This page will be used to organize the Clerk's Office and facilitate communication between clerks.

If a particular clerk has a serious conflict of interest regarding a user or a case it's probably a good idea if the clerk recuses from the case in favor of some other clerk. On the flipside, the subject(s) of the case should understand that no clerk would be needed at all if the evidence to the case were presented in a clear and concise manner and that they should not unduly pressure a clerk to not do their tasks.

In any case, no clerk should have anything to do with a case in which he or she is a participant, except to the extent that he or she participates as a participant. Clerks who wish to make a statement in a case, or provide evidence, must refrain from acting as a clerk with respect to that case. This does not prejudice his right to perform cosmetic refactoring of evidence and workshop pages, as is the right of any editor. In unclear situations, the head clerk or the Arbitration Committee should be consulted.

A former Arbitrator acting as a clerk is not a "participant" in any case where he or she acted as an Arbitrator.

A procedural reference for clerks (and Arbitrators) is here.

Snowspinner

Since I've been on the job for two weeks already, here's what I've already done.

• Evidence and proposed decision in Freestylefrappe
• Evidence in Effk
• Evidence in Firebug vs. RJIII

I'm sort of working on Rajput, but I really need a checkuser on that to organize evidence usefully. Phil Sandifer 17:11, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'll also take the VV appeal - it's high profile, and two sets of eyes would benefit it. Phil Sandifer 23:07, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Have done this. User:Snowspinner/Clerk/VeryVerily Phil Sandifer 20:01, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take KDRGibby and Dyslexic Agnostic (God help me). Phil Sandifer 06:48, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tznkai

I'm recused from KDRGibby, as I am presenting evidence. I'll be tackling evidence and propsed decisions in VeryVerily, and I'll pick up whatever else is dropped (except Rajput, I think thats better left to someone a bit more experianced.)--Tznkai 02:25, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Taking Tommistein and Leyasu. I'd like it if someone else took ruy lopez to avoid any possible bias from working on Apeal of VeryVerily--Tznkai 07:15, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

dropping leyasu, picking up instantnood 3

Real life obligations came up, couldn't get away. I'll be back between this friday and the coming monday, sorry about that.--Tznkai 17:43, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tony Sidaway

I'm doing some presentation work on Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Beckjord/Evidence. May give KDRGibby a bit of a go. Tempted by Rajput but I did two unprotects on that in the fall so I'll discuss it with Kelly before proceeding (though I don't think it's a recusal case myself, just want to make sure).

• Opened IronDuke and Gnetwerker (requested by Oberst von Dmcdevit)
• Closed Gibraltarian (ditto)

Would appreciate an extra set of eyes running over these two. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:07, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'll try to take a look later today. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 12:00, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I did another close. Straightforward. Some work on IronDuke and Gnetwerker. --Tony Sidaway 07:03, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Opened the Theodore7 case. The new templates work very well; I opened the case very quickly indeed. --Tony Sidaway 14:00, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ryan Delaney

Trying to figure out what is going on in Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Boothy443 and Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Zeq. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 08:44, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Johnleemk

I will handle whatever I feel like tackling, subject to time constraints and my own interest. I have been adding bits and pieces to the Leyasu, Boothy, KDRGibby, Ruy Lopez, Web Ex and Freestylefrappe cases. I prefer working in the workshop, but I've added and summarised evidence in some cases. I will not really be active until the Chinese New Year week-long holiday in Malaysia ends circa February 4. Johnleemk | Talk 10:44, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Wikipedia current clerks

Please add yourself to this category to make navigation of the clerks category easier. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 06:39, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Now that I think about it, maybe clerk's office articles should go in Category:Wikipedia Clerk's Office and user pages should go in Category:Wikipedia clerks. If no one objects I'll make the change when I get home tonight. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 12:02, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe. Actually I like clerks and current clerks just fine. It's easy to type in Category:Clerks. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:02, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In opening a case we have to determine the majority for the case. This number goes in a statement at the head of Proposed decision.

Someone please fill in the gaps in my knowledge. I'll copy it to the procedure page when we have it down.

Okay so majority is one more than half if even, round up half to next number if odd, so majority of 6 is 4, majority of 9 is 5, and so on.

Number of arbitrators away: Get that from Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee.

Check for recusals.

Now wasn't there something about only using the same numbers for the basis of majority, so count 12 as a quorum instead of 15? Or did I get that all wrong. In any case I've flubbed the calculaiton of the majority in the proposed decision page for Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/IronDuke and Gnetwerker, and that needs to be fixed. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 08:56, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(Hoping not to be begone'd like James) But, though we mentioned it, keeping quorum at 12, it hasn't been changed yet. So, on this case, 1 recusal, 1 inactive, and that makes 7 majority. Dmcdevit·t 09:27, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I officially returned today (and, in the same edit, officially switched Filiocht to "away" pending his return). As such, for any new cases that get opened, there are 14 active arbitrators and 1 inactive one, making 7 votes a majority. Cases that were opened prior to the new members being seated are a bit more complicated. Raul654 09:33, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Er, you mean 8? Unless there are recusals, 7 is half, 8 majority. :-) Dmcdevit·t 09:45, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, by mistake. Raul654 09:47, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I make the same mistake. I think it comes from doing too many sums when I was a lad. All those rounding errors mount up and they have to go somewhere! --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:10, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and begone foul Spirit, etc. Sorry I forgot. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 18:28, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you follow the procedure to create cases, it's a pain because when it comes to the evidence, workshop and proposed decision pages you have to edit the links to replace "name of case" with the name of the case.

I've created three new templates:

• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Make new evidence page
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Make new workshop page
• Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Make new proposed decision page

Just create your main page and then click on the relevant links (as it says in thep clerks procedure page in the section on opening cases) then call them like so from inside the new, empty, evidence, workshop or proposed decision page.

{{subst:Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Make new workshop page|My new case}}

Don't forget the subst, or it won't work.

You still have to edit the new proposed decision page to enter the number of active arbitrators and calculate the consequent quote for a majority. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:01, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've been floating this idea around, but I'd like to get some serious discussion going if any is necessary. In cases where users have submitted lots of confusing information, not enough information, the wrong kind of information (etc), would it be useful/proper for the clerk handling the case to write up a "brief" in a third location that summarizes and perhaps analyzes the evidence? For example, a clerk may write something like:

"Petitioner asserts that the user was engaged in a pattern of NPOV editing on article X (include some diffs from evidence page). The petitioner provides little or no evidence of failed attempts at dispute resolution, suggesting that this RFAR may only be a high-energy content dispute."

My main concern is the degree to which clerks should be doing analysis of evidence, or whether we should be doing nothing but distilling the information. Some RFARs are so confusing badly written that I think we could help by doing this, but I want to balance that against concerns that we should not be doing analysis, as that is the arb's job. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 13:16, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think such comments are appropriate - I've made them in the evidence summaries I did. Remember, we're also supposed to write proposed decisions. Phil Sandifer 17:11, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As clerks, how hands-on should we be? I don't think this has a simple answer. For instance in one case someone refers to an RfC by name, saying it's important, but doesn't link to it or explain why it's important. Should I go and investigate? This has been pointed out as evidence and no doubt the Committee will want to look at it. So at what point in going off and doing this do I become a participant?

In an early case I was involved in, Party 1 presented a jumble of diffs and a mass of polemic, attacking the defendants, who were it must be admitted very nasty pieces of work and had made his experience of Wikipedia a living hell. It was obvious that the case would fail unless the sequence of events and the identity of the participants could be understood. I spent a weekend painstakingly sifting through the history of a number of different articles, through several different disputes, piecing the whole thing together into a coherent body of evidence that could be digested easily. Is also this part of the clerk's job?

I think we need guidance on this from the arbitrators. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 15:58, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In general, my inclination is no, it's the AMA's job, but they're in dire shape and not really doing their job, nor have they ever. And certainly there's some amount of following-up to do - the RfC, posting checkuser requests on cases that require it, and glancing at the context of edits to make sure they're being represented fairly. (i.e. if a user is accused of making a personal attack, making sure they didn't follow up by reverting themselves a minute later with an edit summary of "I'm sorry, that was totally inappropriate of me, and I shouldn't have said that.") Phil Sandifer 17:17, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I think our job is to check out the claims as we go, not to search for conflicting evidence, but its hard to say where the line is. My guess is we're going to be left using our best judgement. I think I'm going to go with evidence summaries including true false claims onto the /evidence pages and then send a short breif via the ML.--Tznkai 17:29, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I hate to repeat myself, but I think the idea of doing briefs has every upside and no downside, because we would be very hands-on at organizing information, but the original statement from the party would still be visible in its original form. I would like to see a standard format for doing this, either on a different sub-page or as a separate section of the same page. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 17:25, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well we could raise briefs with the committee but I don't know whether they'd wear them. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:58, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've had one case of an arbitrator (Charles Matthews) who has voted in an older case from which he had been auto-recused. He's allowed to do this of course, it's up to him, but in some cases this may affect the calculation of the number required for majority acceptance of a proposal. I've asked Charles to raise this and discuss it with the other arbitrators on their list, so they can agree on how to proceed. In the meantime, please be careful during closing and raise specific queries to the arbitrators before publishing the final decision. --Tony Sidaway 15:23, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone check the Winter Soldier close, please? I see no sign of a notice of this being placed on WP:AN, and there should probably be something about it also on WP:RFAr/AER if there isn't already (two editors banned from articles). I can't do it because I'm recused as a clerk from the case, although I have added it to the list of closed cases. --Tony Sidaway 16:02, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It looks in order (four net votes to close), and it was closed by Raul654 (talk · contribs). I can't figure out why the notices haven't gone out yet, though. I think I'll ask Raul on his talk. Johnleemk | Talk 16:16, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Turns out to be an oversight on Raul's part. I've added the appropriate messages to AN and RFAR/AER. Johnleemk | Talk 18:30, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I would have done it myself had I not been involved in the case as a participant.

Fred Bauder, who opposed the close, had already confirmed that it is always in order to close a case where a net four votes are in favor of a close, after the usual 24-hour wait. I had checked with him because I wanted to be polite and make sure. --Tony Sidaway 01:10, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just stumbled onto this - Jimbo has asked that we look into a wheel war that has occured over the pedophile userbox. The comments there are a mess. Can someone please cook up a nice summary of the situation for us? Raul654 03:12, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh. Yes. Phil Sandifer 03:20, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'll give it a shot: Template:User pedophile was created by Paroxysm (talk · contribs · logs) and first used by Joeyramoney (talk · contribs · logs) (who as far as I can tell is the only one who has ever used the template). Carbonite (talk · contribs · logs) blocked Joey indefinitely and posted about it to WP:AN. Many users immediately expressed support for this. When Dbiv (talk · contribs · logs) asked for justification from policy, Carbonite invoked common sense. It soon emerged Joeyramoney enjoys placing humourous and otherwise fake userboxes (i.e. "This user is a mutant") on his userpage. Nevertheless, Carbonite refused to unblock. Carbonite continued justifying his block by implying pedophilia is just as blockable offense as a hatred of Blacks.

Radiant! (talk · contribs · logs) then unblocked Joeyramoney as per the objections of some on AN. Improv (talk · contribs · logs) then stated an intent to unblock blocks on people who were blocked for reasons unrelated to their edits. Giano (talk · contribs · logs) soon began making strong statements in support of keeping Joeyramoney blocked. Jtdirl (talk · contribs · logs) also stated an intent to block any and all pedophiles who "abuses their position for sexual reasons with another user" on Wikipedia, and report them to the police, and expressed support for blocking convicted pedophiles (but stopping short of saying he would block them).

Carnildo (talk · contribs · logs) then announced he blocked Carbonite, El C (talk · contribs) and Giano for "hate speech" for an indefinite period. The Land (talk · contribs) unblocked. El C then blocked Carnildo, which The Land undid. Gmaxwell (talk · contribs · logs) expressed support for Carnildo after viewing El C's warning to him. Jimbo then desysopped Carnildo.

Around the same time, a parallel wheel war took place on the original template, with MarkSweep (talk · contribs · logs) speedying it. Ashibaka (talk · contribs · logs) restored it. Doc glasgow (talk · contribs · logs) deleted it, and Ashibaka restored it again. Violetriga (talk · contribs · logs) deleted it. David Gerard (talk · contribs · logs) protected the page from editing to avoid recreation. Ashibaka restored and unprotected. MarkSweep deleted it again and David Gerard protected again. There, did I miss anything? Johnleemk | Talk 03:41, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I missed {{User paedophile}}. Paroxysm created this to "sidestep admin abuse". It was TfDed. Then Violetriga deleted; Ashibaka restored. David Gerard deleted; Ashibaka restored. Physchim62 deleted it "as per TfD". Then BorgHunter (talk · contribs · logs) restored. Finally, Jimbo deleted for good. Then David Gerard recreated it and protected to avoid recreation. Johnleemk | Talk 03:53, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Follow up - Jimbo Wales blocked Joeyramoney for one week; Karmafist removed the block; both Voice of All and Jimbo restored the block. Jimbo then desysopped Karmafist. Raul654 05:42, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Don't forget the idiocy at the end of User_talk:David_Gerard#Warning_level_2.3B_Blanking.. It's special. You want to see a pissed-off process fan looking for any method he can? - David Gerard 07:36, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Second follow up - Jimbo desysopped 5 users [1] involved in this. Also, it appears El C has gone on indefinite wikibreak as a result of this. Raul654 08:04, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Carbonite appears to have also left the project. [2]--MONGO 08:59, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Third follow up - I noticed in the steward log: 18:07, 5 February 2006 Romihaitza changed group membership for User:Carbonite@enwiki from sysop to. Romihaitza desysopped Carbonite, presumably as a result of the wheel war. Based on discussions with Jimbo, I can say with a high degree of certainty that Carbonite was never supposed to be desysopped, so I restored his (Carbonite's) permissions. Raul654 09:27, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]