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the sense of
Salvidrim! not going to RfA himself to assess the level of community trust in him; the fact that we were having an Arbcom case at all, became part of the issue. Salvidrim! was transparent about his paid editing, and he was very forthcoming in providing private evidence to Arbcom, and everybody appreciated both.
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A lot of people thought this was a case about the principle of whether it is OK for admins to edit for pay, commercially, but it wasn't. It was really, really local โ just about how
Salvidrim! conducted himself and what the consequences would be. It involved Soetermans a bit but there was no real
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This was a concern I had about the decision and ultimately why I opposed it. I estimated that it was going to be taken as "the" definition of paid editing. Anyone glancing over it would not necessarily pick up on the nuance of the context of the case, the qualifier of "core" in the sentence, or the
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You won't find that in writing anywhere else in
Knowledge (XXG), but I believe it expresses the living consensus in Knowledge (XXG), and it is present in every other publishing institution that takes its responsibilities to readers seriously. We as an editing community are living our way into what
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The key findings of fact were about
Salvidrim!'s poor judgment in avoiding community review. In the surface of the decision it is clear that this was about avoidance of review of conflicted edits. In discussion of the desysop decision, you will see that this was also about avoidance of review, in
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Committee's ability to realistically define paid editing in any respect. Voting discussion is not included in the case remedy summary where much of these details are discussed. We also deal with the fact that several stakeholders have very different views on paid editing. As was the case with the
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Seconded, it was a fine and helpful op-ed: ArbCom matters are always tangled and difficult to follow from outside. On another matter, it is remarkable that admins are permitted to do paid editing, as this could easily "give the wrong impression" to non-Wikipedians: we know they won't do anything
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Community discussion during the case was robust with over a dozen editors (not including the committee or named parties) providing input. Discussion covered not just conduct specific to the case, but broader questions of community response to paid editing in general, the onus on admins and other
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case doesn't evaluate "community trust", there isn't even really a reliable way to do so - we all know RfA is broken ... I also really dislike making arbcom decisions with a view toward "how things look from the outside" or out of "pour encourager les autres" considerations, but in thinking this
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based on private correspondence indicated that he had "repeatedly coached on how to avoid drawing community scrutiny" (Finding of Fact 2A). Although several arbs had already voted to desysop, these actions appeared to galvanize the final few votes and 2A was specifically cited by at least one.
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Mister Wiki is first arbitration committee decision of 2018: In deciding to de-sysop an admin for efforts to evade discussion and review of paid edits made on behalf of a PR firm, Arbitration
Committee doesn't significantly change the rules around paid editing, and leaves it up to the community
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I appreciate the directness and conciseness of the op-ed. These cases involve live discussions which anyone can join and I think it is great when people outside arbcom are kind enough to try to summarize and explain the cases. This summary matches my own view.
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The desysop was not a happy outcome but in my view was appropriate. I think even those opposing the desysop, wished that Salv had put his admin status up for community review after all this broke, and before the Arbcom case was filed.
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are properly disclosed, and articles or edits by conflicted editors are reasonably available for review by others. Editors are expected to comply with both the purpose and intent of the applicable policies, as well as their literal
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to, or for the benefit of, an editor, which is what was involved in this case. I do not believe we were trying to address all the possible types of more incidental benefits, which remain within the community's purview to define.
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Thanks for the summary of the case and the decision. As the person who drafted the paragraph on the scope of "paid editing," I would not bold it the way it is shown above. The core definition refers to
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t's hard to avoid the conclusion that we have to do something serious about a volunteer administrator using both the admin tools themselves and his standing within the community for personal gain...
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It was left to the community at two open RfCs to decide whether administrators or others with advanced rights may use their privileged toolset when engaged in disclosed paid editing (
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trusted roles to provide transparent and well-separated actions, and the roles of various reporting and enforcement mechanisms such as noticeboards. Process vulnerabilities such as
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I seem to have adopted this column at least for the time being, so if anybody wants to take a shot at a future op-ed, or even take co-authorship credit, drop me a note โ
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The case was closed without new major policy. Two items concerning paid editing were fine-tuned in the committee's decision (emphasis that of the
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by bureaucrats less than hour after the majority vote was cast. Salvidrim! and
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No new cases were accepted by the committee. A request titled "Michael Moates White House press corps" was
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Paid editing is defined as "an edit made, or an on-wiki action taken, by an editor in return for payment to
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The most surprising thing in the case to me, is the 2nd stated principle, which I will quote here:
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was opened on 1 December, and closed on 7 January. As reported in the previous two issues of
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597:, I think your op-ed was very nicely done. Just wanted to make a note of that.ย :)
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through I find it hard not to consider the larger implications of the case.
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First arbitration committee decision of 2018 was not rendered by
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to take action in relation to that specific article or subject".
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began to appear on 31 December. Included in the notes was
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