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Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Obsidi

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Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, a "clear, substantial, and active consensus of uninvolved editors" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action.
To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see WP:UNINVOLVED).

Appealing user
Obsidi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)Obsidi (talk) 21:40, 31 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Sanction being appealed
Protection Pending Changes Level 2 of the page Gamergate controversy as can be seen in the Protection Log and the Discretionary Sanctions Log
Administrator imposing the sanction
HJ Mitchell (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
Notification of that administrator
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Statement by Obsidi

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This page is currently under Discretionary Sanctions which means that all editors are expected to take extra care that they “comply with all applicable policies and guidelines.”. In this case HJ Mitchell has protected the page in direct contradiction to the Protection Policy which states that Only what is known as "Pending changes level 1" should be used, which is labeled "Require review for revisions from new and unregistered users". Pending changes level 2, or "Require review for revisions from everyone except Reviewers", should not be used at this time per WP:PC2012/RfC 1. I have asked the admin to reconsider their actions, but he refused citing Ignore All Rules. There is nothing in the arbitration decision that suggests that it is appropriate to ignore the current protection policy, and even if there were The arbitration process is not a vehicle for creating new policy by fiat. If even the Arbitration Committee does not change policy, why should the actions of this one administrator, acting alone without community consensus, do so? If this case is a proper exception, I ask that reason be explained and that we get community consensus that we should use PC2 in those situations. Until such time, I ask that the page protection level be raised to Full Protection or lowered to Semi-Protection.

@RGloucester These are not "political positions," they are policy positions. The policy position currently taken by Wikipedia. And they have relevance as to why PC2 is not currently allowed by policy unlike most other protection levels. It is not the letter of the rules that is important it is the principles. I was trying to express the very principle upon why PC2 is not allowed but in this case is being violated. I am not "filing this appeal to make a point", I am appeal it to get the protection level changed. I requested that the admin change the protection level himself, he refused. I would prefer not to have to appeal this at all. There is nothing in the "ArbCom sanctions regime" that even suggests violating policy in this way. --Obsidi (talk) 22:14, 31 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by HJ Mitchell

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Can I just copy and paste what I said on my talk page instead of wasting more time on this non-issue?

I'm keeping the situation under review, but I consider this to be a legitimate invocation of IAR—"if a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it". That's policy. There are very few legitimate invocations of IAR (I can count on one hand the number of times I've invoked it to justify an admin action, out of some 40,000 logged actions), but where we have unusual situations, it can be applied to slightly unorthodox solutions. In this case, the intention of PC2 is to keep BLP violations and other crap out of the article, and reviewers are under instructions to let everything through that isn't grossly inappropriate, even if they decide to revert it afterwards. Semi-protection alone would be insufficient given the sheer number of good-faith but inexperienced editors and bad-faith editors with sufficient determination to make ten edits and sit out for four days who are and have been active in the topic area, and I suspect the very application of PC2 will act as a deterrent to the latter. Especially given the high-profile nature of the article, I think concerns for the real lives of real people discussed in the article far outweigh our internal policy wonkery.

I'd just add:

  • Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy—we don't enforce policy for its own sake, though ironically both IAR and NOT are policies (compared to a suggestion in the protection policy made as the result of an RfC which reached no clear consensus).
  • I believe this to be a necessary measure to prevent and deter drive-by BLP violations while keeping the article open to editing. Given the nature of some of the edits to this and related articles (many of which have been RevDel'd or even suppressed), I believe extreme measures are both necessary and justified.
  • Long before Obsidi's complaint, I offered guidance to reviewers on what to accept, including the instruction that all legitimate edits should be accepted, even if the reviewer decides to revert them as part of the BRD process. I've even pitched in with the reviewing myself to keep delays in acceptance to a minimum.

HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:49, 31 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Risker: With the greatest respect, that's not my intention behind the PC2 (and it would be the same with semi-protection alone, tough not with full protection). You're quite correct that a lot of edits are being reverted as being against consensus, or being controversial, or being problematic in other ways. My intent is to prevent defamation and other grossly inappropriate material from reaching the readers, and I would (again respectfully) suggest that it's doing a decent job of that. I'm keeping a close eye on things, and I'll fully protect it if needs be, but I'd rather keep it open to legitimate contributors as far as possible. I guess we can agree to disagree on the philosophy behind it, but I think it is working as intended. Or at least as I intended it, for whatever that's worth. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:08, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Risker: Interestingly, there haven't actually been any of the sorts of BLP violations I had in mind when I enabled pending changes. Not on the article itself anyway. I don't think pending changes is being used the way you say: a lot of edits are being reverted, but in most cases after acceptance, so the pending changes protection is having relatively little effect on good-faith editors. The reverting and editing against consensus is a separate issue, but I don't think it's any worse here than on any other controversial article. Full protection would, in my opinion, unnecessarily impede the development of the article. Of course, we can disagree as to its effectiveness in good faith. I respect your opinion, I just think this is worth trying. If it turns out that it's an unmitigated disaster and I should have listened to you in the first place, we can fully protect it, and at least we can say we tried something to keep it open to editing! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:49, 3 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by RGloucester

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This is an absurd request, as I said at Mr Mitchell's talk page, and is exactly the type of bureaucratic nonsense that Wikipedia discourages. As I asked the filer at that talk page "Is there any reason why it shouldn't be used in this particular instance? That's the better question. Why should this particularly policy be enforced in this particular instance? If it is just for policy's sake, that's bureaucracy hindering the encylopaedia's improvement, and a waste of time". PC2 may not have consensus for general usage, but in this very specific and unique case, with an ArbCom sanctions regime behind him, Mr Mitchell made the right choice. As I said at the talk page, "WP:IAR applies. If a perfectly good tool is available for use, and an ArbCom sanctions regime gives an administrator the power to do whatever he needs to do to halt disruption, there is no reason for him not to use it, old RfC be damned". We're all aware of the disruption that has surrounded this article, and of the unique nature of its circumstance. If a tool that has not been tried before is available to stop disruption, it should be used. I'm really saddened by the filer's behaviour, because he is filing it to make a point. As he said at Mr Mitchell's talk page, "It shouldn't be used because it adds to stratification among editors. It says that those with the reviewer right are first class wikipedians who get to decide what the content of the article is and everyone else just makes suggestions". These kind of political positions, which he has taken, have no relevance in this particular case. Preventing BLP violations is an imperative, as is curtailing disruption. Let's not start attacking the people that keep our encyclopaedia intact, as was done during the GG case. RGloucester 22:03, 31 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Masem

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I see no reason to remove the current use of pending changes/semi-prot on this article based on past behaviors all around per the ArbCom case. The GG situation will continue to remain a hotbed for some time, and given there continues to be evidence of off-site organized attempts to affect this article from multiple areas, this maintains reasonable order. --MASEM (t) 22:14, 31 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Avono

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The protection should stay per WP:IAR as the it intended to prevent disruption and is more practical than a fully protected article.Avono (talk) 22:18, 31 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by AtomsOrSystems

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I agree with everything said above by RGloucester, Masem and Avono. The article is still a source of considerable interest from a variety of sources, both within and outside Wikipedia. It seems to me that full protection would be overly restrictive, while semi-protection wouldn't offer enough, well, protection. PC2 appears to offer a good balance.
I think it's also worth noting that I personally have had no sense of "stratification" among the editors of the article based on the implementation of PC2 (or anything else, for that matter). AtomsOrSystems (talk) 22:31, 31 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Parabolist

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I agree with the majority here about the PC2 protection on the article, but I feel this might be a good time to ask: With PC2 doing this good work, do we really also need it to be under 1RR?

It hasn't exactly been a problem yet, but considering that one of the big factors in this whole debacle has been the nigh-endless horde of gamergate supporters ready to throw themselves into the grinder, it seems like 1RR could end up being a hindrance to a minority of legitimate editors.

Statement by (involved editor 2)

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Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Obsidi

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  • A few factual notes here.
    • There are, at this writing, over 7700 individuals with permissions that allow them to "review" pending changes. This encompasses the majority of Wikipedians who were active editors at the time pending changes was first adopted for its trial run, all administrators, and anyone who has been granted the permission since the first trial.
    • Any of those individuals can accept changes, and none of their edits require pending changes review.
    • Several of the individuals recently sanctioned by the Arbitration Committee in relation to this topic area hold permissions that will allow them to edit without being subject to pending changes review and can also accept/decline pending changes.
    • Although PC2 is essentially not permitted by policy, there have been a few very specific exceptions to date. To the best of my knowledge, they have all been discussed at an appropriate noticeboard and the exception has received consensus. Although in this case there has not been such a discussion, I think it is probably reasonable to assume that if such a discussion was held, there would be community approval for this application. After all, the community had already approved exceptional action in this topic area long, long before the Arbcom case.
  • My own opinion is that, while it may restrict some accounts from directly editing the article, we already know that editors who hold the necessary permissions have been sanctioned for their actions by Arbcom, community sanctions, or other processes in relation to this topic area. It also invites any editor with the necessary permission to review the edit and accept it, whether or not they have fully reviewed the talk page for consensus, or are aware of the subtle and creeping nature of some of the changes that have been proposed. Remember that essentially only vandalism or obvious BLP violations can be flat-out rejected, under the pending changes policy; the vast majority of edits being proposed through PC should actually be accepted. I would actually prefer seeing full protection of the article over PC2, so that it does retain the high level of control that is probably needed at this point; PC2 just isn't strong enough, because it still allows a lot of editors to make modifications without requiring consensus. Risker (talk) 05:19, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Noting that there seems to be some concept that PC2 is "working" on this article. Looking at the revision history of the page, there's actually some pretty good reason to believe it is not actually helping anything; there are a huge number of reverts of "good faith edits" and edits done outside of consensus, and just above we've seen an editor sanctioned for making edits that were acceptable through PC2 despite consensus and content discussion on the talk page. Some evidence that it is actually changing behaviour in relation to this article should be expected by this point, but it seems quite the opposite is happening. Risker (talk) 17:08, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
HJ Mitchell, it may be being used in the way you personally intend it to be used; however, in the last two pages of the history none of the edits reverted from the PC acceptance screen were BLP violations or vandalism. They were all strictly content edits. Given that it is very much against accepted policy to do that (the instructions are "accept the edit and then revert if you disagree with it" to paraphrase), and the majority of acceptances are from editors who have been very active in the article (i.e., they are not being done by neutral third parties), PC2 is not being used the way that the community intended PC to be used. Posting "instructions to reviewers" on the talk page should never be necessary, and is never appropriate because the reviewing interface doesn't take the reviewers there. No, what's happening here is content control; it's not being used to prevent BLP violations or vandalism. Risker (talk) 23:49, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Peter Isotalo

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I would gladly support full protection, but only when or if all-out edit war breaks out. I'm not a fan of preemptive protection, especially with articles that are being watched by so many experienced users. Peter Isotalo 12:18, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Roger Davies

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  • Hi Tim. page restrictions mentions types of page protection rather than allows or disallows them. And while that could be more explicit, it is specifically mentioned in the sanctions available for this topic. On the broader points, the protection policy page says "In addition, administrators may apply temporary pending changes protection on pages that are subject to significant but temporary vandalism or disruption (for example, due to media attention)" (my emphasis) which is the situation here.  Roger Davies talk 08:28, 2 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Result of the appeal by Obsidi

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This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.

I am inclined to accept HJ Mitchell's statement and decision in this case. It appears not to have been taken lightly, and at first glance HJ Mitchell seems to be putting in a dedicated effort to make pending changes work with this particular article. Balancing the desire to leave as many of our pages open to contributions from as many people as possible (the first sentence, after all, of Wikipedia:Protection policy) with the strict requirement to prevent the publication of defamatory, harrassing, or otherwise damaging content about living persons (WP:BLP) is sometimes quite difficult. HJ Mitchell's choice seems to strike a balance for this specific unusual circumstance; it's an application of WP:IAR in the way it is intended.

Beyond the philosophical objection, is there evidence to indicate that PC2 is not working correctly or is being abused in some way? Looking at the logs, PC2 has been in place for five days now; has it made things better or worse than they were before? Obviously I would support lifting PC2 (or converting it to some other form of protection, now or in a future appeal) if there were evidence to indicate that it was detrimental. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:15, 31 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing has been presented to demonstrate how removing PC2 would benefit the article or the encyclopedia. Months of contentious editing, general sanctions, and a hotly disputed ArbCom case have proven that the normal way of doing things is inadequate in this case, so merely saying "we're not supposed to do this" is insufficient here. Besides, as ToAT said, is there any evidence that it's not working or being abused? Given all of this, I see no reason not to support HJ Mitchell's action here. Gamaliel (talk) 03:38, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I see bureaucratic arguments in favour of removing the protection, but not pragmatic ones (other than Risker's argument). Is it hurting the project? Is it helping? Guettarda (talk) 05:45, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • Decline appeal. Apart from the beaurocratic reason to grant the appeal I see no reason to remove PC2, regarding Risker's point if PC2 does end up working then it can full protected later at the moment I'm not seeing a justification for it. One thing I will say though is that I don't believe that invocations of IAR should not be protected as discretionary sanctions but rather should allow other admins to modify them if they don't believe that there is sufficient justification for them, however that is person opinion and not a reason to decline the appeal. Callanecc (talkcontribslogs) 13:48, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oddly enough, WP:AC/DS#Page restrictions allows only "semi-protection, full protection, move protection, revert restrictions, and prohibitions on the addition or removal of certain content (except when consensus for the edit exists)", which doesn't include pending changes. While the PC2 protection is probably a valid invocation of IAR, it is not currently an allowed discretionary sanction. That said, its omission from the list is probably an oversight, as I don't seem to remember any discussion related to this (pinging Roger Davies to confirm). We may want to request an amendment from arbcom to allow pending changes protection as a DS. T. Canens (talk) 15:13, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Eric Corbett

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Collect

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Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Ubikwit

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NorthBySouthBaranof

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Gouncbeatduke

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Retartist

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Arbitration enforcement action appeal by MarieWarren

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Arzel

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Ritsaiph

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