User talk:Kevin Gorman: Difference between revisions

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If you are an IP or a not yet autoconfirmed user, you can post any comments directed at me here as this page is currently semiprotected. Kevin Gorman (talk) 19:22, 11 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Kevin Gorman, a remedy or finding of fact has been proposed relating to you in the ongoing Kevin Gorman arbitration case. Please review the remedy or finding of fact and feel free to comment at the proposed decision talk page. Thanks. For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 01:11, 17 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"This arbitration case has been closed and the final decision is available at the link above."

The following remedies have been enacted

4) For consistently poor judgment in undertaking administrative actions following a formal admonishment, Kevin Gorman is desysopped. He may regain the administrative tools at any time via a successful request for adminship. Passed 13 to 2 at 17:53, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

For the Arbitration Committee Amortias (T)(C) 18:08, 18 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Wikipedia:Arbitration_Requests_Case_Kevin_Gorman_closed

In light of this finding, I have removed your previously self-granted editfilter management flag ("required good judgement" is a standard component). If you strongly disagree, I will revert and we can discuss further elsewhere. Else, should you desire to work in this area in the future, you may request at WP:PERM. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:41, 18 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• This is a hilarious example of what's wrong with our current dispute resolution setup. I don't believe most of the arbitrators actually read the evidence in the case. And @Roger Davies: - shame on you for ignoring multiple requests to recuse because one of the missteps directly involved you. I'm happy to provide full email copies or screenshots with headers of my emails to Roger asking him to recuse that went unanswered when I get back. It flabbergasts me that an arbitrator ignored recusal requests and did what certainly would've been a violation of WP:INVOLVED if they were an ordinary administrator... or that you found that behavior worth desysopping, when within the past while you've also privately said "Even if a woman human's rights activist in Saudi Arabia was outed, what would she have to worry about? The last time I checked, using the internet is legal in Saudi." Since I'm likely to have occasional free time on this trip, hopefully I'll be able to analyze the decision publicly within a couple of days to demonstrate how flawed it was. User:Kevin Gorman | ^{talk page} 19:23, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• @Kevin Gorman: Thanks for the ping.

First, I've not seen any emails at all from you asking me to recuse. I would certainly have considered such a request though at the end of the day in this case, it would hve made not difference whatsoever to the outcome. For future reference, ArbPol expects requests for recusal to be made on the arbitrator's talk page. This removes any doubt about whether the request was sent/received.

Second, I have never said Even if a woman human's rights activist in Saudi Arabia was outed, what would she have to worry about? The last time I checked, using the internet is legal in Saudi or anything even remotely similar.  Roger Davies ^talk 01:24, 20 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• @Roger Davies: - would you prefer I quote directly from your email while redacting sensitive bits, or simply give you the date and time of the exchange so you can see for yourself that yeah, you said that. Even without an explicit recusal request I'm surprised you didn't recuse. Given (a) interactions at ACE and (b) the fact that a large part of the case literally involved you as the effected party, it seems like, to put it mildly, a bad call not tohave recused. User:Kevin Gorman | ^{talk page} 22:09, 20 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Xaosflux: - no worries about EFM. I put it on myself while trying (and successfully) trying to discover the root cause of a series of autoblocks at Wikiconf USA 2015. It's a bit funny that all the functionaries sitting around couldn't figure it out, even with extensive IAR use of checkuser. User:Kevin Gorman | ^{talk page} 19:23, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the note, was hoping this wouldn't be otherwise contentious for you - arbcom cases can be draining; best wishes on moving forward with any editing areas that you are interested in. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:35, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Kevin, I'm disappointed that it ended up this way, but I want you to know that I remain very grateful for the help you have given me, and I hope that you will find some happy places to edit within Wikipedia. All the best, --Tryptofish (talk) 19:57, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks Trypto. User:Kevin Gorman | ^{talk page} 22:09, 20 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Sorry, Kevin. I think this is the right decision. Yes, no single incident mentioned in the case would be grounds for desysopping in and of itself, but taken together they clearly show a pattern of poor judgement calls even after a previous admonishment. Nonetheless, it's not a judgement on you as an editor or as a person. You have many admirable qualities, I just don't think you should be an administrator. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:00, 20 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• HJ: here's the thing - they don't demonstrate a pattern. My first admonishment occurred right after I was sysopped because in a situation that involved police in my office and police and paramedics combing an area looking for someone who was the reason I took an action on that conversation - as a new admin, I just pulled out the wrong tool. Since then until I returned within the last bit: the only administrative action of mine that gets reversed besides parts of Mass:Nuke on Neelix (and I was intending parts of that to be reversed, and reversed parts myself, though I was beaten to many) is a block undone by Ritchie who accepted an unblock request without looking at prior episodes of the situation that both didn't address the block rationale, and contained an explicit violation of NPA in the unblock request - with large numbers of worthwhile and correct admin actions taken in the meantime. Of the three mistakes involved in the case, two of them were at the advice of other sysops and didn't harm Wikipedia, and the other one didn't involve the admin toolset or cause any significant harm. With a fever of 107 and five organ systems failing in the middle, I do not see how anyone could reasonably link the behavior behind my first admonishment with the set of mistakes in this case. Since I only returned after both the recall problems and severe narcolepsy had been treated, there's no reason to believe the behavior would have carried on after a stern RTFM before acting, since I now more than easily remember TFM, I just hadn't finished rereading every policy when one situation came up that I was explicitly asked to look at that involved me using the toolset, and one situation came up on my page (that was very quickly reversed) where there were multiple valid reasons to delete a discussion, two separate admins had done so with one suggesting RD, and without rereading RD I went ahead and RD'ed it intending to restore it and deal with any remaining problems in the situation when I got home in 60 hours - but instead rapidly reversed it as it was pointed out.

Those are both problems, but they're problems caused by very different issues, and don't display a pattern, just two extreme circumstances two years apart filled with a lot of good in between, a reasonable expectation that the problems would not be repeated, and a reasonable expectation that I would be able to rapidly refamiliarize myself with any parts of policy that encephalopathy had interfered with my recall of. Instead, ENWP now will be missing a large number of classes in undercovered areas because the physical presence of an experienced Wikipedian with teaching experience in the classroom is the #1 predictor of edu project success - but with me gemerally having an obligation to eliminate inappropriately posted material by students, whether that be inappropriately personal (which I have a contractual obligation to do faster than I can find someone else to do it, even with the number of sysops I have contact info for,) plagiarism etc in a sandbox according to the academic code of the school I'm at at the time (which often doesn't match up with Wikipedia's definitions perfectly, and which instructors generally want me to ensure students don't have access to to try to refudge (since it's usually plagiarism from twenty sources at a time, the plagiarism itself is time intensive) unless the students had saved their work offline (they don't,) to - especially in big classes - IAR blocking my own students as a way to get their attention and force them to come see us (you'd be amazed at how many students ditch classes and do their assignments to poorly to allow, aren't responsive via email, but are very responsive when realize there's absolutely no way for them to complete their assignment without coming in.)

Were the mistakes severe? Yeah, I'd say they were, because even though they didn't cause significant direct harm to ENWP they undercut procedures we have in place for a reason. But with two different sets of extreme situations - police in my office two years ago, and returning from severe septic shock with encephalopathy and severe atypical narcolepsy - they don't demonstrate a pattern, and the chance of me making further errors - let alone ones that cause significant direct harm to Wikipedia - should've been weighed against the benefits me being a sysop provides to Wikipedia - and I believe a good chunk of the voting arbitrators both failed to review the evidence, and failed to conduct a reasonable risk vs reward balancing test. User:Kevin Gorman | ^{talk page}

My opinion of your good answers to my ACE2015 questions is unchanged. Best wishes for sure. Collect (talk) 15:04, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As you know, you are no longer an admin, so you might want to rewrite your userpage to reflect that fact. Everymorning (talk) 22:18, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have an idea, Everymorning: How about you take your gravedancing elsewhere and let him deal with his userspace in his own way and in his own time. I'm certain he needs no reminders or a "heads up" from you or anyone on what his userspace contains. -- WV ● ✉ ✓ 22:44, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't take this "heads up" as grave dancing, maybe you're being a little bit too sensitive? Just saying... JMHamo (talk) 22:50, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think so. Obnoxious little reminders can be construed as gravedancing, especially if very obvious to the point of redundancy. Dr. K. 22:58, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely. -- WV ● ✉ ✓ 23:18, 23 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page stalker): Thanks for the concern but there's no need for this kind of reminder, especially given the public nature of proceedings to this point. The current reference to adminship is clearly not an attempt at impersonation. I'm sure it will be amended in due course but there is no particular urgency. -- Euryalus (talk) 00:51, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I was just trying to make a suggestion and give him advice, because I felt it was important people not think he's an admin when they look at his userpage if he isn't, as is now the case. I'm not trying to gravedance, contrary to Winkelvi's assumption of bad faith above. Everymorning (talk) 02:53, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The contention than you're not trying to gravedance is not credible, indeed, it's laughable. Kevin has explicitly stated he is not going to be available much until the 27th and will deal with issues when he has more time after that point. The rest of his user page is a little outdated which must have been obvious to you when you read it, unless you dived in with both feet without bothering to read the remainder of the page. Kevin will, I'm sure, update his user page when he has time. Nick (talk) 12:26, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is all very context sensitive, and part of the context is [1], [2]. I'm willing to extend some extra AGF to Everymorning, but I think that Everymorning need not keep defending the heads up. A better response to the pushback would have been "woops, sorry". At this point, I hope we can leave Kevin in some peace, and move on. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:13, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry. I I see how people could interpret what I wrote maliciously, especially considering that Kevin said on his userpage that he would be away from the internet for a while. This seems to have resulted largely, if not entirely, from carelessness on my part so I'll try to be more careful when discussing these sorts of issues in the future. Everymorning (talk) 02:58, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks @Tryptofish:. User:Kevin Gorman | ^{talk page} 00:29, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hit with rocks, when a bag of gravel would have done the trick. Unfortunate when sense-making is not used and we have decisions like that. Best of luck with the rest of your volunteer work. <sigh> — billinghurst sDrewth 06:44, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Plus if you have an old book that needs reproducing WS is the place. <huge g> — billinghurst sDrewth 06:47, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• @Billinghurst: - a rather light bag of gravel at that, /sigh. I had expected arbcom to try to engage in at least some sort of calculus to determine if my work was detrimental or beneficial to ENWP as a whole, but they saw a handful of mistakes, in exceptional circumstances, at wide intervals and decided to just whack. I'm definitely not gone from the projects. I took some time off to xeriscape two extensive yards, but will be back here and there. Tbh, since arbcom chose to enact one of their few remedies that can be overturned by the community, I'm tempted to write up exactly why arbcom was flawed, and ask the community via RfA to undo the decision, effectively rebuking arbcom. The admonishment they cited... for the love of god, I did use the wrong tool, but it was a situation that happened when I was a brand new admin and there were cops in my office. User:Kevin Gorman | ^{talk page} 00:40, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Arbcom isn't well known for being right too often. I'm sorry to see another person be bent over by the mob. You know where I stand with your opinions but was sorry to see this happen to you at any rate. Come back refreshed and when you are ready and if that time never comes that's ok too if it's the right choice for you. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 01:44, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]