your head deeply and firmly in the sand. KillerChihuahua?!?Advice 19:06, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
More conflation. There is a problem here that needs investigating. But if significant number of folk think it looks more like a witch hunt than a serious, sober, and reasoned investigation, that's going to be an impediment. You would be better served to determine how to investigate without the spectre of witch hunting so that no one or almost no one thinks it looks that way. Or not, if rhetorical sparring, misquoting, calling folk ignorant, and the like is more your forte. ++Lar: t/c 19:19, 3 October 2009 (UTC)
One last comment: Lar, you seem to miss how terribly ironic it is that you are misusing that quote here. No one in this section is arguing about whether this is or is not a "witch-hunt" we've been trying and failing utterly to explain to you that you're citing, not a "witch hunt" question, but a question of someone who did the right thing and did not allow those in power to get away with a cover-up. The irony is so thick you could cut it with a knife, but you're focusing on whether or not this is a witch hunt, and completely ignoring those trying to point out to you your error in quoting Howard Baker. Your quote means exactly the opposite of what you are saying. And had you read Durova's first post and responded to what she was actually saying, you would not still be defending your very inappropriate use of the quote. I mean no insult; but I do wish you were either aware enough to acknowledge you might have erred, and a careful enough reader that you realized Durova was talking about your conflation of Baker/Watergate and McCarthy/HUAC witch-hunts and not trying to argue about your actual point, which has been lost in your extremely poor choice of quotes to use. KillerChihuahua?!?Advice 19:29, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

This is a corrupt administrator hunt, and I will gladly participate in smoking out every one of them. --Apoc2400 (talk) 18:26, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

This section is kinda off topic. While some rhetorical advantage may be gained in mining the collective unconscious for bad associations w/ McCarthyism, the parallel is simply a rhetorical device. And the misuse of the Baker quote (While telling, in some sense) is likewise limited in its rhetorical fallout. Lar's main concern isn't obviated by pointing to the wrong historical antecedent. I don't agree with his concern, but we do each other no favors in talking past one another about which period of american history is a better model for current events on wiki. Protonk (talk) 21:31, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Durova's quotation of "What did the President know, and when did he know it?" is on target. It asks relevant, important questions without making assumptions.
Much of the rest of this page is ridiculously preoccupied with "witch hunts", which have nothing to do with the question raised by Durova. A witch hunt assumed that there were guilty who would be punished mercilessly even if the alleged offence is a fiction. Let's drop "witch hunt" and concentrate on what significant or omissions actually occured. --Philcha (talk) 13:06, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Meh. I don't see the need to have a teachable moment for lar about the distinction. It's not as though if we impress upon him how noble Baker's stance was he will change his mind about the nobility of this particular venture. Protonk (talk) 21:33, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
True, but Lar's comment is a borderline BLP violation. Moreover, it is extremely offensive. Howard Baker is a great man. And to compare him to McCarthy out of ignorance is bad enough. To compare him and repeate the comparison after the problem is explained is well... I'm not the sort of person who gets his blood boiling over issues of patriotism. But at the moment, it makes me feel like a very upset American upset at another American who doesn't know his history and refuses to listen to anyone try to explain it to him. The issue here has nothing to do with whether or not this is a witch hunt and everything to do with Lar's totally inappropriate choice of quotes to reference. JoshuaZ (talk) 03:39, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Um, what? Thought this would be hatnoted by now. You're seriously confused here, JoshuaZ. Please cite where I mentioned Howard Baker, said anything disparaging about him, made any comparison of Watergate to McCarthy or to anything else or in any way said anything that nay reasonable person could take offense at? BLP violation? That would be all the OTHER people who keep mentioning his name. I merely observed that I saw a particular question being repeated, and that it seemed like a witch hunt to me. There are people refusing to listen here, but I'm not one of them. How many times did you want me to explain this and/or say what a great person I think Howard Baker is before stop trying to make something out of nothing? Good grief. Get a grip. I cannot believe how effectively you've all managed to sidetrack this with irrelevancies. I feel swiftboated. ++Lar: t/c 03:16, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
Oh FFS. The weakest possible interpretation of BLP is to treat it as a means to force retraction of inartful comparisons in discussions between wikipedia editors. It's also possible that someone might feel that the Watergate business was a partisan witchhunt, as recently as 2004, we elected a vice president who thought so. Protonk (talk) 21:36, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Slow down, please

We're at really long, don't want to read here. Lets keep this all in perspective. The undertow/Law evaded a ban and became a sysop. Several people in varying positions of trust did not speak up when they could have. There is a great deal of anger, and serious disagreement as to who should have said what, when. That is what we know.

Despite very strong feelings to the contrary, we do not have a consensus on who breached what duties. We do not have a clear picture on who had what knowledge, and in this atmosphere, its unclear if anyone will want to come forward and volunteer. We have a great deal of anger, accusation and counter accusation, a lot of speculation and a great deal of meta discussion. My urgent plea is we all have a little patience with each other and work on something else.--Tznkai (talk) 18:29, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Three Audit Subcommittee vacancies: Call for applications

Original announcement

Motions: Law/The Undertow and Disclosure of known alternate accounts

Original announcement

I would like to regret (though not object to) the desysopping of GlassCobra, a user I have always found to be friendly, helpful and a good influence. I hope that they consider regaining their adminship after the discrete interval that this unfortunate case has necessitated. ╟─TreasuryTag►Captain-Regent─╢ 16:17, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

  • It is possible that I am missing something of substance. However, it appears to me that there was a slight error in the posting of this case to this noticeboard, as well as the manner in which it was archived. The motion regarding "undertow restricted" is not passing according to the archived voting page. However, it is listed in the archives and on this noticeboard as passing. Not a matter of great importance, however perhaps this seeming incongruity could be checked. Thanks. --Matheuler
  • You are quite correct: the motion should not have carried. It has been removed from the various related announcements and the committee index of motions, and can be considered to have never passed. (That it ever was carried seems to have simply been an administrative error.) Thanks for drawing attention to this oversight. AGK 22:48, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
That one is entirely my fault. I'm not sure frankly how I got it into my head that it had passed, and then the first error snowballed into multiple listings. It has since been repaired in all relevant locations by other clerks, whom I thank. Manning (talk) 00:03, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps the ArbCom can post a motion admonishing you for being a chocolate hedgehog, with an aunt called Sara, in this matter? In fact, hadn't they done so already? Please check the logs! LessHeard vanU (talk) 12:41, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry, that would be completely inappropriate. I believe checking the logs will show he is a butterscotch hedgehog, with an Aunt Sally. KillerChihuahua?!?Advice 12:44, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Um, isn't that what I said? LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:00, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
  • It's surely unnecessarily vindictive and punitive to admonish and de-sysop GlassCobra, and to admonish Jennavecia (as well as her relinquishing the tools). IMO the vote ought not to have been set up so that could happen. Surely losing the tools—the stronger sanction—is enough? Why waggle the Committee Finger at the users twice over? I made this point at an early stage, in my statement on the case request, and will repeat the relevant bit below, if I may:
"I've no wish to see Jennavecia admonished or otherwise humiliated, nor GlassCobra. There's too much humiliating going on at RFAR, and too much clumsy admonishment. Just do the practical thing: desysop them.[4]"
I realise my opinion won't change anything, and that the parcel is already tied with Arbcom string and sent off, but I wanted to register a protest. I don't like the way the motion system works. Bishonen | talk 17:55, 12 October 2009 (UTC).
It does seem to be adding insult to injury, yes; and although this one instance might not seem to be very significant, I would still agree that admonishing and desysopping in one decision gives off a poor image. At the very least, I would suggest that the committee propose all desysopping and admonishment proposals relating to the one user solely as alternatives. AGK 19:50, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Would the situation have been better-handled if there had been a full case, with evidence and workshop pages, taking weeks or months? There were already 80+ users commenting on the RFAR, I'm not sure there would have been anything novel to say in a full case. Thatcher 20:16, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
It wouldn't have been. That's why we chose to handle this by motion instead: none of the material facts were in dispute, so there was no point to collect evidence or workshop its analysis. — Coren (talk) 22:39, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Coren: What would you say to the suggestions that an admonishment should not be handed down to a user who is also being desysopped? AGK 23:23, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
My take on what happened here is that there was confusion over what people meant by "alternatives". Some thought that alternatives meant choose between admonishment and desysop, and that if both desysop and admonishment were passing, then the one with the greater support over-rode the other option. This led, briefly, to the possibility that an admonishment (passing with strong support) would take precedence over a desysop (passing with weak support). This was clearly absurd (the stronger remedy, if passing, should always come first, however weakly it is passing). However, there are reasons to support voting on an admonishment alongside a desysop motion. If the desysop motion fails, you have the alternative to turn to. Also, if things change (e.g. a resignation), then the admonishment can go with a statement on the resignation, and help to make clear the reasons for the resignation.

In future, if I was setting up a vote like this, I would make clear from the start that the desysoppings were the main motions, and that the admonishments were reserve motions, to be used only if the desysopping motions failed or became moot. As regards the motions here, if anyone feels strongly enough that things need to be clarified, then a clarification request could be filed (it should include examples of past cases where admonishments and desysoppings were passed together, or voted on as alternatives). But it really would be best to wait a couple of weeks before doing anything like that, both to let things calm down a bit, and to let us deal with the current cases. Carcharoth (talk) 03:17, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Apology

I have been working offline on Microsoft Word, crafting an appropriate apology for days now. After pages of text, I have scrapped the whole thing. All I can do is to is to state unequivocally that I screwed up in voting in Law's RFA given that I knew about the connection between the two accounts, and for that horrendous lack of good judgement on my part, I am sorry. The more I have ruminated on this the more I have come to realize by actions were inexcusable. Several people noted my lack of remorse in comments along the way of this case; I can only say that there was a lack of statements of my remorse. I felt, after a few days into the process, that any statements of apology or remorse on my part would only be self-serving, and I did not want to sway the committee by interrupting their deliberations by having to deal with my apology. It was very important to me that they base their judgements on the facts and events of the case. My early statements seemed to indicate a certain obstinance on my part; for that I am also regretful. Yes, at the time I felt little remorse. That has changed, and I am quite frankly disappointed in myself over the whole affair. I have no excuses or justifications for my actions. They were inexcusable. I can only ensure the community that I will do my best to not let such lapses in judgement happen again. I have learned from my mistakes here, and I will work hard to make myself a better person because of them.

I thank the committee for the very hard, and necessary work they do at Wikipedia. To a person, they are upstanding and the finest members of this community, and I fully accept the admonishment they have given. I have deserved it. --Jayron32 19:05, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Well said, Jayron. If only everyone else followed your example in taking responsibility for their mistakes, we'd have world peace or something (or at least less drama on Wikipedia). Nathan T 19:22, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Nicely said. I am but one member of the community, but note that I accept you apology. AGK 19:47, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Also echo what AGK said. I hope this will be a learning experience for everyone involved. Apology accepted. Now let's get back to what we're here for- building an encyclopedia. JoshuaZ (talk) 23:02, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Likewise, I accept the apology. If only everyone else involved had done this, the whole situation would have been less drama-infested. Now, let's move on. The Wordsmith(formerly known as Firestorm)Communicate 04:28, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
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