I believe I was yelled higher up in this very thread for saying the same thing.

That was certainly my understanding. But when you see a lawyer with recognized expertise in, as he put it, "the law of online communities" imply otherwise, it stirs up some doubt.

You know... looking past the particular personalities involved - this could be a step in... well, I won't say the right direction, but if it leads to either actual standards of fairness, or more likely at least an inability to silence other people's demands to be treated fairly, this could be something positive.

This is of course, if such a step is actually taken, rather than expediently used to save David Gerard and then ignored in the future.

and Gerard was the one who wanted things to be done in public (if you remember his now oversighted talk page). The arbcom tried to talk to him and get him to resign quietly.

So he wants things done in public, doesn't like the outcome, whines to Godwin, and everything is covered up.

Yes, it's certainly possible that this could lead to more responsible dispute resolution practices in Wikipedia, but at this point it seems just as likely just to lead to equally arbitrary, but more opaque, practices. Only time will tell.

If nothing else it should at least be entertaining. Looks like ChrisO is trying to start yet another "let's recall the whole Arbcom" movement that will get nowhere.

This is probably one of the general strengths of the jury trial system. If defendants knew exactly why a jury had convicted them, there would be endless appeals of "they weighed the wrong facts," "they missed this important thing," etc. Leaving it as a black box from which a decision pops out does have some advantages to finality.

Except for the part where the judge's instructions are then picked apart and appealed on the most spurious grounds. The problem's exacerbated up here by the fact that we have so few jury trials, so judges don't have much experience with instruction.

Just exactly how stupid is this guy. Checkuser and Functionary list membership are not a 'rights' afforded by a court of law. Giving or taking them is not a legal thing that requires 'due-process' or 'evidentiary standards' in the way that Godwin has implied. Godwin himself is barely a member of the community. How many featured articles has he written? (considering he's acting outside of his role as legal council).

On the one hand, Godwin is causing text and links to be censored that show Gerard not reaching the level of decorum expected of checkusers and functionaries, while on the other he's demanding 'due-process' with 'evidentiary standards' for what? ... to show that Gerard fails to reach the level of decorum expected of checkusers and functionaries.

Unfucking believable

So we've got:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Audit_Subcommittee
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard#John.27s_resignation
• this thread
• the other thread

Anywhere else?

One wonders if anyone involved in this entire process has ever read §61 of Robert's Rules. The editors of that august work set out several good arguments why public disciplinary proceedings for members of a voluntary organization might not be a good idea. Wikipedia's dispute resolution process manages to breach every one of the recommendations made therein.

The problem is not lack of process, the problem is the quazi-legal rubbish that James Forrester bequeathed to arbcom. Tools are not rights, and the motion should not worry about facts and findings, it should simply be:

"given recent events, we the members of the arbitration committee no longer have confidence in David's Gerard holding these tools. Since we grant them, we therefor remove them"

That says nothing about David Gerard, makes no "findings" but simply asserts that holding the tools is determined by retaining the (wholy subjective) confidence of the community-elected elected arbcom.

James is not wholly responsible for that travesty; Fred Bauder also has a lot to do with it. Both of them (and several other former arbs) saw their service on the committee as an opportunity to Play Judge, and kitted the entire experience out with the trappings of a court of law, while at the same time denying any of the actual protections that one expects in such an environment.

I argued, both while on the committee and after leaving it, that the committee should resolve most matters before it on summary motion, without detail, sparing the "full monty" for cases that truly demanded it. However, the legal wonks enjoyed their game, and were loath to give it up.

§61 of RONR urges that disciplinary issues be investigated confidentially, and that the assembly refrain from making public statements that might prejudice or defame persons suspected or accused of malfeasance, even after the assembly is satisfied that malfeasance has occurred. The disciplinary body of a voluntary organization should publicly comment on its investigations of a member only in order to respond to the statements of that member, and only to the degree necessary to do so; to do otherwise opens the members of the disciplinary committee (or the members of the organization as a whole) to liability without providing any benefit to the organization or to the members thereof.

Once again, we have a case of Wikipedia ignoring the sage wisdom of those who came before because of their vain belief that they are, in all matters, sui generis.

Yes.

That sounds like very good advice.

The arbcom did ok on the first half, considering the matter in private, but erred on the second half, making a public announcement. The problem is that's how Wikipedia runs; when the arbcom takes action they generally announce it - and the community demands as much. When someone gets blocked, a reason is generally given. I object to Gerard getting special treatment on this matter, especially after all the personal insults he's spewed over the years on the world's biggest reference site.

That probably would have been the cleanest finding. It is interesting that I recall under New York law, there is an obscure provision known as an Article 78 proceeding that, in part, states the decision of a body can be reviewed by a state court if it makes a:

Now, in NY, I'm told that 90% of the time these proceedings are brought against government agencies, but the other 10% of the time they are brought against private organizations, which in NY also includes unincorporated groups of more than 5 or 12 people who act with a common purpose (I don't have the exact language handy). I don't know what the laws of Florida, California, or the UK have to say about "arbitrary" actions, but it does seem odd that Mike would use a phrase that is a legal term of art in describing Arbcom's actions.

Most likely because this AC committee was the one that sacked him.

Yes, if you see my post right above, at least in NY, that is why RONR suggest such methods to avoid liability for defamation, since it probably exists even in a situation as informal as arbcom.

Revenge: best served cold.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=253892048

Delicious.

I don't follow - who are you saying is getting revenge on whom?

I believe that Mr. Godwin just opened one hell of a pandora's box.

Peter is rummaging through his own personal luggage. The link is to a discussion from a year ago when Giano discovered David Gerard had oversighted an edit of FT2's on grounds of...well, on grounds of DG thinking it ought to go away. Kerflufle errupts much later, but fails to gain much steam on-wiki, since oversighting was new, not everybody knew how to use it right, DG meant well, etc., etc.

If David Gerard was going to lose oversight privileges, that would have been a good precedent...but he didn't. No audit committee existed yet, and as Thatcher points out in that link, not much thought had ever been given to how one might audit oversighting activity. In fact, I'd say it's that event plus Thatcher's persistence that eventually made the audit subcommittee a reality, but I digress.

I believe Peter's saying this is his revenge, for all the muck he tried to rake back then failing to gain sufficient attention. For more on his side of things, look here - since most of the topics there are from him.

Doesn't revenge require some involvement on the part of the avenging party? I thought maybe Peter was saying that he'd somehow caused this turn of events, maybe by tipping off ArbCom to the blog post.

Anyway, that's a dumb semantic debate, and I apologize for starting it. Back to dumb governance debates!

Wikipedia:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard#David_Gerard:_statement_by_ArbCom

Someone might want to webcite this and the resulting discussion!

They don't mention that they've taken away his Checkuser and Oversight bits? Looks like I can't read.

Does anyone have any idea what the "potentially libellous information" could have been?

Oh this is just too much. Gerard uses his position as checkuser, along with printing a private email on his blog, to ridicule someone. And when called on it, goes into slash and censor mode, demanding that any review of his actions be removed, because pointing his childish behavior, which was clearly harmful, might cause him harm. This is hypocracy^2 - you just can't make this shit up.

Um, yes, they do. And they quite explicitly state (contrary to Cade Metz's report) that their decision to do so stands.

He objected to the specific language of the announcement, which was more strongly worded than was perhaps appropriate.

So here's a question - we know Wikileaker was on arbcom-l until former Arbs were kicked off. Doesn't that mean that unless he's Raul or Jayjg, which he presumably is not, he's now on functionaries-l? Does this fact have any kind of chilling effect on what goes out over that list? I gather from Metz's article that it doesn't. Should it?

Oh yes, after calling someone a "waste of skin". What a fucking hypocritical crybaby.

I don't think "waste of skin" could possibly be held to be defamatory. "Has abused checkuser in a manner contrary to policy", or whatever the wording was, probably could be.

(Defamation is one of the few areas of law that I understand reasonably well outside of exam time.)

It does now.

I don't recall the arbcom announcement stating that DG abused CU. I think they said he failed to live up to the level of decorum expected, or something along those lines. Of course it's all been censored now.

But just think about door that Godwin opened in demanding this oversight. By this standard, pretty much anyone with a RL identity connected to their account name who's ever been in a heated argument on wikipedia can go have wide swaths of history wiped from the project.

My recollection was that there were two parts - failing to live up to decorum and inappropriate use of the tool. But I don't have the wording in front of me, so my memory could be off.

On Gerard. For it was he who oversighted the famous edits. Actually it's only truly revenge if one is the cause of his downfall, and I can't claim that. Still, happy to dance here on a skull or two.



Very true, see above. But is anyone going to deny me my bit of pleasure? Speak up.

Anyone else remember if the announcement specifically stated that DG misused the tool? I don't recall that it did.

David demanded a full retraction and apology, or oversight, and he demanded it in a hurry because Cade Metz was sniffing around. Arbcom doesn't do "hurry" under the best of circumstances, and here there were significant disagreements about whether or not a retraction was even deserved, much less how to word it. So the comments were oversighted instead.

Perhaps if Arbcom said "we are dancing on the skull of DG for abuse of checkuser" instead of "not living up to the level of decorum" it wouldn't have been as libelous.

Are you willing and able to confirm that the decision to oversight was ArbCom's, and was neither ordered nor coerced by Mike Godwin? That's my impression, but I think ArbCom may be doing itself a disservice by not coming right out and saying it.

I don't follow the bit about Cade. Can someone explain?

Beer, beer, beer, beer, and BEER.

That is, for future reference it would be helpful if arbcom (or somebody) ever managed to figure out what level of decorum is "expected" exactly.

like pornography - you know it when you see it?

I've just opened a bottle of wine. It's not just, like, Gerard is over. It's that the whole Wiki is eating itself.

If only I had the literary powers of Victim of Censorship.

Ah yes, the WP:POTTERSTEWART standard.

Well I'm sure it can say it was not "ordered" to do so. Coercion is different from an order in that it is usually implicit and not explicit. Something like saying "I am not acting officially since I only act officially by signing X" and then immediately saying "I hope you do this thing, signed X" seems to be the implicit sort of hedging that makes coercion an unclear act.

I think your definition of "public body" is way to wide. Otherwise the relief provided by administrative law would be available to boyscout troops and daycare centers (although maybe to a provider of head start services, which is something of a public benefit and has eligibility and appeal criteria.) Think public housing boards and licensing authorities, not Wikipedia.

Right, NY has a very wide definition of public body. Much wider than one would assume is logical.

Edit: Looking up an example (hopefully).

It was mutually agreed upon by Arbcom and David, as far as I can tell. Mike acted as a broker between Arbcom and David, who had been removed from the functionaries mailing list at that point.

It's called the Seventh Avenue Definition of a Public Body.

Jon