Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Stevertigo

Text of Request for arbitration: /text.

• I do not understand the ArbCom's decision. It affirmed 2 principles, made 2 findings of fact, and provided one remedy.
  1. It affirmed the principle that "Wikipedia:Administrators are trusted members of the community who... are held to high standards. If [their admin powers] are abused an administrator may be removed from that status, or a lesser penalty may be imposed..."
  2. It then found that Steve had committed the following serious violations: he "violated the Wikipedia:Three revert rule", he "edited a protected page to conform to his version", he used administrative power "to unblock himself a number of times", and he "blocked one of the administrators who was blocking him".
  3. However, despite finding these facts, it did not seem to apply the principle it itself affirmed as applicable:"...If use of those commands are abused an administrator may be removed from that status, or a lesser penalty may be imposed..." Here, admin status was not removed, nor was any lesser penalty imposed. What was done, on the contrary, was to require the community to determine the soundness of one possible penalty, desysoping.

     We have an ArbCom to help the community

     • make determinations of fact,
     • determine applicable principles, and
     • provide a remedy by applying principles to findings of fact.

       I think it has done a good job on the first two, but not the last. I am also slightly puzzled by this because it seems to me that the facts in this case were not particularly difficult to determine; the problems were restricted to one article at one particular time period and involved a handful of users—a look at the diffs and block log should have clarified what had happened reasonably quickly. The true value of the ArbCom, and the reason why we require its members to be users with excellent judgement and experience, lies in its ability to use the facts available to it to provide a just and constructive remedy. The final step is important, and should not be (essentially) turfed.

  4. The turf itself appears problematic. Steve is currently sysoped—the current RfA was set up to determine if he should be de-sysoped. But the community does not have the prerogative to do this: we can ask for privileges to be bestowed, we do not remove them. That can only be done "either at the decree of Jimbo Wales or by a ruling of the Arbitration Committee", to quote the document the ArbCom found to be applicable in this case. The ArbCom should decide if Steve should retain his sysop status, or lose it. Not us. encephalon 15:30, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I propose that the ArbCom pass a remedy to de-sysop Stevertigo and allow him to reapply through a normal RfA at any time. This seems like the simplest and fairest remedy, as well as the one that has the most support from the community. Carbonite | Talk 20:15, 30 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Does remanded back mean "reopening the case" or "refiling/retrying the case?" A clean slate might make things easier to deal with, and any old paperwork (there isnt much) can be referenced. Nevermind -- have a great Halloween everybody. -St|eve 00:47, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]