Abd-William M. Connolley, The Cabal strikes back Options

[Moulton]

Hanging around Wikipedians has a tendency to drive people crazy.

[Abd]

There is a technique used in Japan by Arata, a very well-respected physicist, who loads nanoparticle palladium with deuterium gas. It works 100% of the time. A cell with 7 grams of palladium in it, pressurized with the gas and sealed, heats up initially (heat is generated from the formation of palladium deuteride), but then the temperature rapidly declines to a constant level, it maintains its temperature at four degrees C. above ambient, for thousands of hours, with no sign of decline; I've seen the charts out to 3000 hours, when they terminate the experiment and open the cell to analyze for helium.

There is a discussion in Talk:Cold fusion about possible use of a Physics Letters A confirmation of Arata's work, and, looking at the sources, I noticed that my memory had played tricks on me, there is a serious error above. 3000 minutes, not 3000 hours. While 3000 minutes is still significant, and heat is still constant at 3000 minutes, I hate that I misrepresented what the sources show, and I've written this in a few places. (I would never have put this in an article without verifying the exact reference.)

In the other direction, I also find it of interest that, in spite of multiple mentions, nobody caught this error but me. It means to me that when I make a striking claim, it's being dismissed without attempts to confirm. That, also, is diagnostic.

If I had made many other striking but unverifiable claims, it would be another matter. If I've done it in other places, however, I'd appreciate being informed, I'm not aware of such.

[Grep]

Meanwhile, back at the case.

TotientDragooned (T-C-L-K-R-D) remains banned from contributing. Hersfold notified TD on 31 July that it was out of his hands and that "the case is starting to wrap up now". Surprising how long a CheckUser takes when it's a matter of proving innocence rather than guilt: perhaps TD should have launched an SPI case against himself. Equally surprising how long that wrap up is taking.

Here we are into September, and almost nothing has happened on the Proposed Decision for days. But the extreme delay in closing has given time for WMC to rake up a post by Abd on an off-wiki site and post it on the Evidence page long after the decision process started (with supporting chorus from the team on the talk page). Funnily enough Hersfold doesn't see anything wrong with any of that -- is his mismanagement of the case incompetence, malice, malicious incompetence or incompetent malice?

[Abd]

Meanwhile, back at the case.

TotientDragooned (T-C-L-K-R-D) remains banned from contributing. Hersfold notified TD on 31 July that it was out of his hands and that "the case is starting to wrap up now". Surprising how long a CheckUser takes when it's a matter of proving innocence rather than guilt: perhaps TD should have launched an SPI case against himself. Equally surprising how long that wrap up is taking.

You are surprised? Why? I can see the headlines:

SNAIL FAILS TO ARRIVE PROMPTLY.

WIKIPEDIA BIASED.

CAB EDITOR VIOLATES CAB WP:MEAT POLICY

Wait a minute! What was that last one? Yeah. I've seen signs that the cabal has been broken, it isn't as monolithic as it was, a prominent Cab editor has been acting contrary to previous Cab unanimity. I suspect he's realized the Cab is losing, he's jumping ship. He was, in fact, one of the leading Cab thinkers, big frog in a small pond, so this is significant.

Here we are into September, and almost nothing has happened on the Proposed Decision for days. But the extreme delay in closing has given time for WMC to rake up a post by Abd on an off-wiki site and post it on the Evidence page long after the decision process started (with supporting chorus from the team on the talk page). Funnily enough Hersfold doesn't see anything wrong with any of that -- is his mismanagement of the case incompetence, malice, malicious incompetence or incompetent malice?

Hersfold is incompetent as a clerk, in an absolute sense, but by Wikipedia standards he is the soul of sweet neutrality and efficient response. The brightness of a bulb depends on the ambient lighting.... I don't see any sign of malice.

I hope that arbitrators actually read what WMC pointed to. You know the old saying about publicity. There is no such thing as bad publicity. I now have a conflict of interest, with all that implies.... but the COI arose when I looked around at what I'd do if banned, and, hey, I'd actually rather pursue this commercial idea. In terms of service to human knowledge, you can talk about it, or you can do it. I have a choice, now, and I'm making it.

I'd rather talk, right? That's what they've been saying. In fact, not surprising. WMC used my mailing list post to somehow prove that I was only interested in chatting. The reverse. I chat to establish communication with people who will listen and respond, I've done it for years, and it works. And I keep telling those who don't like it to, please, not read it, they will only get irritated. But they insist on getting irritated!

I have to enjoy, to some degree, the justice of this.

I intend to write another message here about the status of the case. I'd say, especially if we take my departure from Wikipedia as a given, and thus any restrictions on my personal editing are moot, I was quite successful with the case, more successful than I thought at first. If people are so foolish as to try to stick around Wikipedia and improve it, it might now be a little easier. Of course, arbs could still change their votes.

I asked ArbComm, on Proposed decision talk, if it was going to find that, There Is No Cabal, and that I'd made charges of misconduct without providing evidence, given my very careful definition of "cabal," such that an editor being a member of a cabal wasn't an allegation of misconduct, but merely indicated the editor was "involved," please, ban me.

That finding stands, so, my only complaint now might be that they seem poised to only ban me for three months. Why only three months? I'm 65, getting older and unlikely to change my spots, if what I see is delusion and illusion, I should be trying to prepare to get worse, not better. I've got kids to support, little ones, and they depend on me, Wikipedia does not.

And if what I see and claimed is not illusion and delusion, and ArbComm doesn't see it, then I don't want to stick around a project where the best procedures available come up with such an ignorant, head-in-the-sand position, in spite of ample opportunity to do it differently. It will simply waste everyone's time, most especially my own.

The project is still important, but the present process and structure are obstacles, so I'm going to Plan B as far as Wikipedia is concerned. I'll be building structures that work, and that can't be crushed as was Hope Esperanza.

[Abd]

Status of the case:

No request to close yet. Passing, my summary:

The usual boilerplate principles, two are notable:

4.1) A Wikipedia ban is a formal revocation of editing privileges on all or part of Wikipedia. A ban may be temporary and of fixed duration, or indefinite and potentially permanent. When enacting an editing restriction that includes a ban on an editor, administrators should take reasonable steps to ensure that the editor is notified of the particulars of the ban and its duration. Editors that are page or topic banned from a section of Wikipedia are expected to cease contributing to that area. User account blocks may be used to enforce violation of page or topic bans. Any user can bring an administrator action up for review in the relevant noticeboard. The community can, among other things, lift the block/ban, endorse it or extend it in time and/or scope.

There was a controversy in this case over the propriety of an administrator being the originator and continued enforcer, unilaterally, of a ban. Lost in the discussion was the distinction between a general ban and a strict ban. Can an administrator, having warned, block an editor for a nondisruptive edit, independently, without a community discussion? If an administrator may strictly ban, yes. But if a "ban" is merely a strong warning that an editor's general behavior with a page is problematic, and may result in a block without further warning, then we can distinguish between an administrative ban and a community ban. The latter is generally enforced, by admins who may not know the details of disruptive activity, and, for this, it is essential that it may be strictly enforced, but it is normally enforced by uninvolved administrators. It is dangerous to allow a single administrator to create a strict ban to be enforced by others without question, it corrupts our system of administrative responsibility, and it practically guarantees charges of involvement because it sets up a possible personal conflict.

In spite of the extensive discussion of this, ArbComm managed to squarely ignore it, affirming nothing that was not already obvious, leaving in place what had been quite a controversy, with initial expressed arbitrator opinion that administrators may not unilaterally ban.

(added later: actually they did not completely ignore it, they punted, suggesting a community discussion, but without clarifying the problem -- i.e., the particular reason why there is a problem with sole-administrator strict bans -- it all gets confused with other kinds of bans and other problems. This is like a committee bouncing a contentious issue back to the main floor, it's the opposite of what works. ArbComm could hold "hearings," but unless it guides them, it can expect nothing but disruption. Deeper solutions are possible, but unlikely until the community itself organizes for efficient development of consensus.)

6) All editors, and especially administrators, should strive to avoid conduct that might appear at first sight to violate policy. Examples include an administrator repeatedly making administrator actions that might reasonably be construed as reinforcing the administrator's position in a content dispute, even where the administrator actually has no such intention; or an editor repeatedly editing in apparent coordination with other editors in circumstances which might give rise to reasonable but inaccurate suspicions of sockpuppetry or meatpuppetry.

Support for this was unanimous. Cab opposition was, at least initially, monolithic. In general, the Cab has opposed any restrictions on administrative action, or at least their administrator's actions, and where they have disagreed with other admins, they have simply reversed them, an example was provided in this case (WMC v. Jennavecia). Cab administrators have routinely used tools while blatantly involved, and this case may be bringing the first example I know of one getting dinged for it. For that to happen took my being blocked during the case by WMC, proving that WMC would actually do what he'd been threatening to do, block me for a harmless edit, to prove that I was banned. What he proved, in fact, was that I wasn't banned. But for facilitating this proof, I will be also be banned. Cool, eh? Calling attention to the obvious is prohibited.

7) Inappropriate behavior driven by good intentions is still inappropriate. Users acting in good faith may still be sanctioned when their actions are disruptive.

I supported this, though there is a semantic problem. "Sanction" implies response to reprehensible behavior, the word is almost equivalent to "punishment." Rather, actions may be taken to protect the project against good-faith but harmful behavior. Rather, this should have been "Remedies may be applied to users acting in good faith...."

Findings are a bit of a mess.

9) Abd and Mathsci have engaged in personal attacks upon each other during public discussion of this case in an off-wiki venue.

This was roundly rejected, 6 to 1. However, I put it here because there are remedies based on it, with inconsistent conclusions. Goose and gander have different sauces. I don't examine those findings and remedies, though, they are not ultimately important.

11) Abd (talk · contribs) has tendentiously edited the cold fusion article. 1; 2; 3; 4; 5

This is a doozy. Link to finding. I responded in detail to this proposed decision here. All the links are to sections of evidence provided by, a party to the arbitration Enric Naval, with some evidence and conclusion that he'd been disruptive in taking my ban to AN/I. There are no findings regarding Enric Naval, however, though his behavior during the case was aligned with WMC's, and similarly outrageous; when WMC blocked me, WMC reverted the subject edit. The unblocking admin reverted it back. Enric edit warred to keep it out as being the edit of a banned editor, thus making the same kind of in-case disruptive action as WMC's, just without using admin tools. (The community has since rejected the idea that edits of allegedly banned editors must be removed -- and I wasn't banned at the time, as proven by the response to the block, by Rlevse's "suggestion" that I refrain from editing -- which I accepted -- and his subsequent strengthening of this to a ban pending decision.) The most diagnostic of the evidences is link 4.

Read it! With it, the committee accepted and ratified as evidence against me what was nothing more than Enric's evidence presented in RfAr/Fringe science, which was itself so badly distorted as to amount to a lie. The lie was a justification for ignoring peer-reviewed papers on an alleged fringe topic, and the way Enric presented the evidence made it appear that only maybe one-third of peer-reviewed papers were positive on cold fusion. In fact, most PR papers on the topic are, as classified by the database ultimately referenced, positive or "undecided," with "negative" being the lowest number, by far. It's a good example of How to Lie with Statistics, one of my favorite books when I was a kid. Enric Naval was arguing against what ArbComm decided in that case, and he continued to act in violation of the ruling. One of the errors I've identified in my own behavior is that I didn't go to arbitration enforcement over this.

Enric's evidence on that point wasn't about me, he was pointing to rejected claims he'd made before I was ever involved. Yet there it is, with ArbComm's stamp of approval. Diagnostic. It's not like it hasn't been pointed out, it has, in several places where at least a few arbitrators likely read it.

That's why I'm leaving. ArbComm is responsible, but isn't taking responsibility and fulfilling it. There are only two ways to remedy this. The same is true for another finding as well.

12) There is no evidence of collusion or other improper collaboration among the various users Abd has alleged to be part of a cabal, nor did Abd attempt to provide any such evidence.

This has the support of all but one voting admin. I agree with the first part, partly. Tag team edit warring is "improper collaboration," and the Cab is famous for it, especially at Global warming, and plenty of evidence covers that (RfC/GoRight was incorporated by reference in my evidence). However, I didn't allege "collusion or improper collaboration," even though I presented evidence that showed it for some. Rather, I alleged that the Cab was a group of editors who were "involved by association," and that this should be considered in matters like community bans (WP:BAN specifically considers "uninvolved editors") or how we approach evidence; evidence from a neutral party is naturally given more credence than that from an involved one.

In theory, we should only look at the evidence itself, but involved parties can cherry-pick evidence and frame it in highly biased ways, and unless an arbitrator does independent investigation, and most clearly don't bother, the issue of involvement becomes very big. I strongly suspect that with finding 11, the arbs didn't actually read down to the sources, I suspect, in fact, that they read Enric as alleging that I had dismissed reliable sources, that's how it might look in context. The reverse is true.

This finding, were it true in its implications, made it necessary to ban me, because if the editors who piled in to the Arbitration, to present masses of evidence and arguments, were actually neutral and uninvolved, this would be prima facie proof of disruptive behavior on my part, whether intended or not. Hence, following this finding, I'm a danger to the project and must be, for the protection of the project, banned. Unless, of course, I somehow realize my error and mended my ways, and we see below how ArbComm responded to evidence that I wasn't doing that.

When I presented the cabal evidence, I wrote, "the emperor has no clothes." I have demonstrated what happens when an adult says that. Children can get away with it, until they start to get older. ADHD is a developmental disorder. We never grow up in certain ways.

The "cabal allegation" was central. Some of my friends have argued that I shouldn't have said it. In fact, this may be the most important thing I wrote in the whole case, and the door has now been opened a crack, others will notice it if the Cab continues to function as it did in the past. The problem of cabals, and especially ones which push a "majority POV," suppressing minority opinion, creates continual disruption, and not with a tiny fraction of editors; most editors, in fact, hold some "minority view" on something or other. Jimbo's concept of how we'd approach the problem was sound, and cabals have corrupted it, as could have been expected.

In another event that was diagnostic: my proposed principle that consensus was essential to gauging neutrality was rejected by the Cab (which makes it look like it was rejected by the community), and ignored by ArbComm in the proposed principles (even though it had some support from Newyorkbrad in the Workshop). This principle is fundamental to the work I was doing, which was always to increase consensus in the end. Sometimes to increase consensus, it is necessary to initially disagree with the majority, and common-law democratic process recognizes this, and rules of procedure in deliberative bodies are designed to protect that kind of minority, giving it fair opportunity to expand consensus without being disruptive. A minority motion will typically be sent to a committee, a small group, for study instead of being debated on the floor. We have yet to learn from this.

That ArbComm allowed this principle to be rejected means that ArbComm allowed the rejection of the only practical way of approaching true neutrality, thus guaranteeing that Wikipedia will continue to violate NPOV. The current opinion is apparently based on wishful thinking: that there will somehow arise a class of editors who thoroughly understand NPOV and who are perfect in recognizing their own bias, such that the protests of minority POV editors are unnecessary. (When you have a POV, you become, naturally, a detector of opposing POV, you are sensitive to it.) While there are some editors who are good at doing this, they are in the minority and probably always will be.

There are only two ways to move beyond this situation, of wrong-headed ArbComm decision, that I can see.

The remedies.

1) The cold fusion article, and parts of any other articles that are substantially about cold fusion, are subject to discretionary sanctions.

Applause. Had this been in place before, there would have been little to no problem. What had happened at RfAr/Cold fusion is that the Cab had successfully convinced ArbComm that Pcarbonn was the problem, and that if Pcarbonn was topic banned, all would be well. The problem is much bigger than Pcarbonn, and, in fact, Pcarbonn was not the problem, Pcarbonn was part of the solution. Had Pcarbonn not been topic banned, creating a vacuum, I would probably never have become involved with Cold fusion, and now, with my topic ban, others will eventually take my place. With discretionary sanctions, neutral administrators will -- hopefully -- resolve disputes rapidly, by ensuring that the disputes are run through the dispute resolution wringer and hung out to dry, instead of being swept, wet, under the carpet. How's that for a metaphor, eh?

3.2) Abd is prohibited from participating in discussion of any dispute in which he is not one of the originating parties, unless approved by his mentor(s). This includes, but is not limited to, article talk and user talk pages, the administrator noticeboards, and any formal or informal dispute resolution. He would be allowed to vote or comment at polls.

This one is fascinating. There were few charges in the case of disruptive involvement in "other disputes," unless such involvement is understood very broadly. I've been successful, in fact, in mediating disputes. Essentially, what this says is that I can discuss (or what I did in RfC/GoRight, present evidence) if I'm involved, but not if I am neutral. Hello?

But I understand it. Underneath this is something that I've long encountered. Two years ago, when I began to get seriously involved with Wikipedia, and I brought with me over twenty years of experience in projects that were in various ways analogous to Wikipedia, plus I had done serious (recognized outside) work on theoretical solutions to the problems that organizations face, I read the guidelines and policies and considered them to be, for the most part, brilliant. But then I encountered actual practice, which often corrupted the obvious intent of those policies and guidelines. And when I started to point this out, I was rejected and threatened as an outsider. This xenophobia is endemic among the core, it's one of the big problems. Like many problems, it has some legitimate basis, but is overall damaging. Wikipedia should welcome outside opinions; among them will be solutions that the existing core will not immediately recognize.

3.3) Abd is banned from the cold fusion article, any content related to cold fusion, and any talk page discussion related to cold fusion for one year.

This is far stronger than what the community approved earlier, and what WMC imposed. It's stronger than what was imposed on ScienceApologist, who had blatantly violated many policies and guidelines. It's the same as was imposed on Pcarbonn, an SPA, "civil POV pusher." Alternative remedies were proposed that would have addressed all the possibly legitimate problems.

What I conclude is that ArbComm is, in fact, taking a content position, based on what is an easy general view that Cold fusion is pathological science, a reputation that was created in 1989-1990 by a very successful PR campaign on the part of the nuclear physicists, who had much at stake. I have seen, here, many of the false allegations that became embedded in the minds of many, accepted as fact contrary to evidence, such as lack of replication; as measurement accuracy increases, the effect disappears; no ash has been shown; fraud; and on and on.

Were we following RS and NPOV guidelines, our article would be adequate to change this impression, not necessarily showing that cold fusion is "real," but that there is a real and open scientific controversy, with no broad scientific consensus, (any more, certainly not since 2004) that we should neutrally cover. Instead, we are violating those guidelines and RfAr/Fringe, and ArbComm has now, once again, ratified that, and those who disagree, and who know or have come to know the field and Wikipedia process and have attempted to properly use it, are not to be allowed to discuss it, anywhere on the project, no talk page discussion, no WikiProject Cold fusion (there should be one, to foster consensus), and probably no participation in the mediation.

Those who agree with the "pathological science" conclusion, if they don't go too far, or even if they do but they get away with it, may continue. This kind of decision, repeated, warps our content in ways very difficult to fix. Or should I say, "your content"?

After a series of lesser remedies failed to find a majority, with only a little objection that they were too strong, a stronger sanction against me found rapid majority.

3.5) Abd is banned from Wikipedia for four weeks. During the ban, the mentors (if remedy 2 passed) will be selected and editing guidelines will be developed by the mentors and Abd. The Arbitration Committee reserves the option to shorten or lengthen the time of the ban depending on completion of the mentoring agreement.

Didn't find a majority. At this point, until a few days ago, it looked like I would not be banned at all, and that I might even not be topic banned. Until, suddenly,

3.6) Abd is banned from Wikipedia for 3 months. Should remedies requiring him to identify a mentor (or develop a mentorship plan) pass, the mentorship will become effective at the end of the ban.

This got immediate support from what became a majority within a few hours. It was a reaction to my response to Carcharoth as to what I'd learned, and what I'd learned would doubtless make me more effective. I think that struck terror into the heart of Risker, even though I'd been very careful to qualify all of it by an intention to strictly respect a mentor's advice. In other words, I'd have been effective without being disruptive. Carcharoth, the arbitrator I've been saying all along I most respect, opposed, the only one so far.

There are problems with some other "admonishments," but they are minor and not worth discussing now. This takes us to two remedies which currently have a majority, the conflict between them yet to be resolved, my emphasis:

6) William M. Connolley's (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · moves · rights) administrative privileges are revoked. William M. Connolley may apply to have them reinstated at any time, either through the usual means (i.e., via request for adminship) or by appeal to the Committee.

6.1) William M. Connolley's (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · moves · rights) is admonished for his edit warring and misuse of administrative tools. William M. Connolley is desysopped for three months as a consequence of poor user conduct and misuse of administrative tools. After three months, his administrator access will be automatically restored. Additionally, William M. Connolley is warned to not use his administrative tools when he is involved.

Upon regaining his administrator access, William M. Connolley will not be allowed to use administrative tools in topical areas relating to Cold fusion or in relation to Abd. Should William M. Connolley violate this restriction, the Arbitration Committee may remove his administrator access (either temporarily or permanently), or alter the restriction.

I did not request desysopping. What I've suggested numerous times, in more than one case, is that the Committee routinely (and rapidly and easily and without a finding of fault) suspend administrative privileges when there is reason to believe that they may be abused, or that there is even an appearance of such, until it is satisfied that the risk is tolerable; if an admin has violated recusal policy, a basic requirement would be that the administrator show an understanding of the violation, such that it is not likely to repeat. ArbComm has sometimes desysopped when the admin was adamant that they had done nothing wrong, but has generally overlooked the problem if the admin stonewalled, not admitting error but not strongly asserting correctness. This is a fundamental mistake. WMC has yet to acknowledge that there was any problem at all with blocking me during the case, not to mention at any other time!

If there is a case over admin recusal failure accepted, that is prima facie evidence that there is risk. Suspension should be routine, unless there is an immediate finding or motion that there is no risk.

Given the massive harm that has been done by WMC's actions while involved -- in spite of ArbComm's persistent head-in-the-sand over this, it includes, quite possibly, the whole Scibaby affair, which began with an obviously involved block by WMC, -- this outcome justifies, makes worthwhile, the loss of me as an editor.

Whatever work remains for me of importance can be done off-wiki if needed. I had preferred to be more open and more accessible, but, in fact, it may be better this way.

Now, the two remaining options; one has been hinted at: appeal to the community, off-wiki. I know how to do it with no violation of policies, Wikipedia Review may be a piece of it, I don't know how it will play out. FA/DP organizational technology was designed to be usable under very difficult conditions, such as in China, Wikipedia is, comparatively, a piece of cake. (But it's difficult still, don't mistake me, the problem, however, isn't what opposition can do, the problem is apathy and cynicism.)

The other is appeal to Jimbo or the Foundation Board. I'm certainly not going to do this quickly or without due consideration and preparation and, indeed, support. I understand very well why Jimbo is mostly hands-off. But his vision is being corrupted by forces that could have been expected to be a problem, they always are, and it is not necessary that this happen, there are possible solutions.

It's still possible that there could be some shift in the votes, on any of these. Some arbitrator might read this and decide, "He thinks he won! We'll show him!" and if I wanted to make sure there were no changes, I'd not be posting this. But that's not how I operate. People are responsible for what they decide, personally. My responsibility, besides my sovereignty over my own actions, is to speak what I see, so that it cannot be said, in the end, "Nobody told me!"

Not everyone will read what I write, that's part of the situation. But some do, and if you read this, and understand it, you are responsible for passing the understanding on when you have the opportunity. That's how it works, and how it has worked from time immemorial. How much personal risk you take when speaking truth to power is a decision you will have to make for yourself. Good luck, decide well, and live well.

This post has been edited by Abd: Sun 6th September 2009, 7:08pm

[Abd]

So, back to reviewing wikipedia. Is there really an anti Cold Fusion cabal in wikipedia that purposefully wants to paint CF in a bad light? Or is it all in Abd's mind? And what the arbs will do about this one?

I see that I never responded to this. The Cab I asserted was not a "cold fusion" cabal, it was originally defined around Global warming, but it has generally been involved with "antifringe" activity, and one of the defining characteristics was how editors commented in RfAr/Fringe science.

The evidence used by ArbComm to show "tendentious editing" on my part (refer to the Proposed Decision) was five sections of Enric's Evidence in the case. One of them ultimately pointed to his evidence in RfAr/Fringe science, where he referred to an allegedly preposterous post by another editor. Enric's coverage of this amounted to a lie. I think he believes the lie, but if not, then he has been deliberately repressing fact in reliable sources, and, yes, purposefully portraying cold fusion in a bad light, by allowing weak sources that criticize cold fusion, and disallowing strong ones, including peer-reviewed secondary source that favor it. He was joined in this, most notably and recently, by Hipocrite and Verbal, who are Cab editors based on other expressions of opinion and actions.

If it were true that There Is No Cabal, then FloNight would be correct: I was tendentious and disruptive, for the existence of so many editors, if they were neutral, upset with me, would be proof. If, however, a faction becomes upset, it can mean something very different. Given how obvious the cabal, or "mutually and broadly involved faction," is, ArbComm cannot effectively dismiss it, it is simply exposing its own incapacity. The rest of the decision, largely, follows from that dismissal, except for WMC's desysopping.

Enric, you helped bring that about, and if ArbComm had been paying attention, you would, yourself, be banned or at least topic banned, with the most obvious cause being the edit warring over removal/replacement of my harmless comment at Talk:Cold fusion.

You harmed WMC by taking the ban to AN/I in the first place, and by staunchly supporting WMC when he was clearly violating recusal policy and threatening to do more. Had you not gone to AN/I over my defiance of the ban, I would have eventually edited Talk:Cold fusion, WMC would have blocked me, and the most likely outcome would have been an unblock by a neutral administrator, and it would have been over. By going to AN/I, you pulled in the Cab, making it ultimately necessary to confront the whole issue.

Are you proud of yourself?

In the end, with discretionary sanctions, it's unlikely you will be able to exert such control over the article. Or you will be blocked and maybe banned.

I've written before that I don't engage in a dispute unless I think I will prevail. That was true here, and, overall, I was right. It may look a little different right now. But you might note how bitter WMC is in his posts today on Proposed Decision. He has, in fact, had this coming for a long, long time. He earned it, over and over. Maybe you should apologize to him. I'm not bitter, I'm grateful, though I still point out the problems.

Overall, progress was made; as an individual editor, my contributions are not that important, my work is with structure and process, and I don't even need to have editorial rights to work on that. As I wrote about admin rights in my RfA 2, they might be a hindrance.

This post has been edited by Abd: Sun 6th September 2009, 8:18pm

[Grep]

WMC seems to have decided to moon the jury. His recent edits to the case pages include

• (oh get on with it)
• (Is the 1000 word limit real?: no, it isn't real, its a joke)
• I'm blaming arbcomm for their sloth and lack of attention

He may well succeed in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

[Abd]

WMC seems to have decided to moon the jury. His recent edits to the case pages include

• (oh get on with it)
• (Is the 1000 word limit real?: no, it isn't real, its a joke)
• I'm blaming arbcomm for their sloth and lack of attention

He may well succeed in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Well, I suppose it's possible he will get a plain desysop instead of a three-month suspension. He's pretty bitter, I'd say, it's not like he was "winning" and has now ruined it. He lost when he blocked me during the case, if he cares, and I think he does. But maybe I'm wrong about that. Ikip is claiming, now, that I've ruined the desysopping by continuing to be foolish and irritating powerful people. But I wasn't ever arguing for desysopping, my goal has been clarity, a goal impeded by the Cab, and ascribing that to my prolixity is not completely off, but, in the end, rooted in a misunderstanding that must be confronted before Wikipedia can remove itself from the trap.

My latest evidence, presented yesterday, was long. I looked at it, and considered how long it took to write it (long!) and whether or not I should boil it down even more (it would take twice the time, it was already reduced about 50%), decided I didn't have the time, so, fuck it, I left it. Nobody is forced to read it, not even arbitrators, and if all the arbitrators were to scan it, the net time they'd take is much less than what it would take me to edit it down further.

I noticed today another evidence presentation against me, the latest one, raising what had been said so many times. Cardamon noticed that I'd been an editor, professionally, therefore I could shorten my writing, "if he wanted to." Yeah. More accurately, if someone paid me to do it, or I'm attached to the outcome. And if I actually have the time. It's well known among writers: to be brief usually takes far longer. Don't have much to say, sure, easy to be brief. Decide that you can always write the rest tomorrow, yes, also easier. But I'm at an age where approaching death becomes quite real, and I have a diagnosis, plus, I have years of experience knowing that very often tomorrow never comes, it's said today or not at all.

[One]

Ikip is apparently blaming you for talking too much. There might be some truth to that.

I honestly don't understand how the case has turned out like it has; with arbitrators trying to figure out what remedies might be passing. Bizarre.

[Lar]

Ikip is apparently blaming you for talking too much. There might be some truth to that.

Say it ain't so! Next you'll be saying Moulton has some odd theory of mind about the ineffectiveness of song parodies as social commentary, or something.

[Abd]

Ikip is apparently blaming you for talking too much. There might be some truth to that.

That he's blaming me? It certainly appears he is. His "blame" implies that some damage has been done by my talking too much. He put in a lot of work to show that WMC had abused his tools, his work attracted favorable attention here. He thinks, I suppose, that arbitrators will see what a complete mastodon I am and decide to forgive WMC for his little indiscretion.

But my goal was never to desysop WMC, it was to make the principle of admin recusal clear. I didn't go to ArbComm to get a ban lifted, I believed, at the time, that there was no ban, and, in fact, subsequent events proved that. I believed that, if I were blocked by WMC, after the expiration of the community ban, I'd be unblocked quickly, no fuss. And, in fact, I didn't even have to ask. I was unblocked and WMC was almost desysopped immediately (through a motion that fizzled). Sure, had there been no pending case, it wouldn't have been so swift, but it would have been almost as sure. And with a very clear incident that would have, in fact, shown tenacious refusal to recuse, the case would have been much simpler. I might not have had to raise the Cab issue. Maybe. It's a difficult political problem.

I honestly don't understand how the case has turned out like it has; with arbitrators trying to figure out what remedies might be passing. Bizarre.

I'm not surprised at all. ArbComm needs to act to simplify cases, so that they don't become monsters. One issue per case, as small as possible. Combining an examination of a "plaintiff" with an examination of a "defendant" is guaranteed to cause massive disruption where strong factions are involved.

Had this been done, in the case that I filed, I could have focused solely on evidence about WMC, and ignored the rest. I largely did that during RfAr/Abd and JzG.

And if people had complaints about me, they could have filed a case against me, though ArbComm might have rejected it as premature: no RfC, no serious efforts to resolve the issues short of ArbComm.

[Abd]

Hanging around Wikipedians has a tendency to drive people crazy.

Once, long ago, in a place far away from where I now live, I was a sponsor to a well-known psychotherapist, and I'd say more about his very unusual qualifications but I don't want to take any risk of betraying his anonymity.

He called me one time and complained, "My wife is driving me crazy." I replied, "Barry, your wife can't be driving you crazy, you're already crazy."

He laughed and was able to get a little distance and discuss the situation.

[Moulton]

Somewhere in the annals of behavioral psychology, there is the notion of "crazy-making people." Perhaps this is a shorthand for people with Cluster B Personality Disorders, since their behavior patterns are so vexing, it can drive someone crazy trying to discover a functional and constructive way to relate to them. Evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, I still think there may be some hope for Song Parody Therapy.

[Abd]

Somewhere in the annals of behavioral psychology, there is the notion of "crazy-making people." Perhaps this is a shorthand for people with Cluster B Personality Disorders, since their behavior patterns are so vexing, it can drive someone crazy trying to discover a functional and constructive way to relate to them. Evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, I still think there may be some hope for Song Parody Therapy.

It would be Cluster A that's more likely to present this appearance. From my experience, however, "crazy-making people" only destabilize others who have an "artificial sanity," that is, their apparent stability is based on a repression or denial of part of their experience, or on attachment to the "normality" of their experience. For these people, if they begin the process of developing rapport with the "crazy person," which is essential to real communication that is anything other than a relatively formal exchange of tokens, and which involves accepting report or vision of the other at face value, without rejection or judgment, they start to see their own experience from a new perspective, one at odds with how they previously framed it, and this is so destabilizing for them that they must shut down the process and define the other person as dangerously insane, malevolent, an enemy to be eliminated, whether or not there is any actual danger outside; i.e., the danger is to self-image, not to physical self.

What is really interesting to me is that this can occur with written communication. The phenomenon of someone apparently being "driven crazy" by another is more understandable when it happens face-to-face, because the bandwidth is high, and it is much easier to dismiss mere text. However, this is explained by understanding the rejection response to be a rejection of an aspect of self, which is supplied by the reader. Thus the crazy response is not to the written text per se, but to something triggered or awakened by the written text. We see a "crazy" part of ourselves in the text, and our response is to that, the text was only a catalyst that started to unlock a door we very much want to keep locked.

How much energy has been expended to try to keep the "craziness" of Scibaby out of Wikipedia process? The global warming articles are highly watched. There are easy solutions which would completely protect article text from "unseconded" edits, and which would still allow any editor to participate in discussion, and these solutions could also be applied to discussion as well, so that discussion from "crazy editors" is shunted to pages which allow that. But the reaction we are discussing cannot allow any discussion at all, it is too dangerous, it will corrupt the youth, to use the very old argument, it will mislead other editors, it must be stopped, eliminated, blocked, banned, and stomped out wherever it pops up.

This is, in fact, crazier than any insane state that might exist in Scibaby. If he's insane at all. Scibaby's response might be, indeed, quite rational in the long run. He may be wrong about global warming (if we can assume his actual POV from his edits, which could be flawed), but right in confronting repression and abuse of power, which may be an even bigger problem than the quality of our articles on global warming.

JzG is back, invoking BLP policy to keep out a description of Lawrence Solomon as an "environmentalist." Why is this such an issue? It's obvious. It's about how we think, and we can't control the way we think if we don't control language.

[Moulton]

What is really interesting to me is that this [destabilizing one's fragile self-image] can occur with written communication.

Anxiety and insecurity are functional motivators for learning and self-improvement.

[Abd]

What is really interesting to me is that this [destabilizing one's fragile self-image] can occur with written communication.

Anxiety and insecurity are functional motivators for learning and self-improvement.

Certainly they can be, for some. For others, they are motivators for rejection and blame or suspicion.

[Grep]

I honestly don't understand how the case has turned out like it has; with arbitrators trying to figure out what remedies might be passing. Bizarre.

A combination of ineffective case management by a novice clerk and a sustained effort to reduce the case to nonsense by a tag team working in the interests of WMC.

[Moulton]

Rejection, blame, and suspicion seem to be recurring themes in WikiCulture.

[Guido den Broeder]

I honestly don't understand how the case has turned out like it has; with arbitrators trying to figure out what remedies might be passing.

We know.

Nonetheless, it was written in stone for all to see.

[Abd]

I honestly don't understand how the case has turned out like it has; with arbitrators trying to figure out what remedies might be passing. Bizarre.

A combination of ineffective case management by a novice clerk and a sustained effort to reduce the case to nonsense by a tag team working in the interests of WMC.

That's accurate as far as it goes. As always, the real problem is structure, or lack of structure, which allows this to happen. ArbComm must operate more interactively; I'd say that case pages shouldn't be open until ArbComm has explicitly defined the scope; that might be done on Talk for the RfAr once it's been separated out from all the other pending cases. Without that, the clerk had nothing but vague impressions to go on.

In this case, I found it diagnostic that the drafting arbitrator, bainer, was quickly rejected by other arbs, who, as far as I can see, had gone over the evidence with less attention. By the time they became involved, the whole thing was impossibly complex, as a result of the pile-in (and response to it). At one point I did an experiment, and took out of the case all the huge amount of comment by involved parties (i.e., named parties, all the Cab editors, and my two valiant supporters, GoRight and Coppertwig as well. There was almost nothing left. I posted a link to my Sandbox for that, I doubt whether many looked at it.

But because the Cab can successfully present an appearance of representing many uninvolved editors, my claim of Cab involvement was necessary, otherwise, as I've said so many times, FloNight would be completely correct and the conclusion that I was disruptive would be obvious, if so many uninvolved editors were upset with me. That's why denial of the Cab was crucial, and why even the most helpful arbitrators were practically useless (because they joined in the rejection of the Cab evidence and its implications, and therefore were taking an untenable position). TINC has become almost a religious belief, challenging it is heresy and, of course, public expression of heresy is disruptive.

"Tag team working in the interests of WMC" is a very tight definition of the core Cab; there are a few more peripheral "members" I alleged in this case, because of their notable participation in it, in combination with sufficient prior involvement in Cab positions, such as the rejection of RfAr/Fringe science. I just find it amazing that this prior rejection became part of the evidence cited against me, it proves to me just how inattentive the arbitrators were. All of them, in fact. Has anyone else pointed out this defect?

ArbComm is the last step in on-wiki DR, and it hasn't a clue, apparently, how to run its own process so that conclusions are sound and solid and efficiently found. If I didn't have other ideas, I'd call it hopeless, along with many other retired editors and administrators, such as Rootology; one of Rootology's last edits was to try to stop WMC's edit warring on Hipocrite Talk, WMC's removal of my RfAr notice. That this outrageous event didn't attract clerk or ArbComm attention, again, delineates the problem clearly. It's not like it wasn't pointed out! The only thing that punched through the snoring was WMC's block of me during the case. To anyone familiar with WMC's prior history, it should have been no surprise at all, and all he did was carry out a threat he'd made the day before.

What I intend to do is to document, off-wiki, what happened in this case, and edit it down -- yes, I can do that! -- to something that might get read at the Jimbo/Foundation level; and I'll get plenty of help with this, I expect, before I send anything. It's not that I expect Jimbo to come riding in to the rescue, but I was, after all, working on his original vision of NPOV! I think he deserves a clear description of what happened when someone does that, as does the board. It's not up to me what they do, and I'm not sure I'll even provide much of a recommendation, we'll see.

I am increasingly involved with the cold fusion kit project, and it's going to take most of my attention. This project is intended to resolve much of the controversy over cold fusion, one way or another. Skeptics invited as long as they don't try to disrupt the project; they may be able to help design the kits so that the effects found -- or not found -- will be more definitive.