Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Matthew Hoffman

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[edit] Additional statements

[edit] Statement by uninvolved Fut.Perf.

I don't know why this had to escalate to Arbcom. I agree this was a mistaken block (I too find Moreschi's assessment unconvincing), but it was not a bad block in terms of the processes, criteria and authorities applied.

What happened? A person was blocked after an open notice board discussion led several adminstrators to believe he was a disruptive POV-pushing sock. He sought redress, and another adminstrator found the evidence wanting. So he was unblocked. That's how it should be. In the process, an e-mail got misplaced. (I know my own e-mail client often marks Wikipedia mails as "junk", so I can imagine how that could happen without any fault of the recipient.) Should that have been a problem? No. Finding that Vanished user failed to respond to Charles' inquiry, Charles could perfectly well have just gone ahead and initiated another ANI discussion or even unblocked unilaterally. That way, the user could have been unblocked much faster. There was no need to draw this out for over a month.

That said, what about the wider policy issue? Should administrators feel entitled to ban people they determine to be disruptive POV-pushing socks, after brief discussions on ANI? Absolutely yes. We need more bans, not less of them. We need more boldness in admins enforcing policy, not less of it. We need less tolerance for POV-pushers, not more of it. We need quick, decisive ways of getting rid of disruptive accounts. It makes no sense for the committee to hand out blanket authorities for administrators to make such judgment calls in an ever-growing archipelago of individual conflict areas (Eastern Europe, Armenia, Balkans, what next?), but then sanction admins who are bold enough to take comparable action in other areas that are just as notoriously contentious but just happen not to have gone through the Arbcom process yet. We need admins to be bold in making such decisions. Mistakes will be made, but they can be redressed.

Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:13, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Re. Thatcher's statement below: "POV pushing by itself has never been grounds for banning" - Yes, that's the sad thing. It should be. It must be, if we are to take our own ideals and policies seriously. POV-pushing is the root of all evil; edit-warring and incivility are only superficial symptoms of it. The Arbcom has traditionally been far too soft on this issue; this needs to change. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:17, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by Thatcher131

I guess I'm just old-fashioned, but I thought that when new, strongly opinionated editors showed up, we were supposed to talk to them nicely, explain our policies and standards of behavior, and so on. Even a 24 hour block for one's first 3RR violation used to be unusual; 8 hours was more typical. And POV pushing by itself has never been grounds for banning. Arbcom has gone to great lengths in the Aremina-Azerbaijani, Irish Troubles, Dalmatia, and Macedonia cases to enable admins to place disruptive editors on 1RR per week parole, but it has certainly banned very few editors, and only then after persistent long-term disruptive editing. An indefinite block for 7 mainspace edits is really uncalled for, unless there is really good evidence that the account is not merely aggressive and biased, but the return of a specific banned user. "This user is making the exact same contentious edits as X and checkuser shows a possible connection" is one thing; "This user is pushing a POV and used edit summaries from his first edit" should not be grounds for indefinite blocking.

Jehochman, the question is not whether "disruption-only" accounts may be blocked. The question is whether MatthewHoffman was properly evaluated as a disruption-only account after only 7 mainspace edits an no real attempts to engage the user in conversation about our policies and expected behavioral norms (which are quite different from those a user may have experienced elesewhere on the internet). More broadly, is there a systemic problem in jumping the gun on accounts like this? Consider this question in light of the Durova case. Thatcher131 17:01, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Statement by Guy

Usual disclaimers apply: ArbCom does not make policy, no biding precendents, etc.

However: New user arrives, pitches into long-running battle, displays understanding of Wikipedia policies / rules (see edit summary, this being the second edit and first edit to mainspace), aggressively pushes a minority POV. Hmmm. What is best practice here?

Escalation to indefinite was premature, IMO, in the absence of evidence that this was a sockpuppet (I'd want prior similar edits or a CheckUser I think), but that is certainly behaviour not characteristic of a genuinely new user. I've seen this from people who previously edited anonymously and registered at the advice of others. Is that what happened here? Is it this Matthew Hoffman, do we know?

However: the point at issue is, does the arbitration committee consider that blocking an account that has a strong smell of socks about it, in the absence of compelling evidence of the original account, but in the presence of strongly pushing a problematic POV, and following brief discussion on the noticeboards, constitutes (a) a serious problem and must be avoided; (b) a problem in that it indicates repeated issues from these parties; or (c) is not a problem as long as people are open to discussion and reversal, and remain civil.

[edit] Question that's almost a statement by Spartaz

I'm entirely uninvolved in this and haven't even read the ANI threads. I acknowledge that I'm therefore uniquely unqualified to comment on anything except the process. What concerns me is that we seem to have jumped straight to RFAR from ANI. I haven't seen any evidence of bad faith presented here. I'd personally prefer to have seen this go through a RFC first to allow the community the opportunity to discuss the issues and express a view. Policy and consensus are supposed to belong to the community. Isn't bringing this straight here not simply excluding the community from expressing a view? Spartaz Humbug! 18:02, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by uninvolved Calejenden

First, I don't know almost anything about the article topic. But I see nothing wrong with what MatthewHoffman has done. He broke 3RR once, but was not aware of the rule. His comments on talk pages were rational and I think they were polite enough. He's done nothing wrong. I would like to remind that if an account which seems to know a lot about Wikipedia and yet acts out as if not knowing all the rules starts to edit, he could come from some other Wikipedia. Some rules are different in different Wikipedias. Calejenden 20:46, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Comment to Rodhullandemu, I don't think it matters that it's his only contribution. It's probably a quite usual way to start to edit Wikipedia to correct something. Calejenden 22:32, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by uninvolved R. Baley

This is an example of a break down in communication, not a case for Arbcom. Of the 3 admin requests I saw on AC's talk page wherein the admin asked to unblock an editor, all three where unblocked by the requesting admin in a timely fashion by the requesting admin. As all 3 were unblocked so quickly, I can only assume AC made little or no objection. The same result could have been achieved in this case had CM pursued the same route (which would have been obvious from looking over the page -I did a Ctrl-F search for "block").

"Block undo" requests on AC's talk page:

  • Oct 10, 2007 admin B requests unblock with civility/1RR condition
unblocked on October 12 after discussion (1st diff2nd diff)
This editor was unblocked at 00:17 (UTC) Oct 30.
  • November 13, 2007 admin Jossi requests unblock
Editor unblocked later that day (diff).

At the very least, this request is premature: community input through an RfC would be the next step, if this dispute were ongoing. With the Arbcom elections coming up, I urge the Arbitration Committee to reject this trial for Vanished userC by CM's peers. This case is unseemly and restraint is called for, not more drama. R. Baley 20:54, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by uninvolved Irpen

This ironically reminds me an old story I read 10 years ago or so. Some small town in the Midwest located along the major Interstate road set a speed trap that was running for years collecting revenue and the cashflow from the tickets amounted to most of the town budget. The town of a couple of hundred residents maintained a half-a-dozen (!) strong police force which were writing up thousands of tickets per year (I oddly remember that it was over a 100 tickets to passers-by per town resident.) Everything was fine and dandy until they f***ed the wrong guy, that is ticketed a State Senator who was passing through this noplace for whatever reason. Pissed off, the public official sponsored the law that limited the revenue of any city from traffic fines to no more than a half (!) of the local budget. Within a year, the Police force of the city was laid off in its entirety and soon after the city filed for the bankruptcy protection. The end.

Same happened here. Long time ago blocks were a big deal. Except of penis vandals only 3RRers were blocked without ArbCom. This was an overkill and as we got more users it started to change about two years ago and originally it was a change for better. It started to get alarming some time mid-2006 when I wrote this post at WP:AN calling for admin caution. It was well-received but comments were few and far between. Ever since we are going down this curve and now it is alarmingly common in the admin-culture to ignore requests to review their actions and treat any criticism with arrogance. Like that town police, the poor unlucky admin f***ed with the wrong guy. He did not recognize the almighty force behind the requester's name and the force got pissed off. That's how it ended up here. If poor guy contacted anyone else, most likely he would still have been blocked and we won't even have heard about that block.

Perhaps this accidental coincidence would help sway the pendulum back a little towards normalcy. I am somewhat sorry for Vanished user's and Moreschi's bad luck. They are taken to the shed while they did not do anything extraordinary. It is just that wrong became part of the ordinary. Blocks whose only problem was the admin being sloppy has never yet made it to ArbCom, much worse was usually needed. To cause enough noise to have consequences the bad block was usually of experienced editor who had friends and knows what buttons to push. Those blocks came with much worse things than ordinary admin arrogance. In addition to the current Durova's debacle, the InShanee's block of Worldtraveller, Swatjestesr's block of Miskin, Kylu's (actually Lar's) block of Giano and various Betacommand's and Tony Sidaway's "cool-off" block of rather well-known Wikipedians come to mind, all different from a current block in very similar ways, those were blocks that were worse than merely sloppy for reasons well known and discussed elsewhere. Here we just get a block of a small guy totally in line of how things are all too frequently done now in Wikipedia. When in doubt, block and when challenged, tell the challenger to get lost.

All the better if this block makes an exception, get's arbcommed because of the blocker's bad luck and helps to changes the trend. Most block-happy admins care a great deal for their admin bit as they enjoy "running things" more than writing content. If loosing a bit simply because one ignores the block review request becomes a reality, that would make a great deal of difference in the responses we would be getting in the future.

Sadly, ArbCom would have never taken this case even if it would have reached it without this unusual circumstance either. --Irpen 07:03, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statement by uninvolved CBDunkerson

In the past hour the following indefinite blocks have been made: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11]. Of those, I'd say that all but the third, fifth, eigth, and tenth showed little attempt to resolve issues which might have been handled via discussion, warnings, and/or shorter blocks. I would expect that more than half of those could have been resolved without an indefinite block. I agree entirely that people now place indefinite blocks on a whim with little or no discussion/review... but that's endemic behavior. There has been a request to review an indef block which the admin would not discuss sitting on this very page for over a week now. Lots of admins do this all the time. Newbie biting and indef blocking without discussion or review are common practice. I don't agree with it, but that's the reality... and every time I've objected to it or seen someone else do so the mutters of 'troll enabler' and 'wheel warring', often from longstanding admins, are never far behind. --CBD 16:57, 2 December 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Request for the Matthew Hoffman case to be closed with no decisions, FoF, etc..

It's been a month of being criticised at the RfCs, a month and a half before that was spent criticising me at the case, and the actual block was back in September. Can we accept that I am sufficiently cautioned and throw out the case, which was accepted as a "test case", but actually worked out to a "torment the admin who's undergoing exams, money problems, and so on" for several months. Can we accept that I am sufficiently chastened by now, and let me get on with my life? [[User:Vanished user|Vanished user]] [[User_talk:Vanished user|talk]] 21:30, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

The case was not just about you. Some of the findings of fact were not about you. Why should those points be thrown out? And the best way to avoid criticism is to look more closely and consider which parts of the criticism are well-founded. If this whole thing ends up as "I was criticised and bullied" (the words you used back in November), then how can anyone see if you have learnt anything from this? Carcharoth (talk) 16:28, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
It was accepted as a "test case", and, while I accept I did wrong, and think I know how and how to prevent the problem in future. However, that doesn't change that there were problems: Charles Matthews' evidence was unusually incivil; voting to desysop me was started before I presented evidence. FoF#9 was created from evidence that did not appear in the Evidence section, and thus I had doubly no chance to respond; and when I got upset over the phrasing, which was at the least misleading (See [[Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Vanished user_Vanished user#Request_for_comment_on_Finding_of_Fact_.239_.28Vanished user_Vanished user.29]], I never - and still have never - gotten any sort of response from the Arbcom. Requests to wait until after my exams were ignored. I had asked for a wikibreak to come after the RfC several weeks ago, and even volunteered, if necessary, to give up my adminship during it. I have still had no response about it, nor has FT2, the arbcom member who said he'd sort it out.
In short, the case was so badly handled, that it's hard to see how it can be salvaged at this point without restarting the case and dragging everyone through Arbcom again, and, frankly, after the amount of feedback I had, I think we can accept that I know what I did wrong, and won't do it again.
As I see it, there are two options for continuing this case: #1: ignore that the RfC ever happened, and proceed with the voting as it stood. This would give a strong appearance that the RfC was done for appearance's sake only, particularly given none of the arbcom commented on the RfC.
The second option is pretty much to restart this case from scratch, using the RfC, new evidence that came up during it, etc, to make new FoF and such to vote on - which pretty much amounts to restarting the case.
Given that User:MatthewHoffman has been unblocked since November, and has not edited as of this date, I fail to see any actual benefit to him, me, or anyone else of continuing this case, and, given the amount of stress caused by these cases, large amounts of actual, real life harm. [[User:Vanished user|Vanished user]] [[User_talk:Vanished user|talk]] 00:38, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
You make some good points. But do you remember what UninvitedCompany said when the injunction was proposed? "I understand the desire to delay things but don't see why we need a provision for the case to self-destruct." If cases get thrown out because they become too long and messy, there will be every encouragement for people in future to actively try and drag things out and protest loudly at various points. As for MatthewHoffman - try and put yourself in his shoes. Would you edit using that account again after all that has happened? Carcharoth (talk) 01:18, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
No, but it does mean the proposals for annotating the block log, etc, are probably unnecessary - so long as he's not an indefblocked user, there's not going to be people blocking him for being a sock of an indefblocked user. Now, that said, while simply dragging the case on may not be a reason to drop it, it is hard to deny this case was very badly handled, and I would appreciate some recognition from the Arbcom that their poor handling of it caused me, who was very willing to learn from it. There are other problems which I think you know about, but which are private. However, there are so many problems that at this point, this whole case seems to have turned into something of a mistrial. I am willing to undergo the process of admin recall, if there's enough people who want that, but the communications issues - despite many emails, talk page discussions, and communications with Arbcom members, I have gotten absolutely NO significant response from them beyon d the proposed decision page, and a promise by one of the new admins that voting will not begin until after evidence is provided in future cases.
In short, after 3 months of begging the arbcom to respond to me, through several media (IRC, talk pages, e-mail, e-mails to JIMBO) without any luck, I think that the arbcom should accept that they have messed up heir handling of this case so badly that they should dismiss it. [[User:Vanished user|Vanished user]] [[User_talk:Vanished user|talk]] 01:38, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
In short, I think there's been something of a mistrial [[User:Vanished user|Vanished user]] [[User_talk:Vanished user|talk]] 01:21, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, it's meant to be arbitration, not a trial (or mistrial). Mis-arbitrated? But anyway, I'm going to back off from this one, other than to agree that is is indeed time for the case to be brought to a close soon. It is for the arbitrators to respond to you though, and I hope they do respond to your questions. Carcharoth (talk) 01:47, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough, I've e-mailed them again, and will search out that Admin recall thingie. [[User:Vanished user|Vanished user]] [[User_talk:Vanished user|talk]] 02:27, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Regardless of the result, isn't it time to resume some form of action on this case, whether dismissing or getting back to voting? The 30 days have passed, and I can't see why we're leaving this hanging like this. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 02:25, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Request for block log annotation (Whig)

Regardless of whatever disposition the ArbCom would like to make of the Matthew Hoffman case, I would request an annotation to my block log. Since Vanished user declines to do this himself, I would ask the ArbCom to review his blocks of my account. —Whig (talk) 00:52, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Your request will be considered by the committee, but I think we should make it clear that annotating a user's block log to indicate that the Arbitration Committee finds that a block was unjustified is an unusual remedy and is going to be reserved for extreme situations. This remedy was employed, for example, in a recent case where the blocking administrator offered no explanation for a block at the time it was imposed, the admin claimed not even to remember the block when it was questioned later, and circumstances justified the conclusion that the block may have been inspired by an unrelated dispute on another website and thus was grossly out of order. I am not suggesting that a judgment has been reached on whether this remedy is available to Whig or for that matter to MatthewHoffman (in fact, I am presently inactive on this case, which originated last year, before I and the other new arbitrators joined the committee). But I would not want to leave the impression that the committee is in a position to review every questioned block, even after it has expired, in the absence of extreme or unusual circumstances. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:59, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Relevant to the blocks in question is Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Whig 2. MastCell Talk 05:21, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Please note my responses and especially those of Wanderer57. —Whig (talk) 06:14, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Vanished user

Noting the expressed wish of the user to WP:VANISH I've amended the project page accordingly. Sysop powers should be removed from the defunct account, if that's not been done already. .. dave souza, talk 11:17, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

The defunct account no longer has admin powers. For those who know the name, type it in here to confirm. There is a second account, but that doesn't have sysop powers (not sure it ever did). Carcharoth (talk) 13:41, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for confirming that. .. dave souza, talk 16:54, 10 February 2008 (UTC)