Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2007/Vote/FayssalF

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[edit] Assuming good faith

Obviously people can !vote how they like but I'm a bit surprised that bad faith is explicitly being assumed because of FayssalF's late entry. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 12:49, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand those votes. It shouldn't matter how close to the deadline someone announces their candidacy; deadlines are deadlines. Why imagine another before the real one? If someone announced their candidacy at the first opportunity, it's not going to guarantee someone's support. --健次(derumi)^talk 05:33, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. There've been several of these votes against both Rebecca and Fayssal, and they seem seriously thoughtless. Shem^(talk) 07:33, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

The elections are decided by Jimbo, he'll consider those votes and make the appropriate judgment. - Mtmelendez ^(Talk) 11:44, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks guys for your concerns. FYI, i've already explained the situation to some users. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 17:27, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

On a related note, I'm also a bit surprised by the way your statement about a belief in transparency has been assumed to mean that you will release confidential information if elected. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 18:56, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Going even more unrelated, I see that someone is actually claiming he may be a sockpuppet. One vote against because he is naive, one vote against because he is too eager to get into hot debate (hm, seem to cancel each other out , do they not). More specifically, the candidate also got three votes against him because of his casual involvement in the Digwuren affair, and yes have a good look at the last chapter. Three votes may not seem like much, but it means that he needs 12 votes to offset those to reach 80%. --Paul Pieniezny (talk) 12:00, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your concerns Paul. Actually, you were very correct in assessing the votes. For the Digwuren case, i must say that the ArbCom decided to ban Digwuren and Petri Krohn for one year. I had blocked both of them for 1 week back on July. So i must say that my blocks were totally appropriate. As for the sockpuppet case, i believe that Ynhockey's vote is a bit weird... An ArbCom member candidate w/ a sockpuppetry case?! -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 16:51, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

To be precise: the number of anti-FayssalF votes, caused by the Digwuren affair, has now gone up to five. Anyone who wants info on whom I include in this count and why, can contact me on my talk page. For those who still doubt that FayssalF is level-headed enough to become a good arbcom member: notice how even in his reply to me pointing out this phenomenon he manages to be so completely neutral that people who have not followed the affair will not even know from his words which side is mobilizing against him...--Paul Pieniezny (talk) 10:26, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] My opinion on Mattisse/Zaepher case

Oppose. Last year I entered only one vote, in support, but this and this is uncalled for, uninformed, unhelpful, judgmental, and turned the black pot of frequent forum shoppers and 3RR editors onto the kettle. ArbCom members should be well informed before passing judgment on an editor seeking help in a difficult situation, and when they opine on an issue, they should strive to remember what it's like "out there" dealing with difficult editors and to be very well informed before lodging opinions. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:27, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

It is really unfortunate to totally disagree with you Sandy but i must say that your characterization of the abovementioned case is innacurate, misleading, uncomplete and i am afraid i'd consider it very subjective and one-sided. This is where i think you failed to analyze the situation neutrally:

• Your first and immediate action was you coming here to oppose my candidancy. You are a long-term respected editor and probably it would have been better if you could first come to me asking for my opinion about the case. No, you just came here to Add your first and only ever oppose to an ArbCom vote, just after reading and replying to Mattisse's request. There was no other edit in between.
• You have brought for me a case dated on September 2006 to show me that i haven't paid attention to it. You believe that i've got to be well informed before passing judgment on an editor seeking help in a difficult situation. That's true and i believe i've been well informed. Indeed, both users needed help- not only one. On the other hand, what i know is that you have had some issues with User:Zeraeph. Now, what have i suggested to 2 editors warring? --> Discuss and try some help at Wikipedia:Third opinion. Do you believe i should have blocked them both or just Zeraeph? Both users have reverted more than enough and technically speaking they both deserved to be blocked. Do you think blocking the 2 main editors of an article would solve the problem? I personally believe in discussing, trying to find consensus, third party opinion, mediation, etc... As i can understand from the above, you are seeking a different approach but i fail to read it or at least having a clue about.
• What was the outcome? You believe Zaereph is a problem editor and i'd totally agree but do you know how to change that? I think i tried and if you could notice, Zaereph's immediate edit was to go request a third opinion. Are you against this approach?
• Not to be unfair to User:Mattisse but you forgot to mention the other side of the story... Mattisse's frequent appearences at the ANI lately.
• It seems that i've been totally unfair to Mattisse and i am asking how and why since she was edit warring as well. Remember that i asked both users to discuss or seek help via a third party since neither i know about the content nor it is permitted for an admin to deal w/ content dispute but don't forget that Mattisse has been into other disputes such as assuming bad faith of User:Blueboar's mediation accusing him of being an hyprocrite (However, Blueboar, you have demonstrated you are either a hypocrite or incompetent as a mediator) and here where she says explicitely this... Blueboar, you have no credibility with me. I will cause you endless misery if I am unblocked. Please don't forget to read the edit summary.

I believe that i gave you the background and it is up to you to use your judgement now. For me, i believe i made the right decision --> encourage discussion and third opinions. I'l lbe waiting for any other alternative way of dealing with such cases; a suggestion. Regards. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 16:53, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I came to read this post prepared, as always, to admit when I'm wrong and revise my opinion and even strike my oppose if warranted. So far, your response has affirmed my initial reaction.

• It doesn't appear you've thoroughly understood the background here. You have put up a link to several AN/I incidents, labeling the link curiously as "you have had some issues with User:Zeraeph", yet the majority of those links do not pertain to me or were not initiated by me or show community concern about Zeraeph. I had not seen some of them, so I'm again reminded of how frequent Zeraeph's appearances at AN/I are. This incident is yet another example of a Zeraeph incident appearing on my talk page when Mattisse had no idea of the Zeraeph history. The links demonstrate that the community has had serious issues with Zeraeph; my reaction was largely to avoid her for as long as possible by staying away from articles she edits. In fact, the most serious discussions about Zeraeph's disruption were brought to AN/I without my knowledge, by editors I don't know, and while I was on vacation, because other editors were tired of observing her personal attacks and disruption to article talk pages. Since those more serious issues are not included in the links produced by that search engine, it doesn't seem a particularly useful search engine, and I don't trust it on your links to the Mattisse AN/I incidents. I'm worried if your method for investigating a seriously problematic editor usually involves that search engine. In the relevant discussion of a community ban, summarizing Zeraeph's behavior, I do note that AN/I used to be known for careful deliberation over several days, something that is woefully absent on the administrator noticeboards these days.
• Yes, my next action after seeing this issue was to oppose your ArbCom candidacy. What you did to Mattisse was inexcusable and showed partiality and discussion cannot reverse that. The mistake was ...
• I do not object to your characterization of the issue as involving two parties, and an issue not for AN/I that would not be resolved by blocking both. That wasn't my objection. What I object to was that you unfairly labeled only one party in the dispute—Mattisse. Your first words in response were, " Mattisse again! " This is unfairly prejudicial, and even more so considering Zeraeph's long-standing forum-shopping, the large number of posts to AN/I and numerous other fora by her that the above search engine doesn't detect, and her ongoing record of serious and egregious personal attacks and edit warring. The community has spoken several times with regard to Zeraeph, but your reaction was to prejudice another Zeraeph victim. Your response above does the same thing to me. We are both sullied because we had the misfortune of falling into Zeraeph's crosshairs. In my case, this is in spite of me agreeing to give mentorship a chance.
• You characterize Mattisse and Zeraeph as equal parties in the dispute. (As an aside, look at Mattisse's userpage; I challenge anyone to produce a single good article written by Zeraeph.) I did not review all of Zeraeph's and Mattisse's edits to that page (keeping up with Zeraeph is a cottage industry), but I reviewed enough to see a Zeraeph pattern I've seen before. Mattisse was commenting out sources that didn't verify the text or weren't quality sources when Zeraeph initiated one of her all-too-common edit warring rampages. This is the same thing Zeraeph did only a few months ago on alexithymia and demonstrates a frequent issue with Zeraeph's editing; that particular article is a good example of what she calls a sourced medical article because it's covered in little footnotes that link to garbage sources that don't verify the text. I doubt that a full analysis of the remaining edits would show Zeraeph and Mattisse to be equal parties in the edit warring. Two wrongs don't make a right, but I still doubt that Mattisse was an equal party, yet your response prejudiced Mattisse.
• You asked how I would change this or what I would do. My answer is what I would not do; if I don't have the full facts about both parties, I wouldn't preface an AN/I post with a prejudicial response to Mattisse. What is to be done about Zeraeph? Well, apparently, the community is going to do nothing, because an admin on her talk page has said s/he will unblock Zeraeph, right after Z typed a series of alarming personal attacks and threats on her talk page. Wiki demonstrates time and time again that the victim must jump through ArbCom hoops to achieve common sense, and that Wiki has no means of protecting valued contributors and dealing with disruptive editors. If the community can't find a way to deal with the Zeraephs without revictimizing the victims, we will continue to lose productive editors.

Please consider retracting and apologizing for the prejudicial statement against Mattisse that begain your commentary on AN/I and that demonstrated partiality. I do not feel comfortable with a person who prejudges in the absence of full evidence sitting on ArbCom. Since it looks like you're on your way to an ArbCom position, I would say that a demonstration that you understand the concern would inspire more confidence in an ArbCom that is looking to be composed of candidates who are garnering far less support than we saw last year. Would you mind correcting the section heading to Zeraeph, so that goofy search engine can find it correctly in the future, even though her talk page posts indicate her intent to begin posting anonymously or under a different name ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:23, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question for FayssaIF

I believe you, User:FayssaIF, have been completely unfair to me. You made demeening and sarcastic comments about me on AN/I without knowing the facts, because you saw my name a lot so therefore I must be bad. You judged me on the frequency of problem editors reporting me. Did you know that a ring of six sock puppets reported me to AN/I for three months before I even knew there was an AN/I? The ring of sock puppets harassing me was caught after more than six months of constant harassment, and then only by accident. I have over 35,000 excellent edits, I have worked on many feature articles, I have many barnstars etc. and too many DYK's to count. I have never edit warred, I never revert. I worked on the Psychopathology article not realizing the editor that owned the article was reverting everything. Else I would have stopped sooner. I stopped as soon as I realized what was happening. You took the other user's side, sympathizing with her retirement when she had retired in September of 2007. Did you know about her history of constant disruption? Please look at my record of editing before you judge. My sock puppets were caught by a vigilant ARBCom person, who recused and took on that problem instead. He was very observant and did his homework. I do not think an admin who does not do homework and makes instant demeening judgments about another editor on little information is good for ArbCom. The fact you closed the case early on AN/I means the other person got a 28 day block. I am asking you, do you consider that doing you job adequately? Is there a reason to think you would do a better job on ARBCom? Mattisse 17:13, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Mattisse, could you guide me to which 'sarcastic comment' i made against you?

I am totally aware of your great contributions and must thank you for that but there's no justification for edit warring Mattisse. Why couldn't you accept my proposal to discuss further your content issues w/ the other side? What about the third party opinion? Why could the other party go request a 3rd party opinion?

Of course i noticed that Zaereph got retired before and i even tried to ask him/her to have a break since the retiorement notice was posted at the userpage. But do we have any authority to ask people to remain retired? No, we just can't do that.

You make it seem like if i blocked you or couldn't listen to you. I was fair to both of you. Haven't blocked anyone, though you both were edit warring all day. I wanted to see you both handling the situation peacefully and without any fuss. It didn't work Mattisse. You insist on emotions and i totally understand that but Wikipedia has less to do with emotions. It is more about being objective. Do you remember calling other respected editors (as you) 'hyprocrites'? Does that help? Not at all. This is a collaborative project and all of us must find better ways to work with all kind of users. I believe you and any other side can do that but how i really don't know. At least i tried to show you the way to Wikipedia:Third opinion since it dealt with a subject that only a few contributors know about.

I've done my job adequately as an admin (been fair to both of you). I encouraged discussion and third party's opinion before taking any administrative action. I haven't taken any action indeed. No judgement at all. I really fail to see where i failed and where i'd fail to be a 'good' arbitrator.

-- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 17:43, 12 December 2007 (UTC)