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18 February 2015

 

2015-02-18

Recent retirements typify problem of admin attrition

Wikipedia's administrative tools are often likened to a janitor's mop, leading to adminship being described at times as being "given the mop".

Last May, three administrators nominated me for adminship: TParis, Secret, and Dennis Brown. Perhaps I am a curse, but none of the three are still administrators, a testament to the problems Wikipedia faces in retaining volunteers willing and able to fill this post.

Now that we have that out of the way, let's pivot to the real problem: when respected administrators—and for that matter, experienced editors—resign or even decrease their activity due to burnout, abuse, under-appreciation, or disillusionment, the entire encyclopedia is hurt.

TParis, an administrator for several years who was particularly active in de-escalating drama at ANI and related pages, left in part because he had "lost interest" and stamina, as well as having received unwarranted abuse from various editors. TParis's reasons for leaving typify Wikipedia's problems with how it treats its administrators.

It is time that, as a community, we recognize that admin abuse—editors abusing admins, the reverse of the typical concern—is a problem. Yes, admin abuse is a major problem that is hindering the quality of the encyclopedia.

In his departure comments, TParis wrote:


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More articles

I read a lot more administrator talk pages and noticeboards than I comment on, and what I see there is frankly appalling, especially the level of bad faith of which administrators are regularly accused. And it is not just newbies angry that their first article was speedily deleted; editors who are generally respected take swipes at administrators that, if the roles were reversed, would prompt cries of personal attacks, admin abuse (the other kind), etc.

It would be disingenuous for me to say that admin abuse—in its general usage—does not occur, and that there are not administrators who are a net negative for the encyclopedia.

However, certainly most would agree that TParis did not fall into that category, and when he—a soldier with a thicker skin than most—gets tired of personal attacks, perhaps it is time for the rest of us to take notice and rectify the problem. "I don't feel I can turn in the admin hat without the issues I was involved in as an admin not haunting me and paying me special visits," TParis wrote. Surely for a project that purports the notion that "adminship is no big deal", a sentiment like that should be a wake up call.

On a partially related note, there is such a backlog of administrative work to be done and few administrators ready, willing, and able to do it. The administrative backlog continues to expand, as does the general Wikipedia backlog. The community, however, continues to promulgate the notion that content is king (a notion with which I agree), and nothing else is worth doing at all—in other words, if you are not a content contributor, you really have no place here. That is categorically untrue; backlog busters and behind-the-scenes workers pave the way for content contributors to contribute content. When that work is not done, the encyclopedia suffers.

When articles for creation submissions take months to be processed, it is incredibly disconcerting to new contributors, whom we try to recruit to replace our ever increasing population of retired contributors.

When new page patrol turns into a weeks or months long process, we become an incubator for potential BLP violations.

When requests for comment languish awaiting closure, it undermines the consensus building process—the fabric of Wikipedia.

And when administrators and other editors try to help in this area, they frequently subject themselves to undue grief, accusations of bad faith, etc. No wonder we see burnout, admin resignations, etc. at such high levels. Sure, the instance of TParis and my commentary thereof is anecdotal, but it is one that is repeated with disturbing frequency.

Recall the formerly active administrators Boing! said Zebedee, Toddst1, The Blade of the Northern Lights, even Writ Keeper and Dennis Brown. And now TParis. Although all left or significantly decreased their activity under different circumstances, their respective departures leave a void in all kinds of admin areas of the encyclopedia, some of which we probably have yet to fully discover. They did the work no one else would, and now that work is not getting done.

All of this is to say we, as a community, need to address some underlying problems and important questions if we want to be a functional encyclopedia:

  1. Realize that we have a problem ... before we can do anything else, we have to recognize that the loss of active administrators poses a clear and present danger to the credibility of the encyclopedia and its future. This danger manifests itself in many ways, some of which I have outlined, others of which I have decided not to outline, and most of which, I probably would never have imagined.
  2. Recognize administrators for doing unpleasant work ... a simple "thanks" or just hitting the thank button often will do the job. Elaborate barnstars, awards, etc. are not always necessary. Yes, administrators do sign up for a "thankless" job, but that does not mean community members cannot and should not thank them when they do it well.
  3. Recruit new administrators with requisite experience ... this may also mean fixing a broken RfA process, a likely unpleasant and daunting task, but one that needs to be done.
  4. Make adminship not suck. TParis wrote, "I'm sorry for what the hell I've encouraged them to volunteer for," in regards to his recruitment of new administrators. How do we make adminship at least a non-hellish experience?

Perhaps the answer is rethinking the entire process of adminship. Perhaps it is unbundling of some kind. Perhaps it is in recruiting more people to run—my RfA was not bad at all, although others obviously have different experiences. Perhaps it is in creating a de-adminship process that has the side effect of giving those who retain adminship increased credibility and respect within the community. Perhaps it is none of these things, or some combination thereof.

Regardless, the retirement of TParis underscores the problem of admin attrition, and as an encyclopedia, it is time we seek to find solutions.

Go Phightins! is a Wikipedia administrator and a co-editor-in-chief of the Signpost. He primarily focuses his editing on sports articles, and only occasionally dabbles in admin areas. This editorial is written in his capacity as a Wikipedia editor—not in his Signpost role or as an administrator, although an admittedly inactive one that rarely uses the tools.

Reader comments

2015-02-18

Students' use and perception of Wikipedia

Students' use and perception of Wikipedia

Monash University Menzies Building

The Australian ("Wikipedia not destroying life as we know it", February 11) and Times Higher Education ("Wikipedia should be 'better integrated' into teaching", February 10) reported on a recent study performed at Monash University, titled "Students’ use of Wikipedia as an academic resource – patterns of use and perceptions of usefulness".

Based on a survey of over 1,650 students at two unnamed Australian universities, the study found that students generally viewed Wikipedia only as an "'introductory and/or supplementary source of information' [...] of limited usefulness compared with university library resources, e-books, lecture recordings and academic literature databases". Seven out of eight students said they used Wikipedia, but only 24 percent of respondents classified Wikipedia as "very useful", meaning it ranked below "learning management systems, internet search engines, library websites, videos and Facebook" in students' assessments, but above "other university websites", "educational games and simulations" and Twitter.

Commenting on students' usage patterns, the study's lead author, Neil Selwyn, said that Wikipedia did not make students lazy: lazy Wikipedia use, where it did occur, probably just reflected those students' pre-existing working modes: "Students are finding ways to use Wikipedia that fit with their broader study habits. High-achieving students are using Wikipedia in a way that helps them continue to be high achieving."

Selwyn also noted that the early years' "hype and excitement" about Wikipedia's role in higher education had given way to a kind of "mundane domestication":

Noting the disparity between reader and editor numbers, Selwyn described Wikipedia editing as "an incredibly closed shop" and said that Wikipedia content in his academic discipline remained woefully inadequate:

Selwyn concluded that in order to remedy these quality defects, universities should be getting more engaged, given that "Something like Wikipedia is going to be a constant presence over the next few decades".

The study was funded by the Australian government’s Office of Learning and Teaching and will be published in the journals Studies in Higher Education and the Journal of Higher Education Policy & Management. A.K.

Are Pakistan articles being manipulated?

Muhammad Ali Jinnah in 1945

In the Daily Times, Yasser Latif Hamdani writes about efforts engaged in "Manipulating the Pakistani narrative" (February 17). Hamdani charges

Hamdani writes that "Even Jinnah's famous August 11 speech is censored with Jinnah's page — a featured article — making no reference to it at all." The article Muhammad Ali Jinnah does mention the speech and link to the article about it. Hamdani told the Signpost:

Hamdani named to the Signpost several editors whom he accused of being part of this manipulation effort. One of those editors denied to the Signpost these accusations and alleged that Hamdani had "defamed" him as a result of the deletion of the Wikipedia article about Hamdani.G

Conferences and editathons

The Irish Times reports on a February 14 workshop for new Wikipedia editors held by Wikimedia Community Ireland at the National Museum of Ireland's Collins Barracks. The workshop focused on Ireland and World War I in conjunction with the Museum's exhibition Recovered Voices: the Stories of the Irish at War, 1914-15.

Art+Feminism editathons were again in the news. The Daily reports on the Valentine's Day "I Love to You" editathon at the University of Washington, named for a phrase from French feminist Luce Irigaray. Creative Dundee reports on the upcoming March 6 editathon at the University of Abertay.

The Hindu reports (February 16) on a two day gathering of editors on the Telugu Wikipedia to celebrate its 11th anniversary. 55 of that Wikipedia's 80 active editors attended. G

In brief

  • Classroom tips: The Chronicle of Higher Education offers five tips on "Integrating Wikipedia in Your Courses" (February 18).G
  • General notability guidelines: NPR reviews (February 17) Laura van den Berg's new novel Find Me and notes that the protagonist laments "No one will ever write a Wikipedia page for me."G
  • You only die twice: The Daily Telegraph and The Independent reported on (February 16) "a tidal wave of sadness" that engulfed Twitter over the weekend regarding the death of beloved English artist and children's television presenter Tony Hart. Numerous Twitter users posted a link to an obituary from The Guardian without noticing that it was dated 2009, the date of Hart's actual death. The two newspapers noted Wikipedia was also affected: on Monday two different IP editors "corrected" the date of death from 2009 to 2015.G
  • Tell me sweet little lies: In The New York Times, Bill Adair, founder of PolitiFact, and Maxime Fischer-Zernin detail some of "The Lies Heard Round the World" (February 15) in 2014. One of them was uttered at an October rally at the Circus Maximus by Italian politician Alessandro Di Battista, vice president of the Committee on Foreign Relations in the Chamber of Deputies and leading figure in the Five Star Movement. He claimed "Nigeria, you can read about it on Wikipedia: 60 percent of its territory is controlled by Boko Haram, the remaining part is Ebola." While the terrorist group Boko Haram does control a huge swath of Nigerian territory—some 50,000 square kilometers—in and around Borno State, it does not even control the entire state, which is one of 36 states of Nigeria. During the 2014 Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa, Nigeria had only 20 cases of and 8 deaths from Ebola. The bulk of the epidemic, about 23,000 cases, was in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, over 2000 km away. The Italian factchecking website Pagella Politica gave this statement the "Insane Whopper of the Year" award.G
  • Lights out: Pulse Ghana reports (February 14) that the word dumsor now has a Wikipedia article, created on February 8. Dumsor is a combination of the Twi words for "off" and "on" and is used to describe the problems which have plagued Ghana's electrical power grid since 2007. The article concludes "this might not be something we can be proud off but we have to live with it as we grow has a nation."G
  • The Wikipedia Games: The Wall Street Journal reports (February 13) that in Mark Doten's new dystopian novel The Infernal, Jimmy Wales is not the founder of Wikipedia, but "the inventor of the Omnosyne, a torture device that extracts information from victims before uploading it into a world network of knowledge called the Memex." Guernica offers an excerpt from the novel. G

    Reader comments

2015-02-18

Revision scoring as a service


Wikipedia relies heavily on artificial intelligence (AI) based tools in order to operate at the scale that it does today. The use of AI is most apparent in counter-vandalism tools, like those used to revert nearly all the vandalism on the English Wikipedia: ClueBot NG, Huggle and STiki. These advanced wiki tools use intelligent algorithms to automatically revert vandalism or triage likely damaging edits for human review. It's arguable that these tools saved the Wikipedia community from being overwhelmed by the massive growth period of 2006–2007.

Regretfully, developing and implementing such powerful AI is hard. A tool developer needs to have the expertise in statistical classification, natural language processing, and advanced programming techniques as well as access to hardware to store and process large amounts of data. It's also relatively labor-intensive to maintain these AIs so that they stay up to date with the quality concerns of present day Wikipedia. Likely due to these difficulties, AI-based quality control tools are only available for English Wikipedia and a few other, larger wikis.

Our goal in the Revision Scoring project is to do the hard work of constructing and maintaining powerful AI so that tool developers don't have to. This cross-lingual, machine learning classifier service for edits will support new wiki tools that require edit quality measures.

We'll be making quality scores available via two different strategies

via our Web interface (for bots and gadgets)

http://ores.wmflabs.org/scores/enwiki?models=reverted&revids=644899628|644897053

{"644899628": 
  {"damaging": 
    {"prediction": true, 
     "probability": {'true': 0.834253, 'false': 0.165747}
    }
  },
 "644897053":
  {"damaging": 
    {"prediction": false, 
     "probability": {'false': 0.95073, 'true': 0.04927}
    }
  }
}
via our library (batch processing)
from mw import api
from revscoring.extractors import APIExtractor
from revscoring.scorers import MLScorerModel

model = MLScorerModel.load(open("enwiki.damaging.20150201.model"))
api_session = api.Session("https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php")
extractor = APIExtractor(api_session, model.language)

for rev_id in [644899628, 644897053]:
    feature_values = extractor.extract(rev_id, model.features)
    score = model.score(feature_values)
    print(score)

We'll also provide raw labelled data for training new models.

Project status and getting involved

Mockup of the hand-coding interface

We've already completed our first milestone: replicating the state of the art in damage detection for English, Turkish and Portuguese Wikipedias. In the next two months, we will construct a manual hand-coding system and ask a set of volunteers to help us categorize random samples of edits as "damaging" and/or "good-faith". These new datasets will help us train better classifiers. If you'd like to help us gather data or extend the scoring system to more languages, please let us know by saying so on our talk page.

See also

2015-02-18

Darwin Day

Darwin Day is observed annually on February 12 to commemorate the life and work of scientist Charles Darwin. Here is a selection of images of life on the Galápagos Islands, where Darwin made key observations leading to his scientific theory of evolution by natural selection.




Reader comments

2015-02-18

February is for lovers

This week saw the 57th Annual Grammy Awards (#13 on the Top 25) held on February 8 dominating the traffic chart, as music lovers checked out Sam Smith (#3) picking up four awards, Beck taking album of the year, and performances including Sia (#9), Madonna (#11), and Annie Lennox (#16). But Valentine's Day (#1) proved the perfect time for the release of Fifty Shades of Grey, with the movie coming in at #5, the book of the same name at #2, and the primary actors at #14 and #15.

For the full top 25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions.

For the week of February 8 to 14, 2015, the ten most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:

Rank Article Class Views Image Notes
1 Valentine's Day C-Class 2,215,877
As in 2013 and 2014, Valentine's Day makes its annual appearance at the top of the chart.
2 Fifty Shades of Grey B-Class 2,168,619
Unquestionably, the film based on this book picked the right weekend to be released. As of Sunday February 15 (one day after this Report's coverage period), the film had grossed over $239 million worldwide. On this chart, it is up from #8 and 713,992 views last week.
3 Sam Smith (singer) C-class 1,331,959
At the 57th Annual Grammy Awards held on February 8, 2015, Smith won four awards, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year for "Stay with Me", Best New Artist and Best Pop Vocal Album. Speaking of "Stay with Me", it is clear that Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne cashed in at the right time, recently settling a dispute with Smith to get a cut of royalties from the song based on coincidental similarities to a part of 1989's "I Won't Back Down". Lots of songs have similar riffs to earlier songs, since there are only so many combinations of notes and chords in pop music that appeal to us. But being similar to a song of the year is apparently worth paying a lawyer to complain about a bit.
4 Beck Good Article 1,317,196
Beck's album Morning Phase won Album of the Year at the Grammys. And Kanye West took issue with Beck winning over Beyoncé, which got himself placed at #18 this week.
5 Fifty Shades of Grey (film) Start-class 1,204,926
See #2. The film stars Dakota Johnson (#14) (pictured) and Jamie Dornan (#15).
6 Better Call Saul Start-class 1,130,822
A television show spinoff of Breaking Bad (a former chart favorite on Wikipedia) starring Bob Odenkirk (pictured), it debuted on AMC on February 8, 2015.
7 Chris Kyle B-class 1,121,178
Down from 1.59 million views last week, but still quite strong. If there's one thing America loves, it's a good, old fashioned culture war. Clint Eastwood's latest directorial effort American Sniper may not be wowing the critics (Rotten Tomatoes places it 13th among the films he has directed), nor drawing the crowds overseas (its international box office take is currently less than a third its domestic take), but it has played spectacularly well in America's conservative heartland, leading politicians on the left and right to, well, snipe at each other about what the film and its popularity say about America, its people, and in particular its subject, the now deceased sniper Chris Kyle. While interest seems to be winding down (viewing figures for this article peaked at 5.3 million two weeks ago), the topic still has enough oxygen to keep it in the Top 10.
8 Stephen Hawking B-Class 935,172
The former Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, black hole theorist, and latter-day science icon makes his 15th straight appearance in the Top 25 this week. Interest is only likely to increase in the run-up to the Oscars, thanks to Eddie Redmayne's likely Best Actor win for portraying him in The Theory of Everything.
9 Sia (musician) C-class 872,633
The popular singer hid her face once again, but performed at the Grammys on February 8.
10 Facebook B-class 822,844
A perennially popular article.


Reader comments

2015-02-18

A load of bull-sized breakfast behind the restaurant, koi feeding, a moray eel, Spaghetti Nebula and other fishy, fishy fish

No steak on the menu and what a load of bull!! Well is that seafood down on the page a bit available or am I going to have to go with the fried chicken again?
This Signpost "Featured content" report covers material promoted to featured status from 1 February through 7 February.Text may be adapted from the respective articles and lists; see their page histories for attribution.

Five featured articles were promoted this week.

James Baird Weaver, a two-time candidate for President of the United States, is a Featured Article now
  • James B. Weaver (nominated by Coemgenus) James Baird Weaver was a member of the United States House of Representatives and two-time candidate for President of the United States. After several unsuccessful attempts at Republican nominations to various offices, and growing dissatisfied with the conservative wing of the party, in 1877 Weaver switched to the Greenback Party, which supported increasing the money supply and regulating big business. As the Greenback Party fell apart, a new left-wing third party, the Populists, arose. Weaver helped to organize the party and was their nominee for President in 1892. Many party insiders, however, were wary of Weaver's association with the Prohibition movement and preferred to remain uncommitted on the divisive issue.
  • I Never Liked You (nominated by Curly Turkey) I Never Liked You is an autobiographical graphic novel by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, originally serialized as Fuck in the pages of his comic book Yummy Fur. Brown was at the forefront of the 90s wave of autobiographical comics. Since cartoonists usually spent most of their days at the drawing table trying to eke out a living, here autobiography didn't mean high adventure, it meant the minutiae of human existence. These cartoonists put their own lives under the microscope, unflinchingly portraying their weird emotional states, sexual fantasies, and masturbatory habits. In I Never Liked You, Brown tells the story of his introverted teenage years in a Montreal suburb. He is painfully unable to express emotion, especially to women, including his dying mother and the girl next door he is interested in. The powerful story and minimalist style drew critical adulation and awards, so if you are in the mood to revisit your awkward adolescence, this is the book for you.
  • Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata (van Eyck) (nominated by Ceoil and Victoriaearle) A new featured article from our exellent featured art article editor team Victoria and Ceoil (is this number 45 or?) Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata is the name given to two unsigned paintings completed around 1428–32 that art historians usually attribute to the great Flemish artist Jan van Eyck. The panels are nearly identical, apart from a difference in size. Both are small paintings: the larger measures 29.3 cm x 33.4 cm and is in the Sabauda Gallery in Turin, Italy; the smaller panel is 12.7 cm x 14.6 cm and in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The paintings show Saint Francis of Assisi, who is shown kneeling by a rock, in prayer as he receives the stigmata of the crucified Christ on the palms of his hands and soles of his feet.
  • The Thrill Book (nominated by Mike Christie) The Thrill Book was a short-lived US pulp magazine published by Street & Smith in 1919. It was intended to carry "different" stories: this meant stories that were unusual or unclassifiable, which in practice often meant that the stories were fantasy or science fiction. Although The Thrill Book has been described as the first American pulp to specialize in fantasy and science fiction, this description is not supported by recent historians of the field, who regard it instead as a stepping stone on the path that ultimately led to Weird Tales and Amazing Stories, the first true specialized magazines in the fields of weird fiction and science fiction respectively. Street & Smith cancelled the magazine after the sixteenth issue, dated October 15. A printers' strike has often been suggested as the reason.
  • William of Wrotham (nominated by Ealdgyth) William of Wrotham was a larger than life figure from the dramatic days of the English middle ages. When Robin Hood roamed Sherwood Forest, William was having action-packed adventures as... Archdeacon of Taunton and "keeper of ports". Like the Sheriff of Nottingham, William was a minion of King John, usually depicted as so villainous that the Magna Carta had to be forced upon him by his own rebellious barons. One of those rebels was William, who until that point had ably served John in a number of ecclesiastical and naval posts. After a brief time in exile, William was back in the good graces of John and his son and successor Henry III. Chronicler Roger of Wendover dubbed him one of John's "most wicked counsellors", but later historians called him a distinguished administrator.

Six featured lists were promoted this week.

Very Pretty: Preity Zinta

Seventeen featured pictures were promoted this week.

Breakfast behind the restaurant...
Zehnder's Chicken Restaurant
Koi feeding (on Zehnder's Chicken?) at the National Arboretum
Kiss me baby one more time – Hayley Williams
"Danger, Will Robinson Danger Approaching" – The Robot. Lost in Space was an American science fiction television series created that ran for three seasons, with 83 episodes airing between September 15, 1965, and March 6, 1968.
Chain moray eel (looking at the koi feeding at the National Arboretum on some tasty Zehnder's Chicken :)


Reader comments

2015-02-18

We've built the nuclear reactor—now what colour should we paint the bikeshed?

The most significant item on ArbCom's agenda this fortnight has been the closure of the Wifione case and subsequent fallout, although the fallout from GamerGate continues to linger. Meanwhile the committee has become deadlocked on all manner of trivial issues, holding up progress on the larger issues, even where arbitrators are in broad agreement.

In depth: Wifione

The Wifione case recovered from a delay during the workshop phase and was finally closed on 13 February with Wifione—formerly an administrator and well-regarded editor—receiving an indefinite ban from the English Wikipedia.

The central allegations to the case were that Wifione (talk · contribs), who was an administrator from 2010 until the case's final stages, had been manipulating Wikipedia to advance the interests of an Indian business school. The abuse included a reputation management campaign, sanitising the institution's article and the articles of people connected with it by removing unflattering material and using disingenuous policy arguments in order to retain poorly sourced but flattering material, for example calling the institution's founder a "business guru". Jehochman also presented evidence that Wifione had embarked on a search engine optimisation campaign on Wikipedia, in order to pad search engine results with irrelevant or flattering material with the intention of decreasing the prominence of unfavourable coverage in search engine results. Several editors alleged that this was part of a long-term campaign by the institution to manage its online reputation.

Of greater concern, Wifione also manipulated the articles of rival institutions and biographies of people associated with them in order to retain damaging content, including coverage of a rescinded arrest warrant against the founder of one rival institution which consumed two thirds of the founder's article. Wifione appears to have begun this campaign shortly after registering their account in 2009; they became an administrator in 2010 after receiving minimal opposition and were able to use their position and their knowledge of Wikipedia's policies to support their campaign by making specious and duplicitous arguments against any edits which did not suit Wifione's preferred narrative.

In addition, extensive evidence was presented during the case, backed up by analysis from Jayen466 in the workshop, that Wifione was likely a reincarnation of an editor who was blocked for extensive sock-puppetry in 2008, after abusing dozens of accounts to conduct a similar campaign over a period of several years which included threatening editors who persistently challenged the abuse. Arbitrators were sufficiently satisfied by the evidence of sock-puppetry that they passed (by a majority of ten to two) a finding of fact stating that Wifione was likely a sock-puppet, and thus that the account was created in violation of a block.

The proposed decision was posted on 9 February and it quickly became apparent that Wifione was to be stripped of their administrator status and banned. Nonetheless, implementation of the decision was delayed by a variety of factors: arbitrators struggled to agree on the exact scope of a topic ban that would run concurrently with the siteban (and would continue in the event that the siteban was lifted); Wifione resigned their administrator tools, leading arbitrators to embark on an exercise of dubious usefulness by crafting a new remedy to state that the soon-to-be-banned Wifione would be ineligible for automatic restoration of admin tools (the tools are normally returned as a matter of course when an admin voluntarily resigns unless they do so "under a cloud" as Wifione did); and the talk page became bogged down in a lengthy discussion of whether paid editing (of which Wifione was not accused) was against Wikipedia policy.

The case was eventually closed on 13 February, shortly after publication of last week's Signpost, with the result that Wifione may regain administrator tools only after a new RfA, is subject to a broad topic ban, and is banned from the English Wikipedia for a period of not less than one year.

Several editors remarked that it was a matter of deep concern that Wifione was able to fool the community for so long, and questioned the effectiveness of processes like requests for adminship. There has been much discussion over the years of increasingly unattainable standards for prospective administrators, including questions about whether these standards are responsible for the dearth of new administrators (the number of editors to pass an RfA has been in decline for several years). This case, though, raised questions (commented on on the proposed decision talk page) about whether RfA was focused too heavily on arbitrary statistics and was failing to thoroughly vet candidates for what is a position of great trust—especially in the light of another concern raised during the case, which is the difficulty of removing an administrator, even one whose editing has been fundamentally at odds with Wikipedia's mission. Although this case was resolved relatively quickly by modern standards, it still took six weeks from start to finish, while serious questions had been lingering over Wifione's editing since at least the end of 2013, and concerns had been raised in various fora on several occasions from early in Wifione's editing career. A proposed finding of fact to that extent in the workshop attracted comments from multiple arbitrators and other editors—several of whom observed the failure of these discussions to get to the bottom of the issues and their tendency to produce more heat than light.

Before the dust from the case could settle, an amendment request was filed by Smallbones—a result of the paid-editing discussion on the proposed decision talk page. The request asks the committee to rescind or alter principle 6, which states that the committee "has no mandate to sanction editors for paid editing as it is not prohibited by site policies". The filer and others believe the principle to be inaccurate as editors who receive remuneration for their contributions are required to disclose their potential conflict of interest in order to comply with the Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use, which were changed in June 2014. Others suggest that ToU enforcement is a job for foundation staff rather than volunteer editors, that the limits and enforcement mechanisms are undefined, and that proving paid editing would be difficult to do without violating the "outing" section of Wikipedia's Harassment policy. Arbitrator GorillaWarfare proposed a motion to strike the principle, which at the time of writing is supported by two arbitrators and opposed by four, with one abstention.

Other cases

At the time of writing, the workshop phase of this case was set to conclude shortly. Five editors have made proposals for consideration, including—somewhat unusually—the drafting arbitrator, Dougweller, who proposes remedies against four editors and the authorisation of standard discretionary sanctions for the topic area. The proposed decision is due on 25 February, and the arbitration report in a fortnight's time will cover the case in more detail.

Infoboxes

The evidence phase in this expedited case to review the restriction on Pigsonthewing (themselves the result of 2013's Infoboxes case) closed this week with 19 editors presenting evidence (full disclosure: including the author). As of last update from drafting arbitrator Courcelles, a proposed decision was almost ready for posting publicly and was expected to be posted shortly after press time, although—in the absence of a workshop for this lightweight review—several editors have been presenting analysis of each other's evidence on the proposed decision talk page. This will also be covered in more detail in a fortnight's time, after the proposed decision has been published.

Other business

  • An amendment request under the Interactions at GGTF case filed by Lightbreather, requesting an interaction ban between herself and Hell in a Bucket, was declined by motion after a fortnight's discussion involving 30 statements and much squabbling left the committee deadlocked.
  • A motion to ban Two kinds of pork for a topic-ban violation failed, some arbitrators feeling that the one-month block imposed by an administrator was sufficient and some feeling that the motion was out of process.
  • A clarification request concerning a block, arguably improperly imposed under the Eastern Europe discretionary sanctions, has closed. The committee passed a motion leaving the block in place but removing arbitration enforcement provisions.
  • An amendment request against Arzel, referred to the committee from AE, resulted in Arzel being topic-banned from the American politics subject area.
  • GamerGate continues to plague the committee, with two requests at ARCA this week alone. A request for community sanctions (since vacated) against an editor not named in the original case to be noted was opened, but arbitrators are almost unanimous in declining it, and in recommending that the matter be taken to Arbitration Enforcement if necessary. The second, referring to the interpretation of the biographies of living persons policy and its application on talk pages, but leading to much discussion about exemptions to GamerGate topic bans, was declined earlier this week.

Next week...

This column in next week's Signpost will be dedicated to the first in what the author hopes will be a series of interviews with current and former arbitrators, starting with veteran arbitrator Newyorkbrad who recently retired from the committee after seven years' service.

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