Guild Wars Wiki:Arbitration committee/2008-04-06-User:J.Kougar

This request for arbitration is being filed after attempts to resolve it in discussion with the Bureaucrat User:Aiiane have apparently gone ignored for the past few days, and are still unresolved.

Issue at Hand
User:J.Kougar posted several messages on User:Gaile Gray's talk page, which were speedily archived by Gaile and labeled as personal attack. Meanwhile, several users and admins posted on J.Kougar's talk page, asking him to stop posting on Gaile Gray's talk page, starting after the first post. A not always civil debate on J.Kougar's talk page followed, with both J.Kougar and several other users, including bureaucrat User:Aiiane, being accused of NPA violations.

At 05:45, 1 April 2008 User:Ab.er.rant banned J.Kougar (1st ban) with "You can't help but throw in that little NPA can you?" given as the reason. J.Kougar started using IP accounts to continue further editing, refusing to "cooperate" in his ban and questioning the validity of his ban, as well as continueing the discussion about the initial posts on Gaile Gray's talk page.

At 08:37, 1 April 2008 User:Tanetris extended the ban from 2 days to 1 week with the following reason given on J.Kougars talk page: "Without sorting out specifically what's before and what's after your ban, I note you referring to Gaile as a coward (NPA), referring to Shadowphoenix as pathetic (NPA), ignoring the requests of two admins to back off, various threatening to, and following through on, evading any ban, being a generally condescending troll, and discussing things on the Admin Noticeboard despite the floating red warning box. For these reasons, and because this has been a problem before, I'm extending your ban from 2 days to 1 week."

The request for arbitration was filed by User:Sabastian, requesting that J.Kougar's bans be reviewed, that Aiiane's behavior as bureaucrat be reviewed and accusing User:Shadowphoenix of harrassment of J.Kougar.

Decision about accepting the case for arbitration

 * Accept. This issue has caused significant disruption in the day-to-day operations of the wiki, and discussions amongst every user even moderately involved have entirely failed to resolve the issue. &mdash;Tanaric 05:45, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Abstain. Both due to potential conflict of interest issues, and because I do not wish any undue distraction that might arise from involved parties in this case. [[Image:User Aiiane-a.gif|Go to Aiiane's Talk page]] (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 06:20, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Accept. Normal sysop action has failed to resolve this issue. --Xeeron 13:14, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Current status
ArbComm has accepted and resolved this case. On-wiki deliberation/discussion can be found here. The final ruling can be found at the bottom of this page.

Related injunctions
This arbitration case is J.Kougar's only right to appeal his block. He does not currently have the right to edit the wiki, regardless of how he feels about the block. Until this case is resolved, the block must stand. Because J.Kougar has so flagrantly avoided this block, I hereby issue this preliminary injunction:

Edits performed by J.Kougar anywhere but the talk page for this request, from any IP address or any arbitrary account name, from the date and time of this injunction forward, must be immediately reverted by any willing sysop. Edits performed by User:Sabastian that claim to be messages from User:J.Kougar anywhere but the talk page for this request, from the date and time of this injunction forward, must be immediately reverted by any willing sysop. All edits that respond to edits prohibited by this injunction must be immediately reverted by any willing sysop. Because the enforcement of this injunction requires a level of discretion, non-sysop users should not act to enforce this injunction. User:J.Kougar is forewarned that any and all violations of this injunction will reflect poorly upon him during this arbitration, which will not necessarily be limited to his dispute with User:Aiiane.

This injunction will be repealed upon the termination of this arbitration, though it may conceivably be replaced with a similar ArbComm resolution.

&mdash;Tanaric 05:55, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

(Edited to reflect Xeeron's request that J.Kougar be allowed to participate on this talk page: 07:40, 7 April 2008 (UTC))

The issue of bans against J.Kougar
J.Kougar was banned twice, details can be seen above. While the first ban was probably more harsh than many other sysop actions, it was not absolutely outlandish. Since we have different, human, sysops, there will always be a degree of variance in sysop actions. That has to be accepted.

The second ban gave several reasons. Most discussion has centered on the reason referring to Shadowphoenix as pathetic (NPA). However, even if one disregards this reason as invalid, there are several others, most notably various threatening to, and following through on, evading any ban. For circumvention of a ban by using multiple proxies alone, an extension of 5 days is quite lenient - the ban was fully justified.

The issue of sysop behavior
Several sysops did behave less than perfectly during the incident. Aberrant's not fully clear reasoning for the first ban as well as Aiiane's at least quite heated/rude response towards J.Kougar played a part in escalating the situation. While sysops are only human and as such make errors, it would be wise to take two lessons away from this:


 * Sysops should take care to be clear about the reasons for their actions, especially blocks.
 * Everyone (sysops and normal users) should keep in mind that rude behavior and NPA violations by other do not justify the same behavior in response. Apart from not being justified, this case is a perfect example showing that it is not helping the issue either.

Double standards
There has been the accusation of "double standards", sysops acting more harsh towards some users and less harsh towards others. It is important to note that some variance in sysop behavior is inevitable. As such, varying sysop behavior is not a justification for evasion of bans (check here for a longer explanation). That being said, all sysops and the wiki as a whole should strive to make administrative action as neutral as possible. Any sysop acting consistently biased towards/against some users would present a grave problem for us (and would be a case for a reconfirmation or arbitration).

Ruling
Because of J.Kougar's stated willingness to bypass blocks, if he should ever do so again, he is to be immediately and permanently banned. In such a case, all his edits, and all edits carried out by proxy, must be immediately reverted by any willing sysop. Further, in such a case, all responses to his talk page edits, by any party, must be immediately reverted by any willing sysop.

Due to J.Kougar's repeated trolling, sysops are encouraged to be wary of J.Kougar posting on other users' talk pages. Any post which is generally inflammatory -- to any user, not just the user whose talk page the comment is posted on -- is grounds for an immediate block of no less than a week. Further blocks related to this ruling must be at least one MediaWiki default block length longer than the last one. If repeated blocks of this nature lead to a permanent ban, it should be enforced in the same manner as the case above.