Arbitration case pages exist to assist the Arbitration Committee in arriving at fair, well-informed decisions. This page is not designed for the submission of general reflections on the arbitration process, Wikipedia in general, or other irrelevant and broad issues; and if you submit such content to this page, please expect it to be ignored or removed. General discussion of the case may be opened on the talk page. You must focus on the issues that are important to the dispute and submit diffs which illustrate the nature of the dispute or will be useful to the committee in its deliberations.
Submitting evidence
Any editor may add evidence to this page, irrespective of whether they are involved in the dispute.
You must submit evidence in your own section, using the prescribed format.
Editors who change other users' evidence may be blocked or sanctioned by arbitrators or clerks without warning; if you have a concern with or objection to another user's evidence, contact the arbitration clerks by e-mail or on the talk page.
Word and diff limits
The standard limits for all evidence submissions are: 1000 words and 100 diffs for users who are parties to this case; or about 500 words and 50 diffs for other users. Detailed but succinct submissions are more useful to the committee.
If you wish to exceed the prescribed limits on evidence length, you must obtain the written consent of an arbitrator before doing so; you may ask for this on the Evidence talk page.
Evidence that exceeds the prescribed limits without permission, or that contains inappropriate material or diffs, may be refactored, redacted or removed by a clerk or arbitrator without warning.
Supporting assertions with evidence
Evidence must include links to the actual page diff in question, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are inadequate. Never link to a page history, an editor's contributions, or a log for all actions of an editor (as those change over time), although a link to a log for a specific article or a specific block log is acceptable.
Please make sure any page section links are permanent, and read the simple diff and link guide if you are not sure how to create a page diff.
Rebuttals
The Arbitration Committee expects you to make rebuttals of other evidence submissions in your own section, and for such rebuttals to explain how or why the evidence in question is incorrect; do not engage in tit-for-tat on this page.
Analysis of evidence should occur on the /Workshop page, which is open for comment by parties, arbitrators, and others.
Expected standards of behavior
You are required to act with appropriate decorum during this case. While grievances must often be aired during a case, you are expected to air them without being incivil or engaging in personal attacks, and to respond calmly to allegations against you.
Accusations of misbehaviour posted in this case must be proven with clear evidence (and otherwise not made at all).
Consequences of inappropriate behavior
Editors who conduct themselves inappropriately during a case may be sanctioned by an arbitrator or clerk, without warning.
Sanctions issued by arbitrators or clerks may include being banned from particular case pages or from further participation in the case.
Editors who ignore sanctions issued by arbitrators or clerks may be blocked from editing.
Behavior during a case may also be considered by the committee in arriving at a final decision.
Special:Block/Fred Bauder is all you need to establish this. On November 11 Fred was blocked. Twelve minutes later he unblocked himself. Another twelve minutes passed before the block was re-instated by a second admin with the block summary "Reblocking; unblocking yourself is clear admin abuse per WP:NEVERUNBLOCK" thus clearly informing Fred of the policy in the extremely unlikely case that he somehow was not aware of it. EDIT: Fred clearly ws very aware of this, per [1] Three minutes later he unblocked himself a second time, and ten minutes after that a third administrator blocked him.
Arbcom has in the past maintained that the correctness of the initial block is irelevant and the blocking policy upholds this position:"Unblocking will almost never be acceptable:When it would constitute wheel warring. To unblock one's own account, except in the case of self-imposed blocks. ...Each of these may lead to sanctions for misuse of administrative tools—possibly including desysopping—even for first-time incidents.". The second unblock is particularly egregious as it is clearly wheel warring, which is always to be avoided. Fred, as a highly experienced Wikipedian and former arbitrator himself, should have been fully aware of the relevant policies. His frustration with the barrage of questions and other activities on his questions page is understandable, but his response when his actions were challenged was not.
(I personally do not belive the scope of the case should go beyond this and would have preferred a simple motion for desysop. The possibility that one or more of the other admins involved here violated WP:INVOLVED does not change the easily established facts presented above and does not in and of itself merit a full case unless there is evidence of an ongoing pattern of violating the involved admin policy.)
Beeblebrox (talk) 22:06, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Maxim's desysop
Within ten minutes of posting at ANI [2] that he had removed Fred's admin privileges, Maxim duly reported his action to the committee [3] for their review.
I have provided links to past policy discussions regarding emergency de-sysopping by bureaucrats, and my findings regarding the history of such actions, at WP:BN. Since the page is periodically archived, I also offer this permalink.
Tenure, good faith, quantity, and quality of contributions by participants
The committee is no doubt aware that Fred Bauder (talk·contribs) and Maxim (talk·contribs) each have made extensive contributions to Wikipedia, are passionate in their good-faith efforts to further the goals of the project, and have extensive contribution histories spanning over ten years, that show their lengthy and ongoing commitment to Wikipedia.
Administrators not self-unblocking (broadly with the exception of reversion their own blocks, usually accidental) has a very bright line in the sand for at least a dozen years---see 2006 ANI thread and related 2007 Husnock case principle
It is downright bizarre and unusual to have a situation where Admin A blocks Admin B for cause and Admin B self-unblocks. It's not common for admins to be blocked but it is not unknown to happen. Yet it is next to unheard of for the admin to self-unblocks. The expectation is so profoundly clear that I can think of one similar case since 2006 (outside of vandal sprees), namely Tanthalas39 which resulted in emergency desysop
One way of summarizing the existing situation is that there isn't quite clear consensus on any part of the matter, especially as it comes to where to draw a line in the sand
What I would note with regards to UninvitedCommpany's comments is that bureaucrats are best described as conservative. Maybe to a fault. There is a tendency to not act outside very clearly defined norms.
For compromised/rogue accounts, Ajraddatz notes that the course of action is to lock the SUL account (bureaucrats do not have the technical means to do this)
Gaps in established procedure and practice: a synthesis
There's no established response to admins self-unblocking... because it happens once or twice a decade. It's a bizarre edge case.
If Fred Bauder had unblocked himself a third time, another admin would reblocked. And so on and so forth. Note that his arbitration statement clearly indicates that he "might have unblocked [him]self again". One would usually call this a wheel war from all sides but I believe no one has yet said that reblocking admins were wheel-warring. The reason for that is that the community norm regarding self-unblocks utterly and completely trumps that.
In an edit war, you can block the parties (or protect the page, as appropriate). In such a situation, blocking one or multiple parties doesn't work because the block doesn't stick.
It's unhealthy for the community as a whole to have such warring persist or lay in stasis.
Evidence presented by wbm1058
Uncharted territory
Wikipedia:Former administrators/reason/for cause shows only three former incidents of Arbitration Committee-confirmed desysopping due to "war". Two of these were by Jimmy Wales, who historically has used "founder" privileges
The block which triggered the "wheel war" unblock was by Prodego with an expiration time of 31 hours (account creation blocked) for Personal attacks or harassment: on User talk:Malleus Fatuorum and User talk:Tanthalas39.
Unless the Prodego block was a WP:INVOLVED action, I think we're in unprecedented territory, and whatever decision the Committee makes will set a new precedent.
I'd argue that personal attacks or harassment are a more severe violation than attempting to moderate an election Q&A page, but then, "context matters" there, I suppose. – wbm1058 (talk) 00:53, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
! Per Prodego's block log, he was blocked for 31 hours (violation of WP:POINT)
Fred Bauder did not issue any retaliatory blocks! So, clearly this case does not present any sort of precedent that might be followed here. – wbm1058 (talk) 04:30, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
However, as enwiki does have emergency removal procedures from ArbCom (unlike most other wikis where it would take a 7 day procedure to remove an administrator by community vote), I do not think a steward would have taken action if the request was presented to them 2-3 hours after the fact. Stewards are advised to act cautiously on enwiki and (especially) dewiki, because they are the largest wikis and a mistake there could offend enough editors to cause their annual confirmation to fail. --Rschen775418:31, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Evidence presented by {your user name}
before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person
{Write your assertion here}
Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.
{Write your assertion here}
Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.