Arbcom

This is not to be confused with polemic, it's just a collection of people's thoughts on and/or about Arbcom and its cases. Most of the quotations are from Admins. The list does not attempt to conceal my or other editors' embitteredness at the way Arbcom operates. The list could be a lot longer but these cherry-picked gems from the last 5 years should be enough to be thought-provoking. In the best case scenario even some ideas for Arbcom reform or for something to replace it entirely.

• I've never warmed up to the reconfirmation idea. [...] RfRC would be a judgment in relation to the current wikipolitical winds by an unstable group of mostly reasonable people unpredictably mixed in with varying numbers of petty grudge-bearers, RfA obsessives, and ANI shitposters. 85% of the time it would go fine, because most admins do mostly boring things and one or two bad calls or unfortunate troll encounters wouldn't cause much fuss. But it'd probably cause more harm in the form of hurt feelings, frustration, and disengagement on the part of perfectly good admins than benefit in the form of removing bad admins. Everybody who thinks that the problem with RfA, or with the existing admin corps, is insufficient desysopping of bad admins knows where the case requests page is. If terrible adminning is really so widespread, we should be drowning in cases. – Opabinia regalis (2019)
• ...I think I have better things to do with my time then get involved in something as blatantly "verdict first, trial later" as this one. I've semi-joked before that it's possible to predict the outcome of arbcom cases before they even take place just by looking at the personal grudges of the participants and calculating how far they each think they'll be able to push their preferred outcome and still call it a compromise, but I'm not sure I can recall an example this blatant before. ‑ Iridescent (2020)
• The ArbCom was not required to desysop Yngvadottir; it simply chose to do so. – Everyking [1] (2015)
• ArbCom is above the community and does not respond to community pressure except in extreme cases. I have tried in vain for years to get ArbCom to reform. There have been small, subtle shifts in handling of cases but overall it's the same muddy quagmire that it has always been. It's true; ArbCom is not a court of law. People are dismissive of anyone who indicates the similarity, and treat not being like a court of law as some badge of honor. It's rather the opposite. I could go on for a while about the abuses ArbCom heaps upon the community, and the community's inability to do anything about it. [...] They [Arbcom] are abusive, willfully dismissive of policy, and generally incapable of assisting the community. Any case they generate about someone is guaranteed to result in sanctions (and usually heavy ones). The outcome is predetermined, and nobody can defend themselves. The structure of ArbCom and its processes make defense impossible. Using ArbCom as a means of dispute resolution is an exercise in utter futility, unless your goal is to get someone kicked off the project. – Hammersoft[2] (2021)
• It [Arbcom] is not a fair process though since the outcome is mostly predetermined before the evidence is submitted. – Banedon [3] (2021)
• Under the guise of being a dispute resolution body which one would assume would examine all sides and enact an appropriate remedy, in fact Arbcom does neither. Arbcom members have claimed they are neither here to examine the merits of the case nor to examine the veracity of the plaintifs and their 'evidence'. Apparently, so it would seem, the function of Arbcom is to simply count the votes in favour of opening a case. It's then followed by a long drawn out token process of so-called 'workshopping' to state their 'findings of fact' which in fact are merely a log of the claims of those clambering for sanctions. If one were to label some Arbcom cases as a show trial, it would not be wholly inaccurate. – Kudpung[4]. (2021)

• For all practical purposes, desysopping acts as a permanent bar to an editor ever becoming an admin again. – Iridescent [5] (2021)

• '...the New Puritan tendency looking for pretexts to block people for imagined incivility and feigned offence. – Iridescent, (2020).

• (RfA): Of course it's a poor predictor, just as it was in the case of Pastor Theo, Wifione, and some other prominent ones whose names I can't mention because they are still with us and for some reason are still allowed to participate at all. Those who loudly insist that all admins are bad are doing more harm than good and most of their complaints are just righteous indignation and they don't have long block logs for no reason; that's why although there needs to be a fast track system for making admins more accountable, it doesn't always need to end in a removal of the tools and I'm very much averse to the notion that an easier desysoping process should be used as a witch hunt to whittle out more admins under the flimsiest of accusations. I thought that kind of thing went out with McCarthy. – Kudpung, April 30, 2018

• AN/I, a dreadful gauntlet where reporting editors are likely to be set upon and censured, or alternatively the complaint languishes unnoticed until it's archived, with or without first generating long discussions between the editors involved in the dispute and/or more or less hasty and sarcastic commentary from gadflies and more or less clueful admin wannabees. There's a regrettable amount of failure to read the complaint carefully, or the diffs. [6] – Yngvadottir

• This current ArbCom seems determined to rid us of our best admins. So far they are succeeding admirably, and very few people seem to care or to realize what a ridiculous and insidious form of authoritarianism this is, that a mere handful of people can peremptorily drive the best, hardest working, and most trusted admins off the project with complete impunity. And apparently there's nothing we can do about it, and too few people that care or realize the danger to put a stop to it – Softlavender [7] (2020)

• ArbCom is charged with disciplining and judging all of us, and has the power to destroy people's on-wiki reputations, but those reputations are the product of years of work here, and those with higher permissions have them because they are trusted and have the responsibility of exercising judgement in difficult situations. ArbCom telling a trusted editor they are unworthy of that level of trust is not a small thing, [8] – Yngvadottir(2020) See also: Yngvadottir's 2015 5,300 word leaving statement (another ridiculous desysoping by Arbcom 2015) - and they still can't stay away

• ...this ArbCom has proven itself to be the most unfair and overactive that we have seen in recent memory. [9] – TonyBallioni (2020)

• ...this is crazy, only a couple months into a new arbcom and 4 great admins are gone. [10] – Puddleglum2.0 (2020)
• We have Arbs and admins who play to the audience, including on IRC and Wikipedia Review, because they want to be liked, or are scared of being disliked. We're hundreds of years behind the rest of the world's institutions when it comes to understanding what fairness entails. – SlimVirgin [11] (2009)
• There is an anti-admin platoon. It isn't large enough to be a brigade. Its members, who are also "excellent content creators", get away with incivility toward both admins and new editors. – Robert McClenon
• Adminship has become a big deal and everyone knows it even if they offer aphorisms to the contrary. – SMcCandlish[12]
• Please remove my admin rights, have already asked for other perms removed at meta. For the same reasons as everybody else, but in particular Katherine Maher's utter lack of care or concern for the community she is supposed to be serving. – Beeblebrox [13] (2019)
  Good that he was already requesting a voluntary desysop. The very rationale, however poignantly accurate, would ironically be a desysopable offense for misogyny in t the eyes of some of his Arbcom colleagues. (Beeblebrox is one of the good guys)
• I still believe there are serious systemic issues with the way ArbCom is run. – Hammersoft [14] (2020)
• The real joke is this ArbCom. Yngvadottir got desysopped for far less than the laundry list of bad behavior on display by a sitting Arb here. – Capeo [15]]
• Isn't it amazing how quickly the Arbcom can act when its own pomposity is pricked. – Giano [16] (2015)
• Gamaliel, you know better than this. You are better than this. Get your shit together, and lead by example. – Kelapstick [17] (2016)
• This isn't the first instance I've seen, it is just the most public. [...] That is both bias and hypocrisy. If you can't grasp this and understand and suppress your own bias, you do not need to be serving as Arb. – Dennis Brown [18]
• Power does corrupt [...] ...you really should step down from AC, not that you're the first or most blatant person to shame the holy grail ... but it would be nice to pretend that there's a modicum of honor in our leadership. — Ched [19] (2016)
• Members of arbcom volunteered for a specific role in dispute resolution. It shouldn't come with diplomatic immunity. – Opabinia regalis [20] (2016)
• ...the delusion that being an arb should be seen by themselves or others as an immunity from criticism or a permission for irresponsibility. – DGG [21] (2016)
• [This] weaponization of dispute resolution has happened several times over the years, and it's a very ugly thing. It damages the committee, and it has a horrible (and lasting) effect on the person at the centre of it. – SlimVirgin [22] (2016)
• Gamaliel resigns from the arbitration committee Arbitration report The Signpost 28 May 2016
• ArbCom case Gamaliel and others concludes Arbitration report The Signpost 5 June 2016

Other

• The Internet has been around for 25 years. Too many Wikipedia users don't know a world without it. The Internet has changed the ways society thinks, studies, and works. The Internet has done a lot of good and a lot of not so good. Wikipedia is a brilliant project. Ironically it depends on the Internet. – Kudpung (2020)

• For a quick explanation, I'll just say that the enwiki community is like the world's largest dysfunctional family, and I no longer wish to hold a position of responsibility here. — DoRD On handing their admin tools and retiring 2019
• A personal attack is something that is personal. It has to target "somebody" specific, and it has to target their identity. Jehochman[23]

• Please leave my talk page. You are too unpleasant. It's not worth my time to speak with you. comment by an admin to an established user.
• Pretty much every significant setback in Wikipedia's history can be traced directly to someone at the WMF who thinks they're being helpful trying to force their preferred change rather than just suggesting a broad direction and allowing the cats to herd themselves. The traditional ineptness of the WMF's senior management isn't a flaw, it's a feature. – Iridescent And this is a classic example how, as outlined by Iridescent, our volunteer work is used, abused, and appropriated by the WMF to their own ends. It took a further 7 years to resolve the issue.
• Any article edited by a promotional editor should always be deleted. This is the only way to discourage people from using the WP for advertising. If the subject is actually important, someone else will create an article. Rescuing it sends the message that if your write an unacceptable article about yourself, someone will very possibly fix it for you, and therefore you might as well try to advertise here. It furthermore sends the message that if you you hire someone to write an article and they take money for doing this, and they write the usual unacceptable article such people write, then someone will fix it for you free, while the guy who wrote the bad article gets the money. – DGG (see also: WP:BOGOF)
• I'm totally dismayed by the lack of reaction on Wikipedia to Tim riley being bullied away. I can't think of one single other editor of his calibre and I would gladly give up my own hobby and its tools to have him back. The people who caused it have not a fraction of his tact, talent, and skills and they should fall on their swords whatever their gender. Instead, they innocently shrug and say 'What? me?' and continue to trample round the site with mud on their shoes. The place to make known how horrible the environment at Wikipedia is of course The Signpost but sadly I don't have time time to do a write up - and if I did, I'd probably also find myself running for shelter. Wikipedia behind the scenes is turning into a farce. Perhaps it should be renamed Fawltypedia. – Kudpung [24] (2016)