Case Opened on 17:44, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Case Closed on 14:36, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
Watchlist all case pages: 1, 2, 3, 4
Please do not edit this page unless you are an Arbitrator or Clerk, or are making yourself a party to this case. Statements on this page are copies of the statements submitted in the original request to arbitrate this dispute, and serve as verbatim copies; as such, they should never be changed. (In the case of lengthy statements, an exerpt only may be given here, in which case the full copy will be added to the talk page—where any statements by uninvolved editors during the Requests phase will also be saved.) Any evidence you wish to provide to the Arbitrators should be added to the /Evidence subpage.
Arbitrators, the parties, and other editors may suggest proposed principles, findings, and remedies at /Workshop. That page may also be used for general comments on the evidence. Arbitrators will then vote on a final decision in the case at /Proposed decision.
Once the case is closed, editors may add to the #Log of blocks, bans, and restrictions as needed, but the other content of this page should not be edited. Please raise any questions about this decision at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment, any general questions at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee, and report violations of remedies to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement.
Regarding the contentious original move closure, that is not the topic of this arbitration request. It is my hope that it can be addressed via Wikipedia:Move review or similar mechanism. However, it is not clear whether any or all parties would accept a resolution via Move review [20], which leaves the original issue up in the air. An evaluation by Arbcom of the suitability of the relatively new and untried Move review procedure might be helpful, as would any suggestions for how a similar situation could be handled better in the future, or how the current contention over the move outcome can be steered towards a final resolution.
Vegaswikian (talk · contribs) has now started a move review — P.T. Aufrette (talk) 04:46, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply] |
In summary my contention is this:
@Orderinchaos: You are mistaken, admin tools were needed, because the target Perth was/is a disambiguation page.
@Cla68: Gnangarra's role is the one that most concerns me, because of:
— P.T. Aufrette (talk) 07:04, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
@Deacon of Pndapetzim:
— P.T. Aufrette (talk) 14:13, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"As far as I can see, every uninvolved admin, on AN/I and elsewhere, agreed with my decision." — that is a very sweeping claim. The original version of your statement here made a similarly broad everyone-agrees-with-me claim.[26] If the ArbCom wishes to authorize some kind of survey among admins, that might be helpful. In any case, even those who share your position on how the move request should have been closed might be troubled by the way you went about it reversing it: very hastily, without prior discussion, and as a possibly WP:INVOLVED party (broadly construed). — P.T. Aufrette (talk) 14:58, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
@Black Kite:
[emphasis mine] — P.T. Aufrette (talk) 16:18, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
@Gnangarra:
In your statement there is the phrase "...along with a recommendation to consider how a similar long term RM progressed". Can you provide a diff to justify this? OK, maybe he's referring to his own recommendation here. A poorly phrased run-on sentence led to confusion.
To be clear: JHunterJ's entire participation in the supposed "discussion" was this single 12-word sentence:
with edit summary:
posted June 10 at 03:08 UTC just before he called it a day and went to sleep in his time zone. I interpret that to mean he was unaware of Kwamikagami's re-revert less than an hour earlier, and thought that the status quo was Deacon of Pndapetzim's reversal. Your immediate reaction (June 10 03:12) seemingly shared this same interpretation;[27] when addressing JHunterJ directly on his talk page in this and one subsequent post (June 10 03:40–03:45),[28] you did not say anything along the lines of "hey, I see you from your statement that you now question your own original decision, thanks for saying that you have no further interest or concerns... so, I guess you're happy if I revert again?"
On the other hand, in the following hours and days you have seemingly posted an endless variety of interpretations of this one short sentence, namely:
This is already a bit contradictory (was your action "per discussion", with JHunterJ having "no concern" about your reversal, or was there no discussion at all because it was "dismissed" and refused?). And now you're saying there was a "recommendation" embedded in there too? OK, maybe he's referring to his own recommendation here. A poorly phrased run-on sentence led to confusion.
I really don't understand how you could possibly read so many different things into a single 12-word sentence! And your relatively long statement posted here hasn't clarified that at all. A person reading the above flurry of comments, in totality, would probably imagine there had been some kind of long discussion, which never happened. — P.T. Aufrette (talk) 18:37, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
PS,
When I found both you and Kwamikagami had !voted, in all honesty I had to add that relevant fact about him to the timeline. I do feel bad for Kwamikagami, who clearly felt he was trying to halt a wheel war instead of participating in one. In my WP:ANI post I had asked for "an uninvolved and impartial administrator to restore the original closure outcome" [38] I have not asked for any specific sanctions at all, not even against you, other than trout. The rest is up to the arbitrators to call it as they see it. My main goal is simply simply that this situation should not happen again. — P.T. Aufrette (talk) 18:46, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
PPS,
"If the move was left in place the issue could spill over into some 10,000 articles"' — really? You are literally saying that ten thousand articles would have been modified or moved in a harmful way if you had waited even, say, half a day or took the time to have an actual discussion? For instance, you could have also tried contacting Kwamikagami on his talk page and asking him to reverse himself; it did not hinge on JHunterJ alone. OK, he did... implicitly.[39] And you repeat the "10,000" articles claim a short while later, so it wasn't just momentary hyperbole. How did you come up with this numerical estimate, which set of articles was at risk, and who exactly was about to move/modify all of them unless you took urgent emergency measures? — P.T. Aufrette (talk) 19:17, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In his subsequent edit, Gnangarra yet again (for the third time) invokes a half-baked 10,000-article emergency as justification for immediate reversal without discussion. I don't think that's grounded in reality. — P.T. Aufrette (talk) 22:09, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
@Bidgee:
[[Perth, Western Australia|Perth]]
links keep working in any case.You and Gnangarra are making it sound like every rename of an article in Wikipedia is fraught with tremendous and immediate implications. That just isn't the case. There was no 10,000-article emergency here. There was plenty of time to have a discussion first. — P.T. Aufrette (talk) 23:34, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I restored a move that was reverted without discussion, but wasn't willing to repeat when that was reverted. I don't have much more to say about it than that. — kwami (talk) 04:39, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Knowing the details of this case, I cannot foresee any useful "feedback" that either Kwami or Gnangarra (or indeed anyone else) could reasonably have that could possibly justify the activity of a full case. There were a total of 4 pages moves, and only 2 of them could be construed as "wheelwarring"; they were not repeated and did not alter the course of events. Even Kwami's, a hot-heated but understandable reaction to a personal reversal, was quickly overturned and did not cause any major issues. Gnangarra can hardly be at fault, since all he/she did was reverse involved party intervention when there was already consensus at AN/I for status quo; someone had to do it, so chastising Gnangarra is hardly a fair course of action.
I'm not even sure "wheelwarring" is at issue for anyone here, since moving a page is not a special ability of admins (though it is true that admins can in practice delete pages in the way, this is not relevant to an administrator's formal power as such pages are theoretically supposed to be removable without reference to any admin/non-admin competence; see for instance). I think SatuSuro's comments at Talk:Perth, Western Australia are pertinent here ("wheels of bureaucracy ...incredible waste of time and energy"). I suspect too few of you Arbs like football /soccer and want something to do with no other cases and Euro 2012 going on!
As my name has been raised, let me repeat what I said on the Perth thread and on AN/I: I reversed the close because it was done improperly (closing judgment referred only to the JHunterJ's own opinions, not the discussion being closed) and was clearly wrong (there was nothing like "consensus"). I have closed hundreds of RMs in my time here, I doubt there are more than a handful of admins who've closed more. When I learned the RM ropes you closed based on the outcome of the discussion, whatever your own preference. But these days more and more of them are being closed without any convincing reference to policy or to the discussion, where one admin exercises a "super vote" with little if any reference to the relevant parts of the actual discussion into which lots of users have already invested time and effort. This is bad practice, and will result in the weakening of the WP:RM system. RM after all is not part of official policy, and it only works at present because participants believe they have an excellent chance of a fair decision.
As far as I can see, every uninvolved admin, on AN/I and elsewhere, agreed with my decision. There were some questions about the method, i.e. doing it straight away instead of having a long discussion about it first. Often the latter method is good, but please don't be led to believe that slavishly following a "rule-of-thumb" like this is always the best way to do things. I did not think it was best here because the priority was to fix the decision before it created more hostility / drama between the participants or stress for JHunterJ. Indeed, if you confine attention to the original issue, you can see that this has been vindicated. However, in such an affair inevitably passions exist, and two of the discussion's support "voters" reacted to it in extreme ways; one by moving the page to his preferred choice, and the other, the original poster P.T. Aufrette, by launching AN/I and ArbCom threads targetting those whose actions interfered with his desired outcome. In hindsight it may be the case that I happened to be "wrong" to have acted quickly, but I don't think you can say I was at "fault" since these types of reactions are very rare.
As for accusations that I was "involved" because I am a member of WikiProject Medieval Scotland: being a member of a related wikiproject is not and never has been a criterion for "involvement". Indeed there are members of Scottish wikiprojects voting for the proposal, and Australian members against it (see data from Orderinchaos: it is not even clear that project membership was statistically important, save for likelihood to participate).
Finally, naming conflicts arise because wikipedia-article names are tied to wikipedia-page urls and thus have to be unique. This is not inevitable and could easily be avoided by a minor if traumatic one-off change to Wikipedia's software interface (c/f ODNB). The stress, conflict and wasted energy for this are extremely costly to the project. Perhaps there should be wider debate about how necessary such wasted wikienergy is. This case is fairly frivolous one that certainly would have been rejected out of hand by past ArbComs, but since you seem to be going ahead with it, perhaps more attention to this issue could be one way of making it useful. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 10:03, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I originally closed the move request, and I did so in accordance with WP:RMCI, WP:NOTVOTE, WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, and the guidelines and policies raised in the discussion, or WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. The move was reverted by Deacon of Pndapetzim without discussion; he did note it on my talk page. The revert was reverted by Kwamikagami based (I assume) on a brief conversation at Wikipedia talk:Move review#Perth. The revert-revert was reverted without discussion by Gnangarra, although his edit summary implies fruitful discussion with me. The only conversation he and I had before his reversion was his suggestion that I self-revert and my pointing out the impossibility of that (since D of P had already reverted). I do still continue to disagree with the reverts that I see countrary to WP:RMCI, WP:NOTVOTE, WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. -- JHunterJ (talk) 03:15, 12 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I stand by my actions as being necessary and within the requirements of admins on Wikipedia. To consider only those events after the closure of the RM doesnt address the cause of the actions and will not actually resolve the matter. I realise that nine arbcom members have already indicated that this should only consider the actions of myself, Kwamikagami and possibly Deacon of Pndapetzim.
Yes I voted in the rm, I voted oppose to the move on the basis that WP:PRIMARYTOPIC metrics are flawed, I also commented after PT Aufrette responded to another oppose that prior discussions on the matter were irrelevent when an oppose quoted a 2004 discussion that said "lets shake hands and move on". That was an unnecessary attack on that person comment but it also indicates that the naming of Perth articles has been subject to alot of discussion over a significant period of time. The resolution from these discussion has always resulted in the compromise of no primary topic. If JhunterJ had rad the discussion and looked at the arguments presented he(presumed) would had to be aware that;
JhunterJ closed the rm as move with the reasoning I will update the hatnote to include a direct link to the location in Scotland, so that readers seeking that will still be the same one-click from it. Both have long-term significance, but the readership usage does indicate a better efficient arrangement by putting the Australian city at the base name, and being the namesake is not one of the primary topic criteria the statement doesnt show any indication of being a consider closure it make no acknowledgement of arguments put and says stated both have long term significance the key factor to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. This closure was never going to resolve the issue, in fact it clearly positioned itself for dispute and thats what happened.
Deacon of Pndapetzim reverted the move then responded the closure looks too much like a vote. JhunterJ responded with no it wasnt it was summary of guidelines brought up in the debate, I challenge that comment as there is no summary of the discussion no idications of policies. JhunterJ quoted WP:RMCI instruction on how to close, WP:NOTVOTE judge arguements base on presented arguments dont count and most importantly [[WP:LOCALCONSENSUS] which says wikiprojects cant make policies/guidelines that override community guidelines. Why is this last one most important its because it clearly indicates that the closure wasnt based on the arguments presented but ignored the opinions of what was percieved as a specific group of editors. Deacon responded again and pointng out that JhunterJ didnt make any reference to the discussion, this was followed by P.T.Aufrette posting to AN/I asking for the original decision to re-instated and that the move decision be discussed at Wikipedia:Move review which I'll point out was a proposal and is still tagged as such at the time of writting this and the page also notes that it is draft subject to change and has yet to seek community approval.
To me it appears Kwamikagami responded from P.T.Aufrette request at ANI to reinstate the original closure if so to then request sanctions against him for carrying out his request is outright disgusting falls outside the expectations on every editor to be WP:CIVIL. IMHO Kwamikagami should be removed as a respodent from this ARBCOM discussion.
At this point is where I see actions should be considered based on the reasoning for the excluding the RM closures, by that assessment Deacon has also not participated in the events. In fact it leaves only my actions to be considered and possibly those of JhunterJ and P.T.Aufrette. It also means that I am no longer an involved admin as the actions are not related to the events of the RM.
P.T.Aufrette states in his statement of events that I came in late to the discussions, yes I did come in after some discussion had taken place but like P.T.Aufrette has said I should have considered that it was night for JhunterJ when asking for a response the same standard should also be applied equally to me and that it was night for me when the JhunterJ took his actions. I dindt come late to the events the events started without me and were occuring before I had any input.
When I came to the discussion it had deteroriated to point where P.T Aurfette and JhunterJ where attacking Deacon because he was Scottish. I intervened and pointed out that the majority of people who oppose were not Scottish and that the suggested place to take his concerns was to a process that doesnt exist.The focus of comments by JhunterJ and P.T.Aufrette continued to follow the Scottish line. I asked JhunterJ Clearly what should happen is that JHunterJ should reverse his actions including the closure and let the community continue its discussion as no consensus has yet been reached JhunterJ response was You missed the part where someone else reversed my actions for me along with a recommendation to consider how a similar long term RM progressed. Obviously JhunterJ wasnt following what was actually happening, nor did it appear to me that he was willing to discuss the closure, in fact I said to me I've been reverted I'm happy to leave it at that. Over on ANI I focused discussion on the fact that Wikipedia:Move review was a porposal and yet to have sort community approval as such admin should not be directing discussion to happen there.
I waited to see if any editor had any further input on the matter noone responded the ANI discussion was closed and linked directly to discussion on JhunterJ's talk page. I then made a decision to restore all articles to pre RM position, the reason being that it was obvious there was no consensus for the move. If the move was left in place the issue could spill over into some 10,000 articles, I didnt take the decision lightly nor did I do it to further an opinion I expressed in the discussion.
My decision to restore to the status quo were;
(Submitted by e-mail to arbcom-l due to technical issues. Posted here at Courcelles 04:45, 12 June 2012 (UTC))[reply]
looks like the technical issues are fixed, thx Courcelles for posting Gnangarra 12:42, 13 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
diffs No consensus observations by editors on the Perth, WA talk page During RM
these are the last four comments of the RM by people with an even split of positions in earlier discussion. Any admin closing should take note such of a discussion as a clear indicator that the discussion had advanced to probable conclusion.
post closure
Thats 3 people post closure who have disputed the closure, one person who supports it, exluding JhunterJ. JhunterJ is at this stage aware that his closure is disputed as is P.T.Aufrette, PT Aufrette never advised ANI that the closure has a number of people besides Deacon questioning it.
This is the sequence of events on Perth WA talkpage we have seven editors who editted the page interpreting the discussion as no consensus, the closure as move, a reversal and one supporting the move. Of that 3 people questioning the closure post closure, one supporting and one from ANI just following the request there. That is a 3-1 or 7-1 ratio of editors who expressed the outcome of the RM as no-consensus excluding JhnuterJ who expressly said he isnt expressing an opinion.
On ANI prior to move by Kwamikagmi
There are now two more editors also agreeing that JhunterJ closure wasnt what the discussion had decided. There had been no new editors in support of the closure, and ANI discussion also endourses the reversal of the RM by Deacon.
Its after this that Kwamikagmi reverts to the rm closure, from then until I restored to pre:RM which is also the same as Deacon no new editors entered the discussion. Post closure there are 5 editors who dispute the closure and 1 who supports it, and an endoursement from ANI of the Status Quo.
Then add to this JhunterJs response to my request for him to revert. Yes my edit summaries could have been better phrased, but the Status Quo had clear consensus in all formuns. To have the article remain at Perth contry to consensus would have trigger edits to aproxiamately 10,000 articles, categories etc while this may be handled easily by a bot it would have needed to be reversed the flow on affects to other users isnt insignificant and during such a process it common for vandalism to be enshrined for longer then normal in articles causing even more issues.
All tallies are based the votes at /Proposed decision, where comments and discussion from the voting phase is also available.
1) Administrators are expected to lead by example and to behave in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others. To the best of their abilities, administrators are expected to follow Wikipedia policy and perform their duties with care and judgment. Occasional mistakes are entirely compatible with adminship; administrators are not expected to be perfect. However, sustained or serious disruption of Wikipedia is incompatible with the status of administrator. Administrators who egregiously or repeatedly act in a problematic manner, or administrators who have lost the trust or confidence of the community, may be sanctioned or have their access removed. Administrators are also expected to learn from experience and from justified criticisms of their actions or conduct.
2) Administrators are expected to learn from experience. When an administrator's action is overturned by the community, the administrator whose action was overturned is expected to consider why others disagreed with the action, and take this into account in future decision-making. Administrators should avoid taking personal offense to their action being overturned, or to feedback given to them regarding their action(s); over time, every active administrator working anywhere on the project can expect to have some of his or her administrator actions disagreed with or overturned, just as every arbitrator sometimes finds himself or herself in the minority on an issue voted on by the Committee.
3) Administrators are accountable for their actions involving administrative tools. As such, they are expected to respond appropriately to queries about their administrative actions and to justify them where needed. Criticism of the merits of administrative actions are acceptable within the bounds of avoiding personal attacks and civility.
4) When another administrator has already reversed an administrative action, there is very rarely any valid reason for the original or another administrator to reinstate the same or similar action again without clear discussion leading to a consensus decision. (WP:WHEEL)
5) Administrator tools are not to be used in connection with disputes in which the administrator is involved as an editor.
6) Administrators are expected to have good judgment, and are presumed to have considered carefully any actions or decisions they carry out as administrators. Administrators may disagree, but except for clear and obvious mistakes, administrative actions should not be reversed without good cause, careful thought and, if the reversal is likely to be objected to, some kind of courtesy discussion.
1) A request for move discussion was initiated on 25 May 2012 by the filer of this case, P.T. Aufrette (talk · contribs), who proposed that the Perth article be moved to the title Perth (disambiguation), and that the Perth, Western Australia article be moved to the Perth title. Several users participated in the discussion between 25 May 2012 and 8 June 2012.
2) JHunterJ (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) closed the move request as successful at 12:43, 9 June 2012 (UTC) and moved the pages in accordance with the request.[reply]
3) JHunterJ's response to criticism of the move request close was at times problematic.[71][72]
4) Deacon of Pndapetzim (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) reversed the original decision by moving the pages at 16:49, 9 June 2012 (UTC) without discussing the matter first.[reply]
5) In 2009, Deacon of Pndapetzim (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) took part in a discussion about the relative merits of a page move.[73] Over the course of several years editing, Deacon of Pndapetzim has also made a few edits to Perth related articles.[74], [75], [76] In this context, Deacon of Pndapetzim could reasonably be considered an editor who was involved with editing this topic area.
6) Kwamikagami (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) participated in the request for move discussion, and reinstated the original decision by moving the pages at 02:14, 10 June 2012 (UTC) without discussing the matter first.[reply]
7) Gnangarra (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) participated in the request for move discussion, and reinstated the reversed decision by moving the pages at 07:14, 10 June 2012 (UTC) without clear discussion leading to a consensus decision.[reply]
8) The page moves which occurred on 9 and 10 June 2012 required the use of administrative tools to delete the associated redirect.[77] Consequently, these actions are covered by the more stringent restrictions of the wheel warring portion of the administrator policy, rather than those applied to edit warring.
1) JHunterJ is advised to respond calmly and courteously to queries regarding Wikipedia-related conduct and administrator actions.
2) Deacon of Pndapetzim is admonished for use of administrative tools while involved, and for reversing another administrator's legitimate administrative action without first entering into discussion.
3) Kwamikagami is desysopped for use of administrative tools while involved in an editing dispute, and for reinstating a reverted administrative action without clear discussion leading to a consensus decision. He may regain the admin toolkit through a fresh request for adminship.
4) Gnangarra is admonished for use of administrative tools while involved in an editing dispute, and for reinstating a reverted administrative action without clear discussion leading to a consensus decision.
Any block, restriction, ban, or sanction performed under the authorisation of a remedy for this case must be logged in this section. Please specify the administrator, date and time, nature of sanction, and basis or context. Unless otherwise specified, the standardised enforcement provision applies to this case.