The Whistleblower's Barnstar
		Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate change This arbitration case has been closed and the final decision is available at the link above. The following is a summary of the remedies enacted: The following editors are banned from the topic area of climate change, and may not appeal this ban until at least six months after the closure of this case (and no more often than every three months thereafter); William M. Connolley Polargeo Thegoodlocust Marknutley ChrisO Minor4th ATren Hipocrite Cla68 GregJackP A Quest For Knowledge Verbal ZuluPapa5 JohnWBarber FellGleaming

I have been sanctioned by arbcom because I asked questions and challenged admins who behaved badly

I am displaying this sanction at the top of my User page because I am proud of what I did throughout my time in the climate change topic area. I was one of the few editors with the guts to push back against one of the most destructive factions ever to edit here, and that did not sit well with some of the agenda driven power brokers who run this place. So even as they begrudgingly handed out sanctions to the real problem editors, they had to catch me and others in the net as well. It's called "shooting the whistleblower".

So I wear this sanction as a badge of honor. I had a dozen diffs in my findings, and none of them were anywhere near the level required for such a sanction. Examples: I asked one admin to "step back", I told another to "back off", and I told a third that I found his actions "highly inappropriate". Yes, really, those three actions represented fully 25% of my evidence. Even more absurd: in all cases the warnings to these admins were well-deserved -- in one case, an admin compared an editor's intelligence to a child, in another, the admin called a whole group of good faith editors "trolls", and a third blocked someone indefinitely in an action that was raised by uninvolved editors at AN/I. None of them were sanctioned; I was. The other 9 diffs were similar in tone. At any given moment, AN/I would have hundreds of comments that were much worse than anything I ever said.

But I guess this is what happens when you oppose the house POV. Whistleblowers never come away unscathed.

A casual observer might ask, what was it that I fought in this topic area? Well, mainly it was blatant BLP violations, POV pushing, tag team tactics, and almost habitual incivility on the part of a few editors. And, lo and behold, the committee begrudgingly agreed with me on those points -- how could they not? As an example, we presented clear evidence that one of these editors was trying to make it appear that one of his ideological enemies believed in Martians in the lede of his BLP! The committee could not simply ignore such abuses, which would normally get an editor summarily banned, so there are findings relating to each of these things I fought!. That's right: they actually agreed with my position in many of their findings! How could they not? With so much evidence (hundreds of diffs) pointing out the abuses, they would never get away with simply ignoring it. But one thing they could do is make sure it doesn't happen again, by getting rid of all the whistleblowers along while leaving most of the POV pushing faction intact, so the same tactics will remain but the oversight is gone. Brilliant, really: they give the appearance that they've addressed the problem, even as the House POV is preserved. Problem solved.

Hence, my "whistleblower's barnstar". I wear it proudly. :-)

ATren (talk) 23:11, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm really quite proud of being on the same side as you, Cla, AQFK, and several others. It was an interesting demonstration of bureaucracy in action though - paralyzed out of fear and then a flurry of frantic activity with all the sense and decorum of a rabid weasel. It is an unfortunate fact of psychology that those who condemn others, no matter how justly, will drag their own reputation down in the process - people do not like hearing bad things. This is why you constantly see politicians dropping names and praising as many people as possible - it makes them look good. I wonder if any of us will get interviewed a few years down the line to get a perspective on what happened here? If it goes down the way I think it will then this will certainly be a much studied area of history. TheGoodLocust (talk) 00:19, 20 October 2010 (UTC)