Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 18:34, 21 May 2011

See my archives here.

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WP:OTTO

		The BLP Barnstar
		For WP:OTTO and the hope that improvement will come because of it The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 19:51, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

A very strong second; we've needed an essay like this a long time. It's even been quoted in an AfD! Good on you, mate.  – OhioStandard (talk) 15:06, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I've added it to User:Scott MacDonald/Awards. One more of these and I have a set.--Scott Mac 20:43, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Nice one, will definitely refer to it in future AFDs for why news story of the day is not always wikipedia appropriate. It is of course how Ivy Bean ended up with a biographical article. Because of WP:OTTO. Sucks doesn't it. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:06, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Just dropping in to say WP:OTTO is one of the best things I've seen here in a long, long time. Nice work. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:29, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Removal of reviewer rights from User:Wnt

Moved to subpage User:Scott MacDonald/Removal of reviewer rights from User:Wnt

User:Timeshift9

Hi Scott. I am contacting you because I have seen that you are experienced with the BLP policy and will enforce it despite possible controversy. Would you review whether User:Timeshift9 should be speedy deleted per BLP? I have posted an example of a BLP violation at Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:Timeshift9 (with the subject's name redacted), and there are many more in the history of the page. Cunard (talk) 09:27, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:Colonel Warden/RIP (2nd nomination)

It's about time someone with some common sense showed up. Good work. See you at the DRV. —SW—  14:41, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

• The matter is likely to be taken to DRV as you both have indicated. I invite reconsideration before this is done. Colonel Warden (talk) 16:59, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
  • On what grounds? I mean really, what are you trying to achieve here?--Scott Mac 17:03, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

• You listed numerous grounds for DRV and I can think of others too. What I wish to achieve is the restoration of my user page which should not have been deleted. By the way, I notice that you deleted it, restored it and then deleted it again. Why was that, please? I wish to understand in case this has some technical significance with which I am not familiar. Colonel Warden (talk) 17:11, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

• Because he linked the wrong nomination in the deletion summary perhaps? In any case, Colonel Warden, could you please explain to someone who has thusfar been completely uninvolved how the restoration of that userpage would not be a net negative? NW (Talk) 17:22, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

I am totally uninvolved in this so if you would like to do as NW suggests, feel free to come to my talk page. I've read the page but as of yet I've not come to any conclusions about it. I didn't get the opportunity to completely read your user page about this prior to it's deletion though (I just scanned it), sorry. If you are still interested in my input on this and someone can email me what was deleted, I think that would solve the problem. Anyways, just volunteering my opionions about whether your list should be retained or deleted, and that is all I am volunteering to do. :) Thanks, --CrohnieGal 12:10, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

I am assuming your good reasons for creating it (although I think they are somewhat questionable). But can you explain why you insisted on its retention, when it obviously caused upset and division, and any limited utility the list had could have been met by an off-wiki version? Even if you were entitled under the letter of the law to keep it, why not volunteer for its removal? And now, even if you think my close wrong, why not walk away and let it be? I'd suggest pushing this only demonstrates the "rights and drama" > "common sense and get on with it" appoach my closure rejected. Please, just let it be.--Scott Mac 17:31, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

scott, I find it truly remarkable that you delete a page while acknowledging that your deletion is likely to be overturned at DRV. Regardless of the merits of the page, I consider that a cause for any admin to revert your closure as inconsistent and therefore could not have been rationally intended. I would do it myself except for having expressed an opinion at the MfD (and for being a consistent supporter of Col.W.) On the other hard, your suggestion that Col.W might want to simplify things by placing a db-author makes sense. Perhaps you should have left it at that, instead of trying to avoid further controversy over something fundamentally trivial by doing a step which you knew and admitted would cause further controversy. DGG ( talk ) 17:58, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

To be clear, I don't think it will be overturned on DRV. I think if people take process over product then logically should be overturned, because the letter of technical rules points in that direction - but an insistence on that, rather than the good of the community is what's got us here, and I'm hopeful that people can stand away from that. I guess I'm hoping that Colonel Warden will see this and drop it. If he doesn't I'm hopeful the wider community will look at the bigger picture here. WP:IAR (which I know you don't like) says that sometimes the letter of process needs circumvented with a bit of "come on everyone, let's not be dicks". I'm hopeful most thoughtful people will in the end agree with that. --Scott Mac 18:10, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Anyways, I have asked Colonel Warden some questions, I await his reply. I'll let him sleep on it.--Scott Mac 20:05, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

• If you wish to query and discuss the page in question then you should please restore it and reopen the discussion which was already in progress and participate in that discussion. Colonel Warden (talk) 20:59, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

You asked me to review my close. I asked you a series of questions which would help me see what you are wishing to achieve here. If you are unwilling to explain the point of all of this, then I can't help you further. I have explained in the close why I think you are going nowhere useful with this, except to try to prove some technical point - which does neither you nor Misplaced Pages any good, and mistakes Misplaced Pages for an exercise in legalism. So, unless you are willing to move from that hilltop, I can think of nothing to say that will make any difference. Why is it important for this page to be in your userspace? Why can't you agree to its removal? How do you, or the project, gain by pursuing this any further. Do you have any answer to those?--Scott Mac 02:08, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

• I was explaining the matter at length in the discussion which you closed prematurely. A one-on-one discussion to satisfy your numerous questions would be inefficient and would not provide a good basis for consensus because participation would be more limited. Colonel Warden (talk) 20:05, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

• Now you are simply being evasive. If you can't answer my questions (and I'm suspecting that's because you know this whole thing is tendentious), then I've no reason to rethink my decision.--Scott Mac 20:08, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

• I already answered questions in the course of the discussion which touch on your additional questions. This demonstrates than I can and will address these points. I'm just not doing it here for the reasons I explained The point to settle here is whether you will reverse your improper action. It appears not and so we shall be moving on to the next stage. Colonel Warden (talk) 21:00, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

You seem intent on that. You are rather proving my point that this is legalistic disruption to prove some point that has no utility to anthing (including yourself).--Scott Mac 22:36, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

I endorse Scott MacDonald's action here, particularly as Colonel Warden appears unable to offer any useful rationale for a highly divisive and pointless page. If a DRV is filed, I hope that Scott's action will be widely endorsed and the DRV closed early and summarily. (If I weren't a sitting arbitrator, I would immediately close it myself, the minute it was opened.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:42, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Not sure why being a sitting arb should restrict your actions. If this fiasco chanced on arbcom, I suspect you'd recuse anyway.--Scott Mac 09:48, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

In the interrupted MfD, I explained that the page was a memorandum and pointed to a recent example of its use in this way. I consider assertions to the contrary to be both false and a personal attack. I further consider that incitement to railroad this matter rather than follow due process is outrageous. The idea that statements of this kind will diminish drama rather than provoke it seems mistaken. Colonel Warden (talk) 06:01, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

That pen and paper beside your PC will suffice for a memorandum. Anyway, this conversation is over. My decision stands. Posting further here is pointless. Now, you can grow up and go do something useful, or you can don the spiderman costume and test Brad's prophecy at DRV.--Scott Mac 09:19, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Omitted courtesy link - Peripitus (Talk) 10:12, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Dustin Diamond

Hi Scott,

I noticed that you recently re-enabled Pending Changes on Dustin Diamond. You may not be aware that doing so is a direct violation of this RFC and its closure by Newyorkbrad. Please remove Pending Changes from the article and replace it with whatever level of non-PC protection you feel is necessary. If you believe the article falls under the "exceptional" cases mentioned by Newyorkbrad, where replacing PC with protection would be "grossly irresponsible," please bring up the article for discussion on the RFC page. Thanks TotientDragooned (talk) 19:39, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't see any problem here. There's constant BLP violations on that article. If we semi it, it would be blocked indefinitely from useful IP editing - which is bad - plus it doesn't monitor edits from confirmed accounts. I'm not much interested in the politics of FR - I gave up on that nonsense a long time ago (and with due respect to Brad, tl;dr). I'm just using common sense and the tools available to do the best I can for a problematic BLP. I see no good reason for changing that. If there's a rule preventing me from doing the best I can with the tools available, I am perfectly within policy to ignore it. Now, if you can explain to me why using this tool on this article harms the article, I'll reconsider. Is there a good non-legalistic reason why semi would be better than flagging in this particular case?--Scott Mac 19:47, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Scott, that particular closing was worth reading IMHO; of course I wrote it so I would say that. Basically, what I said was that for better or worse, there was a consensus to discontinue the PC trial (2-to-1 is as close to a consensus as we get on project governance issues), but that I was open to making exceptions for exceptional cases where necessary. I asked for examples of exceptional cases, and so far no one has offered any (perhaps because the closing was dramatically underpublicized, which has gradually been corrected). If you want to offer this as an example, or any others for that matter, it would be useful for you to speak up over there. As for the future of PC/FR in BLP articles, look for comments from me over there tonight. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:38, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

My problem is that I don't think this article is particularly exceptional. It is just one that gets a high traffic of bad edits, some of which are obvious vandalism, some of which are good faith but violate BLP. It is therefore useful not to have any edit immediately published before being scrutinised, and (if no one else does it) I am willing to scrutinise all edits. The scenario is liable to long term, so absolute prevention methods like protection are undesirable, but the traffic is low enough to scrutinise all edits. It isn't exceptional, because I employed PR/FR on a number of such articles, and envisage doing so on more where I occasionally see the need. I am really uninterested in participating in further community debates on the issue - and before I'm criticised for that, I'll protest that I've been engaged in such circular debates for many years now, and the fruitlessness of them means that all that happens is that I get angry and depressed. I use common sense and the available tools to do what I can for specific articles, and I'll only stop that pragmatic approach if someone tells me how using this tool is detrimental to the article in question, or to the goal of encouraging people to improve such articles. I've no intention to try to prove a point by activating FR on multiple articles, I'm just taking each case-by-case.--Scott Mac 14:52, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

While I'm only speaking for myself, I imagine I speak for many if not most of the supporters (that is, those who wanted the trial ended). My issue is that FR as they currently operate can't handle the genuinely problematic high-traffic articles (George W Bush and the like), and thus are only workable on the low-visibility articles, where there's a good chance no reviewer will ever see the proposed change. (With it only live on a handful of pages, there aren't going to be so many people volunteering to go through the proposed-changes pile on articles in which they have no interest.) In my view, the system needs to be shut down and rebuilt from the ground up in a manner that can cope with high-profile celebrities and politicians; as it stands it would protect the small tranche of low-traffic but high-vandalism pages like David Threlfall, but do nothing for those pages where Misplaced Pages's most likely to run into serious problems (very-low-traffic BLPs where libel can remain for months, and very-high-traffic pages where the pace of editing is so fast that vandalism slips through in the flood). – iridescent 15:00, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Interestingly, I've never been a supporter of mass applications of FR, or of using it on high-traffic articles. See Misplaced Pages:Targeted flagging, which I wrote some time ago. You can either use such features for screaming out vandalism, in which case you give reviewer status to anyone who can spot simple vandalism and protect lots of article. Or you give out reviewer status ONLY to the highly clued, and use it to scrutinise problematic BLPs, where there are insufficient eyes (or only eyes unlikely to see the less obvious) on the article. The community was always confused about which it was trying to do. You can't do both - and I've never like the former. But the nature of the debate, and the community's useless decision making processes, means that this is a useless conversation to continue.--Scott Mac 15:11, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I hope through some guidance I provide for the next phase of the decision-making process to make it, as best I can, um, less useless. I guess we'll see. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:17, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

CW rip - DRV

• - DRV is here thanks. Off2riorob (talk) 10:40, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

User formerly known as Jack Merridew

David has asked me to inform you that he has used a quotation from your post at the Colonel Warden deletion review on the Arbcom page. Here is a link. Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification#Barong, fka Jack. Sincerely, --Diannaa 05:55, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Slightly out of context, since the essence of IAR is only ignoring rules where they "prevent you improving the encyclopedia" not just where they piss you off and restrict you from having more accounts.--Scott Mac 07:30, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Your BLP Grey list Proposal

I listed it on WP:CENT to get wider community input. The Resident Anthropologist (talk)•(contribs) 18:21, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Middleton family

Just been catching up on a few discussions, and I'm dumbfounded that Middleton family was created so late (during the AfD about one of its members). Pre-emptive creation of that article and various redirects might have saved a lot of bother. I would say more, but I've just got distracted by the Dustin Diamond and RIP MfD discussions mentioned above. Some user talk pages still seem to be better than others for locating the "raw edge" of things around here! (Actually, I arrived here via WP:AN, to be honest, but user talk pages are still one of the better ways of keeping abreast of things around here). Carcharoth (talk) 07:14, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, the Middletons have been a lot of trouble. But it has raised some good questions for me.

1. Someone is deemed "notable" because they are discussed in multiple reliable sources. But that some meets that standard of notability does not necessarily mean that solid biographical sources exist to allow the creation of a biography. But once there's a bio people begin to scrape round media mentions to fill it out - and the sources will always be incomplete and unballanced. Perhaps there's a need for a "permanent stub" for bios where there's nothing much to say that wouldn't be unbalanced. In this case "James Middleton is the brother of (for their upbringing q.v.) he worked for Party Pieces (for details q.v.) and read the lesson at the Royal wedding (q.v.). He's often been cited in trivial celebrity-spotting stories as one would expect. The End"
2. The other issue for me is that the "is newspaper x a reliable source?" question is too wooden. A favourable interview with the subject in the Daily Blog is probably reliable - and even information which isn't a direct quote is liable to be correct - because the journalist has an excellent source. At the same time, an article in the Daily Telegraph may simply be regurgitating rumour and speculation with various caveats (it is reported, we are told etc.). Too often Misplaced Pages ignores the caveats, repeats hearsay, and what is worse cites it as fact, sources to the "reliable source" of a quality newspaper. Classic example (see both my edit summaries). I suppose WP:OTTO shows that shaggy dog stories repeat hearsay and unchecked sources get repeated by lazy journalists in "reliable sources".

Anyway, it opens all sorts of questions on BLPs.--Scott Mac 11:55, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, though none of this is really new or that ground-breaking, it is good to be able to make these points at regular intervals with topical examples, and I did like your OTTO essay. On a more general level, the two basic approaches seem to be: (1) mention nearly everything but make clear to the reader in the text what the different sources are and let them decide which they want to trust (this approach assumes a discerning reader); (2) exercise editorial judgment and select sources based on reliability and other factors (this filters things more, requires more competence on the part of the editor, and can be abused by editors wanting to skew things). There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches, neither of which are exclusive (both can, with care, be adopted in the same article). Again, none of this is new, but it requires editors to know their sources in great detail and to be able to discuss them carefully and collegiately with other editors, and to preserve a record of this process for future editors to inform themselves and to promote stability of the article. All this takes place (in the case of BLPs in the media) against a background (foundation?) of constantly shifting sources as new ones are published (or not, in the case of passing fame). Much easier to maintain something short and succinct and rewrite it later when more perspective has been obtained and (hopefully) proper sources have been published. Carcharoth (talk) 06:15, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

(1) makes me anxious. It is the approach that got us into messes like Philip Mould and Gloria Gaynor. If the Daily Mail says, so-and-so is reportedly cheating on his wife, it does not help if we say in the article, "According to an anonymous source quoted in the Daily Mail, he is cheating on his wife". I don't think there is any alternative to being clear about what is a worthwhile biographical source, and what isn't. The problems with (2) are the lesser evil here: they may inconvenience us, but won't do the same degree of real-world harm. --JN466 11:56, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

For BLP matters, yes, we need to exercise editorial judgment to remove inappropriate sources, and not leave it to the reader's judgment. For other matters, I think we need to sometimes explicitly name the sources for the reader to see and judge the range of views on a topic. It depends. As I said, there are times when you would do one but not the other, and vice versa. Carcharoth (talk) 14:30, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

More hearsay. Again wikipedia says "NYT says Pippa is x" when all the NYT has said is "it is said". The quality of the source does not turn unattributable hearsay into fact.--Scott Mac 11:31, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Pending changes

There are no approved uses of pending changes remaining on English Misplaced Pages. Sorry. I'll give you 24 hours to adjust the settings (perhaps to full protection), and then I will undo the pending changes myself.

I'm sorry that it is coming to this, but I don't see any other way to actually make this trial end, and yes, all applications of pending changes are a part of the trial. It was approved only on a trial basis, and is being used only on a trial basis. There is no other basis for its use.—Kww(talk) 12:31, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, you will remove the only viable protection from a couple of vulnerable BLPs because of some rule some people have come up with. Sorry, BLP triumphs all. If you remove it, I will replace it, unless I am told why using on these article is detrimental to the article or to giving the best protection we can with the tools available.--Scott Mac 16:25, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Full protection is always an option if you think that semi is insufficient. Pending changes is not a tool available to you, because the consensus is that the trial is over. You cannot simply continue to use it because you like it, or think it is effective: the trial is over, and it is to be removed from all articles.—Kww(talk) 16:37, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

That is incorrect on several levels, not the least because Newyorkbrad, the closer of the RFC, said otherwise. You and others obviously disagree, but you have no right to enforce a decision otherwise until that closure is changed. NW (Talk) 16:41, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Please explain to me how using another method of protection for these particular BLP articles achieves a better result? Be specific. Until that is explained to me, I will continue to use all the tools available to me, as administrators have continually been asked to do. Your mass removing of FR from multiple BLPs, without looking at the particular situation and history of the article, and considering what impact your action may have on living people, is utterly irresponsible. Articles where there have been serious BLP violations - and in one case a complaint by the subject as to libellous content - cannot be put at risk because you want some inhouse rule followed. Misplaced Pages has never done hard and fast rules, there are always exceptions for good cause and particularly on BLP issues. Now, leave these articles alone, unless you intend to do something that improves the situation.--Scott Mac 16:48, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Don't even think about that block threat, Scott. I am going through one at a time, evaluating article histories, and removing protection or changing to semi-protection as I see the situation warrants. If you think any article that I have reset the protection on needs semi-protection, feel free to upgrade the protection. If you think any article that I have left at semi-protection needs full protection, feel free to upgrade to full protection. Keep in mind that changing it back to pending changes is not an option, as the trial is over. If you feel that BLP demands it, use full protection: that's the tool that is available to you.—Kww(talk) 16:59, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Please contact the administrator who placed the protection. A quick glance from you may well be missing something. You did on the articles I had flagged. I will reverse any BLP related articles where there's not been some discussion as a precautionary measure.--Scott Mac 17:24, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

I hope you are noting that there is no support at ANI for your position or for your block. If you think that any articles I have unprotected need to be semi-protected, feel free to make the change. If you feel that any articles I have semi-protected need full protection, feel free to make that change. Block me again for implementing the RFC result, and you will be facing Arbcom. Whether you think that pending changes is a good thing for BLPs or not is completely and absolutely irrelevant: the trial is over. Nothing in WP:BLP mandates the use of pending changes in any form: semi-protection and full protection can be used to achieve compliance.—Kww(talk) 18:11, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Very happy to see you at arbcom. If you remove mass-remove protection from BLP without discussion, I will regretfully reblock.--Scott Mac 18:34, 21 May 2011 (UTC)