Philip Cross

[CrowsNest]

ArbCom case is nearing its conclusion, with Cross about to be "indefinitely topic banned from edits relating to post-1978 British politics, broadly construed". Typical ArbCom (and of the Wikipedian's general cowardice), they take months to reach an outcome no different to what would have happened at a properly held AN/I debate. It was blindingly obvious Cross was editing with an agenda. Of course, there was plenty to the case that we were told only Arbcom have jurisdiction over, and they are sounding quite confident in their conclusions that nothing else has happened here that requires any further sanction.

They could perhaps be believed by a sceptical media, if they didn't undermine their claims to have performed a thorough investigation by introducing garbage like this in their proposed decision.....

Prior dispute resolution and topic ban
3) In a discussion at the Administrators’ noticeboard in May 2018, editors expressed significant concerns about the neutrality of Philip Cross’ edits to the George Galloway article. As a result of this discussion, Philip Cross was restricted from editing the George Galloway article directly. Subsequently, the neutrality of Philip Cross’ editing in the overall area of modern British politics was questioned.

This suggested timeline is, of course, a total lie. His lack of neutrality were being raised on and off wiki for a long time before May 2018. Nobody who has looked into his case to any degree, and several journalists have of course, would be unaware of this fact. All that remains is to ask, why lie? Are they lying by omission to hide their failings, which is the Wikipediot's speciality, or have they infact not done a proper investigation, on account of them obviously being incompetent?

There's lots of other stuff that hasn't been mentioned too. No mention, for example, that Cross apparently pushed one of his victims to the brink of suicide. Or played lots of games surrounding issues of transparency, giving conflicting accounts both in just his on wiki statements, and ones that contradicted others made off wiki, seemingly taking advantage of certain rules that were most assuredly not written to protect people who are found to need topic bans like the one he is about to receive.

I'd love to know if Cross even submitted anything to the case privately. Or if he just sat back, safe in the knowledge that he has never done anything sil!y like admitted he is Kamm, or takes instructions from Kamm, meaning all anyone can do is make a judgement about whether or not that is the inescapable conclusion of looking at his edits and his brief and inconsistent statements.

ArbCom are most strident in how they have sought to clear him of any more serious crimes, and portrayed him as someone who has been wronged as much if not more then he has done wrong. I hope this is just a lack of perspective from ArbCom, but it really does look like an attempted whitewash, a case of protecting a member, their own reputations, and that of Wikipedia.

If they want to make a useful finding, one that reflects a harsh truth of this case and indeed many others before it, they should acknowledge that it is quite rare, most likely extremely rare, for random Wikipedians to just one day suddenly become a target for harassment. And it is unheard of at this scale. It is almost always the case that 1) they did something bad, and 2) the Wikipedia machine tried to avoid having to deal with it, usually by shooting the meseenger, closing ranks, erecting huge obstacles to justice, or just plain lying their asses off and pretending everybody else was crazy or stupid. Just like Jimmy Wales did on Twitter in this very case.

[CrowsNest]

On 26 July 2018, User:Cameron11598 identified my restriction by the Arbitration Committee as a "Topic ban." On 28 July 2018, I requested clarification at the Wikipedia talk:Editing restrictions page. "Please specify," I asked politely, "what topic ArbCom has banned me from." Five minutes later, User:Bbb23 reverted my request, with the snarky admonition in his edit summary, "If you can't read, then don't edit Wikipedia." I therefore request that ArbCom itself answer my question. What topic have you banned me from? As I understand it, my restriction is different from a topic ban. If so, please advise Cameron11598 to correct his mistake. KalHolmann (talk) 01:00, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Oh for the love of god, I've changed the label to "editing restriction". It really doesn't make the slightest difference what it's referred to on that page as, there's no official taxonomy of what is called what. What matters is the actual behavior that you're banned from. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 01:35, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
User:Premeditated Chaos, in your edit summary you say, "Let's call it an editing restriction then, it changes nothing." In that case, why change it? If my restriction is equivalent to a topic ban, ArbCom should call it a topic ban. Yet note that in ArbCom's Proposed decision, the list of Proposed remedies includes 3.3.2 Philip Cross topic banned followed immediately by 3.3.3 KalHolmann restricted. Using two separate terms is confusing. KalHolmann (talk) 01:50, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

I changed it at your request because it seems to be causing you significant confusion. Hopefully some of that confusion has now abated. Again, it really does not matter what it was listed as by a clerk on an archive of editing restrictions, what is actually relevant is the wording of what you are restricted from doing. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:02, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Given "topic ban" is an official term on Wikipedia, such laxity has enormous potential for confusion, and worse, which this silly cow would probably have been gracious enough to admit under normal circumstances. Perhaps they are getting all kinds of heat behind the scenes for a terribly mishandled case?

Jimmy Wales seems to think the best way he apologises to people for his fuck up, is to become an enthusiastic re-tweeter of Oliver Kamm.

[AndrewForson]

As usual, one of those fights where you want both, or all, sides to lose. User:KalHolmann tweets as Watchful Wikipedian @KalHolmann and gets a lot of support from George Galloway. Another twitter friend appears to be Emma @emmadefano1 who claims to be User:RebeccaSaid on-wiki. She joined in June 2018 and her third edit was to the Cross case Workshop ("my opinion as an outsider") against Cross, so obviously either a sock-puppet or recruited off-wiki.

[sashi]

I doubt I'll convince you with #2, Andrew, but you might agree with #1.

1) Cross could have been autoblocked on 13May somewhere shy of 8RR by the WMF editwar-ender-bot. Instead the WMF had NeilN on the case.

2) Rebecca Said showed up about a week after Holmann was told to shut up. §

[CrowsNest]

Blocked for a week, for a basic and obvious violation of his topic ban (posting to the talk page of the biography of a sitting MP). Achieving even that outcome was a struggle.

Interesting to note, when comparing to things like the first time offence indefinite block of Peter Hitchins, that at no point has Cross done any of the following....

1. Not admitted what he did (violate his topic ban)
2. Apparently manipulated others into thinking he has done 1. (there is another way to interpret a self revert, particularly when done after he has been reported, and the explanation given "self-revert, no doubt the other editor has read my comments by now")
3. Not given any kind of statement that shows he understands and accepts the topic ban, and will in future be trying his hardest not to violate it, such as for example, seeking clarifications should he ever find himself in the situation he claims he found himself here (see 4. below)

What he has done, is the following.....

1. Blamed others for his actions ( "I can assume my old edits will be regularly challenged on talk pages by the same handful of users and I have no public means of responding." )
2. Included irrelevant issues in his defence ( "I was civil to User:RebeccaSaid and AGF." )
3. Given an implausible excuse for his actions ( "I did not know the topic ban applies to talk pages")
4. Was probably lying when he did 3. ("As User:RebeccaSaid is referring to one of my edits I think I should respond." )
5. Was probably trying to mislead people when he did 2. ( "I was not topic banned for my edits, but my off-Wiki behaviour")

Notably, others also did some interesting things....
1. Blamed the messenger (Calton, Shrike, Kingsindian)
2. Advocated leniency (a mere warning) (Shrike, Kingsindian, Courcelles), for a user who has already had both an Arb Case, a first trip to AE, and a Clarification Request, plus how many goddamn years editting, to get his head around what a topic ban is and how you do and don't approach them if you want people not to think you are gaming the system, mooning the jury, or generally being a dick.

It is truly amazing what you can achieve in Wikipedia by simply not saying very much, and allowing others to think you are the victim. It is also truly amazing that after an ArbCom case where he is basically found guilty of misconduct, somehow the treatment he gets at AE is even more lenient and considerate than the average Joe who finds themselves at AN/I for a first offence.

[AndrewForson]

At one point Galloway claimed to have proof of who Philip Cross was. I assume he never published it?

[Dysklyver]

At one point Galloway claimed to have proof of who Philip Cross was. I assume he never published it?

No he never gave any clues or published the information.

Indeed, he seemed to have decided it was better to claim P. Cross was a slave of an organized cell of fake news people out to get him.

[CrowsNest]

Took the high road. Something that is alien to the Wikpedians.

I'm still amazed nobody in the upper echelons of the Wikipedia machine has anything to say about how Cross approached the issue of who he was. For better or worse, Wikipedians have the right to say, no, you do not need to know who I am. Many choose to waive this and acknowledge who they are. Some even do the latter, before being allowed by the machine to do the former if something they do comes back to bite them in the ass.

Cross did none of these things, choosing instead to play games with the people he was feuding with, and the hundreds of onlookers examining how Wikipedia works. Some people might think that would be seen as an issue for Wikipedia. Those people are wrongly assuming Wikipedians have ethics.

[Dysklyver]

Took the high road. Something that is alien to the Wikpedians.

I'm still amazed nobody in the upper echelons of the Wikipedia machine has anything to say about how Cross approached the issue of who he was. For better or worse, Wikipedians have the right to say, no, you do not need to know who I am. Many choose to waive this and acknowledge who they are. Some even do the latter, before being allowed by the machine to do the former if something they do comes back to bite them in the ass.

Cross did none of these things, choosing instead to play games with the people he was feuding with, and the hundreds of onlookers examining how Wikipedia works. Some people might think that would be seen as an issue for Wikipedia. Those people are wrongly assuming Wikipedians have ethics.

It's a curious fact that people like to stay anonymous. Not everyone of course, some people are a bit more open and are real name.

Then there's people who will use their real name in a secure situation but not openly. A rather large number of admins fit into this category, and that's fine. Not everyone can use their real name without risking the crazies turning up on their doorstep.

But when something gets as heated as this P. Cross incident, and one guy is known and the other is an anonymous internet troll? That's just unfair.

[CrowsNest]

Topic bans are fuzzy.They're really not. Genuine cases of widespread disagreement over what is and is not covered, are rare. And there is always the possibility for those confused, to seek clarification. Checking the boundaries goes on all the time. There's nothing special about Cross' behavior. Really? I can't recall a similar case at all, not the manner of this specific breach, although what followed is sadly familiar. Remind me of one, please. He got a week-long block for his latest violation, which also happens all the time. And people tried to prevent even that, which happens all the time. All told, it is almost like there are more Wikipedians who believe in chaos, disorder and permanent misbehaviour, than good governance and the rule of law.