Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Andrevan/Evidence

This is a complete copy of the evidence I compiled during the case request, along with some analysis of it. I realize that may not be standard practice for the evidence page but I already wrote the whole thing up, so here it is. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:08, 10 June 2018 (UTC) evidence & analysis[reply]

I’m not going to try and be absolutely comprehensive here, Andrevan is a very experienced user and not every time they have been dragged to ANI was a clear case of them being dead wrong, but I will endeavor to make it clear why I believe there is a pattern here sufficient to warrant the committee accepting this case by providing more analysis of these incidents. Also, finding old diffs at ANI is a pain, so I have in some cases linked to closed discussions as opposed to individual diffs. If the case is accepted and the committee isnsists on specifc diffs I suppose I could do the digging to find them, but you can see everything described by reading said discussions.

1. Makes a mistake
2. Won’t own up to it
3. digs in heels and resists admitting fault until it is overwhelmingly clear that they screwed up
4. finally sees the light and admits fault, leading everyone to let it go
5. A few months or even years later, all previous steps repeat

So, the pattern is one of a initial refusal to admit to mistakes, repeatedly doubling down when their actions are questioned instead of conceding their errors, then, after all their pleas have been refuted, acting contrite and promising to do better. I believe the following will demonstrate that they have done this as an editor, as an admin, and at least once as a ‘crat.

Andrevan and a few others have said there is absolutely no evidence of tool misuse, which is odd to me because I mentioned two glaring examples in my initial statement. I can only assume I have not made my case that these incidents constitute misuse of the block tool sufficiently clear, and additionally I failed to really express that there are some communication/accountability issues at play here as well. I will therefore begin by endeavoring to clarify the problem with these two cases, and a third not previously included in my statement.

This was in April of 2017. As can be seen at ANI thread, this came up because a user felt that even though the account had not edited in a while, that the combination of the use of a notable individual’s real name and editing the article on that individual (to the point where it had been reported on by the press) was suffient cause for block despite the normal rules at UAA. I fully agreed and issued an appropriate block, under the preset for exactly these type of situations, “Username represents a famous person, soft block ”.

Andrevan came along the next day and changed this to a hard block, with talk page and email access revoked, despite the fact that the user had not abused either of those functions and in point of fact had not made an edit in four months. They also failed to update the block template to advise the user how to use UTRS or OTRS to appeal the block and establish that it really was Mr. Gorka if in fact that was the case. That, clearly, is unjustified by the blocking policy.

So, a mistake. We all make them. It’s what we do when confronted about them that tells the real tale. Andrevan’s reaction in the ANI thread was to double down after their actions were reversed. (Read it to see all of the below):

• They insisted that this was a spammer and that therefore a hard block was justified.
• They seemingly insisted, with no evidence, that this was in fact Mr. Gorka himself and not an imposter or an assosciate using their name.
• They asked for a checkuser to go on a fishing expedition four months after the fact or to issue a new autoblock in order to stop someone from creating an article on the subject’s father.

Nobody agreed to any of that and the thread was closed with the original soft block back in place. So, this isn’t so much about the block modification or any hurt feelings on my part as much as it is about how hard it was to get them to even consider the possibility that they were in the wrong.

I would also note that Mr. Gorka was at that time a senior adviser to president Trump, so this kind of ties in with the more recent issues in this area.

See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive288#Vipul's paid editing enterprise, again. Andrevan unblocked a user subject to a community ban without any unblock request direct from the user or any on-wiki discussion beforehand, including consulting the blocking admin. Quote: “It seems that every once in a while I get accused of cowboy adminning, but I am simply following common sense. ” This is supposed to excuse basing an unblock on a third-party appeal from another paid editor apparently working with the blocked paid editor. And once again Andrevan takes an absurdly long time to acknowledge their error and even then still tries to excuse it.

This was just last week, right in the middle of all the recent fracas but not at all related to it that I can see.

The IP was certainly vandalizing, having made three completely indefensible edits to the same article and also replacing their talk page with “fuck you” one minute before Andrevan blocked them. A block was appropriate, but setting it as indefinite was not.

One has to wonder why and admin with 13 years of experience would not know that we almost never indef block IP addresses, let alone for making all of four edits over the course of three minutes.

The next day, a different IP user pointed out that this block was completely non-compliant with policy [1] and Andrevan did in fact reduce it to three months (or one month for each minute that the IP was actively editing) as opposed to the usual 31 hours or something similar for a first-time IP vandal.

From their reply to the IP [2] it seems it was not a misclick or a moment of inattention, but rather that Andrevan was genuinely unaware that we don’t issue blocks like that and thought that disabling autoblock somehow made it ok. I don’t know if that has ever been standard practice, but I know it has not been in the 8 years I have been an admin.

If an unregistered user knew this already, why didn’t Andrevan? In this one case they at least recognized their error fairly quickly, but even then they equivocated and tried to excuse it even in the face of a perfectly clear policy that they acted in direct contravention of.

This block happened just now, after the case had been accepted by arbcom. One would think an admin under the microscope of an arbcom proceeding would be extremely careful about tool use. So let’s see that transpired here:

• This user made a number of edits to the article Freedom Caucus on June 6th and 7th regarding whether or not they are a “far right” organization.
• Each of their edits were reverted by other users, both sides were pretty clearly edit warring but as Dewythiel has no ally they were making more actual edits/reverts
• On the 7th, they received a standard DS notice and on the 8th an edit warring warning[3]
• They made no edits at all since receiving the DS notice on the 7th
• On the 8th, Andrevan reverts their last edit [4] (thus involving themselves editorially in the dispute) one minute after issuing a block for edit warring
• After I asked for a review of this situation at ANI, it was concluded that ths was not only a bad block on its face as the user did not technically violate 3RR int he first place, but also a violation of the topic ban, which has now been expanded, and Andrevan was blocked for a week. [5]
• Andrevan again equivocates, trying to say the right thing but still making weak excuses, stating that they ddn’t actually look at what they were reverting so that means they weren’t editorially involved (which is a very strange way of trying to justify an action) and that it was an unwitting topic ban violation as if they just happened upon the situation and decided to both revert and issue the block, but they didn’t know what the Freedom Caucus was and didn’t notice that the article talks at some length about the organizations relationship with Trump.

One would think Andrevan would know to be extremely careful using admin tools in this area due to the topic ban, even if they somehow didn’t know that editing here at all would be seen as violating that ban, that blocks are preventative and disruption was not ongoing by the time they issued the block, and also not to make an admin action in area where he was also involving himself as an editor.

But they try to excuse it by claiming tht since they had no idea what they were reverting (which, if you actually believe that, means there also is no possible way they could know if the user was really edit warring) and that they had no idea that this article on a contemporary right-wing political group in the United States might have some connection with Trump (again, because they didn’t look at it, I guess) So, either this was another example of poor decision making, or, if you actually believe their own explanation, it is an example of an admin making a block without having the slightest idea what is actually going on and why they are blocking. Nowhere in there did they even attempt to address the fact that the editor had stopped doing anything at all once the DS alert was posted to their talk page. Once again, they only conceded the point that they hade made an error after a community member complained, another admin had to go in and investigate and then undo their bad actions, and they were blocked again.

This is frankly shocking and disgraceful.

This regards the tortured closure of an RFA about three years ago. See Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard/Archive 31#NA1000's promotion. Here we see Andrevan closing an RFA after particpating in it as a voter. Even worse, it was within the discretionary range, where quite often a ‘crat chat is needed but at the very least it is expected that the closer would not have voted in support of the candidate and then come back and do the close as well.

Initial comments assumed Andrevan had simply made an error and forgotten they had voted, but no, when challenged on this they made it clear that was not the case. And we again see Andrevan doubling down, saying that it is in the discretionary range so they used their discretion and their particpation did not require them to recuse themselves.

Obviously this directly contradicts the very simple principle of not acting when involved, which we expect all admins, let alone ‘crats closing RFAs, to be aware of.

Yet Andrevan refused to acknowledge this and continued defending their actions. What could have been solved in a matter of moments by Andrevan reverting their own close and letting another ‘crat step in turned into a very long and consulted discussion. Eventually they finally relented but an awful lot of ink had to be spilled before they would do so.

I would note that there was some talk of them resigning back then, but as now, they flatly refused to even consider it.

I’m not going to go through their entire edit history and all the issues they’ve been involved in over so many years when there is such a glaring recent example. Here is a brief synopsis that I believe, taken in context of these other events, will show it is typical of the pattern I am trying to point out.

[6] Initial mention of the issue by MONGO

[7] Quickly followed by an official discretionary sanctions notice from another user.

[8] several other users try to get them to see what they are doing wrong and that they are making various unfounded and inappropriate allegations. We are now two days into this incident.

[9] ANI thread opened

[10] Seeing that the ANI has not curbed the behavior, NeilN issues a final warning, we are now seven days into this incident

[11] warning issued for outing in Andrevan’s response to NeilN on their talk page

[12] NeilN informs them they are now subject to discretionary sanctions

[13] After eight days and numerous messages and comments from other users, Andrevan is finally blocked.

[14]It is only after the block is served that they finally seem to understand the gravity of the situation, or maybe not because they issued their “plea of temporary insanity” to excuse all their poor behavior, while at the same time making it clear they will once again not consider resigning anything, claiming ”I have never abused my admin tools or trust of the community” which essentially denies the seriousness of of the other incidents already documented above and makes their previous apologies and promises ring hollow as you can’t be sorry if you don’t actually believe you did anything wrong

I’ve looked at them and it’s pretty clear they warranted suppression. I would imagine any arbs having a look would arrive at the same conclusion. Again, not something we want to see from one of our most trusted users.

Yep, that’s exaclty the point. This is a long-term pattern of this user exercising questionable judgement and reacting the same way when challenged on it. Even when they admit their mistakes, there is always equivocating, indicating they don’t really think they screwed up no matter how obvious it is to everyone else. While we don’t expect perfection, we do expect crat’s to be very knowledgeable about policy and to have a steady temperament, as opposed to an endlessly repeating cycle of “temporary insanity.”

Even after evidence was presented and the case accepted, Andrevan continues to deny ever having misused their advanced permissions, instead characterizing all these incidents as “admin discretion”.

And now they’ve screwed up again, after the case was accepted, by making an action that was both a bad block and a topic ban violation.

It just looks bad to have one of what is supposed to be out most trusted and steady-handed users behaving in such a manner.

In summary: Adrevan’s advanced permissions create needless drama and take up admin resources instead of helping their fellow admins. They act contrite every time there are consequences but clearly they are not even trying to act within expected norms for administrators. These advanced permisssions need to be revoked. All of them. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:08, 10 June 2018 (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.

before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

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.