Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 23:04, 13 December 2008

Please remember in all discussion: *Be Civil *Assume Good Faith *No Personal Attacks We want to reach a solution for all involved parties, not further heighten the dispute.

Approved

Since a minimum of two (2) users have shown that they tried to resolve the dispute with User:Gavin.collins and failed, this page is now an Approved RFC/U, rather than a Candidate RFC/U. -Drilnoth (talk) 23:58, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Suggestions to editors

Please remember not to be encumbered by the process or by the appearance of process. The RFC/U gives some guidance on how diffs may be presented and how "views" and "evidence" should be offered. Some of these are here so that no one party can completely overhaul the framework of the RFC. Some are there so that people can get a consistent picture. But remember that these are means to an end. The end is that we get a fair and complete look at the community consensus about this editor. Insofar as what you edit achieves this end and improves the RFC, don't let the formatting stop you from contributing. An RFC is not a court of law. There are no motions, there are no convictions. Adopting the manner of a court won't add gravity to the process. Also, remember that the talk page of the RfC is as important to determining consensus as the RfC itself. Please talk about summaries, evidence and views at length here. Take disputes here rather than making dueling summaries. Hash out compromises (as that will be a big part of this). Thanks and remember to remain civil! These are just suggestions for future actions, not comments on past or present edits to the RfC Protonk (talk) 02:09, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Those are certainly important things to remember during this process. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:12, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Response to Thumperward/Chris Cunningham's view

You say that, "Issues such as the consolidation of the DND deities articles (proposed months ago) have fallen to the wayside (in whole or in part) while discussion of Gavin's conduct has been a constant topic." If Gavin hadn't started his disruptive editing, then, those discussions would have continued because we'd have had more time to focus on actually improving articles than working on things like this RFC. Should D&D deity articles be consolidated? Yes. I've already consolidated some (see Elf deities and Dwarf deities for examples). I think that more would have gotten done by now except for Gavin's actions.

You also mention that "in actual fact, I believe that the increased emphasis on WP:N that Gavin's participation in D&D projects has caused has improved the project." In some cases this is certainly true; articles like Races of Stone and Sigil (Dungeons & Dragons) only got sourced after Gavin had added his tags, and it probably would have taken a long time for them to be sourced if he hadn't been around. One thing to remember, though, is that this RFC/U isn't about the tags themselves... it's more about Gavin's behavior towards other editors. In many cases the tags are justified; although I may disagree on specifics, and think that he should try cleaning up the articles himself before just tagging them, many of the articles do deserve to have the {{primarysources}} tag or the {{importance}} tag. I have more trouble with his hostile tone, unwillingness to work with other editors, accusations of COI, etc., than with the tags. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:25, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

• For the first paragraph, I think if we try to assign causality either way to some change in editing by members of the project we will fail. We don't actually know that editing is slower, faster, better or worse after Gavin's tagging. IF we did know we couldn't reliably claim that Gavin's tagging caused it or that the project caused it (what chris is saying). The same basic statement applies to the second paragraph. I think that we should probably avoid discussion of the "end-state" of the project or the value of tagging in general, that will lead us down a split based on wikistance more than anything else. Just my thoughts. Protonk (talk) 04:20, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
• I still don't know what I am doing on the project page here, so will comment here on this "In short, I do not believe that Gavin's actions have negatively impacted the quality of Misplaced Pages's Dungeons & Dragons coverage." I disagree with this as the attitude and behavior has caused myself and other editors to no longer be a part of or even participate in the D&D WikiProject. This in fact does negatively impact upon the coverage, sourcing, and factual accuracies within the articles themselves when about half of the few people working on the over 1000 article contained within the D&D WikiProject have left, let alone other areas where the behavior has disrupted entire processes or has grinded them to a halt where coverage on anything was slowed for months and nearly halted prior to Drilnoth breathing life back into the project during the time of the Kender RfM where Gavin was working participating in it rather than going through other fiction based articles with a microscope and fine toothed comb.shadzar-talk 09:17, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

In response to this I can only point out that I don't see putting a notability tag on an article which doesn't establish notability as being something which disrupts the project. It's not a death sentence. : Nor am I confident that the work which has been done to restructure the project's articles around real-world impact and the addition of sources to assert notability would have been carried out had it not been for the disputed tags.

As for members of the project leaving, this happened on the 40k project too. They apparently went en masse to the external wikis which allow unfettered in-universe content - I consider this to be a positive step, because if editors want to work on in-universe material then they're far better doing it on other sites which allow for such content than fighting against our content rules here. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:44, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

It wasn't the tags that was the problem. The problem was the damage that the unyielding adding of tags has done to the community involved. You're probably right, and the articles may not have been improved without tagging. But at the same time, a less combative attitude, that allowed for compromise, would also have encouraged the same results without driving away editors and creating disruption and conflict within the community. (And did, when that approach was taken). Part of the problem was that articles which may well belong in Misplaced Pages, and are very likely to be notable, have been treated in the same boilerplate fashion as those which are far less likely to fit. The result is that editors feel they have to fight the process, rather than tackling the issues. A better approach, which allows for compromise, respects the opinions of others involved, and highlights articles with significant (and possibly unresolvable) problems would have been far more effective and far less disruptive. I have a lot of good things to say about Gavin, and in other environments his unwavering belief in his arguments would be a strength, but when working within a community we need to operate in a way that supports the community, as well as helping to reach the goals. - Bilby (talk) 10:02, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like a level-headed assessment. Hopefully we'll get a positive outcome from this RfC anyway. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:49, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I mostly agree with Bilby's statement. Two examples of the "articles which may well belong in Misplaced Pages, and are very likely to be notable, have been treated in the same boilerplate fashion as those which are far less likely to fit." statement are the two which I mentioned above: Races of Stone and Sigil (Dungeons & Dragons). Said articles were tagged for notability, but they notability was established. The fact that Gavin doesn't even look for sources before tagging the articles is another part of the issue, since he sees them all as being the same "Cruft," both the notable ones and the non-notable ones. -Drilnoth (talk) 13:31, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I also agree with Bilby's assessment; tagging is not the problem. His tags are appropriate most of the time. But it's the volume, accuracy, and unyielding defense of some of the inaccurate tags that are the main problem. It's also quite frustrating to see Gavin spending a few hours of good, productive work editing and adding references to an article about a astronomical object, a literary term, or a disambiguation page in-between hundreds of tags and edits of discussion pages. He is capable of working on an article, and he does so, provided the content has no relation to role-playing games. He seems to be making the point that RPG articles are not worthy of any constructive edits. ColorOfSuffering (talk) 23:51, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

That sounds about right to me, ColorOfSuffering. -Drilnoth (talk) 23:56, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Bilby. Sometimes I feel like a lone voice crying out for sanity, and it feels good to hear that maybe I am not alone. Bilby is one of the most reasonable people I have encountered on Misplaced Pages, and it was truly a pleasure having his involvement in the RFM and now here.

Yes, of the 1700 or so articles we currently have, maybe half of them will, during the next month and through 2009, be merged, redirected, and perhaps in some cases deleted. At one time, maybe two years ago, I saw absolutely no problem in having an article on every monster, god, character location, and any other fictional element within the game that seemed interesting enough to write about. My time since then has taught me that the majority of them will not be tolerated, so the best thing to do with them is to fold them up, condense them, source them where possible, and reduce them into lists or some other form. I accept this, even if I don't particularly like it.

I think it was in September, when the 0.7 release version was annoucned, that I first got a really good look at what articles were at that time part of the project (or at least, in June or so when the last data dump had been done). I said to myself, "oh god, what have we wrought." ;) The vast majority of articles were clearly intangible fictional elements, rather than real world elements. Even Gary Gygax, Wizards of the Coast, and Dragonlance, for example, were somehow not under the auspices of the project. I went about starting to add the project template to articles on tangible elements such as designers and artists, books and products, video games and other adaptations, etc, and I think I got a lot of help with that. Thus, the article count grew significantly over the course of the last few months. The majority of our articles are probably still mostly fictional elements, but like I say we will be and have been condensing that (I don't know if redirects are currently counted in that article total, but this would seriously overinflate the number).

Our point of contention with Gavin has been that, while we do this, it hasn't been helping to have him point as if to laugh and say, "haha, you've got some problems don't you!" We understand the perceived problem, even if we may grudgingly owe him in large part for forcing us to come to this understanding. Does it help for him to continue pointing out what we already know? Will making sure that every single article has the notability template help us work any faster or better? We now have a public watchlist that shows us every single article under our umbrella, so we can look ourselves and see what needs work. Does he think that if he doesn't keep after us that we'll say ah, never mind, we'll leave it all as it is.

I do have to take exception to Chris's statement that he is not "confident that the work which has been done to restructure the project's articles around real-world impact ... had it not been for the disputed tags." I think Chris has been around long enough on the project to see what we've been doing. It's not the tags. What I finally learned during discussions with him at the RFM, and perhaps despite being resistant at first, I realized finally that Gavin was 100% right that we need out-of-universe material in the articles about fictional elements if they are to be kept at all, and that we need to have citations to reliable sources (whether primary or otherwise) because many articles either don't have citations or don't even list any sources whatsoever. So, in July I think, I started adding publication histories to various monster and god articles regarding those which had been around and in frequent use for a few decades, putting them at the top of the articles to emphasize the importance of this. A few months ago, I put the above mentioned Gygax and WotC articles up successfully for GA nom and did most of the work myself to improve them for the 0.7 release. When Drilnoth came around in late October and revitalized the project, we began working together almost immediately to improve things in general in a number of ways, including currently working on an FAC for Ravenloft (D&D module). All of these things we discussed, at length, on the project talk pages. I find giving Gavin undue credit for these positive steps in the right direction, with which he had absolutely no direct involvement, to be extremely insulting and degrading.

In the end, I can only find myself agreeing with Freederick's view that "it is the editors who have improved these articles", and not Gavin. If his only role is to notify us where problems exist and provide the impetus to set us in motion, then I congratulate him on a job well done and wish to inform him that his services are no longer required unless he has something new to tell us for a change. If he does have something new to say or contribute that we have not already heard many times, then I'm all ears. BOZ (talk) 19:05, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Wow. When I logged in to Misplaced Pages today I had not expected to see such a well thought-out and well-written statement. I agree with you completely BOZ; I think that Gavin did help get the project going in the right direction. Quite frankly, I think that the project has been improved greatly since Gavin arrived, because he did bring the problems to the project's attention. I agree, in many instances, with Gavin's intentions. Most D&D articles monster and deity articles don't deserve to have their own articles, and those that do need more citations and need to be more out-of-universe. That said, I think that Gavin's methods-the sheer amount of tagging, the refusal to actually work on the articles, the accusations of COI, vandalism, etc., and the solid defense of tags, among other things-are not helping. I, personally, have redirected numerous non-notable D&D articles, and think that I have firmly established notability for some of the more major, but still in-universe, ones (like Sigil (Dungeons & Dragons)). I think that Gavin could be a really productive contributer to Misplaced Pages, but at this point the D&D tagging and discussion is unnecessary (there's a project aware of the problem and working on fixing it), wastes time (like with this RFC), and makes people dissatisfied with Misplaced Pages in general. I can certainly say that my Misplaced Pages experience isn't nearly as good now as it was in my first two or so weeks, and that seems to be a common theme based on some of the endorsements in the RFC. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:55, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Gavin.collins responds on his talk page

Thought I'd point out this discussion to all involved editors. -Drilnoth (talk) 13:33, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone here think that Gavin's going to make a formal response? -Drilnoth (talk) 19:31, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

No, and I'd leave it that way. If he doesn't want to participate, compromise becomes awful difficult, but there isn't a good reason to compel him to. Protonk (talk) 19:35, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm just concerned because if he doesn't participate, it will be hard if not impossible to reach a compromise, which would take things one step closer towards an ArbCom which nobody wants.

I wonder if he's annoyed because of this. -Drilnoth (talk) 19:45, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Probably specifically because his edit to the draft was removed to his talk page where he wanted to respond to the draft prior to it formally becoming an RfC, and wanted the right to edit a subpage on someone else's account rather than follow the formal process. But that is just my guess and he has stated he declines to take part in the RfC on his own talk page when reminded he has the right to respond to it now that it is "filed". shadzar-talk 20:32, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

shrug Nothing we can do about that. Like we explained to him, a response from him in the very early stages of the draft (after which point, we changed like 90% of it) wasn't going to be helpful to either him or us. The fact that he declines to respond here, as I explained on his talk page, is regrettable; but you can only lead a horse to water, not make him drink. BOZ (talk) 15:39, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment on User:Protonk' view

I'm a little concerned on the attempt to separate the issues directly related to tagging (e.g. participation in policy pages); I think it is very necessary to understand Gavin's approach to editing as to make this RFC more than just a stop gap measure.

There was a point I looked through Gavin's history of contributions and found it to be enlightening, giving me a better idea of what Gavin's mindset is (not to the point of psychologically analyzing him, but..) After a few months of a few edits and learning the ropes, he started working through Business and Economic Assessments, going alphabetically with articles in the project, making a few things to be cleaned up, some for deletion, and so forth. This was fine until about August 24, 2007, when he got to Technomancy, which seems to make him turn his attention to the general D&D field as he then started to AFD a lot of the GURPS articles (see edit history here). Within a month, his editing happens moved from mostly the business articles to what appears to be a massive one-man cleanup of RPG-related topics (including game systems with weak, but some, notability, and game creatures/book authors). His early september edits; within two months of this the first RFC on Gavin comes up. Now, obviously, there's nothing wrong, from a standpoint of WP policies, with this type of editing behavior - we're volunteers, we work on whatever we like, but I think it is necessary to see that once Gavin saw or two of RPG-related topics to be non-notable, he seemed to make it a quest (pardon the pun) to clean up all of the other articles himself. He has yet shown any apparent knowledge of the field (which is why this is different from TTN - TTN at least knows the fictional works he is trying to clean up and thus has some knowledge to double check what sources might say for cleanup purposes).

Then there is also the issue of what seems to be "running to the other parent" or "I didn't hear that" to try to get the result he desires. There was the recent RFC for WP:N to try to establish some basic points that mostly influence FICT but do apply to all fields in general. One question, regarding the allowance for non-notable lists showed support from the responders (including those opposed who wanted to make sure this was not abused by setting strict alloances). This goes along with most current AFD practices where non-notable characters and episodes and the like are crafted into lists instead of their own articles. Gavin participated in this RFC. However, as this RFC was closing up, Gavin introduced this proposal to WP:NOT that would basically nullify those lists (the idea was shot down). He also had issues with the previous (mostly my version) of WP:FICT that had a section that promoted the use of such lists to avoid separate articles for non-notable aspects, but he continues to see the same problem in the completely rewritten version of WP:FICT. Again, there's nothing here behavior-wise that is actionable, but it is the fact that he takes these approaches and methods, coupled with everything else, that is part of the larger problem.

Or lets put it this way - besides Gavin's involvement in the policy, his only area that he seems to edit in presently is the RPG/D&D area. It is perfectly reasonable to craft this RFC/U around the complaints this project has, but say the RFC/U ends up blocking him from any RPG-related topic, he may very well go pursue another area of fiction works outside any recommendations that may come out of this. The goal here should be to find a solution that works not only for the D&D project that has been struggling under Gavin's editing approaches, but to also make sure this doesn't repeat itself elsewhere. To do that, it is important to see what his work outside the D&D-related articles has been, as to get the big picture on Gavin's general approaches, so that a recommendation is effective for all of WP and not just one subset. --MASEM 14:18, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Well said, Masem. I'd like to mention, however, that the goal of this RFC isn't necessarily to have Gavin stop editing D&D articles; it is for him to stop his disruptive editing (which is inevitably accompanied by his accusations of vandalism, bad faith, COI, etc.) of all articles, which at this time happens to be centered around D&D. I would be perfectly happy if he continued to edit the articles, as long as he did so in a less disruptive and controversial way. Instead of just tagging an article for notability concerns and then retaliating against attempts to fix or remove it, he could try finding some references himself to establish the article's notability, and then tag it if he fails to find such sources.

I wouldn't even mind, too much, if he continued his current state of tagging, if he'd stop the hostile tone and, when another editor thinks that the concern it unwarrented or has been fixed, that he wouldn't defend each and every tag. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:33, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

• I mentioned the policy pages (in the paragraph about the "description", I believe) because the statement "His work and discussion on these guidelines seems to center on changing them to fit his viewpoint on notability and inclusion." shouldn't go unchallenged. First, it needs supporting evidence. Second, we need to show that it is illegitimate to work to change a guideline to fit your viewpoint (assuming you work withing CIVIL, TE and CON). Third, I think it is tangential. I think your history of the events is largely correct. It does look like Gavin was proceeding alphabetically tagging business articles when he stumbled upon GURPS and later DnD. I also strongly suspect that gavin said "Boy, here is a walled garden or nn cruft that needs cleaning up" and went to work. That would explain the focus, the method and most of the stance toward the articles. I just don't think we need to talk about things outside the tagging (and related issues) in order to come to some resolution. Functionally, the resolution I would like to come to would match my summary, but that won't be possible without cooperation on both sides. I think that turning this into a discussion about Gavin generally hurts that process and doesn't lead us to a resolution. Unless we accept the possibility that Gavin is both in the wrong and completely unrepentant, that isn't an acceptable outcome. And even if Gavin is unrepentant and wrong, the likely outcome of an RfC about his behavior couched so generally is just a statement "There are a number of editors who think Gavin is disruptive" and nothing else. We will be back with a RFAR in a month. I don't want that. I want some way forward. Protonk (talk) 18:41, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I initially wanted to endorse Protonk's view, but I have to make a few comments first. I agree with 98% or so of what he said. Some of the comments he pointed out were items that I felt had little value in the RfC, but I left in there anyway out of respect for my co-complainants. We have all had a hard time dealing with him over all this time, and his negativity has colored our perceptions. I mostly rewrote the RFC from its initial draft, which took a far harsher tone against Gavin. I knew that a neutral statement was the best way to approach the community was the best method, especially after the way the totally ineffective first RFC was handled. I admit that I left a few bits in there which I didn't think would help, and in retrospect I should have lobbied harder to remove them, and these are the items that Protonk points out. The line the reason for his focusing on them remains unclear; some editors have speculated that he has a strong bias against the genre although he denies this was entirely my addition though, perhaps for the fact that for the life of me I still can't wrap my head around what draws him to RPG articles like flies to a bug zapper. But the rest of the items he points out, yeah, while interesting to ponder, I didn't think they were particularly necessary for a community commentary, and if I could do-over, I would have cut them or modified them. As it is, I removed a bunch of similar stuff which was even less helpful. If you can understand that, Protonk, I will endorse your summary. BOZ (talk) 18:58, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Just to comment on the focus problem. We aren't going to solve it. No one knows why Gavin does what he does except Gavin. Unless he wants to share his motivation (I think MASEM has a good view on it, tho), we don't gain much by speculating. As for the other comments, they don't need to be removed from the RfC (if they are, changes should be made obvious). I just wanted to point out where I felt the "Description" matched behaviors I have seen and where it didn't. Protonk (talk) 19:03, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for understanding Protonk, Masem seems to have a good handle on things from dealing with Gavin in a totally different (yet eerily similar) way. Also, regarding Jeske's comments to Protonk's summary, when I looked for Gavin's reversions of templates, I specifically tried to avoid any instances where Grawp socks and IPs were involved (there were a lot) and went for instances where he reverted legitimate project members presmably acting in good faith. I have further comments to make on other things elsewhere, but unfortunately no time to make them at the moment. BOZ (talk) 19:06, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

As far as Jeske's comments go I stand by my summary that he was edit warring (defined loosely) over tags. I may have to revisit my claim (made in the summary but not the "mini-summary", that his AIV reports were improper. Protonk (talk) 19:10, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict)For the record, I wrote the original draft of the RFC which, as BOZ mentioned, had a much harsher tone. When I was writing it, it had not been my intention for it to turn out sounding harsh, and BOZ was kind enough to do a full rewrite from what I had and made it sound much more neutral and balanced in the process.

Additionally, the sections of the "Evidence of Disputed Behavior" which Prontok points out as being trivial were mostly part of my original draft, there to act more as examples of what caused the current dispute rather than being a part of the dispute, which is more about Gavin's tone and accusations. -Drilnoth (talk) 19:14, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Its not that you guys aren't supposed to be harsh. If Gavin really did unpleasant or objectionable things, you shouldn't be bound by some sense of equanimity from saying so. What I think is problematic is the use of vague or unsourced opinions about that behavior. We have diffs showing gavin being abrupt and rude regarding tagging questions. We have diffs showing accusations of vandalism toward people who removed the tags. It is redundant to introduce general suppositions about his behavior given that evidence works just as well. that's mostly what I was trying to say. Protonk (talk) 19:19, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

As I noted, there is absolutely nothing actionable from his policy side discussions. He is civil, if not repetitive. That itself is not wrong and should not be a focus here, but what I do think is necessary to consider that Gavin is not only focused on D&D articles, with his policy edits in line with his views on what the D&D projects should be -- and to the aspect that this is not the best way to gain compromise and consensus. --MASEM 22:48, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the comments about his views and opinions and what we might think his motivations are should have been left out of the equation entirely, because this divides the focus from where we want it to be. This was the problem of the prior RFC, which chose to focus more on his deletions and therefore went nowhere. Now, regarding Gavin (and Jack Merridew) reverting the edits of Grawp socks as Protonk brought up, I don't see anything wrong with that because Grawp is banned and was just trying to remove the templates to aggrivate them (and probably because he disagreed with them, but being banned disallows him from doing anything about that). Reverting on IPs is a little less clear, because while some of them were found out to be Grawp socks later, some may not have been. I hardly went through every single article he has ever edited, so I can't tell you how many instances of edit warring over templates there may have been. BOZ (talk) 19:18, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

~undent~ Masem, might I ask where the civility in this hostile dialouge is in regards to Gavin?

It seems a bit of an empty request to ask for feedback and then ignore it. I see this latest proposal as another attempt to steam roll a proposal through without consultation.

I forgot, only positive feedback allowed. Clearly I made a mistake.

OK, negative feedback is allowed, but it will be ignored.

Three strikes and I am out. I have committed the third deadly sin: offering feedback that is "clearly outside the domain of consensus viewpoints on the project". Gosh if I had known that, I guess I should not have made any comment at all.

Like Oedipus Rex, I ought to pluck my eyes out for making these misakes.

Personally, once I hear terms like "consensus", "wider consensus", "community consensus ", and "community's will" and now "consensus at various AFD discussions" being used to dismiss objections, alarm bells start ringing, because I think this is a personal presumption, not a universally held truth which some editors imagine, but only exists in their heads and for which there is no obvious or tangible evidence for

Attacks, hostile tone and combativeness in each and every post made. Just because the use of colorful metaphors and obscene slang was not entirely present does not make the temperament of the messages civil. shadzar-talk 00:55, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Compared to other users, Gavin's a saint in behavior. I see sarcasm, but nothing that's an attack or the like. Yes, he does have a slightly hostile tone, but it is absolutely nothing that can be actionable, only worth noting as part of the overall issue. --MASEM 01:35, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Masem that the comments that Shadzar mentioned appear to be sarcastic. However, Gavin's tone in some D&D article discussions, and discussions with or about users involved in the project, may have gone past that point: , , (those are all examples from the RFC; I can find more if wanted). -Drilnoth (talk) 02:24, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Those are the discussions we are focusing on. My worry is that if we talk too much about Gavin working in project space we run the risk of someone like me seeing Gavin's point of view there as legitimate and grounded in common sense and someone more inclusionist seeing it as idiosyncratic and unyielding. For me, his contributions in the WP:N RfC and the FICT debate don't represent an attempt to impose his view on the guideline, as I share parts of it. but it is easier for someone like DGG (to pick a name, I don't actually mean that he would do this) to say "boy, that is an out there stance and he isn't budging, how disruptive that is". Neither view would require that DGG or I to be actively biased for or against gavin. It would just play on our internal idea of how the wiki should be laid out. What I tried to do in my summary was split that from his behavior. I don't know if I succeeded yet. Protonk (talk) 03:19, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I think you've done well; knowing what little I know of your feelings on subjects like notability, I was a bit worried when I saw your name at first that you'd jump in and say something to the effect of "Gavin's a great fella and you guys are just haters," but I think you've done just fine separating his behavior from his opinions. BOZ (talk) 19:18, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

While I am no fan of Gavin and his methods, I must admit that he has been consistently civil throughout the dispute. Yes, there is some hostility and sarcasm; but nothing beyond what I have seen in formal discussions between academics. What bugs me is not his manner, but his method: "Tag everything and let God sort them out", in effect. This is not constructive editing. Some of you have made the point that many of his tags were correct. To which I answer: I could go out and randomly tag a thousand articles, and some of my tags would turn out to have been correct. This is what Gavin has been doing--he has been tagging every D&D article out there with the same tags, often (I suspect) without reading it. Yes, some articles in fact lacked notability; but you could not even guess which ones based on Gavin's tags. This is why I oppose Gavin's activity, and this is why i have branded him as a pest. He can't be bothered to improve the articles; he can't be bothered to read the articles; he can't be bothered to retract when he is wrong; he's just on a power trip, tagging and complaining, and making others do the actual work. So what if he never uses a slur? I'd be more comfortable interacting with a foul-mouthed, bona-fide editor than I am putting up with Gavin's PC disruptiveness. Freederick (talk) 02:18, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Dan Willis

The Dan Willis article may be a good place to look for anyone who wants to examine the situation in-depth. There was a small amount of disagreement there, in the edit history and talk page, before the RFM began in April and very little activity after that. It was the first D&D article Gavin edited since the RFM ended, and there has been a near-constant stream of activity on the talk page and edit history since then. BOZ (talk) 22:55, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

He has edit warred over the notability template on this one several times since it was first removed in February: , , , , , , , , , (always setting the date to February despite the fact that at one point the template was off the article for almost seven months). BOZ (talk) 14:22, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Response to Gavin.collins

I will respond to your various comments in order.

Since the end of mediation relating to the article Kender, I can say that the desired outcome has already been reached. For readers who are not familiar with the article, it was very much in need of improvement when I first added various cleanup templates back in February 2008; the article cited few citations, provided no evidence of notability of its subject matter, contained plot summary that was either original research or was a synthesis of various primary sources, and was almost wholly written from an in universe perspective. In the months that followed, the cleanup tags were repeatedly removed by members of the D&D Wikiproject without cleanup being effected, and the talk page was filled with unsubstantiated assertions that the cleanup templates were not required, and that my intervention was disruptive and unwarranted.

However, I stuck to my principles and welcomed the mediation on the subject of article cleanup. During a long and complex rewrite of the article as evidenced by the mediation talk page, myself and the other participants replaced the uncited material written from an in universe perspective with real-world non-trival sources which resulted in the creation of what I think to be reasonable quality article. The point I wish to make here is that the cleanup tags were justified, and the disagreements which members of the D&D had with them were resolved to my satisfaction by through the cleanup process.

Were the cleanup tags justified? Yes. I agree with you on that point in many cases.

A similar dispute about cleanup templates has arisen over the article Dan Willis between myself and Drilnoth, who has instigated this RFC. Despite the fact that he has invited and received expert opinion about the sources cited in the article from editors who are independent of the dispute, he has continued to make unsubstantiated claims that the article demonstrates notability on the basis that the trivial or unreliable sources cited in the article constitute evidence of notability on the article talk page.

I would like to point out that the Dan Willis discussion involved more than just the two of us. Nihonjoe and others were participating in it before even I was. Additionally, although I may continue to argue that Mr. Willis is notable on the article's talk page, I am not removing the {{notability}} tag from the article. However, we shouldn't get into that conversation any further here since it is primarily a content dispute.

My view is that it is that it is members of the D&D Wikiproject that need learn to work in a positive manner with those editors with whom they disagree, such as me. I understand why they don't like cleanup templates, but I disagree with such views as they are an integral part of the cleanup process and could of benefit. Removing the template or substituting them with alternatives for spurious reasons without effecting any improvements to the articles is self-defeating for the Wikiproject in the long run, as it delays the cleanup process.

I think that most members of the D&D WikiProject want to work with you in a positive manner, although doing so has been difficult for reasons outlined in the RFC.

I'm not proud of my arguments over {{notability}} vs. {{importance}}, and looking back on it that wasn't the right thing to do. My apologies.

Finally, as to why we don't like the cleanup templates:

1. The time could be better spent elsewhere. As mentioned in the response to Chris Cunningham's view, the project is well aware of the issue and is working on cleaning up or redirecting the articles. I think that everyone's time on Misplaced Pages would, at this point, be better used actually improving the articles rather than just tagging them.
2. Some of them are misplaced. Tagging articles such as Sigil (Dungeons & Dragons) and, for example, Cloaker as if they were they were of the same importance doesn't make sense. The former article's notability has now clearly been established, so the {{notability}} tag certainly wasn't appropriate on it, although I think that it makes sense on the latter article.

The resistance to improving D&D articles that I have experienced creates the impression that D&D articles stand inside "an editorial walled garden" in which the contributions of independent editors who are interested in the article improvement are not welcome; one editor described put this across in the statement "I don't assume bad faith. I think that you mean to do good; I just don't think you are".

Regarding the "editorial walled garden." I have heard you say that three times; I have never heard or seen anyone else use or imply it. I don't think that anyone in the D&D project thinks that the project's articles are "exempt" from Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines.

I view the Description section as a coatrack for a generalised attack on me personally.

The description is not intended to be an attack. It is designed to tell other users what the perceived problem is, so that they may more easily comment on it. You are fully allowed to create a similar rebuttal to serve the same purpose, and I would fully encourage you to so that each side's views are more equally represented.

I see no evidence of any abusive behaviour in any of the instances given; rather I do see discussion, requests for information and disagreement, but no abuse per se.

You have never been "abusive," and I don't think anyone's ever said that you have. However, in some of the examples given your comments appear to sound hostile, whether or not that was the intention.

The "Evidence of trying to resolve the dispute" are actually ongoing discussions about article content. The fact that discussions about the articles in question did not end in the removal of cleanup templates that were perfectly justified it not evidence of dispute resolution at all.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Many of the links in that section lead to things like the RFC, AN/I, and "please stop" discussions on your talk page, and are not about article content.

My overall view is that is will be hard to reach a compromise; from the tone of the Description section, I can see that nothing but a grovelling admission that I am the cause of the D&D Wikiproject's problems will be satisfactory. However, the major problem underpinning this dispute is still the hundreds of poor quality articles that fall within the domain of this project which are coming up for deletion on a regular basis, and what cleanup templates I choose to add makes no difference, as other editors will gradually do the same if these articles are not improved.

Just a clarification: The articles are not coming up for deletion "on a regular basis". At this point in time there's only one every few weeks; not too out of the ordinary for a project of this size.

I think the D&D Wikiproject should stand back from their walled garden, which is in great need of rationalisation, and focus on those articles which can be written from a real-world perspective and sourced properly, rather than pretending all of them can.

I agree with you here. That being said, I think that your personal standards for what sourcing is needed is a bit high (see Hillsfar and Races of Stone and discussions on your talk page about them). Misplaced Pages is not a print encyclopedia; things should be well-sourced, but not every article needs FA- or even GA-sourcing to establish notability.

-Drilnoth (talk) 00:26, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Well said. The "everyone else is wrong and out to get me" response is disappointing, but not unexpected. If the kender RFM really had settled things, then why are we here again? The RFM was never intended to prove that one side was right and the other wrong, although he seems to think it justified everything he does here. I don't recall anyone expecting him to admit that he is "the cause of the D&D Wikiproject's problems", although most of our members (not the project itself) have had an ongoing difficulty with his actions. BOZ (talk) 00:52, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I haven't read it too closely yet, but this appears to be a helpful and well thought out response. I'm going to try and propose some way forward that doesn't talk about content sometime soon. Protonk (talk) 00:54, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! BOZ (talk) 00:55, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Response to Colonel Warden

Each case has its own particular features. What seems interesting about Jack Merridew is that a plausible explanation has been suggested for his behaviour: that he was affronted by the deletion of an article about a person close to him and so responded by rampaging against other articles. I have no idea why User:Gavin.collins goes after D&D in particular and it might be helpful to establish this. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:32, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I've asked him on at least two different occasions why he specifically went after D&D articles despite an admitted lack of knowledge on the topic/genre. In all cases he refused to directly answer the question, or respond to a followup asking why he was avoiding answering the question.Shemeska (talk) 02:07, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I've tried that, too (). -Drilnoth (talk) 13:20, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

The above is OR and a colossal assumption of bad faith. I have been rather clear about my views and reasons. You would appear to be referring to Allison Sudradjat, whom I never met nor had I even heard of prior to her death. Jeers, Jack Merridew 13:31, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Welcome back. Let's hope that this time around will be better. But awarding Gavin a "D&D Barnstar for great justice and epic lulz" is not exactly a shining example of promoting collaboration and good faith upon your return. In my opinion it's spitting in the face of any editor trying to improve D&D articles in view of what's being discussed on this RFC.Shemeska (talk) 14:30, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

A fuller account of Jack Merridew's case may be read here here. The important point for us here is that it might be helpful to understand why Gavin behaves as he does. If he is unwilling or unable to tell us then this does not seem to be a good sign. Colonel Warden (talk) 14:34, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Gavin's put a lot of effort in re D&D and I recognize it. Cheers, Jack Merridew 15:06, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

You still probably shouldn't give a project barnstar to someone who most of the WikiProject have disagreements with. -Drilnoth (talk) 15:36, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

On yon D&D page it says "you can use {{subst:D&D Barnstar|put your citation here ~~~~}} to add the following Dungeons & Dragons barnstar to any user's talk page." — the bolding was in the original. I didn't subst that; it doesn't center, so I fixed it up. The license on that image says I'm free to 'copy and distribute' it. Cheers, Jack Merridew 15:49, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I never said or meant to imply that you couldn't give Gavin the barnstar. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:02, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Unless you're drawing a distinction between "couldn't" and "shouldn't", I can't see how else the statement "You still probably shouldn't give a project barnstar to someone who most of the WikiProject have disagreements with" can be read other than as an admonition against giving that barnstar to that individual. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:16, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I was drawing the distinction, but now that you mention it I reckon it was a poor choice of words. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:25, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

(groan/slaps hand on forehead) ok. Let's start again and keep on topic and keep looking forward on what we're all going to do. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:37, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that would be good. I'll just note my stance outright though:

This user believes that mindless tagging without doing any editing is little better than vandalism.

Thats just my thoughts. Could be wrong. Hooper (talk) 03:13, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

See WP:NPA, WP:AGF and WP:VANDAL; that userbox should be deleted. Cheers, Jack Merridew 06:11, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:20, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Possible way forward by Casliber

I'm not sure what the suggested way forward is supposed to accomplish.

1. There doesn't seem to be a clear understanding of the problem.
2. The solution doesn't do a good job of addressing the problem.
3. The solution goes above and beyond the requested outcome from User:Drilnoth.

Let's start with #1. Limiting the remedy to D&D shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the problem. Is the problem the D&D content? Do we want Gavin to stop looking at D&D for a while? Because I guarantee you, after the collaborative resistance by the D&D WikiProject, he was probably going to give up anyway. You've accomplished virtually nothing.

Onto #2. I thought this was a behavioral problem. Instead, you've treated it as a mere content dispute over the sourcing of D&D articles. It's this kind of thinking that will just lead to repeating the same behavior with different content. The behavior will just shift to Warhammer 40k, Politics of Bosnia, or Islam, or whatever kind of content won't see as much resistance to tagging.

Which brings me to #3. After my first two criticisms, the temptation would be to just carpet bomb the whole situation, and bar Gavin from any kind of tagging on any article at all. And I know that would be attractive to many people here, because many feel wronged by tagging itself -- even if there (hypothetically) had been no inaccurate tags, no edit wars, and no personal attacks. But it's this kind of remedy that would be unduly harsh. Rather than targeting the disruptive behavior, it would come across as a vindictive measure against anyone who is concerned about appropriate referencing on Misplaced Pages. Even a "local" ban on tagging misses the mark: tagging is helpful when it is accurate.

The problem is reckless tagging, edit warring, and personal attacks. I can't say that the proposed way forward is too harsh or even too generous. It misses the target altogether. Randomran (talk) 04:05, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I can't say you're wrong, but do you have a better idea? Protonk said he was coming up with a solution, so maybe we should have a look at his ideas as well. (Oh, and I find it highly unlikely that Gavin would give up no matter how much organized resistance he faces - it hasn't stopped him before; in fact, it almost seems to encourage him.) BOZ (talk) 04:17, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I think we need to target the behavior. Edit warring, incivility / assuming good faith, and reckless tagging. Focusing on *all* tagging really ignores two out of three, and is needlessly harsh on the third. (He stopped now, hasn't he?) Randomran (talk) 04:22, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

He stopped tagging for today, but there's always tomorrow. You're 100% right - I completely forgot momentarily that the whole focus for this RFC was the behavioral issues in the first place. :) I'm sure that Protonk and everyone who's responded to this RFC (except maybe Chris and those who endorsed his summary) would agree that working on the behavioral issues should be the goal of a method for working out a resolution. Yes, a moratorium on just tagging D&D articles will lead to another TTN situation. While some form of that could be a part of the resolution, it shouldn't be the main focus but more of a side focus. Of course, now that I think about it, during the RFM Gavin promised not to tag any D&D articles and this led to virtually no interaction with D&D project members (outside of what we did in the RFM), and these other behavioral issues towards the D&D project members therefore also disappeared along with the tagging, so Casliber may not be totally off the mark either. (I dare you to find anything from May-October!) BOZ (talk) 04:49, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I think that's a fair point -- all the problems have stopped for the time being when the tagging stopped. But there is no lesson learned. Again, the remedy being sought is for Gavin to "work in a positive manner with those editors with whom he disagrees" and "to understand the spirit of editing Misplaced Pages through collaboration". Telling him to abandon his goal completely means *no* collaboration. It means he hasn't learned to work in a positive manner. It just means we've stopped him from working with people he disagrees with. All that does is kick the problem down the road, and it might even validate Gavin's feeling that this is just a WP:coatrack of miscellaneous complaints from people who disagree with him. Although I guess it does give the D&D project some peace, I don't think it really solves anything in the long run. Randomran (talk) 05:32, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

You're absolutely right, again. Having Gavin not tagging articles also (more or less) means an end to conflict with him, which makes things more peaceful for us so we can get things done. It gets him out of our hair so to speak, but then the problem just gets foisted on someone else (as with the TTN example). Solving the problem would mean exactly what you said, as I wrote in the desired outcome, working in a positive manner in the spirit of collaboration, to summarize and paraphrase. But that seems like such a large task, so how do we accomplish it? Well, more discussion like Talk:Land of Black Ice#Merge might be a step in the right direction, for one thing? BOZ (talk) 16:33, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree the outcome of this method is not truly going to be helpful, as the time frame for one will just end back up at square one with one of the behavioral problems in that again we are looking at tax time in the USA for people to be bombarded with instant massive amounts of work with the tags and arguments due to the behavior at least not working within consensus that will bring things to a halt as people have no time. We have seen this behavior before not only once, and it is outside of the D&D project as well. The tags were just used to illustrate the behavior problem and aggressiveness and sense of entitlement/ownership of the articles that tries to force editors of any article/policy involved to agree with Gavin or otherwise be harrassed with abusive tones and temper tantrums. Focusing just on D&D articles will not solve the problem, and there must be something better as D&D is not the only RPG involved, or even wikiproject involved with this, but it spans the whole of wikipedia that Gavin wishes to visit including policy pages. I wouldn't mind a permanent moratorium on Gavin from editing D&D articles ever again, but that only helps me as I don't do much elsewhere outside of D&D related articles, and others will still be effected by the behavior issues of Gavin. It is a step in the correct mindset, but just not fully entailed. Like only curing the cough of someone with the flu, but ignoring the fever; if you pardon my bad analogy skills. So D&D articles are not the only ones involved here, but the D&D project itself had enough participants left to get involved where other projects may have just given up the project due to behavior from persons like, but not solely, Gavin in editing patterns. Well I am broke now, but that is my two bits on the matter, and look forward to any other ideas that may produce more global affects to the behavior problem for all of wikipedia. shadzar-talk 05:58, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

You're misdiagnosing the problem (argh, medical analogies; I've watched too much House today). The root of the problem, the thing which everything else is on top of, is the abundance of unsourced articles on marginal fictional content.

Let's liken the situation to a plague. One way of preventing a plague from spreading through a town is by burning down the houses of anyone infected. It's effective, but isn't likely to make one many friends. This RfC is like a town hall meeting to discuss this ongoing problem. One group of people in this town hall feels that the big problem that has to be addressed is not the plague but the fires, and that it's probably possible to cure many of the infected if only they weren't roasted alive. But supposing that not everyone can be saved, and that the threat of being burned to the ground is hurrying a cure along, I think the situation is quite a bit more complicated than just running all the arsonists out of town. (Bear in mind that I'm very much in the "burn the village to save it" camp on this one.) Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:40, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

(House would probably diagnose all of us with a terminal case of too much internet and not enough sex, and recommend we all torch ourselves. But I suppose that's besides the point.) ;) BOZ (talk) 16:33, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Interesting analogy, as far as it goes, but I'd modify it to say that you're in favor of burning down the houses of anyone who hasn't been inoculated. Gavin's behavior targets notable and non-notable alike, on the presumption that any article that hasn't been thoroughly sourced is both non-notable and non-important. Setting fire to someone's house in order to make them go get their shots - even if the plague hasn't spread to their side of town yet - is bound to raise a few eyebrows, and it's wasting valuable cure-finding time on putting out fires. Snuppy 14:26, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Again, I think we're getting caught up in the content issues over the conduct issues. Just because one agrees with someone's goal, does not mean automatically agreeing with their methods. "By any means necessary"? Even if I were to agree that Gavin were right that anything not clearly meeting the notability guidelines should be removed, his style is confrontational rather than collaberative, combative rather than constructive, threatening rather than gracious, hostile rather than friendly, and demanding rather than compromising. Misplaced Pages is not a battleground, this is not supposed to be a war, and there are not supposed to be winners and losers. Even if one side is "right" about one thing and the other side is "wrong" about that thing, does not make one fully right and the other fully wrong. If Gavin wants to work on anything on Misplaced Pages, I feel it is in his best interests to learn to do as outlined in the "Desired Outcome" rather than thinking he can impose his will on whomever he wants just because he has his interpretation of the rules on his side. That's not how Misplaced Pages is supposed to work. Even admins don't do that without consensus, and when they do lay down the law one would hope they do it sparingly. BOZ (talk) 16:33, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree that endorsing the goal should not mean endorsing the methods. Conversely, bad behavior should not invalidate the goal. That's why a blanket ban on tagging is bad. It invalidates a good goal, and really fails to target the bad method. Randomran (talk) 17:35, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I just endorsed the possible way forward, although I agree that it isn't an ideal solution. I think that Gavin should be allowed to tag articles when it is appropriate. I've added tags to D&D articles because they do need cleanup; the problem that I see with Gavin is the talk page disputes, his refusal to reach a consensus, defense of tags once they are no longer needed, accusals of COI, etc. Some editors have even left the WikiProject because of this.

Personally, I would love to see Gavin start working constructively with the project. Instead of just tagging articles, he could help work on rewriting and improving them. If another editor thinks that a tag is no longer appropriate, let it be removed. Consensus should take precedence over a personal view of Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines and where and how they should be used (something important for everyone to remember). The ideal result, in my opinion, is not what Casliber proposed but a way to come to a better solution. Unfortunately, I don't quite know what that solution would be. -Drilnoth (talk) 17:45, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Let me try to put something together. We ought to collaborate on building an appropriate solution. But maybe I can offer a starting point. Randomran (talk) 17:46, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Please? That would be what we need the most right now. Since you're outside the conflict, you can probably see the issues more clearly than I can right now. BOZ (talk) 18:06, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Gavin.collins back in charge

In one of his endorsements, Gavin.collins opined:

Agreed, but this is no way an endorsement of this RFC. Note this does not provide a "green light" for the removal of cleanup templates without reasonable justification; during the moratorium, I will create a record of all articles from which cleanup templates have been removed or substituted without good reason with a view to reviewing their appropriateness and their restoration if justified.

This again shows an lack of understanding of consensus on Misplaced Pages. It is not up to Gavin.collins to determine the appropriateness of a tag or of its removal or to determine if their restoration is justified. If he boldly added a tag and its addition was reverted, restoration is not the next step, no matter how much one editor reviews or justifies it. Discussion is the next step (see WP:BRD). If Gavin.collins cannot get consensus for the restoration of the tag, then the tag is not restored. It would be exactly the same if another editor decided to review all articles that Gavin.collins tagged and then ignored consensus to remove tags where the consensus is to keep the tag. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:18, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

The problem, of course, is that this doesn't handle the situation where tags are reflexively removed from articles just because a) someone doesn't like tags / b) Gavin put it there / c) the removing editor has a significantly lower notability threshold than the project as a whole. BRD is descriptive, not prescriptive. It is not one's duty to revert every edit made to an article until it is justified. Playing games like this - which is really all that removing or replacing a notability tag on an article composed of nothing but fictional material is - doesn't help anyone, and hiding behind BRD in the hope that the original tagger does not take the time to explain WP:N on every individual talk page in question just wastes editors' time. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:45, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

• While I have agreed to the solution as the first point of light in an otherwise hostile working experience (I have quit jobs less hassling than this and I worked for the State of Illinois for a while) as someone with a Ph.D. in Psychology I'd like to know WHY Gavin has such animosity towards the members of the Project and to the D&D articles in particular. Until we can see the cause of his behavior we are not effecting a proper cure for it. Web Warlock (talk) 15:19, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

• Which is why I think it is necessary to review, not for any behavior or anything enforceable, Gavin's contributions outside of D&D space, to understand how he approaches discussions and consensus-building and to see how that applies to the same to D&D. My take, which is not unbiased, is that Gavin makes a mark on the ground where he thinks things should be, and expects consensus to move towards him, despite overwhelming consensus to move away from that point; his "compromises" generally have him move that mark an inch when consensus agrees to move a foot towards him - that is, its very difficult to get any compromise out of him at all, and that might be part of what the RFC needs to correct. Again, nothing that policy or guidelines state is wrong or anything, but it is becoming a deterrent to at least the D&D project and needs to be addressed. --MASEM 15:36, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

• I agree that removing accurate and useful tags is unhelpful. But then, everybody here knows that edit warring over the tags is the wrong way to handle it. Randomran (talk) 17:37, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

• Agreed; removing accurate tags is unhelpful. However, when there is consensus to remove a tag, then it should be removed. I've spent far too much of my time on Misplaced Pages working with stuff on this RFC or having fruitless discussions about individual tags when I could have been improving the articles. -Drilnoth (talk) 17:50, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

possible way forward, take 2

(Let's start with the RFC itself. Part of the problem is that outsiders have piled on and taken this off topic.)

Goals:

1. "learn to work in a positive manner with those editors with whom he disagrees ... includes assuming good faith"
2. "reviewing the appropriateness of ... articles ... is welcome by Misplaced Pages principle"
3. "understand the spirit of editing Misplaced Pages through collaboration"
4. No more hostility, accusations, disparaging remarks
5. Avoid misplaced or misinterpreted tags and policies
6. No more edit warring

From here we can brainstorm solutions. Again, just a brainstorm.

Solutions (point by point):

1. WP:AGF; discuss calmly
2. Gavin is permitted to tag.
3. Gavin must actually engage with the D&D Wikiproject and work with them in some way... for example, Gavin must find some references for at least two D&D articles. (You guys might have better ideas, since there may have been times in the dispute where you had a few ideas of what he should do instead, and hopefully he'd have the legitimate skills to do.)
4. No more hostility, accusations disparaging remarks. Be WP:CIVIL, and use WP:ETIQUETTE.
5. Be more cautious with tagging. Tag only where it truly applies. In cases where a tag's applicability isn't plainly obvious, start a discussion.
6. If a tag is reverted by the community, instead of edit warring, Gavin should discuss. If the discussion results in no consensus, the parties should ... (we need an idea here. Perhaps by looking at WP:DR.)
7. ... plus some kind of enforcement mechanism, should the problem repeat itself or escalate.

We ought to be very specific, instead of clumsy bans or limits. Again, we're trying to get someone to work collaboratively, not just buzz off for a few months and come back completely unchanged. Randomran (talk) 18:10, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I like this. It certainly needs work, but I think that it's moving in the right direction. -Drilnoth (talk) 18:20, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. We should definitely include as many Dispute Resolution bits as possible in there. Both sides, for too long, have preferred to argue or edit war or ignore each other or namecall or whatever when they disagree rather than doing things the proper way. BOZ (talk) 18:23, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

This is closer to what I was going to propose (see far above) this week. I don't endorse Cas's way forward, though I understand it is well meaning. Protonk (talk) 18:25, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad you like it. There are a few blanks to fill in (see #3, #6, #7). But we should work together on that. Randomran (talk) 18:25, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

For point #3, maybe instead of "finding references for at least two D&D articles," which could easily be done and then ignored thereafter, maybe "When Gavin tags a D&D article, he should first try to clean up the problems that he tags it for. Other users may mention that no cleanup seems to have been attempted when the tag was added, and then Gavin would either need to work to improve that article or allow the tags to be removed by other users without getting into long discussions about it." It probably wouldn't work, I know. I'm just brainstorming. -Drilnoth (talk) 18:31, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

(ec)For #3, I think looking for sources for 2 articles is too arbitrary and will help very little. How about, instead, he looks for sources for every article that he would put {{notability}}, {{primarysources}}, or {{unreferenced}} on? That's not too much to ask at all. If he finds nothing, say so on the talk page, but he should include near-misses ("I found something that seems to discuss this topic, but..."). #5 may be interpreted very broadly by Gavin, so I'm not sure how that one helps. #6 could be Third Opinion or RFC as applies - we have done that before, and should do it more. #7 I have no idea, but should it apply differently for different "infractions"? I.e., edit warring, failure to use talk page, etc. BOZ (talk) 18:38, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

One point that I was going to focus on was the requirement to discuss. There are some tags, like {{Notability}} which require no discussion, presuming they are applied correctly. Other tags, like {{In universe}} or {{POV}} require a post on the talk page detailing the concerns of the tagger. Period. This serves two purposes. One, it slows the tagger down without resorting to artificial rate limits. Two, it provides a way forward for editors of the article to fix real problems. I do not think that a requirement to research or do the cleanup himself will bear any fruit. That seems much more onerous than necessary. We should be able to come out of this and say "we think that you need to offer some reasoning for XYZ kind of tags when you apply them". That's a sound recommendation, in my view. Protonk (talk) 18:38, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

We had been telling him exactly that recently, and there has been some cooperation. I agree it should be used more. BOZ (talk) 18:43, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Right. Just want to codify it here. Protonk (talk) 19:02, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

~undent~ WP:RESPTAG#About_irresponsible_tagging ending and the whole of the WP:RESPTAG should be a goal for this issue.

Timed mass harrassment

With this technique, an irresponsible tagger waits for a time recent change patrollers are unlikely to be logged on to bombard several dozen pages pertaining to a particular topic with the same tag.
Tag slamming

A responsible tagger would read each page before applying any tags, and then leave on the talk page a message that shows that he indeed read the page, honestly believes it applies, and is not acting under a whim or worse, in a sinister plot to wear down those who disagree with him. The tag slammer, by contrast, does not read a page before applying tags and he certainly does not read what the many tags say that he applied.

This is where I feel the whole issue stems from. Mass tagging, with no research, and no discussion about the tags. No intent to work with other in any way, and discussion must be coerced and most times only appears on the user's talk page, and never is started by the tagger on an articles talkpage. This must be fixed.

How about say one possible outcome that Gavin may only tag an article with a single tag, and must include discussion on an articles talkpage immediately after placing the tag; in addition to trying to do some cleanup work himself, AND not adding a tag back while discussion is going on on an articles talkpage about a tag placed and/or removed until consensus is reached by other editors on whether the tag belongs or not, and to give time during the discussion for cleanup to be effected. This would mean placing a tag such as {{notability}} or any other tag does not get edit warred, and even a time of say a month before Gavin can add that tag to an article again to give editors time to work on the article as THEY have time, rather than as Gavin feels the time the editors should have been able to do it considering real life comes before wikipedia such as jobs, kids, everything else. This is the one BIG thing I have been trying this whole time to get achieved is discussion on the talk pages, rather than being overlorded by Gavin that the tag must remain through his cease-and-desist orders via talk pages in regards to removing tags. The tagging is behavioral, and an understanding of responsible tagging, could greatly help with behavior because it would teach/illustrate how to work with consensus, and the Gavin does not WP:OWN any article, like no other editor does, and we MUST work together to get anything done, rather than anyone of us all be the kid in school that gets "does not work well with others" on their report cards. So collaboration is the main goal of wikipedia to create it and all materials presented own it, and Gavin must learn that you must work with others, rather than against them or in some manner that causes everything to grind to a halt without collaboration and discussion. shadzar-talk 22:59, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Just to be realistic, Gavin isn't really an expert on D&D and won't be able to seek out sources with too much strength. Plus, I think it would be a little too easy for him to say "yeah, I looked, but didn't find anything." I actually think shadzar and Protonk have a better idea in terms of forcing Gavin to justify every single tag on the article's talk page, at least for a while. That would speak to #5, and it would speak to #3 too. But would it be enough in terms of #3, or would we need something else to help build a spirit of collaboration? Randomran (talk) 15:31, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

How about this. Gavin places a tag, which he would then discuss on the article's talk page. He describes the nature of the problem, and we work together to fix it. He cannot place another tag on the same article until we have successfully fixed that item. This would make him think twice about saying "this whole article is unsourced OR" or "this whole article is in-universe plot summary", since that would be unproductive and no one would try to fix it. He'd have to pick and chose things which could actually be reasonably fixed. Third opinion and article RFC should be utilized in cases of disagreement.

The thing is, you can't force someone to want to collaborate; they have to see the value in doing so and see why the spirit of Misplaced Pages demands collaboration and cooperation if it demands anything at all. The best we can do is come up with something and give it a try and hope it works. BOZ (talk) 15:46, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I like it and think that will help reduce misplaced tags. But being close to the dispute, does that satisfy you that it will help Gavin become more collaborative, or at least less of a one-man crusade? Randomran (talk) 15:54, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I like both of BOZ's suggestions. I also want to mention that if Gavin can't find article sources (as would be needed by the BOZ's first idea) because he doesn't know enough about what he's working on, why should he be working on it? -Drilnoth (talk) 16:10, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think anything can satisfy me as far as helping Gavin become more collaborative, or at least less of a one-man crusade, unless he wants to make such a change. However, if you can show me that it works I will happily concede that viewpoint. :) Like I said, we can only try and hope it works. Insisting on collaboration has got to be better than choosing between getting steamrolled or fighting forever. If anyone else has something to add to your ideas, I'd like to hear it. Do you have maybe a revision we can look at? BOZ (talk) 16:20, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Why is he even working on RPG related articles or ones that a 45 year old accounting expert has little to no knowledge about is what has been asked of him for over a year, with no response. Likewise why he doesn't work with the D&D or any other project to reach consensus through collaboration has not received an answer either. shadzar-talk 22:14, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Anyone can use google scholar and google books and even lexisnexis. I just think that expecting him to actually *turn up* sources is tough: maybe he honestly couldn't find them, maybe they don't exist, or maybe he's being dishonest. We'll never know. Randomran (talk) 16:36, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

To Shadzar: It's his business apparently, since he's not sharing. Neither being 45 nor an accounting expert precludes a person from being interested in D&D as far as I've experienced, but he has indicated before that most of his knowledge of the subject comes from what he has read here. As for why he hasn't tried collaborating on the articles himself, he has responded before that he feels we would simply revert any edit he'd try to make. BOZ (talk) 22:33, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

~undent~ By all means anyone should edit the pages, but it just dumbfounds me why someone wanting to learn more about the subject would turn only to wikipedia, and then in turn try to have articles removed when said person doesn't know what they are about in the first place. If he was collaborating and went with consensus rather than against it, there is a higher chance that edits would not be reverted, but that does not seem a likely outcome or one where he will engage in discussion willingly. It seems it is only wasting everyones time for someone to work on something they don't really have any interest in where such efforts could go elsewhere to make other things better, or in the very least work with the people who do have knowledge of the subject matter and strive to reach an understanding and agreement of each other rather than for lack of a better term, cyber-bullying, people into trying to conform to one mans ideas. I will not give a D&D stereotype for the way things seem to be if Gavin was a player, but I am sure anyone playing an RPG or any other game knows exactly what type of player I am thinking about, and the usual course taken to handle such a player if they refuse to work with others after a years time. But such course to be dealt with for a player doesn't really need to be that strong here on wikipedia. All in all wikipedia is like a huge RPG in that each person must work together for the same goal and someone always working against everyone else does not help but only hinders reaching that goal. :( shadzar-talk 23:29, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I can't give you any insight into the "why", because I am equally dumbfounded. :) Yes, I understand he feels there are issues that should be cleaned up, which makes enough sense, but I don't understand why he focuses on these particular articles when there are so many, many articles on many, many different topics with the same exact issues. We've asked, he doesn't answer, and so there probably isn't any point in asking anymore unless someone wants to pose the question to him directly. As far as that RPG term you're looking for, maybe it's rules lawyer - takes all the fun out of the game in the name of making sure the rules are followed. :) BOZ (talk) 23:44, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Here's a quick update to where we're at:

1. WP:AGF. Do not bring other peoples' motives into a discussion about content.
2. Gavin is permitted to tag. But he must add a comment explaining the rationale for the tag at the article talk page, at least for the next 2 months.
3. Gavin must actually engage with the D&D Wikiproject other editors by discussing the tags, working together to replace them with more specific/appropriate tags, and explaining how the issues can be addressed. Gavin should seek middle ground, such as merging, or providing time to find sources, or using "lighter" tags. (This helps everyone, because nobody can revert a talk page: it keeps a public record of how different people feel about an article.)
4. No more hostility, accusations, or disparaging remarks. Be WP:CIVIL, and use WP:ETIQUETTE.
5. Be more cautious with tagging. Tag only where it truly applies. If he has a good faith belief that the tag applies and it isn't obvious, he should explain how it applies on the article's talk page.
6. If a tag is reverted by the community, instead of edit warring, Gavin should discuss. If the discussion results in no consensus, the parties should try to get a third-opinion, or solicit discussion at (another relevant forum). (Any ideas? Usually I'd say "discuss it at the WikiProject", but that might not make sense here.)
7. Plus some kind of enforcement mechanism, should the problem repeat itself or escalate. (Do we need to use the b-word?) If Gavin ignores the requests at this RFC, further action may be taken.

What does everyone think? Randomran (talk) 16:36, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

That sounds about right, Randomran. Do we need to use the B-word? I don't think that that's needed at this point in time. I think that common sense could work as an enforcement mechanism. If Gavin steps too far, we can let him know and hope that he realizes the error and avoids it in the future. If he continually repeats the behavior, a temporary B might be in order. I don't want anyone to be blocked, but it is something that does need to be discussed. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:46, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Item #4 could be folded into #1, leaving that as the top item. Gavin's interpretation of these items will likely be vastly different than ours (see his response, "no evidence of any abusive behaviour in any of the instances given") so be as descriptive as possible. I'm not sure that there should be an expiration date on discussing the tags, at least the ones that require a discussion on the talk page, unless I missed somthing above in what Protonk said. This might need to be as descriptive as possible as well. Mention the one-tag-per-article-at-a-time concept, to prevent mass tagging. Say "reverting" rather than "edit warring"; I don't think he believes he has edit warred, so that will affect his interpretation of such a claim. I think a focus on DR with 3O and article RFC is an absolute must to mention, because I can't see disagreement ending on its own and we need to do something other than argue. Discussing at the Wikiproject page doesn't seem to make sense, I agree. In general, be as explicit as possible, to cut down on possible misinterpretation. Yes, we need an enforcement mechanism, but I don't think that we can proscribe anything like the b-word. :) What we need is something similar to ArbCom enforcement; you know, if there is incivility or failure to discuss a tag, we need somewhere to go to report it and point to this RFC and its resolution so that an uninvolved admin can review it. Obviously, it's not the same as breaking an ArbCom ruling, so any warning or action to be taken would be at the admin's discretion. I'm not sure that AN/I would be the proper venue for this, but it may be. BOZ (talk) 17:20, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I think taking away his right to revert would be too onerous, and allow people to walk all over him. We want to take away his sword, not his shield. We'll know an edit war when we see it, even if he tries to play WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT on the warning. ... I also think the discussion requirement will drastically slow down the mass tagging. Randomran (talk) 05:52, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

You're right. Other than merging #4 into #1 as a general Civility/AGF statement (or at least moving #4 up to the #2 spot for emphasis?) and any other concerns I bring up in the above post, there's nothing else I really have to add. If you propose this, I'll strikethrough my endorsement on Casliber's proposal and endorse yours (can't very well be attempting two methods at once). BOZ (talk) 13:50, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Let's see what other people think. I'm pretty satisfied with it too, as is. Randomran (talk) 16:15, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I think #3 is too loose, and only help in regards to D&D, but not other areas Gavin may travel to such as RPGs in general, or any other article on wikipedia. It should not be directed that this action to resolve a behavior problem only focus on one area of wikipedia, but be made to resolve the issue for all of wikipedia so that no other editor has to deal with it. I think that is a key thing some many be forgetting as we go, is that the D&D wikiproject just brought this forth, but it is not solely the D&D articles that are the only ones affected by the problematic behavior. Like Masem said in response to the policy changes be Gavin, he is working both ends of an angle to get something done that seems to go against other people's opinions and consensus, but must adhere to his ideas rather than to work in a collaborative manner, and this collaboration of editors is what brings about good articles on wikipedia that are helpful to people, and not just D&D related articles. shadzar-talk 22:14, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I expanded #3 to all tags. (As for policy, Gavin hasn't tried to change any policy or guidelines from their current status. Not yet, anyway.) Randomran (talk) 05:48, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't have a lot of time to clean it up. But I made a few quick changes based on what I skimmed. Do we still need to make further changes? Randomran (talk) 23:50, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Drilnoth's variation

1. Work positively: Assume good faith, be civil, and use proper etiquette. No more hostility, accusations, or disparaging remarks. Do not bring other peoples' motives into a discussion about content.
2. Accurate tagging: Be more cautious with tagging. Tag only where it truly applies. Preferably, Gavin should try to fix the article that he tags before tagging it. If Gavin has a good faith belief that the tag applies and it isn't obvious, he should clarify that at the article's talk page when he tags it.
3. Discuss every tag: Gavin is permitted to tag, but he must add a comment explaining the rationale every tag at the respective article's talk page or the tag may be removed without further discussion. If a tag is removed by the community, instead of edit warring, Gavin should discuss it. If the discussion results in no consensus, the parties should try to get a third-opinion, or solicit discussion at another relevant forum (such as the reliable sources, fiction, or original research noticeboards).
4. Collaborate during discussions: Gavin must actually engage with other editors by discussing the tags, working together to replace them with more specific/appropriate tags, and explaining how the issues can be addressed. Gavin should seek middle ground, such as merging, or providing time to find sources, or using "lighter" tags. (This helps everyone, because nobody can revert a talk page: it keeps a public record of how different people feel about an article.) Tags need to be used properly; if a tag is placed in an article or section where it does belong according to the template's documentation, it should be removed and replaced with a more appropriate tag.
5. Accountability: If Gavin ignores the requests of this RFC, further action may be taken. This action may include: A notice at the administrtive incidents or edit warring noticeboards, a request for outside input at Wikiquette alerts or a third opinion, formal or informal mediation, or (in ongoing, repeated, or drastic instances), a request for arbitration.

Any thoughts? -Drilnoth (talk) 16:58, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I think this is pretty fair. There's no blanket ban on what he's allowed to do, but he has to take affirmative steps to make the situation better. (I like your idea of using those noticeboards.) I just made a few small tweaks for organization and clarity. Randomran (talk) 17:20, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

It's beautiful. wipes tears away Seriously, it is mostly a reorganization of Randomran's original, so that's good. I have to assume that #2 only applies to new tags, and not the many hundreds which are currently on D&D articles? Although I like your addition to #3, "Tags need to be used properly; if a tag is placed in an article or section where it does belong according to the template's documentation, it should be removed and replaced with a more appropriate tag;" I think at first it would lead to a lot of arguments, but then that's why we're insisting on discussion, noticeboards, and the DR process right? Your addition to #4, "Preferably, Gavin should try to fix the article that he tags before tagging it," is good, because it says "preferably" rather than insisting that he fixes an article. I like what you came up with for #5 as well, because that spells it all out. BOZ (talk) 17:22, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I think it targets the real problem. Let's give it a day or so, and then I'll post it on the mainpage for endorsement. Thanks a lot for being so cooperative, guys. Randomran (talk) 17:51, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks guys! My real aim was just to consolidate some of Randomran's points, as discussed, and add in a few more ideas and clarifications; I'm happy you think it's good. I think that giving it a few days is a good idea, then we can think about it and make sure that there's nothing wrong.

BOZ, you are correct in the assumption that #2 applies only to new tags, although it would also be nice if Gavin went back and, over time, looked at the previously-tagged articles, I know that that really isn't feasible. For point #3, I agree that that could lead to arguments for a while, in which case we might just need third opinions or posts at appropriate noticeboards. I think that things like {{notability}} vs. {{importance}} (at Talk:Races of Stone, Gavin said that the topic might be notable but the article does not demonstrate it, so he added the {{notability}} tag. According to his own words, then, and not simply a preference by other editors, the {{importance}} tag would be more appropriate per the documentation of {{notability}}), {{in-universe}} vs. {{plot}}, and the use of other individual tags (notably {{Who?}}, {{originalresearch}}, and {{fact}}). I think, however, that once appropriate third-parties have been consulted on a particular issue the problem shouldn't come up again for that specific type of tag. -Drilnoth (talk) 18:08, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Portions of #2 and #3 are redundant to each other. I also dislike the "...good faith belief that the tag applies and it isn't obvious" clause of #2 since some talk discussions imply that Gavin believes that every tag he places applies and is obvious. On the other hand, most of the time I remove a tag and request comment on talk before re-adding in the edit comment, it does not get re-added. --Rindis (talk) 19:45, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

• Yeah #2 is a big problem because all it means it is must be "obvious" to Gavin the tag belongs, and that has been the whole problem all along with not collaborating and working with any consensus. A tag should include discussion, obvious or not to note why the tag was added for other edits to take place to correct any perceived problem with an article by the person who tagged it in the first place. This is where a lot of the behavior problems stem from. What seems obvious to Gavin is not what others believe to be true, and without any discussion the tags are reverted due to lack of collaboration on the article, and when cleanup is done and the tag removed, it may be replaced again the next day because the cleanup does not satisfy Gavin, and he still refuses to place discussion on the articles talk page, but places things like "cease and desist from removing tags" sections on the person's talk page that removed the tag. This is why discussion should, nay must, be present with the tags for consensus to be reached through collaboration of other editors, and where Gavin just have to accept what other editors decide sometimes in order to work on an article in a civil manner by working through consensus. Otherwise it will be constant edit warring over tags, and no cleanup will ever be effected on the articles themselves. Which is what led us to the first RfC, the RfM, and now a second RfC. Gavin's unwillingness to engage in discussion on an articles talk page to specify why the tag was placed, other than to say "see the tag it tells what needs to be done". shadzar-talk 22:46, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Okay, so everyone agrees that #2 and #3 need to be combined, with the result looking more like #3 than #2, right? -Drilnoth (talk) 22:58, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so if we assume that Gavin always feels that his tags truly apply, and has a good faith belief that the reason for the tag is obvious, and we are already stating that he should clarify this at the article's talk page, so all of that can be assumed to be redundant, we have:

Responsible tagging: Gavin is permitted to tag articles with templates, but he must add a comment explaining the rationale for every tag on the respective article's talk page or the tag may be removed without further discussion. Preferably, Gavin is encouraged to attempt to fix an article before tagging it. If a tag is removed by the community, instead of edit warring, Gavin should discuss the tag. If the discussion results in no consensus, the parties should try to get a third-opinion, or solicit discussion at another relevant forum (such as the reliable sources, fiction, or original research noticeboards).

BOZ (talk) 00:16, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Looks good. -Drilnoth (talk) 00:48, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Current version

1. Work positively: Assume good faith, be civil, and use proper etiquette. No more hostility, accusations, or disparaging remarks. Do not bring other peoples' motives into a discussion about content.
2. Responsible tagging: Gavin is permitted to tag articles with templates, but he must add a comment explaining the rationale for every tag on the respective article's talk page or the tag may be removed without further discussion. Preferably, Gavin is encouraged to attempt to fix an article before tagging it. If a tag is removed by the community, instead of edit warring, Gavin should discuss the tag. If the discussion results in no consensus, the parties should try to get a third-opinion, or solicit discussion at another relevant forum (such as the reliable sources, fiction, or original research noticeboards).
3. Collaborate during discussions: Gavin must actually engage with other editors by discussing the tags, working together to replace them with more specific/appropriate tags, and explaining how the issues can be addressed. Gavin should seek middle ground, such as merging, or providing time to find sources, or using "lighter" tags. (This helps everyone, because nobody can revert a talk page: it keeps a public record of how different people feel about an article.) Tags need to be used properly; if a tag is placed in an article or section where it does belong according to the template's documentation, it should be removed and replaced with a more appropriate tag.
4. Accountability: If Gavin ignores the requests of this RFC, further action may be taken. This action may include: A notice at the administrtive incidents or edit warring noticeboards, a request for outside input at Wikiquette alerts or a third opinion, formal or informal mediation, or (in ongoing, repeated, or drastic instances), a request for arbitration.

-Drilnoth (talk) 00:48, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I think this is an improvement. It was weird to say "he should discuss every tag" and also say "he should discuss the tag if it isn't obvious" -- I think that's an artifact from sort of building this up one piece at a time. Either way, it's cleaner and clearer now. Randomran (talk) 01:54, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Yep. Whenever you're ready, put any additional spin on it as you see fit and post. Thanks again for all your help - I think you've done an excellent job of getting this RFC on track to where it needs to be! :) BOZ (talk) 17:31, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your help guys. I'm glad we could find a way forward that was still firm, but did a better job addressing the real problem. I think this is not just more effective, but more fair -- kind of a strange combination. Randomran (talk) 22:49, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I think that we should be thanking you. Your input from a position not currently involved in the dispute directly has been an immense help. I'll notify Gavin of the new proposal. -Drilnoth (talk) 23:04, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Policy and guideline editing to force editors to subscribe to his views.

I don't know if it is too late to mention, but this bit to try to kill off "spin-off" articles like Ansalon wherein the main article about it is already large is another problem. It will not only affect D&D articles, but all articles such as Movie, book, TV characters and any other element of a fictional work. Not every article has enough room for the important parts of a fictional work, and only mentioning the name of some thing because of "non-trivial" requirement will give certain editors the feel they have to right to demand something be deleted on the basis that it is trivial to real world, even if non-trivial to the fictional work wherein there is not enough room in the main article about a fictional work to even mention things and their relative importance within the work itself. I think this trying to force consensus as with the later edit that was reverted is another part of the behavior issue, and maybe Gavin would like his own Wiki website to enforce the regulations he prefers rather than work with the community as a whole to thing what is best for the project of wikipedia. Don't get me wrong, I don't think everything is notable or needs an article, but the dispute on spin-off articles is one where a line needs to be drawn or an actuall kilobytes article size limit be set to allow for information that is needed within an article, or some editors will see fit to have anything not already known by the mass public removed from the encyclopedia, which will defeat its purpose of researching new things if everyone already knows and has heard about every article within it. But it is a bit late/early and maybe I am lacking sleep to think thoroughly about it, but this this activity will impact things broader than the current issues if it is let to continue in this manner. Watch the Ansalon article soon and you will probably notice the recent change to the policy being used as grounds for its deletion or contention not to include it via the 3-prong test failure as created by the change in the policy in the above edit. shadzar-talk 11:05, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Another reminder to those who want some action to be taken on this user conduct RfC that the most likely way to accomplish this is to concentrate on disagreeable conduct by the user, and not on one's general grievances with policy, notability, the tagging system et cetera. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:17, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

When you consider that Gavin is trying to burn the candle at both ends - tagging articles with weak notability, while at the same time trying to strengthen policy towards the disallowance of articles with only weak notability - there's a conduct issue. Again, it's not trying to bring up what policy should be saying, only that Gavin is actively working two approaches to attempt to rid certain articles from WP. --MASEM 12:47, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I think that it is important to think about Gavin's policy edits, especially since pretty much all of his policy edits relate to WP:FICT, which applies directly to most all of the D&D articles he's been involved in editing. If he was working on a lot of different policies and guidelines I don't think that this would matter as much, but as it appears that he is trying to modify only the specific guideline which would strengthen his position in regards to D&D articles. -Drilnoth (talk) 13:07, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Also, was there talk page consensus for the edit Shadzar linked to above? It's a pretty significant change, so it should probably be discussed before it's finalized. I'm not planning to get directly involved in the policy discussions there, but I thought I'd mention it. -Drilnoth (talk) 13:10, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I find myself agreeing with Chris on this one - which is why I had removed a lot of the "Gavin works on this policy and that policy" stuff from the original draft (oh yeah, there was a lot more). It's not actionable behavior in any way to discuss a policy or even make minor changes to it, because after all it requires consensus to move forward, and if his ideas do somehow gain consensus then good for him; if not, then his viewpoint will gain no traction and/or be reverted. About the only policy thing you could maybe hang on him for that is something he has often (see item #2 for a reminder) accused others of: POV pushing. Now, I don't think it's not useful to discuss what he is doing on those talk pages, as a way to perhaps better understand where he is coming from, or for concerned editors to get involved in those discussions, but at the moment I'm not sure what place it has in discussing his behavior in regards this RFC. BOZ (talk) 15:22, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with Chris and BOZ. The only thing I'd add: there's a difference between trying to tighten guidelines to push a personal point of view, versus preventing them from being diluted. Admittedly, he hasn't been the most cooperative in finding a way to relax the WP:GNG -- which is the discussion at WP:FICT going on now. But I've never seen him push for anything that isn't already in WP:N. (e.g.: the "non-trivial" requirement) Randomran (talk) 15:25, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Generally, I agree with everyone else here. The only problem that I see with Gavin's being involved in WP:FICT would be if he is making significant changes without consensus, which it looks like is sometimes the case. Otherwise, I agree that it isn't really a major point in this discussion. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:12, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

~undent~ Since the policy edits are working together in what appears to me to game the system, then yes it should be a focus on the behavioral issue. Yes one edit was reverted due to lack of consensus on the policy where Gavin seems to have gone against consensus knowingly. shadzar-talk 23:33, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what could, or should be done about that, if anything. Edit warring over the actual guideline is a problem, as are any of the potential civility/AGF issues on the talk page; Masem and Randomran have more experience with him there than we do, so maybe that can speak to this more than I could. BOZ (talk) 00:09, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Masem did speak on it above, "Gavin is trying to burn the candle at both ends". Also Randomran did just a few messages up as well, "he hasn't been the most cooperative". Just to note some key things as parts of what they say above. shadzar-talk 00:18, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Speculating about motivations

Phil Sandifer brings up an excellent point here, that I forgot to mention. I've seen, many times, Gavin speculating about others' motivations for making certain edits or holding certain viewpoints, recasting that individual in a negative way. I'm sure Masem, or a lot of people here really, have been on the other end of that. Is that another WP:AGF violation that we need to focus on, or is that really nothing to worry about? BOZ (talk) 15:28, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I think that's pretty straight forward. Gavin needs to stop being accusatory. (That said, you didn't use a good example. I don't think there's anything too ridiculous about saying "editors work hard on a lot of articles and don't always want to admit they fail policy". I think that's just being realistic. See WP:LOSE -- people straight up use the "I worked hard on it" argument all the time.) The problem is when he questions someone's motive directly, and changes the topic away from a content debates. Content debates need to remain about content, period. Randomran (talk) 15:39, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I know it's not a strong example, but Phil's response made me think of things I've seen in the past. You know, like the "It looks like you are trying to..." sort of thing which really falls far from the mark of what the person is actually saying or doing. BOZ (talk) 15:50, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I wouldn't let the example get in the way of what you're saying. You're right. It just needs to stop, period. And there might need to be a more serious response if it continues. (That said, I have hope that it will stop. Usually just bringing something to RFC has a way of putting someone on better behavior.) Randomran (talk) 15:52, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually, that's precisely the kind of thing this RfC should focus on. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:44, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Although I don't think that the example given is ideal, I agree that this is an important point to think about in these discussions which was accidentally left out of the RFC. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:16, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

It's not left out per se, just not explicitly covered; the other ideas we presented would cover this as well, so no reason not to include it. BOZ (talk) 16:21, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I think we ought to cover it, and I think we have covered it with the discussion up thread. This is a question of personal attacks and assuming good faith. We need to remind him to do it. And we might even need a way to enforce it, if he strays. (Which, again, I'm optimistic he won't now that it's been made clear to him.) Randomran (talk) 16:25, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Though we should make sure that we ourselves assume good faith in him as well. Hooper (talk) 18:16, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Naturally, or collaboration will fail. BOZ (talk) 20:25, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

There are plenty of examples of accusing editors of COI violations. The Dan Willis one is a recent example. And I know editors who have left due to Gavin's repeated overuse of this attack. Web Warlock (talk) 21:29, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Right, that's not what I was getting at, but that is one thing. What I meant, more specifically, is if he were suggest (to come up with a wild example) that because you kept putting the word "red" into an article that you must be a communist, or that if you kept removing the word "black" from an article you must be a racist. Those aren't things he's ever actually said, but I couldn't think of any actual examples that have happened. :) You know, more along the lines of if you kept trying to suggest one idea that he makes an suggestion about what you really mean. BOZ (talk) 22:18, 11 December 2008 (UTC)