A sad affair. It's easy to see why Casliber's resignation from the Committee, "garnered equal parts approval and regret from the community." The project has to have rules to survive. Yet it has lost an able arbitrator, who found himself in a position where he felt he would benefit both the project and a friend-in-need by skirting the rules.
Might the rules be changed to account for an arbitrator who wants to help an editor "having a rough patch"? Especially in light of what evidently happened with this editor's "appeal to the committee a year ago" (see Lara, below). How about giving every arbitrator a veto over the Committee's decisions (which the Committee could override, of course)? To allow for an arbitrator who wants to go to bat for a problem editor? After all, the arbitrator, by resorting to his or her veto, would be more or less putting his or her own hide on the line should it not work out. Just a thought. ô¿ô 02:06, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I sugguest you disable comment for this article. This incident is too sensitive. SYSS Mouse (talk) 18:33, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This incident has prompted me to remove a lot of administrator and policy forums from my watchlist, as it makes me realize just how disorganized and out of control en.Wikipedia's current governance processes are. The standards for building quality article content are, fortunately, more clear and organized. Cla68 (talk) 05:24, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think this incident is fascinating. I'm writing a draft article exactly about Wikipedia administrators: User:Varks Spira/Wikipedia administrator. Help me out if you can as I'm a little out of my league dealing with this subject. Varks Spira (talk) 05:43, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wow. It is pretty fascinating. I especially like how his co-conspirators are so unapologetic. Da'oud Nkrumah 06:27, 6 October 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dnkrumah (talk • contribs)
When you look at society in general, it is not 'weird' that people support their friends, and even keep 'secrets' under wraps to protect their friends. And I would put friends before websites as well. However, as administrators they took an active role in supporting Law. They should know better. There is a difference between, being silent and having someone be judged on his own value by other editors, and actively supporting said person in a RfA and removing evidence of connections between the two accounts. It was a conflict of interest and they should at the very least have made themselves scarce when those conflicts arose. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:11, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Retracting statement about oversight action, since I still don't fully understand how much of that was hiding, and how much of it was simply bad communication. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:28, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have been watching that case for a while now since I noticed it... I just think that, if you take a step back and think of what people reading this would think, the entire affair has been damaging for the encyclopedia. Sure they are all comparing whether any actual rules/policies have been broken, but this is just bureaucracy. I must admit I was happier when I was an IP editor of Wikipedia and didn't pay attention to the mass of red tape, incivility and policy bashing going on... --Taelus (talk) 08:34, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You might clarify if the two accounts were used in tandem, or if the user switched from the_undertow to Law permanently. There's a big difference. My review of their two edit histories seems to show that Law mostly replaced the_undertow as the main account beginning in Sept 08, but the_undertow was still used occasionally to vote in RfAs and a handful of minor edits. - Draeco (talk) 11:01, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's fine to support your friends, but when you accept the role of admin or arbiter you have a higher responsibility to the project as a whole. (And frankly, my friends wouldn't put me in the position of having to choose.) Every time something like this happens, it makes it that much harder on those of us who are trying to do the best job we can at the job we accepted, because every action we take is automatically tainted by the actions of others. I might feel differently after reflection, but my initial reaction is that desysoping would be in order here. --Fabrictramp | talk to me 14:29, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I do not know anyone involved or any details, but I want to comment on the principle (main issue). The proper way for the_undertow and those who supported him to help him would have been to petition the Arbitration committee to modify its sanctions. What they did was to willfully evade the sanctions. This undermines the authority of the committee, thereby damaging the governance and dispute resolution process for the English Wikipedia. The committee should not allow its authority to be undermined without consequences. It should punish all those who helped the_undertow to evade the sanctions. JRSpriggs (talk) 16:48, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
He did appeal to the committee a year ago. There was general agreement among the arbitrators to accept his request (which was revealed this week), but the thread went silent and the request fell into archives without response. Lara 19:58, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Although I disagree with ban evasion, The Undertow's appeal was not the only one which the Committee let slip through the cracks. I know of several others, including one who earned barnstars after a legitimate return. The Committee failed to act upon polite requests for eight months until finally I took the appeal to ANI. It shouldn't be so difficult to seek a review legitimately. Durova322 15:03, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What a fascinating and well-written article! I'm a sucker for wikidrama but kudos to Kirill Lokshin for the level-headed account. -- EA SwyerTalkContributions 17:52, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Without commenting on any other aspect of the Law event itself, I would like to extend my compliments to Kirill for the quality of his writing in the course of this article. Excellent work, Kirill. AGK 18:37, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Good writing Kirill! As to the events described above, if the admins who supported him put their friendship above honesty and Wikipedia, they obviously cannot be trusted. You can support your friends, but you shouldn't hide the truth either. — BQZip01 —talk 20:39, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not a bad write-up at all. I'd prefer a few more incriminating pictures, but I'll still take it :P the_undertowtalk 04:39, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Great, I've not watched what the heck is going on in the noticeboards, and I don't dare to venture there, because they're probably completely unreadable smouldering ruins. See, this is why we need LiquidThreads! </sarcasm> --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 19:47, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Good article. Important to write about this stuff. I saw a question raised in the Casliber resignation discussion. What about CasLiber deleting the_undertow's user and talk pages? What's the story there? On another note, I am surprised that the admins mentioned would tolerate a ban evasion by anyone. Diderot'sdreams(talk) 01:40, 8 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I strongly object to the assertion that I am "unapologetic." Please see my statement at RfArb; I have repeatedly apologized to the community and acknowledged my wrongdoing. My statement linked to here in this story was simply my initial thoughts about the news and by no means my complete reaction. My next statement at the RfArb was posted only a day later, well before the publishing date of this story, so I would like to go on record and state my disappointment with the author for misrepresenting me so. GlassCobra 15:57, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you are apologetic for wrongdoing why the edit to Law Abiding Citizen? Some might say that that is a passive-aggressive act of defiance. What is the underlying message? What about all of the off Wiki comments? 68.245.10.61 (talk) 16:44, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I assume you are the same person that posted to my talk page recently, and I would like to state that I am puzzled by your assertions. My edit to Law Abiding Citizen was merely because I had just seen a commercial for the movie and was reading the article to learn more about it, and discovered something that needed to be fixed. There is no latent message being sent. I also am unsure of what off-wiki comments you are referring to. GlassCobra 17:08, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm well aware of your statement at the request for arbitration, in which you—by my interpretation, in any case—continue to assert that your actions were essentially correct ("To sum up, I do not feel that supporting a friend and acting in the best interests of the project need to be mutually exclusive goals, and I feel that the two were one and the same in this instance."). Given that, I believe it's entirely appropriate to consider your attitude unapologetic, both in the first instance, and subsequently. Kirill[talk][pf] 21:00, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I was unaware that it was the policy of the Signpost to be editorializing and inserting the personal point of view and opinions of the authors (whether or not they are in fact correct) into their reports on sensitive project matters, and I will again iterate my disappointment, both on my personal behalf and on the behalf of journalistic standards. I hope the readers of this publication will consider the admission of the author in this matter when viewing this piece. GlassCobra 13:36, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A quality article and an intriguing case. I don't blame the_undertow for wanting a fresh start; I am a firm believer in second chances. But once the matter became known, there is no other acceptable outcome. I know that hypotheticals aren't very helpful, but I suppose the proper thing would be to privately alert ArbCom of the desire to create a new account, to tell the Committee the account name so it could be monitored for compliance, but not to publicaly connect the two accounts. HereToHelp(talk to me) 01:29, 10 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I reviewed the use of oversight in this case. (link). My own stance on friendship v. integrity is that standing up for ones' friends is fine, but not at the cost of breach of trust. Possibly the admins concerned believed it was a historic matter and didn't really need bringing up. But they should at the least, have urged Law to disclose to Arbcom or the 'crat team (the matter was bound to come out some time) because it was a material factor, and failing which, told him they could not propose or support his RFA with that undisclosed. Both as friends and Wiki community admins that would have demonstrated integrity. I can't decide if this is serious poor judgment or gross breach of trust. Perhaps a mix of both. FT2(Talk | email) 03:39, 10 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
One of the interesting things to have been discovered during this case was the problem with Arbcom's emails - there was a filter throwing away emails from a variety of domains. I think that this would be an interesting item for the Signpost. DuncanHill (talk) 12:43, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Everyone musing on the whole "friendship vs. policy" conundrum seem to miss one important point, namely that the main mistake was made before this issue even emerged. There is a policy against using Wikipedia for social networking, and that policy is there for a reason. When social networks emerge between editors and admins, neutral behaviour and upholding of policy easily suffer. This camaraderie can be horribly alienating to newcomers; a big problem these days as we're already seeing serious decline in participation. Anyone looking for friends, please go to MySpace or – God forbid – turn off the computer and go outside. Lampman (talk) 19:10, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
To answer Diderot's dreams, I was asked to delete The Undertow's pages by him for a reason unconnected with wikipedia, which I'll leave for the undertow to explain onwiki or I can discuss by email. It didn't even occur to me that it looked bad until pointed out to me retrospectively when all this blew up. Stupid I know, but there you go. Casliber (talk·contribs) 09:59, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
