Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Betacommand/Evidence

Please make a section for your evidence and add evidence only in your own section. Please limit your evidence to a maximum 1000 words and 100 diffs; a shorter, concise presentation is more likely to be effective. Please focus on the issues raised in the complaint and on diffs which illustrate behavior which relates to the issues. If you disagree with some evidence you see here, please cite the evidence in your own section and provide counter-evidence, or an explanation of why the evidence is misleading. Do not edit within the evidence section of any other user.

Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Please make a header for your evidence and sign your comments with your name.

When placing evidence here, please be considerate of the arbitrators and be concise. Long, rambling, or stream-of-conciousness rants are not helpful.

As such, it is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff; links to the page itself are not sufficient. For example, to cite the edit by Mennonot to the article Anomalous phenomenon adding a link to Hundredth Monkey use this form: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anomalous_phenomenon&diff=5587219&oldid=5584644] [1].

This page is not for general discussion - for that, see talk page.

Be aware that arbitrators may at times rework this page to try to make it more coherent. If you are a participant in the case or a third party, please don't try to refactor the page, let the arbitrators do it. If you object to evidence which is inserted by other participants or third parties please cite the evidence and voice your objections within your own section of the page. It is especially important to not remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, please leave it for the arbitrators to move.

Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop. /Workshop provides for comment by parties and others as well as arbitrators. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact or remedies, arbitrators vote at /Proposed decision. Only arbitrators may edit /Proposed decision.

The following usernames have been blocked by betacommand which do not infringe on WP:U, after community input, they have all been reversed

1. Block log of User:Is he back? - Archive discussion on name
2. Block log of User:Alrite Darling U Gd? - Archive discussion on name
3. block log of User:Dani casale* - Archive discussion on name
4. block log of User:Fatterwhales - Archive discussion on name
5. block log of User:Chrisgodwin - Archive discussion on name
6. block log of User:*gvan !!! - Archive discussion on name
7. block log of User:Young&26sexy - Archive discussion on name
8. block log of User:Welala!!! - Archive discussion on name
9. block log of User:Snoopjon91 - Archive discussion on name
10. block log of User:Karenlister1 - Archive discussion on name
11. block log of User:I Love my Cat!!! - Archive discussion on name
12. block log of User:EMO*FOREVER* - Archive discussion on name
13. block log of User:Coolperson123456789 - Archive discussion on name
14. block log of User:Clevercutie;) - Archive discussion on name
15. block log of User:B;uedog - Archive discussion on name
16. block log of User:IHateItAroundHere - Archive discussion on name

Ryanpostlethwaite contribs/talk 08:59, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

When concerns were highlighted of more blocking issues with Betacommand, Chrislk02 (talk · contribs) looked further into these and uncovered futher issues with Betacommands username blocks which were not highlighted in Beta's Rfc. Upon seeing these, instead of simply unblocking these usernames, he requested community input by taking them to WP:RFCN [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10] (most of which have now been unblocked). Chrislk02 then went ahead to alert the wider community of these issues by requesting comment on this issue at WP:AN/I. At no time did chris suggest that Betacommand should be blocked for these issues, and he even went ahead soon after to clarify that the username issues were from last month and that Betacommand should have been unblocked, he was simply requesting further comments on the issue before he undid another administrators actions. Chrislk02 did at no point misuse his tools, and neither did he suggest that anyone else should misuse theirs, he acted diligently throughout the whole process and thought of the whole community in his actions. An invalid block should not remain on an account, and this is the reason that Chrislk02 acted as he did. Ryanpostlethwaite contribs/talk 01:37, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As I stated in the past a few of my 1,100 username blocks were inappropriate. Most were backed with 110% proof. one perfect example that chris mentions above User:Fatterwhales is proof. It may not be obvious, but check the user creation log. 13:35, February 13, 2007 User:Fatwhales created. 12:32, February 19, 2007 blocked by Messedrocker for vandalism. 11 minutes later 12:43, February 19, 2007 User:Fatterwhales created. within a minute I block because I see it on the IRC newuser feed. a few hours later cant sleep clown will eat me unblocks. Special:Contributions/Fatterwhales 13:03, March 22, 2007 user starts a vandalism spree. 17:09, March 22, 2007 WP:SSP opened. This is just one case that sticks out of my memory. Given the issues that were raised before I have almost completely stopped username blocks. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 01:45, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See also [11] for a few reasons that users were blocked. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 19:47, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My major concern is the inappropriate use of scripts/bot like tools, especially being an administrator. I am going to show evidence of several past instances of possible abuse. These past occurrences, probably dealt with at the time, are being used to show a recurring pattern of inappropriate behavior.

The first occurrence of inappropriate use of tools starting in November of 2006. Below is a list of deletion logs that I believe show an inappropriate use of a deletion bot or some other inappropriate script, starting with the earliest.

• 27 November 17:52 - 18:01 approx 100 images deleted
• 27 November 18:55 - 19:16 : 500 images deleted
• 27 November 18:01 - 18:55 : 500 images deleted
• 27 November 19:16 - 19:54 : approx 400 images deleted

shows many deletions over a very short amount of time. Particularly notice the deletions that occurred at 19:42, during that single minute over 34 images were deleted. While I believe it is possible to delete many images per minute, I find it hard to believe that the images were manually deleted. In fact, another administrator, Dragons flight blocked Betacommand for 1 week with a block summary stating, "(Using an unauthorized deletion bot)." Several hours later, Betacommand was unblocked by Administrator Geni with an unblock summary stating, "(I don't think he is going to do that again)." This I believe is the first in a series of, while possibly good faith, very poor decisions made by Betacommand. I think it is important to notice that these actions were done using administrative tools (delete function).

After this, Betacommand slows down a little bit from what I can see and does not do too much that is controversially inappropriate. However, In February of 2007, Betacommand began again. Most notably with the blocking of new users whose usernames were inappropriate. It is my belief that he used some sort of reporting script and blocking tool, that worked either autonomously or semi autonomously that blocked users with inappropriate substrings in there name. While many of the username blocks were 100% appropriate, there were many good faith names that did not violate policy or community consensus at the time that Betacommand took it upon himself to block. Below are some excerpts from block log of username blocks that seem to not violate policy, over an extended period of time

• 03:48, 11 January 2007 Betacommand (Talk | contribs | block) blocked "Wowwoweeewow (contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite (Please read our our username policy and choose another name {{usernameblocked}}) (Unblock) [12]
• 0:37, 10 January 2007 Betacommand (Talk | contribs | block) blocked "Blabber mouth katie (contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite (Please read our our username policy and choose another name {{usernameblocked}}) (Unblock) [13]
• 01:03, 4 January 2007 Betacommand (Talk | contribs | block) blocked "Charbroil666 (contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite (Please read our our username policy and choose another name {{usernameblocked}}) (Unblock) [14] Now, I am unaware of any consensus to instantly disallow usernames with the numbers 666 in it. If there was a policy against this, I have no problem rescinding this part of the complaint. However, there is a pattern of any names containing 666 being blocked. Here are several others that were also blocked. 666possum, Metal Warrior666, Rageaddict666. This is just the tip of the iceberg with this issue.

Now, the username blocks in and of themself are only part of the issue. What I find disconcerting is the fact that usernames blocks like the block of User:666possum, an account that was registered 06:30, 3 January 2007 and subsequently insantly blocked at the exact same time. Given no option to change their name, just instantly blocked. There are many other occurrences of this riddled throughout his block log. It is my belief that the instant blocking names such as the ones listed above hurts Wikipedia more than any inappropriate username that sits around for an extra hour and further shows evidence of misuse of a script or bot that uses administrative tools.

• On 13:19, 18 February 2007, User HighinBC expresses concerns over a recent streak of username blocks that were overturned at WP:RFCN on Betacommand's user talk page. This thread can be found here.
• On 02:16, 20 February 2007, User BigDT expresses concern over the fact the Betacommand deleted a userspage, after usernameblocking them, and covering up there unblock request through page deletion. This thread can be found here
• On 19:50, 22 February 2007, Betacommand starts autoreporting usernames to WP:RFCN in an essence flooding it with marginal names, some with are obvious blocks and nobody complained about, which could have been reported to WP:AIV or other places. This actions further supports my suspicions that Betacommand was using a script or some sort of bot that was blocking innapropriate usernames. here are his contributions during the period of auto reporting Note, he makes it very obvious that it is an autoreport from the edit summaries.
• On 21:45, 22 February 2007, Betacommand is blocked by User:Pschemp with a block summary stating, " (refuses to stop bot reporting with this account)". here is some dialogue involving other administrators in regards to this block, and inappropriate actions. I think it is important that several people believed Betacommand to be violating WP:POINT due to the recent scrutiny of his blocking actions. In this situation, he threw every blatantly inappropriate username to the community, clogging up both WP:AIV and WP:RFCN with blatantly obvious names. Names that nobody complained about his blocks of.
• On 21:57, 22 February 2007, User:Wangi unblocks betacommand with an unblock summary stating, "(rm inappropriate block)".
• On 15:21, 28 February 2007, after complaints of flooding WP:RFCN with names that should be obviously blocked, betacommand starts flooding WP:AIV with usernames. contributions from this time period. I think it is of special interest to note this edit where he floods AIV with over 20 very obvious block names. Names that NOBODY would question blocking of.

While it has been brought to my attention that it is possible to perform such rapid blocks, I think that this excerpt from the block log is relevant, especially in allegations of using scripts or bots inappropriately.

• 23 Feb 2007 me expressing concerns in regards to the probably use of a blocking bot by beta command.
• 8 Mar 2007 - A series of 9 blocks in 1 minute, very improbably all were done manual with proper review.

14:43, 8 March 2007 Betacommand (Talk | contribs | block) blocked "59.167.13.50 (contribs)" (anon. only, account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 1 week (spamming)

14:43, 8 March 2007 Betacommand (Talk | contribs | block) blocked "202.58.63.200 (contribs)" (anon. only, account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 1 week (spamming)
14:43, 8 March 2007 Betacommand (Talk | contribs | block) blocked "208.109.49.47 (contribs)" (anon. only, account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 1 week (spamming)
14:43, 8 March 2007 Betacommand (Talk | contribs | block) blocked "59.167.243.12 (contribs)" (anon. only, account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 1 week (spamming)
14:43, 8 March 2007 Betacommand (Talk | contribs | block) blocked "121.44.236.252 (contribs)" (anon. only, account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 1 week (spamming)
14:43, 8 March 2007 Betacommand (Talk | contribs | block) blocked "210.11.241.21 (contribs)" (anon. only, account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 1 week (spamming)
14:43, 8 March 2007 Betacommand (Talk | contribs | block) blocked "Tuddy (contribs)" (anon. only, account creation blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite (spamming)
14:43, 8 March 2007 Betacommand (Talk | contribs | block) blocked "Voyages (contribs)" (anon. only, account creation blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite (spamming)

14:43, 8 March 2007 Betacommand (Talk | contribs | block) blocked "Svm-en (contribs)" (anon. only, account creation blocked) with an expiry time of indefinite (spamming)

• 21 Mar 2007 00:01 - 17:34 [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21] a series of 3,000 external link removals at bot like speeds with many per hour.
• 21 Mar 2007 - ANI posting regarding link deletion at bot like speeds.
• 23 Mar 2007 13:16 - 17:37 -Fairly rapid removal of about 200 (appprox) external links in a similar manner as objected to on the previous ANI post. This action stopped when he was warned of a block again.
• 23 Mar 2007 - ANI posting regarding external link removal.
• 26 Mar 2007 - most recent ANI posting regarding inappropriate block of a user editing an article he was engaged in.

I would like to call the Committee's attention to this thread at the Admin noticeboard, in which Dragons flight presented evidence suggesting that some of our faster admins were using some level of automation to aid deletion (though not all of those in his chart, as the discussion makes clear). Betacommand's fastest deletion rate, 1.9 seconds per deletion over 13 minutes, is unusual but not unheard of. The consensus from that thread, as I understood it, was neither to allow nor excoriate the use of such aids, but to stress the necessity of proper care being taken. Please read the evidence above relating to Betacommand's rate of deletion in the context of this larger debate about the role of automation in deletion work in general. If deletion rate is to be used as grounds for desysopping, then a fair number of admins are at risk; I would urge the committee to focus on the more recent evidence (particularly that not already addressed by the bot approvals group) in its deliberations. Chick Bowen 18:29, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have found Betacommand to be not very responsive to queries about his activities. When he does respond, he sometimes does so in a way that doesn't seem sensible or fails to address the issue. Examples include this thread about his blocking behavior. Here more recently I asked him if he rolled back on purpose. His response completely failed to address the question. Here I asked if he was using some automated tool and not checking what it was really doing. He replied by talking about a software issue, not answering the question. Here I questioned his reasons for some deletions. He replied by saying they were poorly written, but this was untrue and did not answer the question. I do not remotely suspect he means anything but the best, but I do not trust his judgment to use the admin tools. It's important for all editors, and particularly admins to be responsive to concerns about their activities. Friday (talk) 19:35, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the evidence as written basically just says, "Betacommand used adminbots," making the assumption that this is automatically bad. It's not. Adminbots have been in use on-wiki for awhile with unspoken consent of many people in the know. Yes, it's true that some vocal components of the community are against them, but that doesn't automatically make them bad. So I would like to suggest a change in the evidence being suggested from "he used an adminbot" to "he ran an adminbot that made the following mistakes ..." because merely running an adminbot is not a bad thing, and we (myself included) have run many in the past that did many good things and caused nary a problem.

Frankly, the community needs to get over itself in regards to the adminbot issue and start accepting them. They're necessary and are going to be run whether the community officially allows it or not. The difference, of course, is between whether they are done on the down low without a formal approvals process and outside oversight, or a properly regulated process. This case clearly shows the downsides of en-wiki's myopic adminbot policy. We need to regulate adminbots properly, and that means setting up a system for doing so. The whole "push a bot through WP:RFA" is just broken on so many levels. It needs to go through WP:BRFA with an added layer that has the authority to grant admin privileges to bots. I'd much rather see an open and regulated process, where we clearly know about the adminbots and can deal with them if they go bad, rather than the broken situation that we have now. --Cyde Weys 19:03, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

User:Naconkantari first asked on my talk page to cease my bot-like editing without a flag." I replied that I was using Mozilla Firefox and making edits by opening the article talk pages via the tab function, thus the speed. Without responding to my comments he blocked me for 1 hour, and only stated: "As you have resumed your bot-like editing, I have blocked you for one hour."

During this period, I wrote on my talk page Please refer me to what you mean "bot-like editing". Otherwise, I know of no rule that doesn't allow a regular editor to edit at his pace.

This is a continuation from the above subsection. On the last diff mentioned above I also stated the following "I am organizing the articles in a coherent way. I am integrating articles with the suitable wikiproject, which has many active editors, for them to improve to Wikipedia. This way ideally my edits would be reviewed by subject experts. "If the rules prevent you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore them." I have taken your blocks very seriously as it has affected my Wikipedia Reputation, by you saying "bot like editing".

User:Naconkantari replied "From WP:BOT, A separate account is advised if many edits are going to be made." (diff). I assert that this sentence is not clear and not enforcable.

Once a user has already opened many firefox tabs, should he have to wait for clicking save? I replied to User:Naconkantari; but s/he did not respond to my comment. Infact, User:Naconkantari went on to block me for 24 hours with a statement You have been blocked for 24 hours for continuing to edit at a high rate of speed after being asked twice to stop.

I proceeded with an unblock request which stated that "There are no policy grounds for User:Naconkantari's block."

While, this unblock was reviewed by an admin who had past conflicts with me, I will not take that into account, but state here his unblock review: Editing at a high rate (I count 13 edits per minute at one point)

In the main RfA page, I noticed that AnonEmouse left the following comments: "his responses were minimal, curt, or entirely lacking" and "did not apologize, accept that his actions were wrong, or promise not to repeat them" and "Betacommand is a well-meaning user, and a skilled bot developer, who has the community effect of a porcupine in a nudist colony"; I remembered when I saw the posting of this RfA that I had read some comments left by Betacommand that I thought showed considerable incivility. See difs: [22] and [23] and [24] and [25]. These comments have a tone to them that implies "All you kids go back and play, leave this matter to the grown-ups." His attitude is best exemplified by these quotes "quit your complaining about anti-spam we have identified and reverted numerous spammers" and "all the huffing and puffing that is done on en.wiki means nothing" on the first dif and "what the fuck do I have to say " in the second dif and "over half the fucking page is spam" in the third. The fourth dif shows an example of his namedropping. He talks about his attendance at a Wikiboard meeting, as if that makes him somehow more qualified to make decisions on the matter at question. He did this several other times relating to this issue, with other posts that were substantively similar to this one. The main issue here was that experienced editors were questioning the blacklisting of sites on the spam blacklist. Rather than help address the issue, Betacommand berated and belittled the editors who raised the objections. He may have been correct, and the sites in question may have deserved being blacklisted (or they may have not, I take no stand on that issue), it is the nature of his comments that seems to carry an incivil tone. Given the similar accusations by AnonEMouse, I thought it prudent to provide these difs. You can take this or leave it. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:05, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am presenting evidence that during the external link removal incident, Betacommand was not manually operating the bot.

This is supported by the fact that he didn't stop doing bot edits even while responding to complaints on his talk page. Referring to his contributions page [26] (this and earlier pages) and searching for edits to "User talk:Betacommand" or summaries containing "revert", the timestamps indicate no pause longer than a few seconds — this can be explained with latency fluctuations and downloading/submitting larger articles, rather than stopping for manual edits.

I am quite certain that no person is capable of operating a bot (even if it's just looking at a diff and answering "yes" or "no") while simultaneously writing and posting a comment on his talk page, and resolving an edit conflict with someone else's comment (as admitted in one of his responses).

In total, he made three such talkpage edits during the last rampage ([27] [28] [29]), two earlier ([30] [31]), and even found the time to do maintenance reverts ([32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37]).

The three talkpage edits were made at 17:29:48, 17:30:40 and 17:32:10 which is a more believable edit rate for a human editor.

Yet in his two of his last comments made during this period, he insists that he is not operating a bot, not even an assisted one, and that the bot policy does not apply. If this piece of evidence is determined to be valid, it should be clear that he has blatantly violated the bot policy, in addition to lying to and neglecting the concerns of fellow Wikipedians (and I have to add that I am offended).

Example 1 (bot edit summaries stripped):

2007-03-21T17:29:48 (hist) (diff) User talk:Betacommand (→Removal of Usenet posts)
2007-03-21T17:29:47 (hist) (diff) m Maria Whittaker (removing [...]
2007-03-21T17:29:47 (hist) (diff) m SVGALib [...]
2007-03-21T17:29:46 (hist) (diff) m SS United States [...]
2007-03-21T17:29:45 (hist) (diff) m Marco Mann [...]
2007-03-21T17:29:44 (hist) (diff) m SPISPOPD [...]
2007-03-21T17:29:42 (hist) (diff) m Mara Junior Science College Taiping [...]
2007-03-21T17:29:42 (hist) (diff) m SITO [...]

Example 2 (bot edit summaries stripped):

2007-03-21T17:32:10 (hist) (diff) User talk:Betacommand (→Removal of Usenet posts)
2007-03-21T17:32:06 (hist) (diff) m Michael Peroutka (removing [...]
2007-03-21T17:32:04 (hist) (diff) m Michael Penn [...]
2007-03-21T17:32:03 (hist) (diff) m Michael Moorcock [...]
2007-03-21T17:32:00 (hist) (diff) m Michael Mahonen [...]
2007-03-21T17:31:58 (hist) (diff) m Michael Flatley [...]
2007-03-21T17:31:57 (hist) (diff) m Michael Andre [...]
2007-03-21T17:31:56 (hist) (diff) m Miami bass [...]

(Wow, haven't had the chance to do original research for Wikipedia for a while ;) -- intgr 09:07, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Betacommand's rate of deletion isn't necessarily unique. That having been said, intgr's first example above shows edits on pages beginning with "M" intertwined with pages beginning with "S". This tells me that he was probably running two instances of a bot- each on different areas of a list or category. A normal bot would run alphabetically, or straight down a list. And if Betacommand was running two instances of a bot, it's highly unlikely that he'd be able to review and approve every edit in two separate bot windows.

By removing links, Betacommand was removing sources that, while often not reliable, can in some cases be worth keeping, and can be reliable in certain cases. A Google Groups post, for example, may be a great source, link or reference for an article on Google Groups. Whether Betacommand was using a bot is a minor issue in comparison; his adamant assumption that no such sources could possibly worth keeping is more worrying to me.

While the Arbitration Committee's job is clearly not to create policy, I think that we need some way to ensure that admin-bots are not always seen as a bad thing. In uncontroversial cases, the community should approve administrative bots for simple tasks. For example, there's nothing wrong with a robot reviewing CSD, finding articles where the page has {{db-author}} on it, with no other editors, and deleting it. This is, of course, a case that wouldn't happen often, but it is something that an administrative bot could do, and that is clearly uncontroversial. Ral315 » 20:21, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.

Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.