Universal Code of Conduct/Coordinating Committee/Cases/2025/English Wikipedia's Systemic Failure to Enforce the UCoC

This case is declined. If you have comments or a request to have it reopened, post a comment on the talk page.

Parties
Parties	Notifications
~2025-28778-08 (talk) 08:23, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]	Filer (no diff required)
Bbb23 (talk • contribs • xwiki-contribs • xwiki-date ^(alt) • CA • ST)
Yamla (talk • contribs • xwiki-contribs • xwiki-date ^(alt) • CA • ST)
Deepfriedokra (talk • contribs • xwiki-contribs • xwiki-date ^(alt) • CA • ST)

U4C member alert: @U4C: Ajraddatz, Barkeep49, BRPever, Civvì, Dbeef, Ghilt, Ibrahim.ID, Jrogers (WMF), Luke081515, Denis Barthel, Ferien. ~2025-28778-08 (talk) 08:23, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

~2025-28778-08

Description of the problem - (~2025-28778-08)

Abstract

This submission documents a cascade of increasingly severe UCoC violations by administrators on the English Wikipedia where a good-faith long-term static IP editor 78.28.44.127 was blocked for providing support to a distressed new contributor, had their appeal efforts actively sabotaged by involved admins, not once but twice, and their final plea to the Arbitration Committee met with indifference. It is a sobering case study that clearly demonstrates that enabling enwiki to effectively enforce the Universal Code of Conduct against its unaccountable advanced rights holders requires a systemic overhaul.

How it all started

On January 17, 2025, I witnessed a new enwiki editor, overwhelmed after suffering harsh criticism of their good-faith attempt to address what they (reasonably, if inaccurately) perceived as vandalism, request a permanent block. Their message presented a clear UCoC 2.1 emergency: an inexperienced editor crumbling under pressure, in dire need of reassurance and support. This is what they got instead from Bbb23, the enwiki admin they opened up to. Bbb23 had a great opportunity to help the newcomer to find their way around the project, perhaps channeling their energy into proper anti-vandalism work, but instead of seizing it, they told the user to "just stop editing." Appalled by that callous, alienating response from the then-admin Bbb23 and guided by the UCoC's principles of mutual support and empathy (UCoC 2.1 and 2.2) that it violated, I stepped in and left a reassuring message on the struggling newbie's talk page hoping to prevent their departure from the project.

Bbb23's UCoC 3.2 violations

Within 15 minutes, Bbb23, despite their significant involvement in the situation that distressed the new editor, rolled back my supportive message[1] and then placed me under a retaliatory sitewide block for daring to challenge their authority by siding with the other editor in the underlying dispute instead of obediently agreeing with Bbb23's preferred position, effectively punishing me for supporting a fellow contributor in need.[2] This constituted a clear UCoC 3.2 violation (abuse of power). I immediately sought clarification from Bbb23 regarding this clearly improper block but received no response. After 24 hours without engagement, I posted a formal block appeal detailing the situation, hoping for a fair review by an uninvolved administrator. (see full context)

To properly contextualize the misconduct descriptions that follow, allow me to first cite a principle unanimously endorsed by enwiki ArbCom in a recent arbitration case: "Requesting that another editor perform an action that, if one would have done it oneself, would have been clearly against policy is meatpuppetry and is a form of gaming the system. While it is possible that more than one editor would have independently chosen to act the same way, attempt[ing] to coordinate such behavior is improper on its own as it seeks to subvert the normal consensus building processes." This enwiki-specific extension of the UCoC will be relevant to three separate instances of improper conduct that I am about to describe. Note that it specifically states that a mere request is needed for a violation to occur.

While I was waiting for my "fair review," Bbb23 was busy ensuring it would never happen. This series of messages documents Bbb23 exploiting their good working relationship with enwiki functionary Yamla to recruit them to carry out administrative actions Bbb23 could not legitimately perform themselves due to their en:WP:INVOLVED status as the blocking admin. This is a textbook example of the aformentioned prohibited behavior that enwiki labels "meatpuppetry." In the framework of the UCoC specifically, this would fall under "abuse of influence." By failing to bring Bbb23's improper request to the attention of the community at large, and agreeing to further discuss the matter in private to evade public scrutiny, Yamla betrayed the enwiki community's trust and became complicit in the violation, but this was only the beginning.

Yamla's UCoC 3.2 violations

Not only did Yamla fail to report Bbb23's inappropriate ask, but they willingly became Bbb23's meatpuppet, executing a series of administrative actions in relation to my block appeal at Bbb23's behest that they both knew Bbb23 would have been policy-barred from performing, further escalating the original retaliatory block, a clear violation of UCoC 3.2 multiplied by the number of actions taken. It is important to note that many of these actions constituted a local policy breach in their own right; the underlying meatpuppetry was just an aggravating factor.

Here's a point-by-point breakdown:

1. Yamla was en:WP:INVOLVED themselves, independent of the meatpuppetry, as the block being appealed was an extension of their own, at the time still unexpired, partial block, and as such was required by policy to let one of the other 800+ enwiki admins handle the appeal. Yet they rejected it anyway, prioritizing their personal goals over the blocked user's right to a fair and impartial review.

2. Yamla's block appeal rejection rationale completely ignored the substance of my appeal, flouting the UCoC's expectation of mutual respect and constructive engagement (UCoC 2.1, 2.2). This continued a pattern of non-engagement, as Yamla had also failed to address my earlier query regarding Yamla's aforementioned partial block in violation of enwiki's en:WP:ADMINACCT policy.

3. Non-engagement with my stated concerns regarding Bbb23's block wasn't the worst of it though: Yamla's block appeal rejection rationale was laden with various diffless allegations completely unsupported by any evidence, violating enwiki's policy against making unfounded accusations (en:WP:ASPERSIONS) and the UCoC's principle of assuming good faith. See the "Yamla's allegations" subsection below for a full analysis that demonstrates that "rationale" was nothing but a hatchet job, completely unbecoming of a functionary.

4. Having constructed a "rationale" devoid of evidence, Yamla then imposed a punishment devoid of proportion, arbitrarily setting the length of the block to an absurdly excessive two-year duration which was completely indefensible considering that none of my edits were disruptive. It was a clear and unambiguous instance of abuse of power to penalize a user for pointing out administrative misconduct. (UCoC 3.2)

5. Equally indefensible was Yamla's decision to revoke my talk page access. The policy governing this action on enwiki, en:WP:TPA, is exceptionally clear and restrictive: "This option is not checked by default, and typically should not be checked; editing of the user's talk page should be disabled only in cases of continued abuse of their user talk page, or when the user has engaged in serious threats, accusations, or attempts at outing that must be prevented from re-occurring." Since none of the policy-permitted reasons to revoke TPA applied in my case, Yamla's out-of-process TPA revocation constitutes an additional severe count of abuse of power (UCoC 3.2).

6. Yamla's abuse of power did not stop with the TPA revocation. THREE HOURS LATER, they returned to perform improper revision deletions under the inapplicable en:WP:RD2 criterion. This absurd timing simply doesn't survive any level of scrutiny; combined with the fact that the revisions being hidden patently did not contain the type of material Yamla claimed they did, there is only one possible interpretation: this was a transparent attempt to retroactively manufacture an appearance of justification for the earlier blatantly improper TPA revocation, a clear indication of consciousness of guilt. The revision deletions also constituted a personal attack in their own right, as they mischaracterized one of my contributions as "grossly insulting, degrading, or offensive material."

Yamla's allegations

Instead of engaging constructively with the text of my appeal, Yamla rejected it without any acknowledgement of my stated concerns, citing several made-up violations, without a single diff to back up their claims. In their message following their rejection of my block appeal, they baselessly asserted that I violated the following enwiki policies:

1. en:WP:LOUTSOCK, a policy that prohibits "deceptively" editing under multiple IP addresses/accounts. Since I only have one static IP address, that I've been using consistently for years, and zero accounts (I irrecoverably lost the password to my ONE account in good standing 4 years ago), I'm incapable of violating that policy even if I wanted to, and Yamla presented no evidence that I did so, which is unsurprising because it's impossible to prove something that never happened, one can only baselessly assert it (needless to say, we call such assertions "personal attacks"). Moreover, Yamla specifically stated that their CheckUser-based analysis showed no evidence of sockpuppetry in the same message in which they baselessly accused me of sockpuppetry.

2. en:WP:PROJSOCK, a policy that prohibits "undisclosed alternative accounts" from participating in discussions internal to the project. Since I only have one static IP address, and zero accounts, that IP address is not my "alternative" account, it is my only means of editing Wikipedia, i.e. my main and my only "account." As such, I am, once again, incapable of violating that policy even if I wanted to, and Yamla presented no evidence that I did so.

Also, I believe that en:WP:PROJSOCK is inherently incompatible with the UCoC as it creates a presumption of bad faith for an entire class of contributors ("undisclosed alternative accounts"), contrary to UCoC 2.1's requirement that "[a]ll Wikimedians should assume unless evidence otherwise exists that others are here to collaboratively improve the projects," and as such, I would urge the U4C to review this outdated enwiki-specific policy, and, if you agree with my analysis, come up with a way to address this untenable incompatibility as it is causing real harm to the project by enabling blocks without actual evidence of disruption.

3. en:WP:NOTHERE, an essay, not a policy. I have positively no idea what Yamla meant when they said I was "veering close to violating WP:NOTHERE" but I believe that my consistently positive contributions to the project over the years prove I'm very much "here" to help.

4. en:WP:NPA, a policy against personal attacks. This is ironic because Yamla's description of me as "veering close to violating WP:NPA," unsupported by a single diff, was itself a personal attack. Meanwhile, I didn't personally attack anyone. Including the phrase "veering close to" does not give one a pass to cast en:WP:ASPERSIONS.

Interestingly, Yamla finishes their message following their rejection of my block appeal with the following curious statement: "I discussed this plan with several other admins and all expressed their support of my planned action. That doesn't dissipate my sole responsibility for this block, of course." It really begs the question: who were these mysterious "several admins" and why did they wish to remain anonymous? And what's with that weird statement about Yamla's "sole responsibility for this block?" Yes, our edits are our sole responsibility, it goes without saying... and yet, in this particular instance, it was said. I'll let the U4C draw your own conclusions, though if you'd like to hear mine, I'd be more than happy to supply them.

The thought-terminating "routine block of a problematic user" narrative (UCoC 2.2)

I'd like to round off this section with a summary observation. To any uninvolved enwiki editor who were to look at the surface level of all this, the situation would look perfectly normal. Their analysis would be as follows:

OK, it's a blocked IP user.
Their block log alleges sockpuppetry, as per usual...
...and is undersigned by a well-known and respected CheckUser (must be legit).
Oh, and their TPA is disabled, which makes sense because...
...several top entries in their contributions history are struck through...
...indicating they posted some vile stuff on their talk page.
It looks like they got what they deserved, next!

Meanwhile, the reality, as per the above diff-supported analysis, is that there was no IP sockpuppetry; the well-known and respected CheckUser engaged in meatpuppetry, proxying admin actions for an INVOLVED admin while they themselves were also INVOLVED; TPA was disabled for no valid reason; the revdels were inconsistent with the relevant policy, and performed 3 hours after the TPA revocation to delete a perfectly reasonable direct answer to a direct question asked by another admin.

It really speaks to the importance of "looking out for [one's] fellow contributors" (UCoC 2.2), doesn't it? "Lend them a hand when they need support, and speak up for them when they are treated in a way that falls short of expected behaviour as per the Universal Code of Conduct." There's profound wisdom in these words, and I really wish that enwiki would embrace it more.

UTRS interference via further meatpuppetry (UCoC 3.2)

Evidence for this section (click to expand or collapse)

This section references the following four UTRS tickets.

---
First ticket
Appellant: 78.28.44.127
Time of submission: 2025-06-15 11:47:08 UTC
---
Second ticket
Appellant: 78.28.44.127
Time of submission: 2025-07-07 00:52:28 UTC
---
Third ticket
Appellant: 78.28.44.127
Time of submission: 2025-08-07 03:52:41 UTC
---
Fourth ticket
Appellant: 78.28.44.127
Time of submission: 2025-08-09 16:40:43 UTC
---

Hopefully, that's enough information for the U4C to locate those tickets. I am ready to immediately supply screenshots of said tickets upon request, but please keep in mind that certain entries will be marked as "restricted" in those screenshots as UTRS allows reviewing admins to comment in a way that restricts the appellant's ability to view the content of their comments, and they have done so a number of times across the four tickets.

Unfortunately, I am unable to supply ticket IDs as they were not provided to me despite my direct requests. One such request was made in my final comment posted under the fourth ticket, timestamped 2025-08-10 22:44:38, where I said the following: "[...]could I please get the ID numbers of my past UTRS tickets (plus this one) for future reference, if it's not too much trouble?" The admin that closed said ticket clearly read that comment as they engaged with it directly but no ticket IDs were supplied. Consequently, I simply do not have them. I appreciate your understanding.

As I was barred from posting an appeal on-wiki, I engaged with the Unblock Ticket Request System (UTRS), seeking a restoration of my improperly revoked talk page access. This effort was significantly hindered by the false narrative Yamla had manufactured through their improper revision deletions which mischaracterized as abusive one of my perfectly reasonable (especially in context) and measured responses to an admin directly asking me for information, but, with each consecutive appeal, I was gradually easing reviewers into looking past Yamla's distortions and engaging with the core issue of their en:WP:TPA misapplication, slowly but surely making progress towards a resolution.

This hard-won progress was abruptly terminated when Yamla, the very administrator whose improper TPA revocation was being appealed, seeing their carefully constructed narrative unraveling, intervened directly. Despite their blatant en:WP:INVOLVED status, Yamla personally asked UTRS tool administrators to intervene, blatantly abusing their power and influence (UCoC 3.2).

The relevant lines of the UTRS ticket (my fourth) where this occurred are:

---
Yamla 2025-08-10 21:08:43 Action: sent for tool administrator review

78.28.44.127 2025-08-10 22:44:38 I'm not quite sure what a "tool administrator review" entails[...]

Deepfriedokra 2025-08-10 23:10:32 It means I've been directed to ban you from UTRS. I do so now.
---

This was a blatant violation of the "meatpuppetry" principle mentioned earlier, except in this instance Yamla was the "meatpuppeteer" rather than the "meatpuppet" (as they were now requesting that another editor perform an action they were barred from performing due to their involvement as the blocking admin) and the "meatpuppet" was chosen (seemingly) at random from the pool of available tool admins, which is worrisome in its own right; I will come back to this in my proposed remedies.

Tool admin Deepfriedokra's failure to recognize this intervention request by an en:WP:INVOLVED admin as blatantly improper interference with the appeal process (a UCoC 3.2 violation) demonstrates a profound lack of judgment incompatible with holding the final decision-making authority in a non-public venue which is largely shielded from public scrutiny. That is if we're willing to still assume good faith despite the evidence: after all, Deepfriedokra did explicitly say: "I've been directed to ban you from UTRS. I do so now." I'm sorry, but being directed by INVOLVED admins to shut down appeals of their improperly imposed sanctions is not the function of a tool administrator, and any tool administrator who engages in such ought to be removed from that position, and all of their other ban-related decisions should be audited; I will come back to this in my proposed remedies.

enwiki ArbCom's refusal to enforce the UCoC

Following my Yamla-directed UTRS ban, which prevented me from further appealing my Yamla-imposed talk page access revocation via UTRS, I lodged a complaint with my local Arbitration Committee. The U4C has been sent, and confirmed the receipt of, a copy of that email, so I don't believe it is necessary for me to post it here, but I would be happy to do so if requested. The email was based on the same material that I presented here, minus the proposed principle of "Meatpuppetry," but, given that the principle was drafted and voted on by enwiki ArbCom themselves, I don't believe that it makes a material difference.

While enwiki ArbCom had promptly acknowledged receipt of my complaint, they provided no further updates over the following six weeks, at which point I contacted the U4C, asking for guidance. Encouraged by the U4C's thoughtful advice, I reached out to my unresponsive local ArbCom, but no response came. After 48 hours, I reached out again, and this time, as I was getting ready to send yet another futile update request, a reply finally came, after seven weeks total: "no cause to take action" has been found as "the accusations of improper actions are not substantiated by the evidence presented." It was a generic templated dismissal with absolutely nothing case-specific in it, concluding with a disappointing "the Committee considers this matter resolved, and further inquiries will not receive a response."

This exceedingly long period of radio silence followed by a templated message sent only after repeated requests for an update aligns with the recently publicly disclosed enwiki ArbCom's internal practice of labeling some of the complaints it receives with the "no further response necessary" designation. Needless to say, this should never happen to UCoC-based complaints as it hinders complainants' ability to escalate to the U4C. As I've already said in one of my emails, I would urge the U4C to look into this; the exact date my complaint was dismissed needs to be investigated and, if said dismissal occurred within the 6-week window of the aforementioned radio silence, action must be taken to ensure no further UCoC-based complaints sent to enwiki ArbCom are similarly obstructed. While local ArbComs have every right to accept or dismiss cases as they see fit, UCoC-based complaints should always result in the complainant being sent an immediate notification that a decision has been made, regardless of what it is, to enable further escalation of the matter.

I believe this constitutes a fairly straightforward proof of systemic failure to follow the UCoC; enwiki ArbCom simply refused to enforce the UCoC in this case. Since ArbCom is enwiki's final local decision maker for UCoC-related matters, their refusal to enforce the UCoC unambiguously constitutes a decision to cede their jurisdiction over this matter to the U4C as per the UCoC enforcement guidelines, section 3.1.2, which explicitly lists "[r]efusal to enforce the UCoC" as an example of systemic failure to follow the UCoC.

The U4C's first thought might be to simply urge enwiki ArbCom to reconsider this case; I would strongly urge you not to do so, and here's why. Acceptance of this case and a decisive ruling by the U4C would send a powerful message to all local UCoC enforcement structures that the UCoC is not optional and that, if necessary, the U4C can and will get involved. It would incentivize local ArbComs to handle future UCoC-based complaints with the seriousness they deserve. If the U4C were to merely send this back to my local ArbCom, the message would be the opposite: "feel free to dismiss valid UCoC-based complaints; if anyone comes to us, we'll just gently nudge you to do the right thing in that particular case," establishing the U4C as a preliminary case screener for local ArbComs rather than the last resort decider that it was chartered to be.

The U4C's priority, in keeping with its Enforcement Guidelines and Charter, is to allow local communities to enforce the UCoC; a decisive ruling in this case would be consistent with that priority as it would remove the unspoken but very real barrier of the UCoC not being taken seriously by the longstanding local structures that developed in the pre-UCoC world. The time has come to communicate the UCoC's non-optionality loud and clear; enwiki's UCoC enforcement structures are broken, and need an overhaul. And it's the U4C's duty to make it happen.

Previous attempts at a solution - (~2025-28778-08)

All of the attempts to resolve the matter listed below have already been discussed at length, but here's a brief summary:

1. Direct query to the blocking admin — Immediately after their improper block was issued, I attempted to engage with the blocking administrator (Bbb23) in good faith regarding the reason for their block. The matter could have been resolved there and then, if only the blocking administrator had responded.

2. On-wiki block appeal — When it became clear that the blocking administrator (Bbb23) was unwilling to engage with my good-faith attempt to resolve the problem, I posted a detailed, diff-supported appeal on my talk page, challenging the improper extension of Yamla's partial block by Bbb23. The matter could have been settled there and then, if only the unblock request had been given a chance to receive a review from an uninvolved administrator.

3. Four UTRS tickets — After having my block appeal rejected and my talk page access revoked by Yamla, an INVOLVED admin, I attempted to regain access to my talk page via UTRS. Yamla intervened and my UTRS access was revoked.

4. English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee — After my UTRS access was revoked, I contacted enwiki ArbCom, who summarily dismissed my UCoC-based complaint.

Bbb23

Previous attempts at a solution - Bbb23

Yamla

Previous attempts at a solution - Yamla

Deepfriedokra

Previous attempts at a solution - Deepfriedokra

Other feedback

For people who are not parties, the following rules apply:

Comments/replies may not be longer the 500 words and may not include more than 25 diffs/links. The U4C may, if asked, grant additional words or diffs/links.
Comments/replies are permitted only in your own section
Contributions that do not help clarify the matter can be removed
All accusations and claims must be supported with diffs/links

Other feedback (CaptainEek)

I am an Arbitrator on the English Wikipedia. I speak in my individual capacity, and not for the committee as a whole. This case actually generated thorough behind the scenes discussion, and about 60 emails. Far from a templated response we wrote a unique answer. Opinions varied on whether they were trolling or just wiki lawyering and being obstinate, but the bottom line was: the block was not the result of administrator misconduct, such that the Committee would undo it. The block itself was not unreasonable--they were a self-admitted logged out user and would not reveal who they were. Getting unblocked is generally not hard; a person just has to address their issues and promise to do better in the future, and yet that's not what happened. We did consider whether to undo the honestly questionable revdel, but decided, for varying reasons including not feeding trolls, not rewarding blocked users, the inconsequential nature of the revdelled content, and not wasting community time, to leave it be. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 16:41, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Other feedback (WhatamIdoing)

I am not seeing any statement from the complainant asserting that their previous account was never sanctioned. I'm therefore wondering about the possibility of "Editing while logged out in order to mislead" (w:en:WP:LOUTSOCK) or "Circumventing blocks, bans or sanctions". In particular, I notice that the complainant talks about "my long-lost account", but does not seem to say things like "which was never blocked, banned, or otherwise sanctioned", or just how "long" ago the last logged-in edit was. There's something about the wording of "lost the password to my ONE account in good standing 4 years ago" that makes me wonder how many other accounts there were: ONE in good standing 4 years ago – but have there been any others since then?

Of course this might have been merely an accidental omission, but so many admins have dealt with other people whose "long-lost account" turns out to have blocked surprisingly recently, so I think they can be forgiven for being skeptical that someone would forget not only "the name" but also anything and everything that happened to that account (because if you can remember anything you did in your old account, you can look through old discussions or page histories until you find an edit you made in the past. Disclosures can be made privately in e-mail to ArbCom). And surely anyone who remembers editing Wikipedia would remember being blocked or banned, especially if they thought the block was unfair. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:54, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Other feedback (EDITOR NAME)

Discussion between the involved parties and the U4C members

Only the involved parties and U4C members may edit in this section.

To address any potential confusion: I am the static IP editor known as 78.28.44.127 on enwiki; metawiki appears to be testing some new temporary account system that has automatically generated this random username for me. I would be pleased to confirm my identity through whatever verification process the U4C prefers if necessary.

Also, as mentioned in the case request, I am currently blocked on enwiki which renders me technically unable to fulfill the procedural requirement of notifying the involved parties. If someone could do that for me, I'd be much obliged. ~2025-28778-08 (talk) 08:26, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You can learn more about temp accounts here. This has been rolled out to just about every project except enwiki. It is currently scheduled to come to enwiki on Oct 21. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:36, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@BRPever: Thank you for the initial feedback. However, the core of this case is that the "multiple venues" did not work as intended. The Enforcement Guidelines (3.1.2) explicitly define systemic failure to include "consistent local decisions that conflict with the UCoC." That's exactly what occurred here.

This is not "forum shopping." Every link of enwiki's local chain of recourse has failed: I was blocked despite a complete lack of evidence of disruption; the blocking admin refused to engage; the subsequent appeal was handled by an INVOLVED admin who refused to engage substantively with the text of the appeal, and the stated reasons for the block appeal rejection were not grounded in reality; the UTRS was manipulated by the very same INVOLVED admin; ArbCom, the final local venue, refused to enforce the UCoC with a boilerplate dismissal. I have documented all of this above; dealing with cases like this is exactly what the U4C is for.

I urge the Committee to look beyond the surface-level existence of these processes and evaluate how they were actually applied in this specific instance. The evidence I have presented shows a clear pattern of abuse, not a series of legitimate, independent outcomes. ~2025-28778-08 (talk) 14:20, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To be systemic, there needs to be a pattern. Please show that your claim follows a pattern with other users as well. Ghilt (talk) 16:44, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Ghilt: UCoC enforcement guidelines define the term "systemic issue or failure" as "an issue for which there is a pattern of failing to follow the Universal Code of Conduct with participation of several people, particularly those with advanced rights." In my case, there were three: a functionary (Yamla), a regular admin (Bbb23), and an admin with tool admin level access to UTRS (Deepfriedokra).

You are correct that a pattern is required. However, under the above definition, "the pattern" required is not necessarily that multiple users must be targeted; multiple advanced rights holders participating in a pattern of failing to follow the UCoC establishes systemic failure even if there is only one victim.

This is the only way the definition makes sense as it would be fundamentally unfair to require every victim to find other victims (how many?) before the U4C could assist them. I would urge the U4C to apply the UCoC enforcement guidelines' definition of the term "systemic issue or failure" as written. ~2025-28778-08 (talk) 17:36, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Ajraddatz:@Civvì: The robustness of a system is measured by the reasonableness of its outcomes. I would invite the U4C to reflect: does a two-year block of a good-faith long-term contributor, predicated on this single message, and this reasoning, represent a reasonable outcome? The system may be working for its advanced rights holders, but is it delivering on the UCoC's promise of empowering as many well-intentioned people as possible to actively participate? ~2025-28778-08 (talk) 04:37, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Ghilt: The recommendation to "be unblocked locally" is impossible to follow. I am not merely blocked; my talk page access has been revoked (without any evidence of its improper use, in violation of the relevant local policy), and I have also been banned from the UTRS (at the direction of the en:WP:INVOLVED admin who improperly disabled my talk page access). My local ArbCom has already dismissed this matter and explicitly stated their unwillingness to further engage with it. There is nothing left except the U4C. If this case is dismissed, I will simply remain blocked for another year.

The evidence of enwiki's systemic failure to enforce the UCoC is precisely this: a good-faith editor was subjected to a cascade of UCoC violations by advanced rights holders and ended up completely barred from all local appeal venues, including the final appellate body, despite no evidence of disruption.

In light of that, I would urge you to reconsider your position. ~2025-28778-08 (talk) 06:53, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You could have done what was expected for the appeal. Why didn't you? Ghilt (talk) 07:39, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Respectfully, I believe I did exactly what was expected. I consistently followed enwiki's guide to appealing blocks: I was polite, concise, provided evidence, and addressed any stated concerns. I remained calm and solution-focused even though my block was imposed by an involved admin despite no evidence of disruptive editing.

Looking back on my appeals, which I have thoroughly reviewed in order to fully address your question, the only thing I did not provide upon request, in the course of my attempting to regain my talk page access via UTRS, that I never would have had to do if my original block appeal had not been interfered with by an involved admin engaging in meatpuppetry (as documented in my submission), was the name of my old account that I irrecoverably lost 4 years ago, mostly because I feared that account would then be blocked, and the block would then be used to justify keeping my IP blocked. I understand that this might sound paranoid, but please consider that by the time I started submitting UTRS tickets, I had already been subjected to a large number of egregious UCoC violations described in the sections of this submission prior to the section on UTRS interference, in addition to another questionable event mentioned in the postscript of my original complaint sent to ArbCom. Also, please consider that the name of my long-lost account was immaterial to my talk page access restoration requests, and that enwiki has no policy that would require me to disclose it (quite the opposite, the relevant policy explicitly states there is no disclosure requirement). While en:WP:PROJSOCK could be construed to perhaps create such a requirement, if we wanted to stretch it to its breaking point, I believe I have already made my position on that outdated policy clear: it directly contradicts the UCoC's principle of assuming good faith as it presumes bad faith against a specific class of editors based on their status and is thus invalid. Additionally, please consider that I offered ample reasoning behind my non-disclosure: in particular, that I had no way of proving my ownership of that account, which would render its disclosure meaningless (since a bad actor could easily "excavate" a suitable account name from the history of a high-traffic page and claim it as their own) and that such disclosure would open me to liability if the account were to be hacked and used inappropriately at some point in the future; nobody would want that hanging over their head. Of course, the real problem was never the name of my long-lost account which, in my humble opinion, merely served as a useful distraction to take attention away from the blocking admin's UCoC 3.2 (abuse of power) violations.

Have I correctly understood the focus of your question? I would be happy to provide further clarification if needed. ~2025-28778-08 (talk) 16:41, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Ibrahim.ID: This is not a matter of "perspective" or "opinion." It is a matter of documented actions violating explicitly stated principles everyone agrees on.

This case does not argue that anyone's opinion on anything was wrong, but that specific, binding standards were violated.
The clearest example is the meatpuppetry between Bbb23 and Yamla.

The English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee itself unanimously endorsed this principle earlier this month: "Requesting that another editor perform an action that, if one would have done it oneself, would have been clearly against policy is meatpuppetry and is a form of gaming the system."

Bbb23 objectively did so here. The record unambiguously shows that Bbb23 (while en:WP:INVOLVED) requested action from Yamla (also en:WP:INVOLVED) who then performed admin actions that Bbb23 was policy-barred from performing themselves as per ArbCom's own words.

There is no "difference of opinion" here. There is only documented failure of the system to act on clear UCoC violations, and that is the very definition of systemic failure to enforce the UCoC.

As an aside, by dismissing this case, the U4C will, in effect, be endorsing the position that a good-faith contributor who did nothing wrong (no diffs were ever presented by the blocking admins; this is a fact, not an opinion) should remain blocked for another year, without any means of appealing said block. Is this outcome consistent with the UCoC's promise of empowering as many well-intentioned people as possible to actively participate? ~2025-28778-08 (talk) 03:50, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For the Committee's awareness, I have posted a talk page comment that provides clarification regarding some valid concerns brought up by one of the above commenters. ~2025-28778-08 (talk) 06:38, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

U4C decision

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U4C member discussion

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I don’t really see a systemic failure here. The processes appear to be working as intended, and I’m a bit surprised that the user is claiming faults in all of them. This case feels like forum shopping to me. The fact that there are multiple venues for appeal and review actually shows that there’s a solid system in place to hear their concerns. I don’t think we need to get involved here.--BRP^ever 13:28, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
After reviewing the evidence provided, I do not think that there is a case for systemic failure here. Sounds like a robust system worked as intended. – Ajraddatz (talk) 16:43, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I completely agree with Ajraddatz. --Civvì (talk) 19:19, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The english language Wikipedia arbcom has handled this matter. It was not shown sufficiently that this is a systemic failure in my opinion. I would recommend to follow the recommendations of CaptainEek to be unblocked locally. --Ghilt (talk) 05:14, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
After reviewing the details of the case and the evidence: I do not find any clear violations or systemic failure, and there is no strong evidence for that. A large part of the case is that you had a perspective or point of view that differed from the opinion of the admins and ArbCom, and you see them as wrong, and this does not mean that you are right.--Ibrahim.ID (talk) 21:30, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see a systematic failure here. Luke 081515 07:54, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Motions

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Updates

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We have seen this request. On behalf of the U4C, --Civvì (talk) 11:55, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The case can't get accepted by 5 U4C members anymore, hence it's declined. On behalf of the U4C, Luke 081515 07:55, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]