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so this is all my fault now

I see Fred has now posted here, attempting to blame this entire affair on me. A couple of points about that:

  • Fred is suddenly claiming that my question was actually a "demand" that was highly inappropriate. This is literally the first I'm hearing of that, he said no such thing at the time and basiclly refused to answer it.
  • However, in the meantime as discussion blew up on his question page, he did in fact answer it, which kind of deflates the claim that it was so very inappropriate.
  • He says I should have asked him privately. I don't see how that could possibly be helpful in the very public ACE process so that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
  • More to the point though, before I workshopped any findings or remedies here, I got evidence in order on the evidence page that supports my proposals. Fred has apparently elected to bypass submitting any evidence in favor of trying to blame my one question and one follow-up comment for literally everything that happened after, without so much as a diff to support his position.

As you can see from my submissions, I belive this case should only be about misuse of admin tools. As far as I can tell any limits on questions during the ACE process is not in fact within the scope of the case as the committee accepted it. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:51, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]


Bauder's workshop contributions

Is it just me, or are Fred Bauder's workshop contributions all either irrelevant to the case at hand, or otherwise almost unintelligible? He's also exhibiting the same behavior here that can be seen in his answers to questions at ACE2018 - the mantra-like repetition of "non-response responses" which neither explain anything nor move the case forward. As an ex-arbitrator who claims to have "invented" the Workshop process -- I have no idea if that's accurate or not -- I would expect his contributions to the workshop process to be more pertinent and based in logic. Had his contributions come from anyone other than a very long-term editor and ex-Arb, I would suggest that most of them be hatted as irrelevant, unhelpful, argumentative or inexplicable. Beyond My Ken (talk) 16:58, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's not just you. He is clearly trying to boomerang the case and make it about me, which I'm pretty sure is not what the committee is looking for. And he's presented all these "findings" here without presenting even one single diff or other evidence. He's not actually trying to make a case so far as I can see, and that is the same approach he took to his candidacy, so one is left wondering what the point of any of this was other than deliberately trying to destroy his adminship and any reputation he may have still had around here. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:57, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Beeblebrox, He's in search of a premise to bolster future reviews of his performance art.∯WBGconverse 17:19, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Statement by Pine

I originally added a comment to the case page because I thought that it was still open for comment. I am pinging case clerk Cameron11598 to notify him of my error and that I have moved my comment here.

I have reviewed several, but not all, of the statements on thisthe case page, and based on this reading it sounds to me like Maxim did not even attempt to use the Level I desysopping procedure before invoking IAR, and I consider that to be improper. This is not a defense of Fred's self-unblocking, and I think that Arbcom might well have supported a Level I desysopping if given the chance. I think that there is a separate and reasonable question about what a bureaucrat or steward should do if, in their judgement, the situation is so problematic that it should not wait for the Level I procedure to complete, and that is a situation that Arbcom might want to address by revising the Level I desysopping procedure. There are a number of other matters in this case which it sounds like Arbcom intends to review, which I think is good, and to facilitate a thorough review I encourage Arbcom to prioritize thoughtfulness over speed. The timeframe that is currently proposed in the motion to accept the case looks ambitious for a case of this nature, and I encourage Arbcom to not rush to conclusions if more time would be beneficial for its deliberations. --Pine✉ 00:51, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Pine I'd actually just gotten an email asking me to fix this so saved me some work :D --Cameron11598 (Talk) 01:30, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Just for clarification's sake - arbcom might well have performed a level 2 desysopping; discussion was ongoing at the time of Maxim's RFAR post. We were probably not going to perform a level 1 desysopping, because some lame stick-in-the-mud (that would be me) didn't think that someone moving material from one internal page to its talk page and then unblocking himself after being blocked over it constituted an "emergency" worth treating the way we'd treat an admin running amok with offensive images on the main page or going on a deletion spree. Opabinia regalis (talk) 08:19, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Opabinia regalis: For the sake of the curious here, is there any real fundamental difference between L1 and L2 removal of permissions? A cursory glance at both shows that they rely on initiation from a sitting arbitrator, a formation of consensus, then finally a notification to either BN or the stewards (are they even permitted to act in the event all the crats are either on holiday, at work, or in bed) for the final enactment (though with WTT being in the position of holding both hats, I suppose he could enact directly were it proper to do so thus reducing any potential lag between decision and enactment) Dax Bane 09:33, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
My take is that "L1" is for very obvious situations like compromised accounts described by OR and "L2" is for accounts going off the rails in variety of different manners. The problem is that "rules" are always ambiguously worded and people will (committee members in this case) likely disagree as according to their own interpretation of these "rules" and stalemate will be reached. People like WTT with both hats can technically initiate a bold move to break a stalemate, which has happened in the past and does help to move things forward (given that someone is willing to take responsibility), and it is not so different from what Maxim has done here although it was done without knowing what has actually been discussed.
But this should not be about what bureaucrats/stewards should do in this situation; it should be about what bureaucrats/steward should do when ArbCom does not do what they are supposed to do in this situation. Alex Shih (talk) 10:05, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the response, Alex, though I was more angling at WTT taking part in both the consensus forming process and the enactment of it (were the decision made to pull tools).
Per it should be about what bureaucrats/steward should do when ArbCom does not do what they are supposed to do in this situation, glancing at the current membership of ArbCom, it appears that there can/will be times in the day when all of them will be AFK for one reason or another (off-wiki commitments etc) - so the question I'd be asking there is "what can stewards/crats do in L1/L2-probable scenarios and there's no Arbs to start the ball rolling?" Dax Bane 11:57, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) L1 requires only 3 arbs to give consensus to get rolling, and it's pretty rare that something like that wouldn't get 3 responses fairly quickly - it's not as though the L1 discussion for Fred shut down because it wasn't responded to, it was shut down because of an objection, which is exactly how the process works. L2 situations are not time-sensitive (if they were, they'd be L1 situations), so if there's no one immediately available, it's perfectly reasonable that an L2 request will wait until an active arb responds to it - and yes, that might be several hours. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 12:11, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, as PMC says, two differences: L1 is 3 arbs concurring and no objections, and doesn't require contacting the admin first; L2 is a majority vote and does require contact first. L1 is meant for emergencies and L2 for urgent but non-emergency matters. IIRC both were written before local bureaucrats could desysop. In any case, the L1 discussion wasn't going to "win" the race in this case; my post questioning the need for an "emergency" desysopping and Maxim's IAR "emergency" desysop turn out to have occurred within three minutes of each other.
As for doing or not doing "what we're supposed to do", well, we should've answered Boing's email. Posting in the ANI thread that we were looking into the issue would've been a good idea too. Otherwise we were doing pretty much exactly what we were supposed to be doing. Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:29, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Opabinia regalis, I've no doubt that you all were deliberating upon the stuff but in absence of providing any acknowledgement or making a minimal note over AN, we did not have any reasons to believe so.
It might have been quite plausible that no arb came across the emails (everybody is a volunteer) due to RL commitments, which might have led to re-manifestations of the cycle, per Fred's own words.
Minutes before the desysop, I personally felt the complete silence from your quarters, to be quite eery and thought of mass-messaging all the arbs about the situation, over their on-wiki t/p(s) but dropped the idea. On hindsight, if anyone was editing concurrently, (I need to check that), that should have worked as a catalyst, into making some statement from your end.∯WBGconverse 17:39, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Asking for attention of clerks/arbs

Fred seems to have a habit of making tangent/indirect references to supposedly private stuff in a manner that suits him and then later claim some sort of harassment, if that is unfurled in details.

Over the mailing-list-issue, he skirted any direct reply to Beeblebrox (under the guise of confidentiality and old-quarrels) for a long span but casually mentioned the phrase not the lyrics of Blue Yodel Number 12 to Boing's question over the same locus in an extremely clever manner. Whilst, at that moment, the usage did seem like a metaphor for stuff he considered non-useful for the general editors and condescending in tone, later disclosures point that Fred's mailing-list-departure was indeed very linked to those lyrics.

Now, today, he has mentioned Iridescent's linking of the court-documents (which have been already-suppressed) and further notes ...since when is the victim of a lynching responsible for paying for the rope?.This is plainly ........ and he is taking advantage of the suppression. Please warn Fred to desist from making such irrelevant statements and de-suppress it.∯WBGconverse 17:23, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've posted there. As per my addendum to my initial statement (now on the main case page), I'll re-iterate that I did not post a link to anything that hadn't already been discussed on-wiki by Fred Bauder himself. I have no idea what "since when is the victim of a lynching responsible for paying for the rope?" or "Iridescent displayed extreme animus" is meant to insinuate; my comment in full—and the only comment, to the best of my knowledge, which I've ever made about Fred Bauder prior to this case—was in reply to Fred Bauder claiming I don't remember the details that well, and was, in full, As you don't remember the details that well, [link to initial case], [link to Supreme Court hearing regarding the case] if that helps jog your memory; this didn't violate any part of WP:OUTING, which I imagine will be his next claim, as Fred Bauder had already confirmed on-wiki that he's the "Fred Bauder" named in these reports. There does seem to be a strong pattern emerging of Fred Bauder lashing out and posting irrelevant comments at the workshop whilst refusing to provide evidence; I'm not sure if it should be actively clerked (if nothing else, it's a demonstration of a pattern of behavior) but the arbs and clerks should at least be monitoring it. ‑ Iridescent 18:36, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Iridescent:, as to the implied meaning of since ........rope, read the very last paragraph of the case, you linked to.∯WBGconverse 18:49, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Agree in entirety. And, that was a poor suppression, for a lot of reasons.∯WBGconverse 19:00, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Speaking as an oversighter, the longstanding practice has always been to suppress potentially outing material as soon as we become aware of it. If it later turns out not to be outing then it can be unsuppressed. In this case the material was very clearly potentially outing, as not everyone was aware that it been previously disclosed on-wiki (it was over a decade ago). There was a discussion about whether it should remain suppressed on the Oversight mailing list, before that reached a conclusion two arbitrators stated that it would be best to leave it suppressed for now, without prejudice, pending a final decision to be taken during the case. Thryduulf (talk) 21:28, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The suppression was done in good faith and had I not known something of the history of this specific material I might've done the same myself. As Thryduulf says it is considered a "tool of first resort" in these sort of situations as it is just as easay (often easier) to undo. We can't expect everyone to know the history of everything. But you can rest assured that arbcom is aware of it and can see it for themselves so if Fred is making specious claims they can see that as well. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:39, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I don't doubt that the initial oversighting was in good faith, but I consider leaving it oversighted—but leaving the fact that I made the edit that was oversighted visible in the logs—to be out of process and inappropriate. As WBG correctly states above, it allows Fred Bauder to insinuate that I was making genuinely inappropriate comments (and leaves people viewing the page history to infer the same conclusion); meanwhile, given that Eric Corbett's initial comments and Fred Bauder's response haven't been suppressed, it means anyone reading the Q&A page thinking "what the hell is all that about?" is going to do a Google search on Fred Bauder's name. ‑ Iridescent 23:26, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The purpose of your mud slinging! User:Fred Bauder Talk 16:48, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Kinda hard to sling mud at someone covered in it Fred... --Tarage (talk) 19:19, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I have to agree that the continued suppression of the edits at thsi point is not helping, but once Fred's attempt to make the case all about me became apparent I became a party to it so I can't personally act on it. I have made sure the team is aware of this very discussion though. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:34, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi all, I've forwarded this to clerks' mailing list to see what action should be taken. I'll post an update here when I have recieved direction from the committee. --Cameron11598 (Talk) 02:35, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for commenting, Cameron. This ball is firmly in Arbcom's court, and they have been prodded by the oversight team as well. Risker (talk) 03:08, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Passing on that this is under discussion. -- Euryalus (talk) 02:46, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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