Pro-Israeli Canvassing 'n' Meatpuppeting at Arbcom

[Zoll]

Does anyone want to increase their credibility in front of ArbCom or Admins?

If yes, then boy do I have the story for you.

User:יניב הורון (T-H-L) contacted me by email in Early 2023 under the sock account User:Melvin Jansen (T-H-L). He asked me to make changes for him since he was a sock, I refused, but since the war began, he's been sending a lot of emails, at first I thought he was only sending them to me, but then I found it, he emails a bunch of Editors who meatpuppet for him.

So far I've been able to confirm 4 editors who're obviously his meatpuppets, but the actual number could be higher. The ones I've confirmed are User:דוב (T-H-L) User:EytanMelech (T-H-L) User talk:Joemb1977 (T-H-L) and User:Dovidroth
(T-H-L).

I can forward anybody the emails (as long as you keep the email address of יניב הורון private and all) if you want to take it up with ArbCom and ban them for meatpuppetry.

[Ognistysztorm]

If yes, then boy do I have the story for you.

User:יניב הורון (T-H-L) contacted me by email in Early 2023 under the sock account User:Melvin Jansen (T-H-L). He asked me to make changes for him since he was a sock, I refused, but since the war began, he's been sending a lot of emails, at first I thought he was only sending them to me, but then I found it, he emails a bunch of Editors who meatpuppet for him.

So far I've been able to confirm 4 editors who're obviously his meatpuppets, but the actual number could be higher. The ones I've confirmed are User:דוב (T-H-L) User:EytanMelech (T-H-L) User talk:Joemb1977 (T-H-L) and User:Dovidroth
(T-H-L).

I can forward anybody the emails (as long as you keep the email address of יניב הורון private and all) if you want to take it up with ArbCom and ban them for meatpuppetry.

Wikipedia should take up this offer given their failure in fixing the mess left over by an ice, a cat and a volunteer.

[eppur si muove]

User:יניב הורון (T-H-L) contacted me by email in Early 2023 under the sock account User:Melvin Jansen (T-H-L). He asked me to make changes for him since he was a sock, I refused, but since the war began, he's been sending a lot of emails, at first I thought he was only sending them to me, but then I found it, he emails a bunch of Editors who meatpuppet for him.

So far I've been able to confirm 4 editors who're obviously his meatpuppets, but the actual number could be higher. The ones I've confirmed are User:דוב (T-H-L) [wpartilce]User:EytanMelech[/wparticle] User talk:Joemb1977 (T-H-L) and User:Dovidroth
(T-H-L).

I see that User:דוב (T-C-L) and User:Dovidroth (T-C-L) took part in the Palestinian genocide AFD where we know that User:יניב הורון (T-C-L) had been touting for input from meatpuppets.

דוב was warned here diff that his !vote would likely be discarded as he did not have the 500 edits necessary to take part in contentious AFDs. He promptly embarked on vandal patrol reverting lots of IP edits and earnt himself an ant-vandalism barnstar. It's now over a week since his last vandal revert but he is happily participating in the contentious topic now he has his 500 edit count.

[eppur si muove]

David Roth has previously been blocked on suspicion of being a puppet of יניב הורון. He was unblocked after discussion with Tamzin and Nableezy. See link. So his voting in a discussion where יניב הורון was soliciting votes does not look good.

[charliemouse]

Arbcom motion to ban pro-Israel editors over canvassing. Not canvassing per se but being canvassed, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... Canvassing

[nableezy]

Think this, and much of the last day of the Israel-Hamas war offtopic thread, should be merged to this topic. Mods?

-----
Moderator's note: Done.

[rnu]

Dovidroth (T-C-L)'s appeal at AE has been denied with Galobtter (T-C-L) totally keeping up the presumption of innocence regarding the canvassing issue:

There's no support for this appeal, and since dovidroth is facing a site ban at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Motions#Dovidroth, this appeal is likely to be mooted by Arbcom. Galobtter (talk) 00:12, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

[rnu]

Think this, and much of the last day of the Israel-Hamas war offtopic thread, should be merged to this topic. Mods?

Did you make sure (i.e. ask an admin or arb) that your participation is not considered a violation of your tban? I think you should obviously be allowed to give evidence, I'm just not sure the admins/arbs share that opinion.

[nableezy]

Think this, and much of the last day of the Israel-Hamas war offtopic thread, should be merged to this topic. Mods?

Did you make sure (i.e. ask an admin or arb) that your participation is not considered a violation of your tban? I think you should obviously be allowed to give evidence, I'm just not sure the admins/arbs share that opinion.

Straight from the Raddish's mouth.

And for the record, I reported this well before any topic ban. One of the reasons I've been so pissed off in my editing is that I've known, as a *fact*, that this has been going on and there didn't seem to be any way to stop it. It is extraordinarily difficult to cordially edit alongside with people you know are lying to your face.

[rnu]

Think this, and much of the last day of the Israel-Hamas war offtopic thread, should be merged to this topic. Mods?

Did you make sure (i.e. ask an admin or arb) that your participation is not considered a violation of your tban? I think you should obviously be allowed to give evidence, I'm just not sure the admins/arbs share that opinion.

Straight from the Raddish's mouth.

And for the record, I reported this well before any topic ban. One of the reasons I've been so pissed off in my editing is that I've known, as a *fact*, that this has been going on and there didn't seem to be any way to stop it. It is extraordinarily difficult to cordially edit alongside with people you know are lying to your face.

Good!

[rnu]

Does anyone here know whether or not anyone (e.g. admins, arbs, crats) has access to information on who emails who via Wikipedia?

[MrErnie]

I believe that checkusers can check if an account has sent an email using the internal Wikipedia email system, but I don’t know if it shows the recipient and it doesn’t show the contents.

I don’t know if a checkuser can check an account to see if they have received an email or if it will show the sender - we would need a CU to confirm but I doubt they’d give away any of their secrets.

[Alexbrn]

I believe that checkusers can check if an account has sent an email using the internal Wikipedia email system, but I don’t know if it shows the recipient and it doesn’t show the contents.

The info is certainly available in the MediaWiki software. Whether they log any of it is known only to the CUs I suppose. Also, outgoing emails from WP are via a wikimedia.org mailserver, so there should be logging there too.

[Vigilant]

I believe that checkusers can check if an account has sent an email using the internal Wikipedia email system, but I don’t know if it shows the recipient and it doesn’t show the contents.

I don’t know if a checkuser can check an account to see if they have received an email or if it will show the sender - we would need a CU to confirm but I doubt they’d give away any of their secrets.

Then there should be a public disclaimer that your emails on en.wp are not protected and not private and may be used against you at any point for any purpose.

This is just so slimy.

[ScotFinnRadish]

Then there should be a public disclaimer that your emails on en.wp are not protected and not private and may be used against you at any point for any purpose.

This is just so slimy.

Something like

A private log will record that your email has been sent, and this log can be inspected by certain privileged users in order to prevent abuse. This log does not identify the recipient, title, or contents of your email (though in cases of extreme abuse, Wikimedia Foundation staff can verify the recipient account). Wikipedia makes no guarantee of confidentiality for messages sent by this system. Do not send information by email that you would not want published on the internet.

[Vigilant]

Then there should be a public disclaimer that your emails on en.wp are not protected and not private and may be used against you at any point for any purpose.

This is just so slimy.

Something like

A private log will record that your email has been sent, and this log can be inspected by certain privileged users in order to prevent abuse. This log does not identify the recipient, title, or contents of your email (though in cases of extreme abuse, Wikimedia Foundation staff can verify the recipient account). Wikipedia makes no guarantee of confidentiality for messages sent by this system. Do not send information by email that you would not want published on the internet.

lol, is that already in there?

Egg meet face.

[rnu]

Then there should be a public disclaimer that your emails on en.wp are not protected and not private and may be used against you at any point for any purpose.

This is just so slimy.

Something like

A private log will record that your email has been sent, and this log can be inspected by certain privileged users in order to prevent abuse. This log does not identify the recipient, title, or contents of your email (though in cases of extreme abuse, Wikimedia Foundation staff can verify the recipient account). Wikipedia makes no guarantee of confidentiality for messages sent by this system. Do not send information by email that you would not want published on the internet.

So some people on Wikipedia can see who sent an email, but only people at WMF can see who received an email?

[MrErnie]

When you receive an email you get a notification which I also assume is logged somewhere and can be checked.

[nableezy]

Then there should be a public disclaimer that your emails on en.wp are not protected and not private and may be used against you at any point for any purpose.

This is just so slimy.

Something like

A private log will record that your email has been sent, and this log can be inspected by certain privileged users in order to prevent abuse. This log does not identify the recipient, title, or contents of your email (though in cases of extreme abuse, Wikimedia Foundation staff can verify the recipient account). Wikipedia makes no guarantee of confidentiality for messages sent by this system. Do not send information by email that you would not want published on the internet.

So some people on Wikipedia can see who sent an email, but only people at WMF can see who received an email?

Some people are checkusers, and for recipients that would take the WMF.

[Randy from Boise]

One of Wikipedia's potential vulnerabilities is state-sponsored mass editing.

The Israeli government would be #1 on my list of suspects to engage in such activity. They probably already do, actually.

t

[Vigilant]

One of Wikipedia's potential vulnerabilities is state-sponsored mass editing.

The Israeli government would be #1 on my list of suspects to engage in such activity. They probably already do, actually.

t

I would imagine many of them are already.

The definition of 'mass' is the only question.

[Ron Lybonly]

One of Wikipedia's potential vulnerabilities is state-sponsored mass editing.

The Israeli government would be #1 on my list of suspects to engage in such activity. They probably already do, actually.

t

The definition of 'mass' is the only question.

I think there are enough Israelis and pro-Israeli editors out there that the Israeli government doesn’t need to do this now. Not during this awful war when everybody on both sides is stirred up.

True, too, of the other side. No shortage of volunteers in the Palestinian diaspora.

[Boing! said Zebedee]

When you receive an email you get a notification which I also assume is logged somewhere and can be checked.

I don't think you do, unless someone manually puts the "ygm" template on your talk page.

The MediaWiki software can tell who an email was sent to, but surely can't tell if it was received.

[ltbdl]

When you receive an email you get a notification which I also assume is logged somewhere and can be checked.

I don't think you do, unless someone manually puts the "ygm" template on your talk page.

The MediaWiki software can tell who an email was sent to, but surely can't tell if it was received.

huh? you do get a notification, unless you've turned it off.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:P ... ction-echo

option for "email from other users"

[Vigilant]

What this means to me is "Never use wikipedia's email. Ever."

[Boing! said Zebedee]

When you receive an email you get a notification which I also assume is logged somewhere and can be checked.

I don't think you do, unless someone manually puts the "ygm" template on your talk page.

The MediaWiki software can tell who an email was sent to, but surely can't tell if it was received.

huh? you do get a notification, unless you've turned it off.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:P ... ction-echo

option for "email from other users"

Hmm, how strange, I don't ever remember seeing (or changing) that. Must be old age, I guess.

[Randy from Boise]

One of Wikipedia's potential vulnerabilities is state-sponsored mass editing.

The Israeli government would be #1 on my list of suspects to engage in such activity. They probably already do, actually.

t

The definition of 'mass' is the only question.

I think there are enough Israelis and pro-Israeli editors out there that the Israeli government doesn’t need to do this now. Not during this awful war when everybody on both sides is stirred up.

True, too, of the other side. No shortage of volunteers in the Palestinian diaspora.

The problem of partisans is obviously also real.

t

[Giraffe Stapler]

Getting a little off topic here, but how did you folks think the Wikipedia email system works? You're typing into a text box on a Wikipedia page - did you think magic wiki fairies made it materialize in someone's inbox? Of course they log who sends messages to whom. If they didn't, we all would have been spammed to death by now.

[charliemouse]

Looks like arbcom is handing out sitebans. What isn't clear is why they are sidebans, as usually canvass-related offences are not capital crimes. The evidence is secret due to "privacy," which is of course a big thing on Wikipedia. So we have to trust our elected officials.

[Randy from Boise]

A quote from William Beutler's 2023-in-review The Wikipedian blogpost...

“History is written by the people who can harness the most editors.” —Benjamin Netanyahu

https://www.thewikipedian.net/p/the-top ... es-of-2023

t

[rnu]

Getting a little off topic here, but how did you folks think the Wikipedia email system works? You're typing into a text box on a Wikipedia page - did you think magic wiki fairies made it materialize in someone's inbox? Of course they log who sends messages to whom. If they didn't, we all would have been spammed to death by now.

That it is logged is obvious. The question, at least for me, was who can access the logs. In particular what interests me is whether arbs have proof who was canvassed or whether they can only make educated guesses based on behavior. Sounds to me like, unless WMF gave them the information, they don't have proof who received an email. This is also supported by Aoidh asking EytanMelech point blank whether they received emails.
Btw. the fact that the Wikipedia email system was used explains to me why people are talking about technical measures. I guess I missed that part at first.

[nableezy]

Getting a little off topic here, but how did you folks think the Wikipedia email system works? You're typing into a text box on a Wikipedia page - did you think magic wiki fairies made it materialize in someone's inbox? Of course they log who sends messages to whom. If they didn't, we all would have been spammed to death by now.

That it is logged is obvious. The question, at least for me, was who can access the logs. In particular what interests me is whether arbs have proof who was canvassed or whether they can only make educated guesses based on behavior. Sounds to me like, unless WMF gave them the information, they don't have proof who received an email. This is also supported by Aoidh asking EytanMelech point blank whether they received emails.
Btw. the fact that the Wikipedia email system was used explains to me why people are talking about technical measures. I guess I missed that part at first.

AndresHerutJaim will send hundred plus emails through Wikipedia's email system asking people to join a discussion. Some number of those emails are responded to, giving Andres that person's email address to send to normally without using WP's system. The evidence I provided was of the latter set of emails. The former set of emails is pretty well attested to on-wiki, with a number of people publicly stating they were canvassed by email to such and such discussion.

[rnu]

Getting a little off topic here, but how did you folks think the Wikipedia email system works? You're typing into a text box on a Wikipedia page - did you think magic wiki fairies made it materialize in someone's inbox? Of course they log who sends messages to whom. If they didn't, we all would have been spammed to death by now.

That it is logged is obvious. The question, at least for me, was who can access the logs. In particular what interests me is whether arbs have proof who was canvassed or whether they can only make educated guesses based on behavior. Sounds to me like, unless WMF gave them the information, they don't have proof who received an email. This is also supported by Aoidh asking EytanMelech point blank whether they received emails.
Btw. the fact that the Wikipedia email system was used explains to me why people are talking about technical measures. I guess I missed that part at first.

AndresHerutJaim will send hundred plus emails through Wikipedia's email system asking people to join a discussion. Some number of those emails are responded to, giving Andres that person's email address to send to normally without using WP's system. The evidence I provided was of the latter set of emails. The former set of emails is pretty well attested to on-wiki, with a number of people publicly stating they were canvassed by email to such and such discussion.

The idiot didn't even use BCC? Did he want his minions to get caught?

I once received an email "recalling" an email from the same sender I had received about five minutes earlier. The rest of the email looked identical to the original, so I was a little confused until I realized that the original email was sent with CC instead of BCC revealing all the recipients. I would never have noticed if they hadn't tried to "recall" the original email.

[Vigilant]

It's just too much work and most of us wanted a full on Star Chamber.

I won't disagree that you understand the privacy issues and don't give it as much weight, instead giving weight to the high visibility of the topic area. Whereas I am obligated under policy to give more weight to the privacy and confidentiality considerations. As for disclosing redacted evidence if this were one or two emails we were talking about it might be practical. We have named 15 different discussions which have been targeted and it's not like those 15 discussions were targeted in a couple of emails. Producing redacted evidence would require hours of work from likely multiple arbitrators and I'm definitely not willing to volunteer to do that, preferring to spend my time thinking about the evidence, thinking about the feedback and comments, and truthfully replying to the comments and feedback. In fact I feel some obligation to respond because I am one of the people who really advocated for us to do this in public, rather than completely in private as policy would support and past practice would tell us to do. Barkeep49 (talk) 23:15, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

You really took the wrong lessons from history, son.


Regardless of the topic area, how does one defend themselves from these types of charges if they aren't shown the evidence?

[eppur si muove]

They established late last year that it is unacceptable for Arbs to hint to the plebs about what is going on because that violates confidentiality or something.

[Vigilant]

Do those same privacy considerations prevent you from showing the evidence to the affected parties? Coretheapple (talk) 23:52, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Maybe I'm missing something because it seems like we obviously couldn't show the parties the emails we've received. Barkeep49 (talk) 00:54, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, how do you mount a defense against accusations that you cannot see?

How can you not see what that looks like?

[nableezy]

Getting a little off topic here, but how did you folks think the Wikipedia email system works? You're typing into a text box on a Wikipedia page - did you think magic wiki fairies made it materialize in someone's inbox? Of course they log who sends messages to whom. If they didn't, we all would have been spammed to death by now.

That it is logged is obvious. The question, at least for me, was who can access the logs. In particular what interests me is whether arbs have proof who was canvassed or whether they can only make educated guesses based on behavior. Sounds to me like, unless WMF gave them the information, they don't have proof who received an email. This is also supported by Aoidh asking EytanMelech point blank whether they received emails.
Btw. the fact that the Wikipedia email system was used explains to me why people are talking about technical measures. I guess I missed that part at first.

AndresHerutJaim will send hundred plus emails through Wikipedia's email system asking people to join a discussion. Some number of those emails are responded to, giving Andres that person's email address to send to normally without using WP's system. The evidence I provided was of the latter set of emails. The former set of emails is pretty well attested to on-wiki, with a number of people publicly stating they were canvassed by email to such and such discussion.

The idiot didn't even use BCC? Did he want his minions to get caught?

I once received an email "recalling" an email from the same sender I had received about five minutes earlier. The rest of the email looked identical to the original, so I was a little confused until I realized that the original email was sent with CC instead of BCC revealing all the recipients. I would never have noticed if they hadn't tried to "recall" the original email.

No, he did BCC, but it was something like at this time an email was sent asking this edit be made and this edit summary be used, Dovidroth made the edit an hour later with that edit summary as their first and only edit to the page. And so on.

[Vigilant]

The fecal pulsar arrives to make things worse.

Statement by Jehochman (Dovidroth)

Why are we treating Icewhiz like he who must not be named? If it looks like him, just say so.

Could somebody explain to me how the checkuser tool tells you anything about one user emailing another user? As stated, the assertion sounds like a non-sequitur. Do you mean to say that this account looks like it could be an Icewhiz sock, but the technical evidence is not conclusive so you will book it as proxying? This account and the one below are strenuously protesting their innocence. Maybe you should offer the editors to identify themselves to WMF if they want to get their bans lifted. Once they prove that they are real people distinct from Icewhiz, a warning against proxying should suffice. If they don't accept the offer then that answers your question. Jehochman Talk 16:18, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

[Vigilant]

Statement by Taking Out The Trash (Dovidroth)

Strongest Possible Oppose. We don't ban editors for canvassing or meatpuppetry. Canvassing by itself merits a warning, exclusion of the canvassed !vote(s) from the relevant discussion(s), and, if canvassing occurs on-wiki, possibly a temporary block or topic ban imposed on the person(s) orchestrating said canvassing. Off-wiki canvassing, as long as it isn't harassment, there's nothing we can do about except slap {{notavote}} on the affected pages and discount obviously canvassed comments made by people who clearly have no policy knowledge. Again, as long as the off-wiki stuff isn't "canvassing by extortion" or some other form of harassment, we shouldn't be sanctioning editors on-wiki for things they say off-wiki.

Proxying for a banned editor is a form of meatpuppetry, which again, does not merit the most severe sanction short of WMF intervention that can be possibly issued. A person making edits at the direction of a banned user, or reinstating the reverted edits of a banned user, is taking responsibility for that content as if they had made the edit themselves. If the content of the edits is problematic, it should be dealt with accordingly, up to and including blocks if necessary, but again, we don't outright ban editors with no or minimal sanction history just for making some edits that might've been better off not made. The action of "blind proxying" (i.e. proxying for banned users without stopping to examine if the edits themselves are appropriate) should be met with a warning for a first offense, and then standard meatpuppetry procedures if it continues after a warning. Yes, I know these procedures frequently include indef blocks, but a standard indef block, while it has the same technical effect, is much less severe of a sanction than an ArbCom ban. But if the edits themselves are not problematic, and the only issue with them is that they were requested by or originally made by a banned user, there is absolutely zero reason to sanction another user simply for agreeing with the POV of a banned user, especially if an editor in good standing who wasn't canvassed had made those exact same edits and wouldn't face any sanction.

In short, I was completely shocked to see this on my watchlist. This is a serious overreach and the fact that it is even being considered is deeply concerning. Again, unless we are dealing with some form of harassment (i.e. "canvassing by extortion"), we do not ban editors merely for participating in discussions after being canvassed to them, nor do we ban editors for engaging in "routine" meatpuppetry, especially for a first offense. Taking Out The Trash (talk) 18:27, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

[Vigilant]

Tamzin in the middle of another enormous political shitshow.

Are there no other areas on en.wp that you can administer?

Drawn to the dramah like a moth to the flame.

[nableezy]

The fecal pulsar arrives to make things worse.

Statement by Jehochman (Dovidroth)

Why are we treating Icewhiz like he who must not be named? If it looks like him, just say so.

Could somebody explain to me how the checkuser tool tells you anything about one user emailing another user? As stated, the assertion sounds like a non-sequitur. Do you mean to say that this account looks like it could be an Icewhiz sock, but the technical evidence is not conclusive so you will book it as proxying? This account and the one below are strenuously protesting their innocence. Maybe you should offer the editors to identify themselves to WMF if they want to get their bans lifted. Once they prove that they are real people distinct from Icewhiz, a warning against proxying should suffice. If they don't accept the offer then that answers your question. Jehochman Talk 16:18, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Have no idea why he thinks this has anything to do with Icewhiz, Dovidroth is clearly not Icewhiz and while I don’t know what else ArbCom has for evidence besides what I reported none of what I sent had anything to do with Icewhiz.

[Ron Lybonly]

The fecal pulsar arrives to make things worse.

Statement by Jehochman (Dovidroth)

Why are we treating Icewhiz like he who must not be named? If it looks like him, just say so.

Could somebody explain to me how the checkuser tool tells you anything about one user emailing another user? As stated, the assertion sounds like a non-sequitur. Do you mean to say that this account looks like it could be an Icewhiz sock, but the technical evidence is not conclusive so you will book it as proxying? This account and the one below are strenuously protesting their innocence. Maybe you should offer the editors to identify themselves to WMF if they want to get their bans lifted. Once they prove that they are real people distinct from Icewhiz, a warning against proxying should suffice. If they don't accept the offer then that answers your question. Jehochman Talk 16:18, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Have no idea why he thinks this has anything to do with Icewhiz, Dovidroth is clearly not Icewhiz and while I don’t know what else ArbCom has for evidence besides what I reported none of what I sent had anything to do with Icewhiz.

Such an awful war can create a hundred new editors like Icewhiz that aren’t Icewhiz.

[rnu]

Getting a little off topic here, but how did you folks think the Wikipedia email system works? You're typing into a text box on a Wikipedia page - did you think magic wiki fairies made it materialize in someone's inbox? Of course they log who sends messages to whom. If they didn't, we all would have been spammed to death by now.

That it is logged is obvious. The question, at least for me, was who can access the logs. In particular what interests me is whether arbs have proof who was canvassed or whether they can only make educated guesses based on behavior. Sounds to me like, unless WMF gave them the information, they don't have proof who received an email. This is also supported by Aoidh asking EytanMelech point blank whether they received emails.
Btw. the fact that the Wikipedia email system was used explains to me why people are talking about technical measures. I guess I missed that part at first.

AndresHerutJaim will send hundred plus emails through Wikipedia's email system asking people to join a discussion. Some number of those emails are responded to, giving Andres that person's email address to send to normally without using WP's system. The evidence I provided was of the latter set of emails. The former set of emails is pretty well attested to on-wiki, with a number of people publicly stating they were canvassed by email to such and such discussion.

The idiot didn't even use BCC? Did he want his minions to get caught?

I once received an email "recalling" an email from the same sender I had received about five minutes earlier. The rest of the email looked identical to the original, so I was a little confused until I realized that the original email was sent with CC instead of BCC revealing all the recipients. I would never have noticed if they hadn't tried to "recall" the original email.

No, he did BCC, but it was something like at this time an email was sent asking this edit be made and this edit summary be used, Dovidroth made the edit an hour later with that edit summary as their first and only edit to the page. And so on.

OK. So the evidence looks something like this?
X emailed multiple people asking them to do a and z minutes later Y did a with no obvious reason why Y would do a other than in response to being asked.
Is that about right? That would mean that there is no direct proof that Y is one of the people who received a mail from X, but their behavior can best be explained by assuming that they are.

[nableezy]

OK. So the evidence looks something like this?
X emailed multiple people asking them to do a and z minutes later Y did a with no obvious reason why Y would do a other than in response to being asked.
Is that about right? That would mean that there is no direct proof that Y is one of the people who received a mail from X, but their behavior can best be explained by assuming that they are.

I think the thing that makes it obvious is the idiot included edit summaries to use and those edit summaries were copy pasted by the person making the edits. Like you could conceivably just want to make such and such edit, though it beggars belief that you would so consistently show up at places you’ve never been to make specific edits that are requested, but copy pasting the edit summaries is a whole other level of stupid. That’s what turned it from canvassing to proxying, at least imo. There a whole bunch of editors who I think have been canvassed over and over to a bunch of discussions, but you can’t really do anything about that but hope the closer takes into account the strength of an argument and not the vote count.

[rnu]

OK. So the evidence looks something like this?
X emailed multiple people asking them to do a and z minutes later Y did a with no obvious reason why Y would do a other than in response to being asked.
Is that about right? That would mean that there is no direct proof that Y is one of the people who received a mail from X, but their behavior can best be explained by assuming that they are.

I think the thing that makes it obvious is the idiot included edit summaries to use and those edit summaries were copy pasted by the person making the edits. Like you could conceivably just want to make such and such edit, though it beggars belief that you would so consistently show up at places you’ve never been to make specific edits that are requested, but copy pasting the edit summaries is a whole other level of stupid. That’s what turned it from canvassing to proxying, at least imo. There a whole bunch of editors who I think have been canvassed over and over to a bunch of discussions, but you can’t really do anything about that but hope the closer takes into account the strength of an argument and not the vote count.

That sounds pretty definitive.

[Vigilant]

To me, the process is more important than the outcome.

ARBCOM is using secret evidence in a non-standard proceeding and refusing to allow the accused to properly defend themselves.

This is bad.
It's worse than the conduct alleged.

[rhindle]

To me, the process is more important than the outcome.

ARBCOM is using secret evidence in a non-standard proceeding and refusing to allow the accused to properly defend themselves.

This is bad.
It's worse than the conduct alleged.

Back in the day, iirc, Cla68 asked why there wasn't any due process in some matter (Idr what it was) and they flat out said WP doesn't have due process.

[rnu]

To me, the process is more important than the outcome.

ARBCOM is using secret evidence in a non-standard proceeding and refusing to allow the accused to properly defend themselves.

This is bad.
It's worse than the conduct alleged.

I agree wholeheartedly.

[charliemouse]

To me, the process is more important than the outcome.

ARBCOM is using secret evidence in a non-standard proceeding and refusing to allow the accused to properly defend themselves.

This is bad.
It's worse than the conduct alleged.

I agree wholeheartedly.

I agree. "Privacy" is a bullshit excuse.

[nableezy]

I don’t really get the objection or the comparison to FRAMBAN, that was about a body completely unaccountable to the community imposing an unappealable, even unchallengeable, sanction when we had processes that were perfectly capable of being used. But ArbCom has always had as part of its mandate the deciding cases privately when the evidence cannot be publicly shared. And they are accountable to the en.wp community with every election. Should ArbCom at least share something like on 14 October at 12:00 an email was sent asking this edit be made and this edit summary used, you made that edit with that edit summary at 12:20? Yeah, I think so, but I also think they could have decided this behind closed doors and just announced bans for proxying with as much fanfare as a normal CU block (that is, with none at all).