Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-11-06/News and notes

Sjakkalle, thanks for the correction. Tony (talk) 08:56, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Philip Sandifer details in his latest blog post "Fuller Statement on my Wikipedia Banning" that the arbitrators have misstated and misrepresented many of their claims about him. The post does not mention the name of the outed subject - David Gerard (talk) 10:07, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In that case, we can link it directly? Google seems not to have it yet. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 10:30, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Google "Philip Sandifer: Writer" and you'll get the blog. Money quote:

The arbitration committee attempted to intimidate me out of reporting critically on them. They've handed out the most draconian punishment in their arsenal according to a novel new reading of a policy, and have publicly lied about my conversations with them leading up to this ban, suggesting that I refused requests on their part that never existed. They have sided with a blatantly hypocritical user who has previously spoken favourably of the importance of transparency and accountability, and who has in the past done the exact same thing I'm banned for. And they have salted the earth on Wikipedia, forbidding all linking to the "Wikipedia Goes All-In on Transphobia" article - an article that, as noted, was widely linked to by serious-minded blogs and newssites and that formed the basis of an article in the Guardian.
Given all of this, an obvious question forms: If this isn't about punishing me for criticizing the arbitration committee and censoring that criticism on Wikipedia itself, what is it about?

- David Gerard (talk) 10:43, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

How does this PROD on 7 November 2013 at Phillip Sandifer fit into the story? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:55, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Presumably Jehochman idly typed in Phil's name, found an article of questionable noteworthiness and PRODed it - David Gerard (talk) 11:05, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. That's plausible. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:13, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What makes the authors of this article think this is a "major" controversy? There are 121,345 active editors on Wikipedia -- a handful of folks complaining does not a controversy make. NE Ent 13:34, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of comments:

I was not contacted by the Signpost, but I'm happy to answer questions on this matter if asked, either here or at the arbitration noticeboard talk page. I can only speak for myself, not for my colleagues, but I may be able to clear up any points of confusion.
As one of the arbitrators opposing these actions, I made these comments at the arbitration noticeboard talk page. I'm linking them here for the benefit of readers of this Signpost article.
The point about the external links to Sandifer's blog post on the English Wikipedia being removed needs clarification. It is possible to track where such links are being used by using Special:LinkSearch. An example is the results for www.philipsandifer.com. Monitoring those results over the course of a few days formed part of my judgement that this matter was not making a big impact on Wikipedia in the sense that it was not being linked to from many places (though it may have been a topic of off-wiki discussion).
It was suggested during the ArbCom deliberations (on the mailing list) that the links in question would need to be removed. I argued against this, saying that heavy-handed removal of such links can have a chilling effect on discussion. The links have now been removed, but as far as I can tell were not removed until after the desysop and site ban motions were published on 6 November.
We received an e-mail from an uninvolved editor on 7 November pointing out one of the links (on User talk:Montanabw). You can see the subsequent discussion between Montanabw and AGK (an arbitrator) following the question left here.
Another place that I'm aware of where the link was used (and later removed, by AGK on 7 November) was at Wikipedia:WikipediaWeekly/Episode104. For the record, User:Fuzheado (who organises the WikipediaWeekly podcasts) is Andrew Lih and the co-author of this Signpost article.
Two further places where the links occurred and were removed (not by an arbitrator, but as far as I can tell independently, both on 7 November by administrator Bilby) were at two user pages in retirement statements: User:JJARichardson and User:Stealth Munchkin. Update: I missed one, it was also added and removed from User:Vexorian. 00:42, 10 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know, those were the only places the blog post in question was linked from. I would not normally go into this much detail, but I think it is important that it is a matter of public record which pages these links were on, how many links there were, and what actions were taken in respect to them, by whom, and when. If any Signpost writers, editors or readers have any questions on this or other matters relating to this story, I would be happy to comment further if needed. Carcharoth (talk) 14:42, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if it is particularly important, but just to clarify my role in the above, I removed the links based on my understanding of the policies governing harassment, outing and external links, on the assumption that if the blog post was deemed serious enough to warrant a ban and desysop, then it would fall under those policies (given that I also did my own digging into the issue, and I considered events around previous occasions of linking to alleged outing). This was completely independent of ArbCom. I've been keeping a very close eye on the discussions regarding the decision before and since, in case a consensus emerges that the blog post ins't a problem - if such does happen I'll immediately revise my actions. My involvement (given that I've had nothing to do with the Chelsea Manning dispute) came as a result of looking into the issue after the ArbCom announcement, and stumbling across what I felt was a problematic link and quote from the blog post.

I hope that is of some use in clarifying things. :) - Bilby (talk) 12:25, 10 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Quick question for the Signpost people. Is there any reason why this is being referred to as an alleged outing? That it was an outing/doxing seems to me beyond dispute. ("My reasoning for outing [user] was and is simple: it's in the public interest" [Blog, 6 Nov 2013] and "Regardless, yeah, I doxed a dude" {Blog, 9 Nov 2013].) Roger Davies ^talk 15:00, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Roger, the ArbCom decision did not use the word "outing", preferring harassment, personal details, et al. Therefore, with such an amorphous concept of what constitutes "outing" and the debatable nature of whether the information constituted outing (in the Wikipedia policy sense; WP:OUTING does not tackle off-wiki content), we felt it was important to not to take a firm stance. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 15:41, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Ed. Thanks for the comments. First, outing is part of the harassment policy, and needs to be seen in that perspective. Our policy's definition of outing is not vague at all and linking the legal name (which is more or less disclosed) to an employer name (which hasn't been) and a precise workplace (which is also undisclosed) is clearly covered. Publication on an external site is covered by the another section of the policy. The combination protects editors from being outed or worse off-wiki (someone lately announced a scheme to publish people's social security numbers) and that stuff ending up on wiki, because it was published on the internet. So, sensibly, policy says that if the material has been disclosed or linked to on-wiki by the potential outee, then it's not outing. However, in this instance, the publisher has unambiguously acknowledged that they outed and doxed someone so I'm not seeing where the problem in saying so lies. This is a very important point: the defence is purely that it was in the public interest to out/dox. Roger Davies ^talk 16:16, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Roger - I feel like I may wind up regretting asking this question, but would you consider this to represent a similar violation of WP:OUTING? Kevin Gorman (talk) 19:39, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how this is even worth so much attention. It's a very straightforward case, and I think the reaction to it hardly qualifies as a controversy. There are always plenty of people getting banned for violating policy, and in many cases there is a serious controversy to report. Everyking (talk) 16:56, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know anyone involved in this case, and I was not even aware of it, but this sounds like an important issue, because, even though Sandifer's disclosures off-wiki were (1) bad behaviour (and he should have been willing, at least, to remove the most private ones about location, etc.) and (2) he should be held to a high standard because he is an admin, I think that the remedy applied was too severe. It would seem that a topic ban would be a more appropriate remedy. We don't have such a thriving editor community that we can kick productive editors off the site entirely when their bad behavior pertains to one topic area. It seems like a bad precedent to set. -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:25, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Over the past four years, Phil has made about 290 edits. Of these, 193 were about Chelsea Manning; so that's less than 25/year about everything else. In contrast, the editor that Phil brags about outing "in the public interest" has written 30+ featured articles. Roger Davies ^talk 19:09, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So far in 2013, Cla68 (the subject of this news story) has made precisely 118 content edits to wikipedia - David Gerard (talk) 19:34, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think a more significant metric would be how many malicious outings occurred on sites that Phil is a global moderator on, vs sites that Cla68 is a global moderator on. Kevin Gorman (talk) 19:39, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting stat, David Gerard, surprisingly low, but I think fewer main space edits is more a sign that an editor has been on Wikipedia a long time and does a lot of admin work. I was more surprised that this outing information wasn't already present on his user page as Cla68 does reveal more details about himself there than I would ever be comfortable with. But, from what I've read, ARBCOM did a search to see if this specific information had been shared and found it hadn't been. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:44, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is a factually incorrect claim on their part; I've seen the edits, they're still public. I sent Ed a list of links for this article. And the arbcom has also claimed Phil used private information, but that's just casual defamation (which is an unfortunate thing for the arbcom to be getting back into when challenged) because a fairly trivial web search shows it to have been completely unnecessary. (I was particularly struck by the publication from his employer that showed on page one of Google for me.) - David Gerard (talk) 22:10, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This Arbcom seems especially capricious and prone to questionable decisions. I too hope for a massive turnover, followed up by all the hideously bad decisions they've made this year being thrown out. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 23:49, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think CLA was "outed" at all, actually, although I must confess taking a certain perverse satisfaction in watching a POV warrior go down in flames. Carrite (talk) 01:01, 10 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As much as I don't approve of doxing at all (even in this case, where I agree with 99% of what else Phil said), I note that senior WMF staff have shared a link to the blog article in question on Facebook. Using this same logic, should they also be banned or sanctioned for outing the user on a third-party website? Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 02:17, 10 November 2013 (UTC).[reply]

Perhaps they can use that made-up offence of "conduct unbecoming a staff member" again. 'Cos the arbcom actually trying to get Foundation staff fired for daring to defy them was such a good idea last time David Gerard (talk) 08:32, 10 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that is a harsh sentence, given that Phil only posted information off-wiki. Epicgenius^{(give him tirade • check out damage)} 15:05, 11 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

While I was surprised by the ban, I think Phil was wrong to post location details, and said so in his blog comments last week. – SJ + 09:15, 13 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Challenging Arbcom's authority"[edit]

Yeah, pretty much. We've seen evidence of Arbcom blocking before just because they didn't like that someone didn't kowtow to them. Also, Cla's identity was a secret? After he published it all over the place and linked to it multiple times on wiki? If you say so.

Meanwhile, i'll just leave these links here to these news articles (Link 1) (Link 2). You know, if anyone wants to read them and all. Public information and all that. Silver seren^C 19:48, 10 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think "news articles" is a good description for what's found on The Register. --Chriswaterguy talk 05:41, 12 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Silver seren: Cla's identity – or at least the very personal information published, and now removed, by Phil – was a secret. Contributors have a right not to have the location of their home strewn across the internet. AGK [•] 23:14, 12 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Which means that, if someone can be blocked for doing something like this on their personal blog, not anywhere connected to Wikipedia, then that means we can ban anyone else involved in such outing on sites like Wikipediocracy, correct? So I should expect you to get to banning any contributor to Wikipediocracy that is directly involved in outing a Wikipedia editor on that site, right? Good to know. I'll make sure to cite the Arbcom ruling in any future instances of off-wiki outing. It should be possible to get quite a few people banned with that. Silver seren^C 00:40, 13 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Phil's post-facto self-censorship of his blog post is quite duplicitous and is clearly meant to mislead people reading about his ban. Shii (tock) 18:51, 13 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Shii:, you don't see that as him acknowledging that he made a mistake? – SJ + 01:48, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I would if he sounded more apologetic. Shii (tock) 06:10, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]