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{{Short description|Wikimedia project page}} | |||
{{/Header}} <!-- frontmatter of this page --> | |||
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{{/Case}} | |||
{{/Clarification and Amendment}} | |||
{{/Motions}} | |||
{{/Enforcement}} | |||
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=== ] === | |||
: '''Initiated by ''' ] '''at''' 13:07, 3 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Involved parties ==== | |||
*{{userlinks|Domer48}} | |||
*{{userlinks|Sarah777}} | |||
*{{userlinks|sony-youth}} | |||
*{{userlinks|MarkThomas}} | |||
*{{admin|SirFozzie}} (as bringer of this case) | |||
; Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request | |||
Sarah777: | |||
sony-youth: | |||
MarkThomas: | |||
Domer48: | |||
; Confirmation that other steps in ] have been tried | |||
], discussion on ANI currently | |||
==== Statement by SirFozzie ==== | |||
This is a subset of the ongoing issues with Northern Ireland/Ireland related articles, that has recently turned nasty. During the ], which pretty much degenerated into the two sides (including the wider Ireland/Northern Ireland conflict) sniping at each other, ] was blocked for 24 hours for violations of ] and ]. Shortly after the RfC pretty much ground to a halt, Domer48 listed detailing why he could not work with ] on the issues at hand. ] then brought the case to ANI , and continued sniping at ] on his talk page, stating that he wanted Domer48 blocked. | |||
Several Administrators have tried to cool the ill will between the two groups (amongst them ] and ], however, it has become obvious that the issues behind this case will not be settled unless ArbCom looks at it. ] 13:07, 3 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Statement by Swatjester ==== | |||
I don't consider myself an involved party, since all I did was warn a few people to stop using the RfC incorrectly, and then blocked MarkThomas in particular for it. However, I feel 100% that this belongs in arbitration. A) Mediation would never work on this. B) It's not over the article content, it's over the editing practices involved. C) This is a subject that for some people is as touchy as the israeli-palestinian conflict and needs ArbCom's guidance. ] ] ] 13:30, 3 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Statement by sony-youth ==== | |||
My issue rests with the use of the following citation from Donnelly, JS, 2005, ''The Great Irish Potato Famine'', Sutton Publishing Limited: England: | |||
:''Since those chapters were written, the amount of scholarly attention devoted to the Great Famine has expanded enormously, mostly as a result of the impetus given by the official sesquicentennial commemoration of the famine in the years 1995—7. Along with numerous other scholars, I made contributions to the extraordinary surge of publication associated with the commemoration. As I argue in the introduction to this book, <u>the flowering of famine scholarship during the 1990s has given academic respectability to certain key nationalist perspectives on the famine</u>, and on the issue of British government responsibility, that were previously out of fashion among professional historians, especially those working in Ireland itself.'' | |||
This citation was used by Domer48 to support the following text in the ] article (): | |||
:''<u>This view though its self has changed since 1996.</u> Professor James Donnelly states that the amount of scholarly attention dedicated to the Great Famine has “expanded enormously,” since the official sesquicentennial commemoration of the famine in the years 1995—7. As a result of this impetus with numerous other scholars, he made contributions to the “extraordinary surge” of publications. <u>The “flowering of famine scholarship” he says, has given “academic respectability” to certain “key nationalist perspectives on the famine.”</u>'' | |||
I commented out use of the citation () on the basis that it does not refer to the claim of genocide and posted a message to the talk page explaining why I had done so (). | |||
Several reverts ensued, including one by myself. In one of these Sarah777 changed the text of the relevent part to read (): | |||
:''Professor James Donnelly states that the amount of scholarly attention dedicated to the Great Famine has expanded enormously, since the official sesquicentennial commemoration of the famine in the years 1995—7. As a result of this impetus with numerous other scholars, he made contributions to the “extraordinary surge” of publications. The “flowering of famine scholarship” <u>he maintains has given academic respectability to the view that the famine was genocide.</u>'' | |||
Shortly after this edit, the article was locked. During the reverts, I missed Sarah's edit and mistakenly thought that Domer48 had made the above change. Having already posted my concerns about this interpretation being implied, I said that changing the text to explicitly make the claim after I had raised concerns about it "." Upon recieveing an angry response, asking if I was assuming bad faith in (mistakenly) Domer, I posted "" It was after this, with some effort (which included Domer48 first saying that I hadn't "" and then calling me a ""), that Domer48 explained that it was Sarah777 that had changed the section after my concerns had been raised. I appologised for my accusation of bad faith ("") and continued to try to resolve my concerns about the use of the citation. | |||
That was five days ago. A fairly reasonsed, abeit sometimes heated and quite wandering, discussion followed with Domer48's argument being that by "key nationalist perspectives" Donnell means the genocide claim. Domer says that this is further supported by Donnell's reference to these perspectives being ones that were "previously out of fashion". Mine is that it could mean any number of perspectives that are key to nationalist interpretations of the famine, none of which include the genocie claim, and that many nationalist perspectives were previously "out of fashion". The discussion presently stands at deadlock. | |||
==== Statement by Domer48 ==== | |||
I consider myself harassed, and my edits frustrated by ] who wish to push a POV. I consider the conditions placed on me by some editors, are in excess of what they would expect for themselves. The frustration and exasperation this has caused has resulted in my being here. I consider some of the actions to be manipulative and disruptive and designed to stifle my efforts. Regards --] 17:51, 3 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Statement by Goldheart ==== | |||
Although I don't see myself directly involved, I did have an interest in having a balanced inclusive objectivity woven into the article. I don't believe that there is any POV being pushed here, I believe it is more of a clash of EGOS, than an actual content dispute, and whose style is going to dominate in the editing. I believe Domer48 and Sony-youth are two worthy editors, but this ani and rfa etc is very wearying, and will deter future editors and input. ] has been particularly disruptive in the talk page, and has even attacked me for no reason whatsoever, on another related issue, on my talk page, Archive2/Reply.] 18:55, 3 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Statement by Sarah777 ==== | |||
Not entirely sure why I'm in this one. I agree with Domer's perception that he is being unfairly treated by editors who fail to recognise their '''own''' POV. I openly admit to mine, and seek to keep it out of articles. But countering "opposing" pov is taken by certain editors as pushing my own. (Also, I don't think this is serious enough or anywhere near enough to a "last resort" to be here in Arbcom. Sorry Sir Fozzie). (] 20:41, 3 July 2007 (UTC)) | |||
==== Clerk notes ==== | |||
:Four votes to accept, noted. To open Friday absent further developments. ] 19:56, 5 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (4/0/0/0) ==== | |||
* Accept to consider user conduct. ] (]:]) 21:18, 3 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
* Accept. ] 13:12, 4 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
* Accept. ] ] 11:07, 5 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
* Accept. ] 17:01, 5 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
---- | |||
=== JAF1970 === | |||
: '''Initiated by ''' — ''']''' (]) — '''at''' 20:35, 2 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Involved parties ==== | |||
*{{userlinks|KieferSkunk}} | |||
*{{userlinks|JAF1970}} | |||
; Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request | |||
* | |||
; Confirmation that other steps in ] have been tried | |||
*Attempted to resolve the issue one-on-one in ] - even after apologies had been exchanged, behavior continued. | |||
*Filed a request in ] - no response from any third party. | |||
*Filed a request for ] - case opened, but arguments continued and escalated both in the mediation page and in other articles. I came to the conclusion that JAF is not willing to let mediation take place. | |||
==== Statement by ] ==== | |||
A large-scale personal dispute has arisen between myself and JAF1970 over some edits I made in ] (PMCE). This dispute now spans multiple pages (], ], ]), and contains large amounts of personal, inflammatory arguments from both sides. This request for arbitration is not about JAF's stance on article content, but rather about the way he has treated people (me specifically) during the dispute - I feel that his behavior toward me has been rude, belittling, uncivil and openly hostile, and my attempts to resolve the dispute both one-on-one and through informal mediation have failed. | |||
I wish to see an apology and a change in behavior from JAF for: | |||
*Accusing me of vandalizing the PMCE article; | |||
*Maintaining an uncivil tone during discussions; , , , , | |||
*"Rubbing my face" in my initial mistakes, even after I had taken steps to correct them; , , , | |||
*Blocking my attempts to call for open discussion on article-specific issues; , , , , | |||
*Placing himself in the position of sole judge as to what content is acceptable, and using that to tell me that I'm wrong and my ideas and concerns don't deserve consideration (JAF also repeatedly used a single paragraph of supporting text from another user to argue against me); , , , , , | |||
*Threatening to undo any future edits I make to the PMCE article without review (he later clarified that he was talking about "drastic changes", but his tone was very confrontational); | |||
*Using my initial mistakes as a basis to discredit me as a whole; , , | |||
*Accusing me of breaking mediation (by making large-scale edits to PMCE), when I had clearly done no such thing; , , | |||
*Refusing to acknowledge that he accused me wrongly, and presenting my initial edits (made before mediation was requested) as evidence that I was breaking mediation; , , | |||
*Refusing to take personal arguments to my or his User Talk page when I requested that he do so (he only opened up discussion in my User Talk page long after I had made that request); | |||
*Giving me a blanket apology in the form of "I'm sorry you feel bad" and taking no responsibility for his actions - JAF believes very firmly that he has done nothing wrong, other than to be "a little gruff". , , , , | |||
I wish to clarify that I do not have a problem with JAF's opinions about article matters. It's the way he presents and argues them that offends me. He seems very willing to and to overrun consensus discussions when the views being expressed are contrary to his own, and he frequently accuses me of doing the exact same thing. I don't claim to know fully what's going on in his head, but it is very difficult to remain civil with this editor. This dispute has gotten me riled up several times, to the point where I have myself violated WP policy in retaliation. In the instances that I am aware of, I have acknowledged and owned up to my mistakes and apologized for my behavior. (Example: ) However, this has not resulted in any change in JAF's behavior toward me - there are only a few where he has addressed me in a way that indicated true willingness to debate and discuss, and in each of those instances, I have responded in kind. | |||
One more quick note: JAF has sent me several emails asking for live chat to discuss this matter. I am not currently able to engage in live chat with him due to my work schedule and limitations, and I do not feel that taking this offline is appropriate at this time. | |||
=====Response by KieferSkunk to kaypoh===== | |||
I haven't. However, two people from the Mediation Cabal have commented on the situation and had expressed concerns about JAF's behavior, similar concerns to mine. He argued with them as well, though not as fervently. (The mediators did also address me, and I acknowledged my side of the situation.) | |||
It is worth noting that JAF seems to have calmed down a bit since I filed this request, though I'm not convinced that things will remain calm if I attempt to restart consensus discussions and/or make further edits to the affected articles. I believe there is enough circumstancial evidence from previous disputes between JAF and other users to warrant seeing this through - otherwise, this may very well just happen all over again the next time I make an edit he disagrees with. — ''']''' (]) — 16:06, 3 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Statement by ] ==== | |||
====Question by uninvolved kaypoh==== | |||
Did you file an RFC yet? --] 09:55, 3 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Clerk notes ==== | |||
: Parties are reminded to only comment in their respective own sections. - ] | <sup>] / ]</sup> 00:03, 4 July 2007 (UTC) Refactored KieferSkunk's response to proper section. | |||
==== Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/3/0/0) ==== | |||
* Decline, premature. ] ] 04:11, 4 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
* Decline, premature. --]<sup><small>]</small></sup> 13:36, 4 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
* Decline, premature. ] 17:01, 5 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
---- | |||
=== Attachment Therapy === | |||
: '''Initiated by ''' ] '''at''' 11:33, 2 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Involved parties ==== | |||
*{{userlinks|shotwell}} | |||
*{{userlinks|Fainites}} | |||
*{{userlinks|StokerAce}} | |||
*{{userlinks|Jean Mercer}} | |||
*{{userlinks|Sarner}} | |||
*{{userlinks|DPeterson}} | |||
*{{userlinks|RalphLender}} | |||
*{{userlinks|JonesRD}} | |||
*{{userlinks|MarkWood}} | |||
*{{userlinks|SamDavidson}} | |||
*{{userlinks|JohnsonRon}} | |||
*{{userlinks|FatherTree}} | |||
; Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request | |||
* | |||
* | |||
* | |||
* | |||
* | |||
* | |||
* | |||
* | |||
* | |||
* | |||
* | |||
; Confirmation that other steps in ] have been tried | |||
*Several old Mediation Cabal cases:- | |||
**] | |||
**] | |||
**] | |||
*Very lengthy talk page discussions at ], ], ]. | |||
*Request for comments concerning DPeterson: ] | |||
*Unanswered RfC's: , , | |||
*Recently closed (without any mediation taking place) mediation request: ] | |||
==== Statement by Shotwell ==== | |||
This arbitration requests is the result of nearly one year of content disputes over ] and related articles. This content dispute has been unnecessarily prolonged due to serious user-conduct issues. Resolution is extremely unlikely without intervention to address these issues. | |||
], ], ], ], ], and ] edit the attachment therapy related pages with the clear agenda of advertising ] (DDP). They have inserted and defended extraordinary and unverified claims concerning DDP into a wide variety of articles. ] contains a good example of DDP advertising. | |||
There have been many accusations of sock-puppetry against Dpeterson et al, but at least one checkuser showed that three of the accounts were unrelated. Nonetheless, this group of editors acts in unison to promote DDP. They goes so far as to repeatedly copy/paste each other's comments and veiled personal attacks. They act uniformly to give the false appearance of consensus and to bolster their baseless allegations, conclusions, and reverts. | |||
In addition to this meat-puppetry, DPeterson et al. almost always avoid substantive discussion, opting instead to make repeated and unfounded ] and ] allegations. This most recently occurred on a declined mediation request. The shear volume of these allegations and refusal to participate in meaningful discussion makes it exceedingly difficult to discuss content. The discussions typically degenerate into personal comments. The net effect of this behavior is to stall, delay, or avoid any meaningful discussion. | |||
The most troublesome behavior is their refusal to compromise, discuss, or admit wrong on the issues ranging from the large and important to small and irrelevant. For example, a claim inserted into ] concerning the leaders of this organization was opposed by a few editors on the basis of it being unverified, irrelevant, and a violation of ]. Rather than participate in meaningful debate about this issue, Dpeterson et al simply formed an echo chamber and repeatedly asserted their conclusion that the material was relevant and sourced. They provided no argument, no evidence, and no discussion aside from this conclusion. They promptly revert any changes whilst simultaneously chiding editors about ], consensus, and so forth. Such behavior is the de facto standard from this group of editors. (''Partial statement redacted by clerk, see clerk notes below'') | |||
In short, there are some interesting and thick content disputes on the ] related articles. This is a highly controversial subject and such disputes are inevitable. This request for arbitration does not seek resolution of these content disputes, rather, it seeks intervention in the user-conduct issues that have made it impossible to move forward. I believe the talk pages of ], ], and ] speak for themselves. ] 11:33, 2 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Statement by StokerAce ==== | |||
There have been many accusations tossed around in this case. One of them is that Dpeterson and some of the others mentioned by Shotwell above have been pushing the views of Dr. Arthur Becker-Weidman, a practitioner of Dyadic Developmental Psycotherapy. (http://www.center4familydevelop.com/) Dr. Becker-Weidman's wikipedia page is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/User:AWeidman While it is difficult to sort through all of the issues, it seems that much of this Misplaced Pages dispute is a spillover from a real life dispute. The Advocates for Children in Therapy (ACT) web site lists Dyadic Developmental Psycotherapy as a possibly harmful practice (scroll down a bit here: http://www.childrenintherapy.org/essays/overview.html) In the early stages of the Misplaced Pages dispute there were some testy exchanges between Dr. Becker-Weidman and Jean Mercer, one of the leaders of ACT. Dr. Becker-Weidman was taken to task by a Misplaced Pages administrator for one of his remarks: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk%3AAWeidman&diff=50362263&oldid=42052871 Within a month after Dr. Becker-Weidman received this criticism, DPeterson opened an account and began editing: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Special:Contributions&dir=prev&target=DPeterson There have been some allegeations that Dr. Becker-Weidman and DPeterson have made contributions from the same IP address (see the following that someone left on my talk page: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk%3AStokerAce&diff=130616429&oldid=130574829), but this issue remains unclear. What is clear is that DPeterson, in one of his first contributions, created a Misplaced Pages article about ACT that was clearly POV, where he called ACT "not part of the mainstream". See http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Advocates_for_Children_in_Therapy&oldid=65117165 | |||
In sum, it is not clear exactly who DPeterson et al. are and what their relationship with Dr. Becker-Weidman is. In my view, though, it would be very useful if a neutral arbitrator would look into all of the pages mentioned by Shotwell and offer an opinion on the editing that has gone on there. | |||
==== Statement by SamDavidson ==== | |||
This content dispute has been going on for at least one year, fueled by the rigidity of certain users, a group of whom are leaders of the group, Advocates for Children in Therapy (] & ]) who have a ] in this dispute since they are leaders of this group with a specific agenda they pursue against Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy, attachment therapy, and a variety of others. They have a financial interest in this dispute (books they publish, a career built on this dispute, etc.) It has escalated over time with a variety of Personal Attacks (<small>''Link redacted by clerk ] -- See clerk notes below''</small>) and unsupported accusations by that group against various editors (accusations of being sockpuppets, meatpuppets, etc.). Several of those editors have been sanctioned (Sarner, for example and recently Maypole was banned). | |||
There have been several related mediations which appear to have been resolved/settled, only to be reinstated when the group did not get their way. | |||
On the surface the dispute is centered on the inclusion of material about Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy, which is a treatment with empirical support in several professional peer-reviewed publications, in several related articles. The ACT group and its supporters seem to be waging a concerted effort to have these references removed, despite the fact that the references and statements they support meet various wiki standards, such as being from verifiable and reliable sources. ] 16:38, 2 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
=====Comment===== | |||
I don't know that Lsijohn is uninvolved. I've seen his comments on various talk pages: examples: ] | |||
] | |||
and there are others. | |||
] 16:48, 2 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Statement by Fainites==== | |||
I support the statements of Shotwell and StokerAce above. I attempted to edit the Attachment Therapy page by 'consensus' using good sources and by trying to avoid the past feud between ACT on one side and DPeterson et al who support Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy on the other. I had little success. The group of 6 editors named is unmovable in their determination to use various attachment and other articles as platforms to advertise Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy. In pursuit of this they refuse to sensibly discuss content from sources, misquote and misrepresent sources and alter quotations (bottom edit). The most striking example of misrepresenting sources is edits designed to make it appear that Becker-Weidman was cited positively by a major Taskforce report on the subject whereas he was in fact specifically criticised. They do not allow and indeed revert any edits that do not have their 'permission' and if an editor disagrees with them they conduct frequent polls to enforce their 'consensus'. This can be seen on all talkpages. Their consensus is invariably the same, the inclusion of DDP, inaccurately, as 'evidence based' and mainstream, the obfuscation of the meaning and nature of 'attachment therapy' and the controversy surrounding the diagnosis of attachment disorder and the use of attachment therapy, and the denigration and misrepresentation of Advocates for Children in Therapy, their opponents in the real world. | |||
They repeat and copy each others edits and personal attacks. It is almost impossible to discuss content because of the constant admonishments against others of WP:OWN or AGF or W:PA,and because of their constant accusations and attacks against members of ACT or anybody who opposes them whom they accuse of being supporters of ACT. | |||
AWeidman started the page on DDP in December 2005 and described it in glowing terms. He started inserting DDP into other articles at about the same time editing as IP 68.66.160.228 . These pages descended into edit wars with Sarner from ACT and independent editors. This situation was resolved by the arrival of DPeterson,20th May 2006 (who has also edited as IP 68.66.160.228), MarkWood, 20th May 2006, JonesRD 18th June 2006, JohnsonRon 19th June 2006, SamDavidson 30th June 2006 and RalphLender 5th July 2006. All of these editors went more or less straight to the attachment pages (see ], ] and ] and ]) and have edited in total support of Becker-Weidman and Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy ever since. This support includes resistence to fixing dead links, 'consensus' that sources say the opposite to what they actually say and constant repetition of attacks against opponents. All opposition is swamped by this group of aggressive, cohesive editors and as a consequence these pages have stagnated. | |||
It is inserted into about a dozen other articles not primarily concerned with attachment such as ], ], ] and so on. | |||
Other editors do not object to the accurate inclusion of DDP but do object to the warping of the attachment articles in DDP's defence. | |||
I urge the committee to accept this case as without some kind of resolution from Arbcom this dispute will not go away and it is affecting an entire range of articles on attachment. This is considered an important topic within child development. ] 17:48, 2 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
(Note: Maypole was banned as a sock of HeadleyDown, referred by me to FT2. He was a recent arrival and had very little involvement in the attachment pages and was not specifically sanctioned for disruptive editing there.) | |||
==== Statement by Jean Mercer ==== | |||
Although discussion of Wiki articles generally seems to deal with processes and goals internal to Wiki, in this case I would like to point out a responsibility to vulnerable members of the public. Families dealing with children's mental health issues deserve complete and accurate information from organizations that claim to be reliable sources. Deceptive or incomplete material can cost families dearly, both financially and emotionally. If Misplaced Pages is not willing or able to enforce relevant guidelines, articles dealing with children's mental health should be deleted. No print encyclopedia attempts to deal with every complex topic, and there seems no reason for such an attempt here, unless some quality control is possible. ] 19:58, 2 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Comment by party with minor involvement: Lsi john ==== | |||
I urge the committee to ''accept this case''. I'm not directly involved in this dispute, but I've been watching it for some time, and have made one or two attempts at mediation. | |||
This dispute has been going on for several months. Attempts at ] have been met with extreme resistance, to the point of disruption (supporting claims of WP:COI), and it does not appear that anything short of committee involvement will resolve the issue. | |||
While I can't address the content dispute, I can support the claim that ], ] (and others) appear to be ''working in concert'', and are unwilling to move toward compomise. Instead they divert discussions with accusations of ], ], etc (). I believe the mediator had to 'clean up' numerous {{tl|spa}} tags. It appears there may also be some validity to the claim of meat puppets (though I dislike the term) and COI. | |||
<u>Sample of behavior:</u><br> | |||
After a post on AN/I against ] failed to gain support (), ] and ] '''opened 3 virtually identical threads''' on the admin boards (, and ), each falsely claiming prior 'admin support' (from a non-admin), in an apparent effort to 'kick start' their threads. Ironically these 3 noticeboard posts claim ] against another ], and actually appear to be an attempt to ] support and ] the system. And by acting in concert it appears to be a form of ]. | |||
When I realized that they had failed to notify ] about any of the posts, I notified ] (). ] responsed by attempting to involve another admin, claiming that I was 'unhelpful' (). Another time, when I was attempting mediation on Shell's page, ] attempted to involve yet another outside party, with whom he presumably thought I was in conflict (). | |||
When I suggested that the multiple open threads constituted canvassing (), and recommended that he close two of the threads (), ] replied "''...Since each one gets a variety of comments from a variety of editors it may make sense to keep all open...''" (). | |||
] (admin) ultimately realized that multiple threads were open, and closed one on AN (), and later also closed the other two. | |||
] copied Shell's AN comment to both AN/I threads, and misrepresented her as supporting his charges ( and ). | |||
], (team mate), copied Shell's AN comment to the article talkpage and falsely claimed: "''... the administrator did find that the issue of FatherTree knowinlgy making false accusations of sockpuppetry is real and valid .''" | |||
Shell responded with a categorical denial (): | |||
:<blockquote>"''Whoa - I did not support your accusation; I said '''if''' he was doing it to warn him and then let me know if he continues. You would need to provide some kind of proof to back up those accusations and his continuing after your warning. That in no way was a finding that FatherTree had done anything improper. Also, I specifically noted that the accusations of canvassing against FatherTree were false''"-Shell</blockquote> | |||
Again I encourage the committee to accept this case, as the situation is disrupting the community. <small>Peace.</small>] ] 14:19, 2 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Fact note by uninvolved party FT2 ==== | |||
I an uninvolved in any way, but aware of this dispute since it overlaps with another. Information note when assessing the parties involved: Note that {{vandal|Maypole}} (referred to above) was a ] reincarnation. A reasonable assessment might be that some sock activity or meat recruitment is more likely to be happening. ] <sup><span style="font-style:italic">(] | ])</span></sup> 20:03, 2 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
: Update confirming above: {{user|Addisababa}} blocked as sock. ] <sup><span style="font-style:italic">(] | ])</span></sup> 13:31, 3 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Statement by JonesRD ==== | |||
The dispute here is a content dispute that has been going on for a while. Leaders Advocates for Children in Therapy, which is an advocacy group ] that is “dedicated to halting the dangerous cruelty done to children by Attachment Therapy (AT), its associated Therapeutic Parenting practices, and other unvalidated, pseudoscientific interventions,” and their supporters have been unrelenting in their opposition to the inclusion of material about Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy and other issues. Two leaders of ACT ] and ] ], ], ], as well as their followers, have been very vocal in this dispute, representing the views of their organization. The issues have been mediated in the past and when not resolved in their favor, they continued to raise the same or similar issues in other venues. For example, see prior mediations and other venues: | |||
**] | |||
**] | |||
**] | |||
*Very lengthy talk page discussions at ], ], ]. | |||
*Request for comments concerning DPeterson: ] | |||
*Recently closed (without any mediation taking place) mediation request: ] | |||
While there have been some user-conduct issues from time to time, the primary issue is a disagreement about several content items, including, but not limited to: | |||
1. Is there evidence to support the statement that Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy is an effective treatment? This has been debated on several pages. There are several professional peer-reviewed publications and at least three empirical articles to support the statement, which meet the standard of being reliable and verifiable. Despite this, the group continues to dispute inclusion of such material in the articles. | |||
2. Is the inclusion of information about Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy appropriate in several of the articles, such as ] or ] or ] appropriate? Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy is a treatment for children with Reactive Attachment Disorder and trauma. These articles, and others, discuss such children and have material about the treatment of such children. Therefore the disputed material is relevant….but the group of ACT and supporters continue to dispute that. | |||
3. Is the fact that the leaders of ACT are not licensed mental health professionals a relevant fact? Again, this is a content dispute. On one hand is the position that since the group is an advocacy group regarding mental health treatment, the professional credentials of it’s leaders is a relevant fact. On the other hand, the ACT leaders and supporters dispute the relevance of this fact. | |||
There are other related content disputes, but the above three cover and include most of the others. | |||
<font color="DarkGreen">]</font><sub>]</sub> 16:07, 3 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
====Statement by DPeterson ==== | |||
This is a content dispute regarding several articles such as articles: ], ], ], ], and ]. The dispute initially was driven in part by the unique positions of two leaders of the advocacy group, Advocates for Children in Therapy (Sarner and Mercer) and their supporters. This group and its supporters have as their mission, “ACT works to mobilize parents, professionals, private and governmental regulators, prosecutors, juries, and legislators to end the physical torture and emotional abuse that is AT” ] (retrieved 03 July 2007). Their advocacy is the basis for this content dispute. Several in this group, which includes two of the three leaders of the advocacy group, Advocates for Children in Therapy, ] and ], and later supporters, have led a dispute regarding Attachment Therapy and the treatment of children with Reactive Attachment Disorder, focusing on Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy and several other issues. They have brought this dispute into the Misplaced Pages forum. Several disputes were mediated and resolved, only to be re-raised by the same group of editors when the outcome was not to their liking. See: | |||
# ] | |||
# ] | |||
# ] | |||
Also see talk page discussions (there are others that exemplify the extent of this content dispute, but these will serve as an example): | |||
# ], | |||
# ], | |||
# ]. | |||
When material has been added to the articles that meets the Misplaced Pages standard of being verifiable (several articles in professional peer-reviewed publications of empirical studies) regarding Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy, various members of the group continue to dispute the inclusion of that material. ACT and its supporters dispute that Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy has evidence to support its effectiveness and that it is not a coercive treatment as defined in the Attachment Therapy article. They and their supports continue to argue this point despite repeated attempts at dialogue and the provision of ample evidence to support a view different from their view. | |||
At times it has appeared that they are purposely baiting me and trying to be provocative and I must admit that I have risen to the “bait,” and said things that I regret. There have been a number of instances in which my comments were personal and not directed at content. Several of these comments probably rise to the level of personal attacks. While I feel I was “baited,” I also feel saddened and some shame about my conduct. It isn’t what I expect of myself or others. I apologize for this now and will apologize more directly and formally to any editor who feels wronged by me or my words. In the interests of conciliation, I will not at this time raise any concerns I have had regarding the conduct of other editors since I view the dispute here as predominantly a content dispute. | |||
ISSUES: | |||
1. Many of these content issues were mediated in the past and resolved, only to be resurrected. See, for example, the following initiated by | |||
Shotwell: ] (request for advocate) | |||
Sarner: ] (mediation) | |||
Shotwell: ] (mediation) | |||
DPeterson: ] (mediation) | |||
2. Content dispute largely focusing on the issues described above by RDJones, so I won’t repeat those here. However I will provide a link in each instance as an example of the extent of the content. | |||
A. Treatment effectiveness: | |||
] | |||
] | |||
] | |||
] | |||
] | |||
B. Leaders of ACT not licensed mental health professionals: | |||
] | |||
] | |||
In summary, this is a content dispute around a few related topics (listed above and in RDJones), which has gotten heated at times. I will refrain from listing those instances at this time since the focus of my comment is on the content dispute, which seems most significant. | |||
==== Statement by Sarner ==== | |||
The behavior of the six users in question (], ], ], ], ], ]) are difficult in many respects. The specific complaints of ], ], ] — all experienced Wikipedians — are well taken, and I endorse them in every particular. And a review of the documentation in those complaints, and edit histories of the articles effected, also disclose a number of tactics by the six users in question which are not mentioned by Shotwell, Fainites, or StokerAce — tactics which particularly frustrate the objective of trying to produce accurate and reliable articles dealing with the emotional attachment of children. To wit: | |||
#''Bullying''. They enforce their singular point of view by edit-warring over the slightest change in article texts. They automatically revert changes by certain other editors, even those legitimately marked as "minor" or which make an indisputable correction. They've even done it on the project page of a Request for Mediation, ultimately asking for page protection (which was rejected as "lame"). | |||
#''Graffiti''. They tag opposing users for "vandalism" for making changes they disagree with. My own ], for example, has been "tagged" many times by ]. The talk pages for the articles are littered with tags of all sorts. | |||
#''False Claims''. They persistently mischaracterize actions by or about opponents. ] has listed here one significant example. Another is the oft-repeated claim — again seen here by ] — suggesting that I have been "sanctioned" for my editing activity on the pages in question, when in fact that has never happened. Still another is the mischaracterization of good-faith comments on talk-pages as "provocative" and "inflamatory" . | |||
#''Padding''. ] has mentioned the cohesive nature of the six users during disputes. An additional concern is that they almost always come in with the exact same arguments as the first one made by their ilk, often even with the exact same wording, right down to identical misspellings. Occasionally, the same user repeats his own arguments, just changing a word or two from the original. | |||
#''Wiki-lawyering''. This would be reprehensible enough, but it's worse because in their case it's particularly ''bad'' wiki-lawyering. The arguments made are invariably irrelevant, immaterial, and illogical. They stretch or misinterpret Wiki policies/guidelines, deliberately misstate facts, falsely cite references, and repeatedly breach witiquette under the pretense of enforcing it. | |||
#''Gaming''. The six repeatedly try to game the Wiki system, as for example, by round-robin changes of subject. They attempted to thwart mediation — where article content is the stated focus — by harping that the "important" issues were really the conduct (or participation) of their opponents. Then they have attempted to thwart arbitration — where user conduct issues are actually at issue — by arguing (as done here in this request) that the really important issues are the content disputes. | |||
It is impossible for reasonable editors to deal with such behaviors without recourse to an authoritative referee. Such behaviors chill Misplaced Pages editing by truly knowledgeable people who do not have unlimited time and patience to deal with rogue users or situations on their own. My hope is that the Arbitration Committee will either install a referee for the articles in question, and/or impose truly enforceable sanctions that not only resolve this situation but set precedents. Misplaced Pages readers would be better served if truly knowledgeable people could make good-faith contributions to the encyclopedia without being abused, bullied, or hounded into silence. | |||
==== Statement by RalphLender ==== | |||
I concur with the statements by ], ], and ] and will try not to duplicate their material here. | |||
This is a content dispute. It is about a year old. It has focused on a variety of articles, all related to the evaluation and treatment of children with disorders of attachment. The content dispute has been led by the leaders (] and ]) of the advocacy group Advocates for Children in Therapy, some of their supporters, and others. (], ], ], ], ], ], ], among others). The content issues have been extensively mediated and after resolution in each case, the same or similar issues are disputed again in another article or in a slightly different form; although the substance remains the same. | |||
The substance of the content dispute revolves around the issues outlined in the statements by SamDavidson, DPeterson, and RDJones, and I won’t repeat those here. | |||
I do not intend to raise issues of user conduct at this time regarding many of the others involved since those are secondary to the primary issues, which are content disputes. However, if that becomes an issue later I can provide a number to diffs to show such conduct on the part of Sarner, Mercer, FatherTree, and many of their supporters. I also don’t know if this is the venue to comment on other editors statements and will leave that for later, if it is appropriate. However, I feel I must point out one glaring inaccuracy in Sarner’s statement. His point 3, “False Claims,” he states, “suggesting that I have been "sanctioned" for my editing activity on the pages in question, when in fact that has never happened.” When he has been sanctioned before: ], ]. If this is not the appropriate place for this, the clerk can delete these lines. | |||
==== Clerk notes ==== | |||
*Per ], statement during mediation attempts may not be used for arbitration process. I've redacted statements based off RfM due to a mediator request. - ] | <sup>] / ]</sup> 09:46, 3 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
*Four votes to accept, noted. To open Friday absent any further developments. ] 19:57, 5 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (4/0/0/0) ==== | |||
* Accept. - ] 16:15, 3 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
* Accept ] ] 21:15, 3 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
* Accept. ] (]:]) 21:19, 3 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
* Accept. ] 17:02, 5 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
---- | |||
=== DreamGuy === | |||
: '''Initiated by ''' DashaKat '''at''' 13:02 1 July 2007 | |||
==== Involved parties ==== | |||
*{{userlinks|DashaKat}} | |||
*{{userlinks|Annalisa Ventola}} | |||
*{{userlinks|Empacher}} | |||
*{{userlinks|DreamGuy}} | |||
; Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request | |||
*] | |||
*] | |||
*] | |||
; Confirmation that other steps in ] have been tried | |||
: ] has been attempted within the context of several articles with which DreamGuy has been involved, and this only led to increased escalation of negative behavior; on-on-one discussion with DreaGuy has been consistently attempted, to no avail. Several editors apart from those named here will testify to this. | |||
==== Statement by ] ==== | |||
DreamGuy has been consistently ed-warring on articles related to (most recently) Psychology and Parapsychology, although this is on-going behavior. His edits often appear agenda-driven, rather than content driven. He relies heavily on referencing policy to support his changes, but that reliance is more often than not a distortion of the policy quoted. | |||
In addition, attempts to quell contention by several editors have only resulted in an escalation of non-community behavior on DreamGuy's part, as well as arbitrary reversions. This is consistent and on-going across articles and Talk pages, and is a situation that can be corroborated by editors other than those named in this arbitration request. | |||
Further, the public edit comments attached to DreamGuy's edits will confirm his positionality and general interference with attempts to interject quality content, as well as shaping quality presentation, with regard to (most recently) ], ], ], and ]. | |||
DreamGuy's consistent POV positionality is most flagrantly demonstrated in the public personal attacks that he visits upon other editors. These attacks can viewed on his Talk page, as well as the Talk pages associated with the articles mentioned above and those of other editors. It is important to note that these attacks often include fabrications, falsehoods, and out-and-out lies. | |||
Finally, a review of DreamGuy's Talk page history will reveal that he consistently deletes contentious or controversial entries that cast his behavior and submissions in an unfavorable light. | |||
IMHO DreamGuy presents a liability to editors committed to providing reliable encyclopedic content to Misplaced Pages, and that his consistent efforts to rest power and control within the forum undermine the entire ethic upon which Misplaced Pages is based. | |||
:ADDENDUM - As you can see by the positional, accusatory, and falsehood-ridden nature of his statement, DreamGuy makes my point for me. | |||
:A review of my edits will reveal that the opening statement made by DreamGuy, "''DashaKat and Empacher (possibly a sock of DashaKat's) have a very strong POV on the Dissociative identity disorder, Multiple personality controversy articles to try to hide the fact that the diagnosis is controversial and to minimize any mention that many professionals think there is no such thing.''" borders on the absurd. | |||
:For the record, Empacher is well-known as the sock puppet of another editor. --] 23:17, 1 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Statement by ] ==== | |||
DreamGuy has proven to be a disruptive editor and has demonstrated in his recent edit warring to the ] article that he has little regard for community of Misplaced Pages editors and even less interest in achieving consensus in controversial articles. In addition to being the victim of his ad hominem attacks, he has assumed bad faith in my edits, and has falsely accused me of being party to another ArbCom case repeatedly on the pages of ]. Frankly, my recent brushes with DreamGuy have already cost me a beautiful Saturday afternoon, and at the risk of losing my Sunday evening, I'm going to keep my statement short. | |||
==== Statement by ] ==== | |||
==== Statement by ] ==== | |||
This is a bad faith request from a person whose only concept of taking other steps to resolve the conflict has been to toss off insults and revert to old and extremely POV-pushing versions of articles and then run to file an arbitration request when his tactics didn't immediately result in him getting his way. | |||
DashaKat and Empacher (possibly a sock of DashaKat's) have a very strong POV on the ], ] articles to try to hide the fact that the diagnosis is controversial and to minimize any mention that many professionals think there is no such thing. There is no edit warring that rises to the level where it could be legitimately called that going on there, as it was resolved after other editors came back a month or more ago and agreed to a consensus to mention the controversy prominently, which an a new user with no edits recently undid, reverting to an old pre-agreement version almost entirely removing the controversy from the lead and only saying that any professional with experience all agree that it is valid, which of course is incorect and major POV-pushing. After I reverted DashaKat and Empacher reverted to the non-consensus version, along with misleading edit statements. In fact, based upon ]'s extremely limited number of edits in the time, as well as the lack of edits of the person who put the POV-pushing version of the article that they reverted to, it could very well be that these are sockpuppet or meatpuppet accounts. Either way, Empacher's idea of trying to resolve the conflict has solely been to leave misleading edit comments when reverting the article in question and to post a on my talk page, which an admin and . DashaKat's idea of trying to resolve the conflict was to put harassing comments on my talk page, an example of which is (and not that the topic being discussed was spam to a highly active and disputed page which had previous been discussed on ], which I was only enforcing, and which other editors came later to remove after the ] (that's a non-existent user page, don't recall how to link to his contributions, but from his edits he's someone here specifically with an agenda of massive linking to the sites discussed on the EL talk page) put it back. In this case DashaKat was not only not trying to solve our existing conflict but was trying to escalate another one which was resolved quickly by editors from the ] talk page. | |||
Another example of DashaKat's not taking any steps at all to try to resolve a conflict and instead to try to create more can be shown by his immediately looking to find other people to complain to and try to drag into his conflict. He ran to the ] article, at which the people involved there are already involved in an ongoing arbitration over broad scale POV-pushing related to paranormal articles. See ], where she actively encourages completely ignoring longstanding principles of ] so that her views on Parapsychology can be pushed. Certainly, other than the already open arbitration matter, no steps have been taken to try to resolve any conflict on ] either, other than a mass of people blind reverting to an old version and posting insulting comments to the talk page. | |||
As this arbitration has been filed in bad faith, completely bypassing all normal steps for conflict resolution and in fact instead purposefully trying to exaggerate minor and previously resolved conflicts at the ], and because DashaKat is clearly trying to use it as a club so that his preferred version of ] will stay, I would suggest that this particular request be quickly rejected. | |||
(And, for the record, DashaKat's claims that I push POV or distort policies for my own positions is completely false, as backed up over the results of many conflicts over the years, which almost without exception have gone my way when other editors come in from outside to look at the conflict and give a third opinion. I am well known for my ability to make spam and bias go away, and as equally well known for having problem editors trying to cause problems because they want that POV and spam there. You'll note that the last RfAr and RFC tried to be filed against me were created by editors who all ended up permanently banned from Misplaced Pages for disruptive edits, POV-pushing, harassment and etc. I tend to edit articles with controversial topics, so it's not surprising I'd have a lot of people complaining when they don't get their way) | |||
] 23:16, 1 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
====Questions by uninvolved ]==== | |||
Where talkpage discussion? Where article RfC? Where mediation? Where user RfC? ] '']'' 07:23, 2 July 2007 (UTC). | |||
==== Clerk notes ==== | |||
: (This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.) | |||
==== Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/5/0/0) ==== | |||
* Decline; premature. --]<sup><small>]</small></sup> 01:03, 2 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
* Decline as premature. ] ] 18:05, 2 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
* Decline as per Jpgordon, Paul August. ] (]:]) 21:21, 3 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
* Decline, Bishzilla asks weighty questions. A checkuser request concering DashaKat might not go amiss either. ] ] 11:31, 5 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
* Decline, premature. ] 17:03, 5 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
---- | |||
=== Vision Thing === | |||
: '''Initiated by ''' -- ]''']''' '''at''' 19:39, 29 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Involved parties ==== | |||
*{{userlinks|Vision Thing}} | |||
*{{userlinks|Infinity0}} | |||
*{{userlinks|Etcetc}} | |||
*{{userlinks|Full Shunyata}} | |||
; Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request | |||
*Vision Thing: | |||
*Etcetc: | |||
*Full Shunyata: | |||
; Confirmation that other steps in ] have been tried | |||
*] has been attempted on ] which Vision Thing has ignored; discussion with Vision Thing is consistently attempted with no success. Other editors apart from me will testify to this. | |||
*'''Note''' Two prior disputes at ] between these two users. | |||
**] | |||
**] | |||
==== Statement by Infinity0 ==== | |||
Vision Thing has been consistently edit-warring on articles related to politics, especially those related to anarchism and anarcho-capitalism, for over a year. His usual pattern of attacks is consistent reversion to undermine attempts by other editors to make contributions to the articles. (Eg. quickly scanning through his contributions, one finds that around 1/3 of his past 100 edits have been reverts of good-faithed edits (ie. not vandalism).) | |||
He has a habit of supporting edits made by banned users ] and ] and their sockpuppets, and re-inserting them into articles when other editors attempt to remove them. | |||
He has undermined attempts to change a part of ] to a version reached and agreed upon by numerous editors from ]. | |||
Evidence of above will be provided if this case is accepted; or you can browse through Vision Thing's contributions and see for yourself. | |||
P.S. If this case is accepted or rejected, please can someone email me to tell me. | |||
Addenum 12:22, 30 June 2007 (UTC). Vision Thing is continuing to edit war even as this request is being made. He has just reverted about 8 editors on ] back to his own version: . -- ]''']''' 12:22, 30 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
In reply to Vision Thing's comment about dispute resolution, I am bringing this case not on behalf of only myself, but the great many editors you have consistently prevented from contributing to wikipedia over the past year. -- ]''']''' 12:28, 30 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Statement by Vision Thing ==== | |||
Although it seems to me that infinty0 hasn't tried to use other steps in resolving this dispute, I'm willing to participate in arbitration with listed involved parties. ] 11:48, 30 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Statement by Full Shunyata ==== | |||
==== Statement by Etcetc ==== | |||
==== Statement by Vassyana ==== | |||
I am not directly involved in the conflict, but I have reviewed the behaviour of Infinity0 and Vision Thing and given them warnings in the past. Both editors have been blocked for edit warring. Please note ]. Relevant discussion can also be found ] and ]. ] 14:57, 30 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Clerk notes ==== | |||
A prior case involving some of the same parties is ]. ] 20:01, 29 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (3/0/0/0) ==== | |||
* Accept. ] ] 18:02, 2 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
*Accept. - ] 13:11, 4 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
* Accept. ] 17:04, 5 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
---- | |||
=== Spoiler Warning === | |||
: '''Initiated by ''' ] '''at''' 16:59, 27 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Involved parties ==== | |||
*{{userlinks|Ken Arromdee}} | |||
*{{userlinks|Tony Sidaway}} | |||
*{{userlinks|Phil Sandifer}} | |||
*{{userlinks|David Gerard}} | |||
*{{userlinks|Kusma}} | |||
*{{userlinks|Ned Scott}} | |||
; Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request | |||
Tony Sidaway: | |||
Phil Sandifer: | |||
David Gerard: | |||
Kusma: | |||
; Confirmation that other steps in ] have been tried | |||
Link to current spoiler talk page as of now. . See also the archives at ] with much relevant discussion, including longer presentations by others of the problems with current anti-spoiler activity. Discussion has been going on for months with no result. Moreover, a RFC was tried and closed with no useful result. . The policy has had a disputed tag since June 9 with no result. A request for AWB revocation was also tried but cancelled. | |||
==== Statement by ] ==== | |||
This is in some ways an unusual request for arbitration. The problem has to do with the spoiler policy, where need for consensus has been bypassed by users deleting tens of thousands of spoiler warnings and claiming to have consensus because not enough of them are being restored. There are less than two dozen currently out of a former 45000. . The guideline is *not* settled and has *not* achieved consensus, as can be seen just from reading the pages or looking at the ]. | |||
The users listed above are three users who have participated in the spoiler page discussion and whose edit histories show a substantial number of recent removals of spoiler warnings, plus Tony Sidaway, who is the most prominent public supporter of the claim that the 45000 removals have consensus because they have not been reverted. There may be others, but my intent is to establish whether this is proper behavior for any user. I don't have the technical skills to determine the full set of users responsible for all 45000 removals. | |||
As a way of establishing consensus, deleting 45000 warnings is inappropriate for several reasons: | |||
* Deleting a spoiler warning is much easier and faster than adding one. Adding one requires carefully reading the article and deciding on where to put the warning; deletion requires no such consideration. Moreover, spoiler warnings to be deleted are easily found with the "what links here" feature, but spoiler warnings to be restored can't be found in the same way. This makes the procedure imbalanced towards deletion (particularly with AWB assistance); restoring the warnings means facing a nearly impassable logistical barrier. | |||
* Spoiler warnings have been deleted with comments such as "(rm per WP:SPOILER (redundant with section title))", which would imply to most users that the deletion was done according to a settled policy/guideline. Users not intimately familiar with Misplaced Pages processes won't think of reading the spoiler guideline talk page to determine if the guideline has really been settled. | |||
* Once a user does restore a spoiler warning, it will get deleted again (almost always with no discussion). It's impossible to keep a spoiler warning without edit-warring. Under these circumstances, claiming that the policy has consensus because the spoiler warnings don't stay restored is absurd. | |||
* Using the lack of reversions to prove that the guideline has consensus, but also invoking the guideline to *prevent* reversions, is circular reasoning. | |||
* Part of the controversy is over editing the spoiler warning template itself. The current template doesn't include the words "spoiler" or "warning". This discourages users from restoring spoiler warnings by making spoiler warnings themselves vague and almost useless. | |||
* The template also includes disputed parts of the guideline (particularly the one about no warnings in plot sections) with no mention that they are disputed. Again, an average user would conclude that there is no dispute and that he is not permitted to restore most warnings; if so, the failure of users to restore warnings cannot prove consensus for one side of the dispute. | |||
As this guideline enforcement has been done on a Misplaced Pages-wide scale, it has gone far beyond content disputes on any individual article. Policies not followed include the AWB policy (]), ], and particularly ]. Note that this RFA case isn't about whether the spoiler guideline itself is good; the case is about whether the activity of deleting 45000 warnings and enforcing a disputed policy is appropriate. | |||
:Response to arbitrator ]: I don't understand how to follow advice that says "continue following the process", when the complaint itself is that the other side is not following process. ] 21:06, 27 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
: The RFA is about the propriety of making massive changes based on a disputed policy. You're trying to argue that this is okay because the disputed policy is actually correct. That's ] and is irrelevant. ] 21:10, 27 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
:There is no "common consent". In fact, one problem is that the failure to restore the warnings is used to *deduce* consensus. Now you're saying the warnings need to be kept out *because of* consensus. That's the circular reasoning I noted: failure to restore warnings proves consensus... but consensus justifies not letting people restore warnings. | |||
:And in 45000 of anything you can find some that are unnecessary. ] 13:15, 28 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
:<small>to Moreschi</small> I've already argued why spoiler warnings belong on plot sections. I've argued it elsewhere. Whether spoiler warnings are good is unrelated to this RFA, which is about prematurely claiming consensus and enforcing policies in hard-to-reverse ways before consensus. Falsely claiming consensus for a policy and taking extreme measures to support it does not become good just because you can argue that the policy is itself good. ] 12:52, 28 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Statement by ] ==== | |||
There seems to be a small amount of disagreement over a new guideline that has almost universal acceptance. There have been numerous accusations of abusive behavior. A little ugly, but I suspect mainly resulting from lack of experience of Misplaced Pages on the part of the objectors. --] 17:12, 27 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
I have withdrawn from the mediation case . I felt that by participating in mediation I was giving too much weight to petty objections, while there were actual policy violations by the objectors (personal attacks, 3RR). These are better dealt with as conduct issues, rather than pandering to those violating policy. --] 11:39, 30 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Statement by ] ==== | |||
I'm not sure that this is ripe for arbitration at this time, but Tony's claim above that there is a consensus is far from true and the repeated removal of spoiler warnings as a way of testing their consensus is frankly disruptive bordering on ]. ] 17:52, 27 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Statement by ] ==== | |||
<div class="notice metadata spoiler">''']:''' ''Significant plot details {{#if:{{{1|}}}|about {{{1}}}}} follow.''</div> | |||
By common consent almost all - 99% being a guesstimate frequently touted - spoiler warnings were redundant (in plot sections), unnecessary (works of fact, not fiction), fatuous (Plato, Dickens) or downright absurd (nursery rhymes). All the pro-spoiler crowd have ever had to do is go to the Talk pages of articles they think need spoiler warnings, and make a case, on an article by article basis, showing that the plot element or device is generally identified as a significant spoiler in current critical discussion of the work in question. | |||
As far as I can tell, they refuse to do this, preferring instead either to edit-war over the tags, or to complain endlessly that there is no "consensus" to remove the spoiler warnings. In article space, of course, the onus is always on the editor seeking to ''include'' a tag or other content to justify that inclusion. | |||
The real question here is why tens of thousands of spoiler warnings were placed in mainspace in the first place. Can someone show where it was discussed? The debate that justifies 45,000 spoiler tags in articles as diverse as ], the ] and ]? There is no evidence that editors were discriminating in adding these tags, or that they ever served any encyclopaedic purpose in more than a very small proportion of articles (and only debatably in those). | |||
This request is baseless. Tony and Phil are responding to criticisms, this entire request appears to be functionally equivalent to: we don't like this, we can't be bothered to go and justify the tags on an article by article basis, but nobody else agrees with us that it's a Huge Big Problem that needs enormous effort from lots of other people to fix. | |||
Somehow I doubt that the arbitration committee will see the removal of spolier tags form articles where their inclusion shows no evidence of critical judgement to be anything other than a reasonable action. This is, after all, an encyclopaedia: it is not exactly a surprise that the plot section on a 1930 film includes a discussion of the plot, and warning the reader of this does look rather silly. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 20:45, 27 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
<div class="notice spoiler endspoiler" style="border-top: 2px solid #dddddd; border-bottom:2px solid #dddddd; text-align: justify; margin: 1em; padding: 0.2em;">''Significant plot details end here.''</div> | |||
: No, the RFAR is about you wanting to revert the removal of a large number of essentially self-referential templates fomr articles in almost all of which they were, by common consent, completely unjustified. There was significant discussion before, during and after the event. As far as I can tell the vast majority of editors think the vast majority of spoiler tags were useless; if you think spoiler tags genuinely contribute to the encyclopaedia then all you need to do is go to the articles you think need them and a case for the inclusion of spoiler tags ''in those articles'', on a case-by-case basis. I haven't seen a justification for a spoiler tag on a Talk page yet so I have no idea what one would look like, but I'm guessing there would be a pretty low bar. If the sources agree that knowing X about film Y is a spoiler, and if the cat is not out of the bag long since, it should be trivially easy to persuade other editors that a spoiler is needed. I repeat, though, that the onus is on those seeking to ''include'' content to justify its inclusion. No evidence has been presented that David and Tony were acting in bad faith, they have given an extensive justification of why they thought their actions were to the benefit of the encyclopaedia, there was extensive discussion on the mailing list before the large-scale removals, and I have not yet seen a rationale for undoing this action other than "but you didn't ask me first!". Sufficient examples of plainly indiscriminate use have been rpesented that the action of remove all, allow reinsertion if editors can make a case, looks entirely reasonable to me. The fact that it would take you for ever to reinsert 45,000 spoiler warnings is irrelevant, because almost all of the 45,000 were clearly unnecessary. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 10:01, 28 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
* To Ghirla: Not IRC. This was discussed on the mailing list, which is where Jimbo says it should be discussed. <b>]</b> <small>(])</small> 22:19, 29 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Statement by apathetic ] ==== | |||
This looks like a case in which a reasonable and laudable project, which ought to have universal support, has been somewhat sabotaged by a ham-handed and counterproductive approach (disrespect for newer contributors, high-handedness, etc), and not for the first time. It might be useful as a case study in how we can keep our metaphorical teapots tempest-free in the future, but it's hard to see an ArbCom case here. ''']''' <sup>]</sup> 21:44, 27 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Statement by David Gerard ==== | |||
The problem with the spoiler tag was that it was being applied indiscriminately to anything and everything someone might conceivably consider discussed plot details. This led to ludicrousness such as spoiler tags on non-fictional topics such as ], ] (the article about ''kissing''), ] or ], Shakespeare, fairy tales and so forth - and people edit-warring to keep the spoiler tag on articles such as ]! In addition, it was causing serious problems with neutral point of view on some articles, as people were considering spoiler tags more important than the fundamental policy of neutrality. More than a few of the pro-spoiler edit warriors also got blocked for going over three reverts in twenty-four hours. | |||
What I did: I removed quite a lot of spoiler tags (10-20,000?) from sections headed "Plot summary", "Character history" or something equivalent that would tell the reader to expect plot details. I did keep an eye on what I was doing. In some cases I was in error, and these were flagged on my talk page. On a few articles I erroneously removed the tag again when someone put it back, and when this was flagged I apologised and made sure the article in question was taken off my list for processing. | |||
At present there are only a few uses of the spoiler tag remaining. I have tried in many such cases to re-edit the article so that it gives adequate warning of plot details for those who care without using an (in my opinion) problematic tag that has directly encouraged unencyclopedic writing and violations of fundamental policy - ''e.g.'' putting such things in a section titled "Plot summary" or "Character history", or using the {{tl|future}} tag as appropriate - ] 09:34, 28 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
* I just added the following to the ]. Ken has put forward there the notion that all 45,000 removed spoiler tags should be ''replaced'' (presumably including fairy tales, the Bible, Shakespeare, non-fiction, etc), and not removed again until discussion on spoilers has been carried through to his satisfaction: | |||
:Restoring all 45,000 spoiler warnings whether they make sense or not? That's ridiculous. They were removed because their spread was ''actually problematic to the encyclopedia''. Now they can be added as justifiable. What's so hard about justifying the spoilers? | |||
:I am reluctant to bother with this given that requests like adding back all 45,000 deleted spoiler tags are being made seriously. That shows a disconnection it's hard to reason with. | |||
:This "mediation" looks like frantic venue-shopping (RFC, ], wikien-l, AWB checklist, RFAr and now here), searching for someone who's actually interested in taking up the cause of spoiler tags. If anyone cared, I'd have been taken out and shot by now. They observably don't - it's a few spoiler advocates looking for someone who cares. | |||
:On the assertion the spoiler removal was a violation of AWB policy: well, it appears no-one involved in AWB actually thinks so, and those in favour of spoilers couldn't raise interest there either . So please stop asserting this as if it's a fact. | |||
:I ask again: What is so hard about even attempting to discuss the spoilers on a case by case basis? Ken's been asked this many times by many people and has yet to state what makes him unable to hit "edit" and add a justification to a talk page - ] 10:46, 30 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
*The mediation may be dead - Phil declined to participate, I think there's little common ground to negotiate on and Tony attempted involvement but gave up in the face of personal attacks from spoiler advocates who keep getting 3RR blocks for indiscriminately edit-warring the tag back onto articles - ] 11:39, 30 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
*] has also been involving himself in the mediation page and mediation talk page (and edit-warring) and may be appropriate to add to this case, should it be accepted - ] 11:48, 30 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Statement by Kusma ==== | |||
A few months ago, spoiler warnings were a common and accepted practice on this Misplaced Pages, but overused to a ridiculous degree (one of my favorite was the tag on ]). Then, Phil Sandifer initiated an ] (later turned into an RfC), showing how spoiler warnings interfere with core policies (NPOV) and more important encyclopedic considerations (]). Many people agreed that spoiler warnings were overused, and redundant in sections with clear section titles. I started removing spoiler warnings from classical literature and from clearly marked sections, sometimes adding headers in place of the warning tags. I did not remove all tags that I (or AWB) came across, but left many tags in place. After some weeks, I was surprised to see that spoiler warnings have almost completely disappeared, and there is surprisingly little demand for them given that they were so ubiquitous recently. Whether there was community consensus to remove all tags in the discussion is hard to say (the discussions are so long and confusing), but it was clear that not all of them should stay. It seems that editing boldly has overcome the inertia that made people believe spoiler warnings are a standard feature of Misplaced Pages. They have ceased to be used by default, and many Wikipedians now remove them on sight (not just the parties mentioned here). This is a nice example of how consensus can change. ] (]) 10:02, 28 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Comment by Moreschi ==== | |||
It may be of interest to some to note that even before I arrived on Misplaced Pages, editors of opera articles had made a collective decision of get rid of spoilers. Glad to see this is being followed up. . The header "plot summary" or "synopsis" should be more than enough warning without ugly and silly tags, particularly when the "plots" in question are often literary traditions going back hundreds of years, or even, as pointed out above, fairy tales! | |||
Regardless, I don't see an arbitration case here. I often get rid of the things when I see them, and anyway, while the encyclopedia can surely suffer badly as a result of spoiler abuse, it surely cannot suffer in any way as a result of spoiler absence. Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia, not a film trailer. Certain people seem to have forgotten that. ] <sup> ]</sup> 10:15, 28 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Statement by ElC on statement by JzG ==== | |||
It looks interesting and all, but in light of the {{tl|spoiler}}s, I'll wait till after I review every-related-thing before read it. (gotta start from the beginning!) ] 10:27, 28 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
====Statement by WJBscribe ==== | |||
It seems to me that if nearly all of 45000 spoiler tags have been removed and not replaced, that is a pretty clear consensus that they shouldn't be there. This seems to confirm the change in policy - on those pages the consensus has presumably also been that the tag is not needed. It is not as if it (the template) has been deleted- on each page arguments can be raised for why {{tl|spoiler}} is needed. For example if the tag is removed with the summary "redudant to section title", an editor could restore the tag and explain why it is not redundant. The fact it exists on only about a dozen pages is therefore telling. There will always be those unhappy when consensus shifts, but it seems consensus is against spoiler tags in the vast majority of cases. There are ongoing discussions and editors can make arguments for retaining the tags on specific articles - but policy represents current practice however vocal the dissent by a minority might be. It appears that current practice is to do without spoiler tags, but those who have removed them have been willing to discuss and compromise in individual cases - looks like everything is going fine without assistance from ArbCom. <span style="font-family: Verdana">]]</span> 14:49, 28 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
====Statement by Phil Sandifer==== | |||
I personally would hope the arbcom does not accept this case until Ken is able to point to an actual case of a spoiler tag where a consensus has not been able to form on the talk page of the article in question. I am unaware of one, which suggests to me that what we had was a careful (over a matter of weeks) removal of 45,000 tags, the vast majority of which were either uncontroversial or relatively quickly settled. ] 20:16, 28 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
====Statement by FunPika==== | |||
There is currently an ] on this matter. I suggest that arbitration waits until that medcab case closes. ]] 23:01, 28 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
====Statement by Kierano==== | |||
Being the one who called for medcab case, I second that. While the users named in this case have certainly been engaging in behavior that is disagreeable to a large number of other users, jumping directly to ArbCom isn't in line with the dispute resolution process. We should at least try to reach a compromise first. Hopefully having an external mediator will be enough for this. -] 01:55, 29 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
====Statement by Amarkov==== | |||
There is definitely a problem here. However, it needs to be framed as a user conduct issue, not a policy issue. The problem is in no way with the policy, but how people are trying to enforce it and claim consensus on a particular version. | |||
====Statement by Ned Scott==== | |||
Had this been about something more interesting I don't doubt it would become an actual arbcom case. I will say this, while I myself have become numb to the situation, it must be extremely frustrating for others to be basically shut up by those who are removing the warnings. Those wanting to remove spoiler warnings used scripts to do a massive removal in a sudden period of time, when the community probably should have been given a moment to breath and adapt, phasing out the warnings. I'm not saying I disagree with it, I'm just saying it was really harsh, and made the transitional period much harder than it needed to be. -- ] 07:09, 29 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
====Comment by Proabivouac==== | |||
Encyclopedias do not use spoiler warnings.] 07:13, 29 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
====Statement by Ghirlandajo==== | |||
As so often happens these days, there seems to have been some sort of consensus on IRC, there is certainly no consensus on-wiki, and there is some activity to enforce IRC consensus in the face of lack of on-wiki consensus. It's hard to see how ArbCom enters the picture and why its precious time and energy should be wasted on reviewing this particular situation. Misplaced Pages would not collapse or fall into disrepute because of the spoiler template. The matter is so trivial that it pains me to see how it was blown out of all proportion. It looks like an archetypal case when, for lack of substantive knowledge of Misplaced Pages problems, a bunch of admins create a non-existant problem that would divide the community, instead of tackling some very real challenges that the project faces these days: lack of content arbitration, prevalence of off-wiki decision- and policy-making, proliferation of nationalists and cranks, etc, etc. --]<sup>]</sup> 17:18, 29 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Comment by Lsi john ==== | |||
I noticed that numerous spoiler warnings were removed in bot-like fashion. As a fairly new editor, I assumed (like most others probably did) that there had been some official decree that {{tl|spoiler}} was being 'officially' deleted en masse from wikipedia. | |||
To claim justification after the fact, on the basis of 'lack of complaints' or 'lack of tag-readding', is absurd. Clearly some people did complain. The fact that some articles may not be watched, or that many editors will not challenge a bot or an admin, is a reason for 'caution' and not a justification for the action. | |||
IMO the editors, for any article which was to be affected, should have been notified in advance of any such bot action and should have been given an open opportunity to object. (as a simple courtesy if nothing else). | |||
Otherwise each of the (45,000) pages should have been individually looked at prior to deleting the tag. | |||
For those who supported such a broad bot-edit, please give careful consideration to the concept of 20-newbie editors forming a 'concensus' about any similar wikipedia issue and then having a bot make massive global changes. I strongly suspect they would be immediately banned for disruption. | |||
Should the spoiler tags have been used so broadly? probably not. But the end does not justify the means and nobody should be 'above the law' or 'above the process'. | |||
<small>Peace.</small>] ] 11:35, 30 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
====Comment by Kizor==== | |||
First, I'd like to request Proabivouac to stop sidetracking the discussion; he comments on a matter that has been repeatedly stated to not be an issue here. He is welcome to take it up on the appropriate talk page, though preferably in a more productive form than the one he demonstrates here, ignoring each and every argument to the contrary and stating the truth of things. --] 12:47, 2 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
====Statement by Nydas==== | |||
There is not, and has never has been, any consensus for the removal of spoiler tags. The anti-spoiler brigade rewrote the guideline two days into the discussion, and began the mass removal of spoiler tags using automated tools shortly afterwards. The initial justification was the underpublicised MfD that was closed after a day, with its 2:1 support of removal. The TfD (which supported spoilers) was ignored. | |||
The justification quickly changed to the now-familiar 'there is no significant resistance' line. The arbitary definition of 'significant resistance' makes it unlikely that resistance would ever be 'significant' enough. At one point, Tony Sidaway stated that hundreds of people reverting tags would count as significant, without explaining how this could be easily measured. At another, David Gerard said there was no significant resistance based on no-one phoning him to complain. | |||
In actual fact, thousands of spoiler tags were restored on a small scale basis by local editors - this can be confirmed by examining the edit histories. This was not enough to stop the AWB juggernaut. Someone making thousands of edits an hour isn't going to notice if they do the same page multiple times. They won't even notice the context; ] has been cited as a 'ludicrous' example, but the tags were in the 'popular culture' section. Perhaps not ideal, but certainly not 'ludicrous'. | |||
Nobody can restore the spoiler tags on large scale, since the anti-spoiler admins threaten anyone that tries. Sometimes this was for 3RR violations, but sometimes it wasn't, instead based on sock-puppet allegations or simply being 'disruptive'.--<strong>]</strong>] 17:50, 3 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
The question for this arbitration is not the policy, but the heavy-handed methods used to rewrite and enforce it, and whether consensus can be claimed by reference to 'no significant resistance'. The disrespectful (at times, outright rude) attitude of some anti-spoiler editors may also be worth noting. I have been unfairly accused of making personal attacks, as well as 'poisoning the well' with my single comment on ]. It has been suggested that those who oppose the removals are lacking in education of how Misplaced Pages works, and Tony Sidaway in particular has been vocal in asserting that those who like spoiler tags are 'stupid and perverse'.--<strong>]</strong>] 12:19, 4 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Clerk notes ==== | |||
: (This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.) | |||
*I moved some threaded comments to own respective section. ] 10:19, 28 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
*And again. Ken Arromdee, please restrict yourself to your own section. ] 13:18, 28 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (2/5/0/1) ==== | |||
* Reject. A matter for the community to decide. Sometimes matters take longer than a few weeks to work through. Continue following the normal dispute resolution process to gain consensus. ] 19:16, 27 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
* Defer at least until medcab finishes its work. --]<sup><small>]</small></sup> 03:37, 29 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
* Reject. One template out of thousands: its associated policy is not something the AC need deal with, unless there is a clear conflict with other policies or the encyclopedic mission. I would look at specific examples of editor conduct if there were wars over specific uses; but not at a broad-brush case like this. It is not the ArbCom's job to be a frictional force against changing the ways things are done. ] 16:55, 30 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
* Accept, modifying 45,000 articles in the absence of agreement deserves at least a warning and a clarification that policy is not made by whoever is more aggressive. ] 21:50, 30 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
* Reject. ] (]:]) 09:51, 1 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
* Reject. A debate over policy, not an arbitration matter. - ] 14:06, 1 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
* Accept, per Fred. ] ] 17:54, 2 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
* Decline per FloNight. ] 17:05, 5 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
---- | |||
=== Mark Kim === | |||
: '''Initiated by ''' — ] <sup><i>(])</i></sup> '''at''' 00:25, 26 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Involved parties ==== | |||
*{{userlinks|Mark Kim}} (formerly User:Vesther) | |||
*{{userlinks|Crossmr}} | |||
*{{userlinks|64.194.220.193}} | |||
*{{userlinks|71.57.74.109}} | |||
; Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request | |||
* | |||
* | |||
; Confirmation that other steps in ] have been tried | |||
* ] | |||
==== Statement by uninvolved Selmo ==== | |||
I am filing this case after reading Mark Kim's RfC. I feel after analyzing the evidence, that an RfC won't solve this dispute that has been ongoing for over two years because it requires all participants to want to come to some resolution. Mark has shown no interest in listening to others' opinions, as evident , , and . The description from the RFC is as follows. | |||
{{blockquote|Mark Kim (previously known as Vesther) has been acting in an uncivil manner for an excessively long time. Several editors have tried to speak with him and help correct his behaviour but all attempts to do so are met with more incivility, denial, and his own assertion that he should be allowed to do whatever he deems necessary to "protect" articles and to get his point across in articles, which includes violations of WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA, WP:OWN, as well as threats to edit war. He also maintains a double standard where he thinks its perfectly acceptable for him to do certain things (like try to moderate his user talk page with an iron fist) but then warns other users for doing the same thing (a diff will be provided where he warned a user for removing warnings from his talk page). Mark Kim also maintains that any disagreement with his behaviour is a personal attack of the utmost degree (and has referred to them as "damaging his persona"). This demonstrates his inability to work in a group setting. In a place as large as wikipedia you're never going to be able to avoid coming across someone who disagrees with you. I have never been involved in a content dispute with him. My only observations with him were as a third party recently and a year ago as I stumbled across two disputes he was involved in. After the second I dug a little deeper and found just how prevalent this behaviour was.}} — ] <sup><i>(])</i></sup> 00:25, 26 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Statement by Crossmr ==== | |||
I have little to add to the above, since its my summary that was being used to open this case, but I felt that this should be given as further evidence of the editors behaviour. Even though he claims to have closed his account, he continues to edit as an ip here . Same articles, same language (he can be seen writing "screw it" in a couple of earlier edit summaries) plus the IP edits Mark Kim's talk page. As far as I'm concerned this an attempt simply to dodge the arbitration case as he knows it will finally be binding and he'll have no choice but to edit by the ruling laid down.--] 01:54, 27 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
====Statement by Theresa knott ==== | |||
Despite Mark Kim's stating that he is leaving wikipedia he continues to edit with yet another IP here ]. (evidence is in the account history) ] | ] 15:45, 2 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Clerk notes ==== | |||
] has deleted his userpage, and his talkpage currently reads, "Note: Due to excessive disputes, the user has voluntarily cancelled his/her Misplaced Pages account." (However, see above for an allegation that he continues to edit as an IP.) ] 01:56, 27 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (1/0/0/0) ==== | |||
* Accept. ] 15:42, 26 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
---- | |||
=== Request to re-open ] === | |||
: '''Initiated by ''' ] <sup> ]</sup> '''at''' 21:32, 25 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Involved parties ==== | |||
*{{admin|Moreschi}} | |||
*{{userlinks|Pigsonthewing}} | |||
*{{userlinks|Folantin}} | |||
(others may add themselves as they see fit) | |||
; Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request | |||
*. ] <sup> ]</sup> 21:36, 25 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
; Confirmation that other steps in ] have been tried | |||
*] | |||
*] | |||
==== Statement by Moreschi ==== | |||
Misplaced Pages is a community project. If someone can't work with others, eventually it has to end in tears. | |||
], hereafter known as Andy Mabbett, has a long history of problems with the rest of Misplaced Pages's community. Previous dramas culminated in the requests for comment and arbitration linked above, where he was sanctioned heavily by the ArbCom of the time. He has also been blocked a , including a one-year arbitration committee ban after the initial case. Since then, he has recently accumulated further blocks for revert-warring and repeatedly adding insults against other users to his userpage, after multiple uninvolved administrators had removed the offending material. He has also been in several tussles that have lead to multiple reports to ], and my personal involvement with this user has come over a move to remove infoboxes, where they are inappropriate, from classical composer and opera-related articles. After a self-evident consensus to do just this was reached, Andy Mabbett has continued to bang the drum against this for months on end, a lone voice in the wilderness, working on the principle that "no consensus == I disagree", and all because a lack of infoboxes mess up his Microformats. Others will go into that in more detail later. | |||
Andy Mabbett has a singularly lengthy and entirely infamous history of disruption to the project. Recent events have brought this to boiling point. Given Mabbett's past history and current refusal to acknowledge, in multiple incidents, when he might possibly be wrong, I am asking the ArbCom to re-open the previous case to consider further sanctions at the very least. An outright indefinite ban, in my opinion, is to be preferred. Thank you. ] <sup> ]</sup> 21:32, 25 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
:Re: I have no problem with dissent. Excessive dissent is disruption, and that, we block and ban for. Anything to the contrary is nonsense. ] <sup> ]</sup> 13:28, 29 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Statement by ] ==== | |||
I second what Moreschi has written. As one of the admins writes in Andy Mabbett's block log, "This user appears to be here to make nuclear war with contributors; not to write an encyclopedia". AM is a belligerent editor who insists disputes cannot be concluded until he has his own way, even though majority opinion is clearly against him. This is true of his activities on the infobox topic (as documented by Moreschi). Mabbett has used various techniques, including violation of ], canvassing and forum-shopping to keep that argument going for over two months and has tried to block any moratorium on the subject. I can provide evidence of this if necessary but I think this thread at ] shows AM's arguing technique in a nutshell . AM refused to remove inflammatory material from his user page, engaged in an edit war and was blocked for 72 hours . The material in question was intended to keep a quarrel he had with ] still burning, although it is over 18 months old. The first thing he did on his return yesterday was to dig the dispute out of the ANI archives, insisting it was not over, to the frustration of other users involved. This is the same method he has used elsewhere and it is an enormous waste of time for other editors who simply want to get on with writing an encyclopaedia rather than using WP as a battleground. Since AM seems incapable of learning from experience, I think a lengthy (possibly permanent) enforced absence is in order. --] 07:02, 26 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
:(Oh, and I'm really not impressed by CBDunkerson's rhetoric. Now I understand why the AMA was disbanded by popular demand. WP has an effective system for dealing with vandals, but it's woefully inadequate where trolls, cranks and other disruptive elements are concerned and these are the people who drive good editors - both actual and potential - away. Mabbett's supposedly wonderful contribution history this year seems to consist mainly of inserting microformats everywhere possible and quarrelling at enormous length with anyone who dissents). --] 12:52, 29 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
====Statement by Semi-Involved SirFozzie==== | |||
I agree that ArbCom should pick up this case with an eye to determining how to handle Andy's behavior. He still is insisting that his latest escapades, that it's everyone else that's wrong, not him, and has shown no better behavior now then that which earned him his one year ban already.) He brought the latest dispute out from an archive and insisted on having the last word, refusing to accept what people were telling him. I finally gave up trying to discuss the case with him, because his insistence on hanving the last word. ] 19:05, 26 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
====Statement by slightly involved ]==== | |||
I saw this come up at ] and reviewed for myself what was happening. I made a on the matter to the thread, noting that PoTW rapidly embroils people in the conflict, when they came to the conflict as uninvolved parties hoping to help resolve the matter. Subsequent to that post of mine, three other editors who responded were attacked by PoTW as being dishonest, making ad hominen attacks and censoring PoTW, which I noted in . | |||
PoTW conducted more than a dozen reverts over several days of the removal of a personal attack from his userpage. Three of the users conducting the removals are administrators. I am ''deeply'' troubled that despite being warned he would be blocked for continuing to place what was widely regarded as a personal attack on his userpage , PoTW once again put the text back on his userpage just three minutes later . When he was blocked for this, he then put the text on his talk page , in the process referring to the people against him as "the lynchmob". When this was removed from his talk page, PoTW complained calling it a "totally unacceptable act of censorship" . Even now, he's placed a message on his userpage saying it is being censored and people should review the history of his userpage for what was censored . | |||
It is clear from the recent and past record both that PoTW does not respond well to feedback, and insists on taking to task anyone who disagrees with him. He is not amenable to making changes in his manner, and seems singularly incapable of working in a cooperative editing environment when he comes into conflict with other users. --] 20:59, 26 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
====Statement by previously involved ]==== | |||
This is perhaps the single identifiable thing which Misplaced Pages is '''worst''' at handling... users who hold steadfastly to their views. Andy Mabbet can be stubborn to the point of being a major pain in the ass. Moreschi above calls him "a lone voice in the wilderness" - continuing to protest a decision he doesn't agree with seemingly ad infinitum. How '''dare''' he! Clearly we must stomp this foul miscreant into paste. Disagreement is not allowed! Or so it would seem. Do we block people just because we (or some of us) don't like what they have to say? | |||
Let's look at the accusations being made here: | |||
#Feud with ] - Both users had long (as in many MONTHS now) denounced each other on their respective user pages. This was incivil and IMO petty, but also in my opinion not worth making a brouhaha over. There are worse statements than either of those on thousands of pages throughout Misplaced Pages... including '''this''' one. Notably, both users also allowed the statements to be removed '''before''' this arbitration case was filed. | |||
#Infoboxes / Microformats dispute - Andy Mabbet wants to embed microformat data into articles for machine reading and indexing purposes. To that end he wants them included in infoboxes and the infoboxes used consistently on articles. Others disagree. He argues. They don't like that. They get him banned from editing infoboxes. He abides by that, but continues to present his views (as the Arbcom ban encouraged him to do). Therefor we must now have an Arbitration to 'muzzle' him? | |||
#Not here to write an encyclopedia - This statement from an admin, quoted and endorsed by Folantin in his statement above, is not only a clear personal attack, but so utterly and '''obviously''' untrue as to insult the intelligence. Anyone who looks at ] and says that this person is not trying to improve the encyclopedia is lying... either to all of us or to themselves. These false claims serve no purpose except to inflame the situation. | |||
#Claims 'censorship' - Andy Mabbet described the removal of his complaints about Leonig Mig as, "censorship". Guess what... he's right. That's exactly what it is. Whether we agree that the statements should be removed or not... forcibly doing so IS censorship. Look it up. The edit war over whether he is allowed to '''say''' so is typical of the problem here. People get so annoyed with Andy's dogged advocacy of his views that they go out of their way to antagonize and dispute him. Indeed, the fact that he had that denouncement of Leonig Mig on his user page only became an issue after these many months because people were looking for ways to 'get' him. (Note: This is not a criticism of the admins who were trying to stomp out the incivility - rather of the whole, 'look what he did! Get him!', finger pointing.) | |||
What should be done? It'd be nice if people had thicker skins and could just say, 'I disagree' and not feel the need to 'win' / get Andy to stop disputing them. Unfortunately, historically we have seen over and over again that there is always someone (or several someones) who casts themself in the role of 'defender of Misplaced Pages' and goes after Andy and others who dare to disagree with their 'consensus'. It'd be nice if Andy could just accept 'defeat' and move on, but we've seen that while he abides by blocks and restrictions he will criticize the decisions and continue to press his viewpoint long past the point that most would give up. | |||
So do we 'criminalize' dissent? Do we block people who object to and try to stifle the dissent? Or do we allow the argument to go on forever? That's the essential question here. Personally, I'd choose the last and keep the role of blocks as checks on ''actions'' and behaviour which are crossing the line into disruption and insults. We should not be getting rid of people, either temporarily or permanently, '''just''' for disagreeing... no matter how long they do so. --] 12:10, 29 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Clerk notes ==== | |||
:(discussion moved to talk page) ] 14:29, 1 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
==== Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (4/0/0/0) ==== | |||
* Accept as new case; this can't properly be considered a direct continuation of the old one, considering the other parties involved there. ] 15:39, 26 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
* Accept. --]<sup><small>]</small></sup> 20:34, 26 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
* Accept. - ] 13:00, 2 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
* Accept. ] ] 20:05, 5 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
---- | |||
== Requests for clarification == | |||
''Place requests for clarification on matters related to the Arbitration process in this section. Place new requests at the '''top'''.'' | |||
===]=== | |||
Per ] ruling, is grounds for blocking? Is it acceptable to use said ruling as the justification for ]? '''<font color="#330033">]</font>''' 00:54, 26 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
:Please note that the link in question contains no personal information or attacks. '''<font color="#330033">]</font>''' 00:56, 26 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
::Arbitration rulings are not policy. They apply only to the specific situation considered, in this case, a link to dem attic. Inserting such a link into Misplaced Pages is a blockable offense, although, a warning is appropriate if it seems the user was unaware of the status of that site. In your case, the 24 hour block seems appropriate as you were apparently both aware and warned. ] 21:31, 30 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
:::Attempts to generalize the remedy in that case into more general policy have not been happy. I don't think it is good general policy. Such a remedy should only be applied in egregious circumstances, after a hearing which considers the particular site. ] 21:31, 30 June 2007 (UTC) | |||
::::You seem to contradict yourself here... you say it's not policy, but then you say it's enforceable anyway. It doesn't help things to suppress the link here that shows the specific instance being discussed, even though the link is to a Misplaced Pages diff, not directly to the so-called attack site. You also don't even address the point that the particular link in question was being used to source an article, and was relevant in that context, so the supposed attack-link ban (which you yourself agree is not actual policy) is not directly relevant... in fact, this instance is one of those "attempts to generalize the remedy" that you're supposedly against. If it's "not policy", then how is the fact that somebody was "warned" about it relevant? I can warn you that using the letter "e" in your postings makes you subject to getting blocked for it... does that mean that if you persist in using that letter you can properly be blocked? A "warning" not backed by valid policy should have no effect. By the way, there has never been a hearing considering the particular site in question for the particular link discussed here, although it's hard for anybody to check when even the link to the diff is being suppressed. ] 13:05, 1 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
With respect to the banned site there is an enforceable remedy. Attempts to make that remedy into a policy are misguided as there needs to be a determination that a site is systematically engaged in destructive behavior before it is banned. Misplaced Pages has a number of legitimate critics. It would be grossly inappropriate to ban every critical website. ] 14:45, 1 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
:Of course, but websites that routinely post personally reveiling information about our editors should never be linked to nor advertised.--] 15:30, 1 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
:I think this just about does it for me. '''<font color="#330033">]</font>''' 17:01, 1 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
I think I misread the link you made. It is to Misplaced Pages Review, not to the banned drama site. I doubt a block was justified. ] 17:26, 2 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
'''Clarification''': We did not write a proposal about, or vote on, linking to ED. Rather, we voted on a general principle. The MONGO case was quite clear when we voted on it, and the vote was unanimous: | |||
<blockquote> "A website that engages in the practice of publishing private information concerning the identities of Misplaced Pages participants will be regarded as an attack site whose pages should not be linked to from Misplaced Pages pages under any circumstances."</blockquote> | |||
Given the contents of WR, which has had dozens of threads and hundreds of posts devoted to attempts to "publish private information concerning the identities of Misplaced Pages participants", it is clear that the site meets the definition of "an attack site" as outlined here, that its pages "pages should not be linked to from Misplaced Pages pages under any circumstances", and that the block (after warning), was appropriate. ]<sup><small><font color="DarkGreen">]</font></small></sup> 21:53, 2 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
:Thank you for that correction. However, it is still a matter of degree. I post on Misplaced Pages Review. I would not even consider creating an ED account. ] 03:52, 5 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
::I certainly don't condemn anyone for posting there, so long they are in fact "reviewing Misplaced Pages" and not trying to "out" anyone. But I have seen plenty of efforts by many contributors to that site who have tried to overtly ID the real life ID's of some of our contributors. That little to nothing is done to eliminate these postings demonstrates that they condone stalking and I find that to be unacceptable and thus I cannot see any reason why linking to any site that does this should be tolerated.--] 04:10, 5 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
Blocks should '''never''' be used as a penalty, but rather as a means to protect the encyclopaedia from harm. Linking to Misplaced Pages Review in an ''article'', with an ''informative'' purpose, is ''not'' "damaging the encyclopaedia", and a block for this makes no sense. <b>]]</b> 20:25, 5 July 2007 (UTC) | |||
==Motions in prior cases== | |||
:''(Only Arbitrators may make and vote on such motions. Other editors may comment on the talk page)'' | |||
<!--Please do not remove the above notice, and create a subsection for each new motion. Thanks.--> | |||
==Archives== | |||
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Latest revision as of 03:40, 31 January 2023
Wikimedia project pageArbitrationCommittee
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A request for arbitration is the last step of dispute resolution for conduct disputes on Misplaced Pages. The Arbitration Committee considers requests to open new cases and review previous decisions. The entire process is governed by the arbitration policy. For information about requesting arbitration, and how cases are accepted and dealt with, please see guide to arbitration.
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Currently, there are no requests for arbitration.
Open casesCase name | Links | Evidence due | Prop. Dec. due |
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Palestine-Israel articles 5 | (t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t) | 21 Dec 2024 | 11 Jan 2025 |
No cases have recently been closed (view all closed cases).
Clarification and Amendment requestsCurrently, no requests for clarification or amendment are open.
Arbitrator motionsMotion name | Date posted |
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Arbitrator workflow motions | 1 December 2024 |
Requests for arbitration
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About this page Use this section to request the committee open an arbitration case. To be accepted, an arbitration request needs 4 net votes to "accept" (or a majority). Arbitration is a last resort. WP:DR lists the other, escalating processes that should be used before arbitration. The committee will decline premature requests. Requests may be referred to as "case requests" or "RFARs"; once opened, they become "cases". Before requesting arbitration, read the arbitration guide to case requests. Then click the button below. Complete the instructions quickly; requests incomplete for over an hour may be removed. Consider preparing the request in your userspace. To request enforcement of an existing arbitration ruling, see Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement. To clarify or change an existing arbitration ruling, see Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment.
Guidance on participation and word limits Unlike many venues on Misplaced Pages, ArbCom imposes word limits. Please observe the below notes on complying with word limits.
General guidance
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Requests for clarification and amendment
Use this section to request clarification or amendment of a closed Arbitration Committee case or decision.
- Requests for clarification are used to ask for further guidance or clarification about an existing completed Arbitration Committee case or decision.
- Requests for amendment are used to ask for an amendment or extension of existing sanctions (for instance, because the sanctions are ineffective, contain a loophole, or no longer cover a sufficiently wide topic); or appeal for the removal of sanctions (including bans).
Submitting a request: (you must use this format!)
- Choose one of the following options and open the page in a new tab or window:
- Click here to file a request for clarification of an arbitration decision or procedure.
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- Save your request and check that it looks how you think it should and says what you intended.
- If your request will affect or involve other users (including any users you have named as parties), you must notify these editors of your submission; you can use
{{subst:Arbitration CA notice|SECTIONTITLE}}
to do this. - Add the diffs of the talk page notifications under the applicable header of the request.
Please do not submit your request until it is ready for consideration; this is not a space for drafts, and incremental additions to a submission are disruptive.
Guidance on participation and word limits
Unlike many venues on Misplaced Pages, ArbCom imposes word limits. Please observe the below notes on complying with word limits.
- Motivation. Word limits are imposed to promote clarity and focus on the issues at hand and to ensure that arbitrators are able to fully take in submissions. Arbitrators must read a large volume of information across many matters in the course of their service on the Committee, so submissions that exceed word limits may be disregarded. For the sake of fairness and to discourage gamesmanship (i.e., to disincentivize "asking forgiveness rather than permission"), word limits are actively enforced.
- In general. Most submissions to the Arbitration Committee (including statements in arbitration case requests and ARCAs and evidence submissions in arbitration cases) are limited to 500 words, plus 50 diffs. During the evidence phase of an accepted case, named parties are granted an automatic extension to 1000 words plus 100 diffs.
- Sectioned discussion. To facilitate review by arbitrators, you should edit only in your own section. Address your submission to arbitrators, not to other participants. If you wish to rebut, clarify, or otherwise refer to another submission for the benefit of arbitrators, you may do so within your own section. (More information.)
- Requesting an extension. You may request a word limit extension in your submission itself (using the {{@ArbComClerks}} template) or by emailing clerks-llists.wikimedia.org. In your request, you should briefly (in 1-2 sentences) include (a) why you need additional words and (b) a broad outline of what you hope to discuss in your extended submission. The Committee endeavors to act upon extension requests promptly and aims to offer flexibility where warranted.
- Members of the Committee may also grant extensions when they ask direct questions to facilitate answers to those questions.
- Refactoring statements. You should write carefully and concisely from the start. It is impermissible to rewrite a statement to shorten it after a significant amount of time has passed or after anyone has responded to it (see Misplaced Pages:Talk page guidelines § Editing own comments), so it is often advisable to submit a brief initial statement to leave room to respond to other users if the need arises.
- Sign submissions. In order for arbitrators and other participants to understand the order of submissions, sign your submission and each addition (using
~~~~
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- Counting words. Words are counted on the rendered text (not wikitext) of the statement (i.e., the number of words that you would see by copy-pasting the page section containing your statement into a text editor or word count tool). This internal gadget may also be helpful.
- Sanctions. Please note that members and clerks of the Committee may impose appropriate sanctions when necessary to promote the effective functioning of the arbitration process.
General guidance
- Arbitrators and clerks may summarily remove or refactor discussion without comment.
- Requests from blocked or banned users should be made by e-mail directly to the Arbitration Committee.
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- Archived clarification and amendment requests are logged at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Index/Clarification and Amendment requests. Numerous legacy and current shortcuts can be used to more quickly reach this page:
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Motions
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This section can be used by arbitrators to propose motions not related to any existing case or request. Motions are archived at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Index/Motions. Only arbitrators may propose or vote on motions on this page. You may visit WP:ARC or WP:ARCA for potential alternatives. Make a motion (Arbitrators only) You can make comments in the sections called "community discussion" or in some cases only in your own section. Arbitrators or clerks may summarily remove or refactor any comment. |
Arbitrator workflow motions
Workflow motions: Arbitrator discussion
- I am proposing these three motions for discussion, community input, and a vote. Each seeks to improve ArbCom's functioning by providing for the performance of basic administrative responsibilities that sometimes go neglected, which, in my opinion, if successful, would significantly improve ArbCom's overall capacity. Motivation: We've known about the need for improvements to our workflow and capacity for some years now – I wrote about some of these suggestions in my 2022 ACE statement. It's a regular occurrence that someone will email in with a request or information and, because of the press of other work and because nobody is responsible for tracking and following up on the thread, we will let the thread drop without even realizing it and without deciding that no action is needed. We can each probably name a number of times this has happened, but one recent public example of adverse consequences from such a blunder was highlighted in the Covert canvassing and proxying in the Israel-Arab conflict topic area case request, which was partially caused by our failure to address a private request that had been submitted to us months earlier. Previous efforts: We've experimented with a number of technological solutions to this problem during my four years on the Committee, including: (a) tracking matters on a Trello board or on a private Phabricator space; (b) tracking threads in Google Groups with tags; (c) requesting the development of custom technical tools; (d) reducing the appeals we hear; and (e) tracking appeals more carefully on arbwiki. Some of these attempts have been moderately successful, or showed promise for a time before stalling, but none of them have fully and fundamentally addressed this dropping-balls issue, which has persisted, and which in my opinion requires a human solution rather than just a technological solution. Rationale: The work we need done as framed below (e.g. bumping email threads) isn't fundamentally difficult or sensitive, but it's essential, and it's structurally hard for an active arbitrator to be responsible for doing it. For example, I could never bring myself to bump/nag others to opine on matters that I hadn't done my best to resolve yet myself. But actually doing the research to substantively opine on an old thread (especially as the first arb) can take hours of work, and I'm more likely to forget about it before I have the time to resolve it, and then it'll get lost in the shuffle. So it's best to somewhat decouple the tracking/clerical function from the substantive arb-ing work. Other efforts: There is one more technological solution for which there was interest among arbitrators, which was to get a CRM/ticketing system – basically, VRTS but hopefully better. I think this could help and would layer well with any of the other options, but there are some open questions (e.g., which one to get, how to pay for it, whether we can get all arbs to adopt it), and I don't think that that alone would address this problem (see similar attempts discussed above), so I think we should move ahead with one of these three motions now and adopt a ticketing system with whichever of the other motions we end up going with. These three motions are the result of substantial internal workshopping, and have been variously discussed (as relevant) with the functionaries, the clerks, and the Wikimedia Foundation (on a call in November). Before that, we held an ideation session on workflow improvements with the Foundation in July and have had informal discussions for a number of years. I deeply appreciate the effort and input that has gone into these motions from the entire committee and from the clerks and functionaries, and hope we can now pass one of them. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:28, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
- One other thing I forgot to suggest—I'd be glad to write motions 1 or 2 up as a trial if any arb prefers, perhaps for 6-12 months, after which the motion could be automatically repealed unless the committee takes further action by motion to permanently continue the motion. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 23:39, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
Workflow motions: Clerk notes
- This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).
Workflow motions: Implementation notes
Clerks and Arbitrators should use this section to clarify their understanding of which motions are passing. These notes were last updated by an automatic check at 03:40, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
Motion name | Support | Oppose | Abstain | Passing | Support needed | Notes |
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Motion 1: Correspondence clerks | 2 | 4 | 0 | 4 | One support vote contingent on 1.4 passing | |
Motion 1.2a: name the role "scrivener" | 1 | 3 | 1 | 4 | ||
Motion 1.2b: name the role "coordination assistant" | 0 | 2 | 3 | 4 | ||
Motion 1.3: make permanent (not trial) | 0 | 4 | 1 | 5 | ||
Motion 1.4: expanding arbcom-en directly | 1 | 3 | 1 | 4 | ||
Motion 2: WMF staff support | 0 | 5 | 0 | Cannot pass | ||
Motion 3: Coordinating arbitrators | 4 | 0 | 0 | 2 | ||
Motion 4: Grants for correspondence clerks | 0 | 4 | 0 | 6 |
- Notes
Motion 1: Correspondence clerks
- Nine-month trial
The Arbitration Committee's procedures are amended by adding the following section for a trial period of nine months from the date of enactment, after which time the section shall be automatically repealed unless the Committee takes action to make it permanent or otherwise extend it:
- Correspondence clerks
The Arbitration Committee may appoint one or more former elected members of the Arbitration Committee to be correspondence clerks for the Arbitration Committee. Correspondence clerks must meet the Wikimedia Foundation's criteria for access to non-public personal data and sign the Foundation's non-public information confidentiality agreement.
Correspondence clerks shall be responsible for assisting the Committee in the routine administration and organization of its mailing list and non-public work in a similar manner as the existing arbitration clerks assist in the administration of the Committee's on-wiki work.
The specific responsibilities of correspondence clerks shall include:
- Acknowledging the receipt of correspondence and assigning tracking identifiers to pending requests and other matters;
- Tracking the status of pending matters and providing regular updates and reminders on the status of the Committee's off-wiki work to arbitrators;
- Reminding members of the Committee to vote or otherwise take action in pending matters;
- Organizing related correspondence into case files; and
- Providing similar routine administrative and clerical assistance to the Arbitration Committee.
The remit of correspondence clerks shall not include:
- Participating in the substantive consideration or decision of any matters before the Committee; or
- Taking non-routine actions requiring the exercise of arbitrator discretion.
To that end, upon the first appointment of correspondence clerks, the current arbcom-en mailing list shall be renamed to arbcom-en-internal, which shall continue to be accessible only by arbitrators, and a new arbcom-en email list shall be established. The subscribers to the new arbcom-en list shall be the arbitrators and correspondence clerks.
The Committee shall establish a process to allow editors to, in unusual circumstances following a showing of good cause, directly email a mailing list accessible only by arbitrators and not by correspondence clerks.
All correspondence clerks shall hold concurrent appointments as arbitration clerks and shall be subject to the same requirements concerning conduct and recusal as the arbitration clerk team.
For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Abstentions | Support votes needed for majority |
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0 | 6 |
1–2 | 5 |
3–4 | 4 |
- Support
- This is my first choice and falls within ArbCom's community-granted authority to
approve and remove access to mailing lists maintained by the Arbitration Committee
and todesignate individuals for particular tasks or roles
andmaintain a panel of clerks to assist with the smooth running of its functions
. Currently, we have arbitration clerks to help with on-wiki work, but most of ArbCom's workload is private (on arbcom-en), and our clerks have no ability to help with that because they can't access any of ArbCom's non-public work. It has always seemed strange to me to have clerks for on-wiki work, but not for the bulk of the work which is off-wiki (and which has always needed more coordination help). When consulting the functionaries, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that four functionaries (including three former arbitrators) expressed interest in volunteering for this role. This would be lower-intensity than serving as an arbitrator, but still essential to the functioning of the committee. We already have a number of ex-arbs on the clerks-l mailing list to advise and assist, and this seems like a natural extension of that function. The Stewards have a somewhat similar "Steward clerk" role, although ArbCom correspondence clerks would be a higher-trust position (functionary-level appointments only). I see this as the strongest option because the structure is familiar (analogous to our existing clerks, but for off-wiki business), because we have trusted functionaries and former arbs interested who could well discharge these responsibilities, and because I think we would benefit from separating the administrative responsibility from the substantive responsibility. The cons I see are that volunteer correspondence clerks might be less reliable than paid staff and that we'd be adding one or two (ish) people to the arbcom-en list. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:28, 1 December 2024 (UTC) - Contingent on 1.4 passing. This option was not my first choice, and I'm inclined to try having a coordinating Arb first, if we can get a volunteer/set of volunteers. Given that the new term should infuse the Committee with more life and vigor, we may find a coordinating Arb, or another solution. But I think we should put this in our toolbox for the moment. This doesn't force us to appoint someone, just gives us the ability and outlines the position. CaptainEek ⚓ 05:29, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose
- I don't think we should extend access to the mailing list and the private information it contains beyond what is absolutely necessary. I understand the reasoning behind former arbitrators in such a role as they previously had such access, but people emailing the Arbitration Committee should have confidence that private information is kept need to know and that only the current arbitrators evaluating and making decisions based on that private information have ongoing access to it. - Aoidh (talk) 23:36, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
- Might as well make it formal per my opinions elsewhere on the page. Primefac (talk) 13:24, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- This is limited to former arbitrators for good reasons, most of them privacy-related. But the same concerns that led to this proposal being limited to former arbitrators are also arguments against doing this at all. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:16, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
- I don't find it hard to think of correspondence that the committee has received recently that absolutely should not have a wider circulation. I find myself in agreement with Aoidh - need to know. Cabayi (talk) 11:32, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
- Abstain
Motion 1: Arbitrator views and discussions
- I'd be glad changing this to only appoint former arbs, if that would tip anyone's votes. Currently, it's written as "from among the English Misplaced Pages functionary corps (and preferably from among former members of the Arbitration Committee)" for flexibility if needed, but I imagine we would only really appoint former arbs if available, except under unusual circumstances, because they understand how the mailing list discussions go and have previously been elected to handle the same private info. I am also open to calling it something other than "correspondence clerk"; that just seemed like a descriptive title. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:28, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
- I do like the idea of using our Arbs emeritus for this position (and perhaps only Arbs emeritus); it ensures that they have experience in our byzantine process, and at least at some point held community trust. CaptainEek ⚓ 01:31, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- @CaptainEek: I have changed the motion to make only former arbs eligible. If anyone preferred broader (all funct) eligibility, I've added an alternative motion 1.1 below, which if any arb does prefer it, they should uncollapse and vote for it. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 02:07, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- I do like the idea of using our Arbs emeritus for this position (and perhaps only Arbs emeritus); it ensures that they have experience in our byzantine process, and at least at some point held community trust. CaptainEek ⚓ 01:31, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- I also think that if we adopt this we should choose a better name. I know Barkeep49 meant this suggestion as a bit of a joke, but I actually think he was on the money when he suggested "scrivener." I like "adjutant" even more, which I believe he also suggested. They capture the sort of whimsical Misplaced Pages charm evoked by titles like Most Pluperfect Labutnum while still being descriptive, and not easily confused for a traditional clerk. CaptainEek ⚓ 03:21, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- Whimsy is important -- Guerillero 08:55, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- @CaptainEek and Guerillero: Per the above discussion points, I have (a) proposed two alternative names below that were workshopped among some arbs ("scrivener" on the more whimsical side and "coordination assistant" on the less whimsical side; see motions 1.2a and 1.2b), and (b) made this motion a nine-month trial, after which time the section is automatically repealed unless the Committee takes action to extend it. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 03:10, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- I plan on supporting motion 1 over anything else. I've spent a week just getting onto all the platforms, and I'm already kind of shocked that this is how we do things. Not only is there a lot to keep track of, all of the information moves unintuitively between different places in a way that makes it very difficult to keep up unless you're actively plugged in enough to be on top of the ball – which I don't think anyone can be all the time. I just don't think a coordinating arb is sufficient: we need someone who can keep us on track without having to handle all of the standard work of reviewing evidence, deliberating, and making an informed decision. (Better-organized tech would also be great, but I'd need to spend a lot more time thinking about how it could be redone.) I understand the privacy concerns, but I don't think this represents a significant breach of confidentiality: people care more whether their report gets handled properly than whether it goes before 15 trusted people or 16. So, I'll be voting in favor of motion 1, and maybe motion 3 will be a distant second. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 21:40, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
References
- Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Policy § Scope and responsibilities
- Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Policy § Procedures and roles
Motion 1.1: expand eligible set to functionaries
If any arbitrator prefers this way, unhat this motion and vote for it. | ||||||||
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. | ||||||||
If motion 1 passes, replace the text For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.
|
Motion 1.2a: name the role "scrivener"
If motion 1 passes, replace the term "correspondence clerks" wherever it appears with the term "scriveners".
For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Abstentions | Support votes needed for majority |
---|---|
0 | 6 |
1–2 | 5 |
3–4 | 4 |
- Support
- Nicely whimsical, and not as likely to be confusing as correspondence clerk. CaptainEek ⚓ 04:11, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose
- I think correspondence clerk is fine if role is something we're going with, it's less ambiguous as to what it entails than scrivener. - Aoidh (talk) 04:12, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- I have never heard that word before; at least "correspondence" and "clerk" are somewhat common in the English Misplaced Pages world. When possible, I think we should use words people don't have to look up in dictionaries. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:07, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
- Follows on from my vote on Motion 1. Cabayi (talk) 11:38, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
- Abstain
- I think that because it's more archaic and possibly less serious, I disprefer this to either "coordination assistant" or "correspondence clerk", but would ultimately be perfectly happy with it. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 03:11, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- Arbitrator discussion
Motion 1.2b: name the role "coordination assistant"
If motion 1 passes, replace the term "correspondence clerks" wherever it appears with the term "coordination assistants".
For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Abstentions | Support votes needed for majority |
---|---|
0 | 6 |
1–2 | 5 |
3–4 | 4 |
- Support
- Oppose
- bleh. CaptainEek ⚓ 04:12, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- Follows on from my vote on Motion 1. Cabayi (talk) 11:38, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
- Abstain
- I am indifferent between this and "correspondence clerk". Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 03:11, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- If we're going to use a role like this, either this or correspondence clerk is fine. - Aoidh (talk) 04:13, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- That would be okay. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:08, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
- Arbitrator discussion
Motion 1.3: make permanent (not trial)
If motion 1 passes, omit the text for a trial period of nine months from the date of enactment, after which time the section shall be automatically repealed unless the Committee takes action to make it permanent or otherwise extend it
.
For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Abstentions | Support votes needed for majority |
---|---|
0 | 6 |
1–2 | 5 |
3–4 | 4 |
- Support
- Oppose
- I recently experimented with sunset clauses and think that frankly a lot more of what we do should have such time limits that require us to stop and critically evaluate if a thing is working. CaptainEek ⚓ 04:19, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- If this change is necessary, there should be a review of it after a reasonable trial period to see what does and does not work. - Aoidh (talk) 01:34, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
- ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:10, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
- Follows on from my vote on Motion 1. Cabayi (talk) 11:38, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
- Abstain
- I have no preference as to whether this is permanent or a trial. I do think that nine months is a good length for the trial if we choose to have one: not too long to lock in a year's committee; not too short to make it unworthwhile. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 03:13, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- Arbitrator discussion
Motion 1.4: expanding arbcom-en directly
If motion 1 passes, strike the following text:
To that end, upon the first appointment of correspondence clerks, the current arbcom-en mailing list shall be renamed to arbcom-en-internal, which shall continue to be accessible only by arbitrators, and a new arbcom-en email list shall be established. The subscribers to the new arbcom-en list shall be the arbitrators and correspondence clerks.
And replace it with the following:
To that end, correspondence clerks shall be added to the arbcom-en mailing list. The Committee shall continue to maintain at least one mailing list accessible only by arbitrators.
For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Abstentions | Support votes needed for majority |
---|---|
0 | 6 |
1–2 | 5 |
3–4 | 4 |
- Support
- Much less trouble to have them on the main list than to split the lists. CaptainEek ⚓ 04:13, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose
- Access to private information should be as limited as possible to only what is strictly necessary to perform such a task, and I don't see allowing full access to the contents of the current list necessary for this. I'd rather not split the list, but between that and giving full access then if we're going to have a correspondence clerk, then it needs to be split. - Aoidh (talk) 04:21, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
- Motion 1 is already problematic for privacy reasons; this would make it worse. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:14, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
- Follows on from my vote on Motion 1. Cabayi (talk) 11:38, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
- Abstain
- I would not really object to this. C-clerks (or whatever we call them) are former arbs and have previously been on arbcom-en in any event, so it doesn't seem that like a big deal to do this. On the other hand, I would understand if folks prefer the split. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 03:24, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- Arbitrator discussion
- Proposed per Guerillero's comment below. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 03:24, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
Motion 2: WMF staff support
The Arbitration Committee requests that the Wikimedia Foundation Committee Support Team provide staff support for the routine administration and organization of the Committee's mailing list and non-public work.
The selected staff assistants shall be responsible for assisting the Committee in the routine administration and organization of its mailing list and non-public work in a similar manner as the existing arbitration clerks assist in the administration of the Committee's on-wiki work. Staff assistants shall perform their functions under the direction of the Arbitration Committee and shall not represent the Wikimedia Foundation in the course of their support work with the Arbitration Committee or disclose the Committee's internal deliberations except as directed by the Committee.
The specific responsibilities of the staff assistants shall include, as directed by the Committee:
- Acknowledging the receipt of correspondence and assigning tracking identifiers to pending requests and other matters;
- Tracking the status of pending matters and providing regular updates and reminders on the status of the Committee's off-wiki work to arbitrators;
- Reminding members of the Committee to vote or otherwise take action in pending matters;
- Organizing related correspondence into case files; and
- Providing similar routine administrative and clerical assistance to the Arbitration Committee.
The remit of staff assistants shall not include:
- Participating in the substantive consideration or decision of any matters before the Committee; or
- Taking non-routine actions requiring the exercise of arbitrator discretion.
To that end, upon the selection of staff assistants, the current arbcom-en mailing list shall be renamed to arbcom-en-internal, which shall continue to be accessible only by arbitrators, and a new arbcom-en email list shall be established. The subscribers to the new arbcom-en list shall be the arbitrators and staff assistants.
The Committee shall establish a process to allow editors to, in unusual circumstances following a showing of good cause, directly email a mailing list accessible only by arbitrators and not by staff assistants.
Staff assistants shall be subject to the same requirements concerning conduct and recusal as the arbitration clerk team.
For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Abstentions | Support votes needed for majority |
---|---|
0 | 6 |
1–2 | 5 |
3–4 | 4 |
- Support
- Oppose
- I appreciate that Kevin put this together, and I think this would be very helpful, maybe even the most helpful, way to ensure that we stayed on top of the ball. But just because it would achieve one goal doesn't make it a good idea. A full version of my rationale is on the ArbList, for other Arbs. The short, WP:BEANS version is that this would destroy the line between us and the Foundation, which undoes much of our utility. CaptainEek ⚓ 01:22, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- Per my comment on motion 4. - Aoidh (talk) 01:31, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- Might as well make it formal per my opinions elsewhere on the page. Primefac (talk) 13:24, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- I like the general idea of the WMF using its donated resources to support the community that made the donations possible. I am uncomfortable with putting WMF staff in front of ArbCom's e-mail queue, however, as this would come with unavoidable conflicts of interest and a loss of independence. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:05, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
- The help would be useful, but the consequences would be detrimental to both ArbCom & WMF. Some space between us is necessary for ArbCom's impartiality & for the WMF's section 230 position. Cabayi (talk) 12:56, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
- Abstain
Motion 2: Arbitrator views and discussions
- I am quite open to this idea. A professional staff member assisting the committee might be the most reliable and consistent way to achieve this goal. ArbCom doesn't need the higher-intensity support that the WMF Committee Support Team provides other committees like AffCom and the grant committees, but having somebody to track threads and bump stalled discussions would be quite helpful. I'm going to wait to see if there's any community input on this motion before voting on it, though. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:28, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
Motion 3: Coordinating arbitrators
The Arbitration Committee's procedures are amended by adding the following section:
- Coordinating arbitrators
The Arbitration Committee shall, from time to time, designate one or more arbitrators to serve as the Committee's coordinating arbitrators.
Coordinating arbitrators shall be responsible for assisting the Committee in the routine administration and organization of its mailing list and non-public work in a similar manner as the existing arbitration clerks assist in the administration of the Committee's on-wiki work.
The specific responsibilities of coordinating arbitrators shall include:
- Acknowledging the receipt of correspondence and assigning tracking identifiers to pending requests and other matters;
- Tracking the status of pending matters and providing regular updates and reminders on the status of the Committee's off-wiki work to arbitrators;
- Reminding members of the Committee to vote or otherwise take action in pending matters;
- Organizing related correspondence into case files; and
- Performing similar routine administrative and clerical functions.
A coordinating arbitrator may, but is not required to, state an intention to abstain on some or all matters before the Committee without being listed as an "inactive" arbitrator.
For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Abstentions | Support votes needed for majority |
---|---|
0 | 6 |
1–2 | 5 |
3–4 | 4 |
- Support
- This is currently my first-choice option; we have unofficially in the past had arbitrators take on specific roles (e.g. tracking unblock requests, responding to emails, etc) and it seemed to work fairly well. Having those rules be more "official" seems like the best way to make sure someone is responsible for these things, without needing to expand the committee or the pool of people with access to private information. Primefac (talk) 18:53, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
- I may still vote for the clerks option, but I think this is probably the minimum of what we need. Will it be suffucient...aye, there's the rub. CaptainEek ⚓ 01:14, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
- Of the motions proposed, this one is the one I'd most support. It doesn't expand the number of people who can view the ArbCom mailing list beyond those on ArbCom, and creates a structure that may improve how the mailing list is handled. - Aoidh (talk) 23:21, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
- Per Primefac. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:19, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose
- Abstain
Motion 3: Arbitrator views and discussions
- I am also open to this idea, though I am worried that it will be insufficient and haven't made up my mind on my vote yet. This idea was floated by a former arbitrator from back when the committee did have a coordinating arbitrator, though that role kind of quietly faded away. The benefits of this approach include that there's no need to bring anyone else onto the list. This motion also allows (but does not require) arbs to take a step back from active arb business to focus on the coordination role, which could help with the bifurcation I mention above. Cons include that this could be the least reliable option; that it's possible no arb is interested, or has the capacity to do this well; and that it's hard to be both a coordinator on top of the existing difficult role of serving as an active arb. I personally think this is better than nothing, but probably prefer one of the other two motions to actually add some capacity. Other ideas that have been floated include establishing a subcommittee of arbitrators responsible for these functions. My same concerns would apply there, but if there's interest, I'm glad to draft and propose a motion to do that; any other arb should also feel free to propose such a motion of their own. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:28, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
- I was partial to this idea, though it was not my first choice. I proposed that we might make it a rotating position, à la the presidency of the UN security council. Alternatively, a three person subcommittee might also be the way to go, so that the position isn't dependent on one person's activity. I like this solution in general because we already basically had it, with the coordinating arbitrator role. CaptainEek ⚓ 01:35, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- @CaptainEek: I think your last sentence actually kind of nails why I don't love this solution? From a new person on the scene, it doesn't seem to me like trying old strategies and things we've already been doing is really going to solve a chronic problem. If there are arbs who really are willing to be the coordinators, that's better than nothing, but I haven't seen any step up yet and I'm not convinced that relying on at least one arb having the extra time and trust in every committee to do this work is sustainable. I am leaning towards voting for the scriveners motion, though, because I do love a good whimsical name theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 21:51, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
- My concern with this is that if an arb already has the time and inclination you'd expect them to be filling the role, as has happened in the past. Simply formalizing the role doesn't help if no one has the motivation to do it. It's still the option I support the most out of those listed, though. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:07, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
- I think formalizing it does move the needle on someone doing it. Two possible benefits of the formalization:
- My concern with this is that if an arb already has the time and inclination you'd expect them to be filling the role, as has happened in the past. Simply formalizing the role doesn't help if no one has the motivation to do it. It's still the option I support the most out of those listed, though. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:07, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
- @CaptainEek: I think your last sentence actually kind of nails why I don't love this solution? From a new person on the scene, it doesn't seem to me like trying old strategies and things we've already been doing is really going to solve a chronic problem. If there are arbs who really are willing to be the coordinators, that's better than nothing, but I haven't seen any step up yet and I'm not convinced that relying on at least one arb having the extra time and trust in every committee to do this work is sustainable. I am leaning towards voting for the scriveners motion, though, because I do love a good whimsical name theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 21:51, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
- It makes clear that this is a valuable role, one that an arb should feel is a sufficient and beneficial way to spend their time. It also communicates this to the community, which might otherwise ask an arb running for reelection why they spent their time coordinating (rather than on other arb work).
- It gives "permission" for coordinating arbs to go inactive on other business if they wish.
- These two benefits make this motion more than symbolic in my view. My hesitation on it remains that it may be quite insufficient relative to motion 1. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 22:18, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
- I could get behind this idea, not as a permanent single coordinating arb but as a "hat" that gets passed on, with each of us taking a turn. That would allow the flexibility for periods of inactivity and balancing workload when the coordinating arb wants/needs to act as a drafter on a complex case. It would also ensure that a wide-view of our workload was held by a wide-range of arbs. 3.5 weeks each and the year is covered. Cabayi (talk) 08:35, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
Motion 4: Grants for correspondence clerks
In the event that "Motion 1: Correspondence clerks" passes, the Arbitration Committee shall request that the Wikimedia Foundation provide grants payable to correspondence clerks in recognition of their assistance to the Committee.
For this motion there are 10 active arbitrators. With 0 arbitrators abstaining, 6 support or oppose votes are a majority.
Abstentions | Support votes needed for majority |
---|---|
0 | 6 |
1–2 | 5 |
3–4 | 4 |
- Support
- Oppose
- Misplaced Pages should remain a volunteer activity. If we cannot find volunteers to do the task, then perhaps it ought not be done in the first place. CaptainEek ⚓ 01:09, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- We should not have a clerk paid by the WMF handling English Misplaced Pages matters in this capacity. - Aoidh (talk) 01:48, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:18, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
- I feel bound by my RFA promise - "I have never edited for pay, or any other consideration, and never will." Cabayi (talk) 08:41, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
- Abstain
Motion 4: Arbitrator views and discussions
- Proposing for discussion; thanks to voorts for the idea. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:00, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
- I am leaning no on this motion. The potential downsides of this plan do seem to outweigh the benefit of being able to compensate a correspondence clerk for what will ultimately likely be something like 5 hours a week at most. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 02:13, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
Community discussion
Will correspondence clerks be required to sign an NDA? Currently clerks aren't. Regardless of what decision is made this should probably be in the motion. * Pppery * it has begun... 18:29, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
- Good catch. I thought it was implied by "from among the English Misplaced Pages functionary corps" – who all sign NDAs as a condition to access functionaries-en and the CUOS tools; see Misplaced Pages:Functionaries (
Functionary access requires that the user sign the confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information.
) – but I've made it explicit now. KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 18:31, 1 December 2024 (UTC)- You're right that that was there, but I missed it on my first readthrough of the rules (thinking correspondence clerks would be appointed from the clerk team instead). * Pppery * it has begun... 18:37, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
Why does "coordinating arbitrators" need a (public) procedures change? Izno (talk) 18:34, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
- As Primefac mentioned above, it seems reasonable to assume that having something written down "officially" might help make sure that the coordinating arbitrator knows what they are responsible for. In any event, it probably can't hurt. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:08, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
- It is a pain in the ass to get formal procedures changed. There is an internal procedures page: I see 0 reason not to use it if you want to clarify what the role of this arbitrator is. Izno (talk) 19:13, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
- On top of that, this doesn't actually change the status quo much if at all. It is almost entirely a role definition for an internal matter, given "we can make an arb a CA, but we don't have to have one" in it's "from time to time" clause. This just looks like noise to anyone reading ARBPRO who isn't on ArbCom: the public doesn't need to know this arb even exists, though they might commonly be the one responding to emails so they might get a sense there is such an arb. Izno (talk) 19:21, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
While I appreciate that some functionaries are open to volunteering for this role, this borders on is a part-time secretarial job and ought to be compensated as such. The correspondence clerks option combined with WMF throwing some grant money towards compensation would be my ideal. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:35, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks for this suggestion – I've added motion 4 to address this suggestion. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:08, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
In the first motion the word "users" in "The Committee shall establish a process to allow users to, in unusual circumstances" is confusing, it should probably be "editors". In the first and second motions, it should probably be explicit whether correspondence clerks/support staff are required, permitted or prohibited to:
- Share statistical information publicly
- Share status information (publicly or privately) with correspondents who wish to know the status of their request.
- Share status information (publicly or privately) about the status of a specific request with someone other than the correspondent.
- For this I'm thinking of scenarios like where e.g. an editor publicly says they emailed the Committee about something a while ago, and one or more other editors asks what is happening with it.
I think my preference would be for 1 or 2, as these seem likely to be the more reliable. Neither option precludes there also being a coordinating arbitrator doing some of the tasks as well. Thryduulf (talk) 18:49, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks for these suggestions. I've changed "users" to "editors". The way I'm intending these motions to be read, correspondence clerks or staff assistants should only disclose information as directed by the committee. I think the details of which information should be shared upon whose request in routine cases could be decided later by the committee, with the default being "ask ArbCom before disclosing until the committee decides to approve routine disclosures in certain cases", because it's probably hard to know in advance which categories will be important to allow. I'm open to including more detail if you think that's important to include at this stage, though, and I'd welcome hearing why if so. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 19:08, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
- I see your point, but I think it worth clarifying certain things in advance before they become an issue to avoid unrealistic or mistaken expectations of the c-clerks by the community. Point 1 doesn't need to be specified in advance, maybe something like "communicating information publicly as directed by the Committee" would be useful to say in terms of expectation management or maybe it's still to specific? I can see both sides of that.
- Point 2 I think is worth establishing quickly and while it is on people's minds. Waiting for the committee to make up its mind before knowing whether they can give a full response to a correspondent about this would be unfair to both the correspondent and clerk I think. This doesn't necessarily have to be before adoption, but if not it needs to be very soon afterwards.
- Point 3 is similar, but c-clerks and community members knowing exactly what can and cannot be shared, and especially being able to point to something in writing about what cannot be said publicly, has the potential to reduce drama e.g. if there is another situation similar to Billed Mammal's recent case request. Thryduulf (talk) 19:30, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
What justification is there for the WMF to spend a single additional dollar on the workload of a project-specific committee whose workload is now demonstrably smaller than at any time in its history? (Noting here that there is a real dollar-cost to the support already being given by WMF, such as the monthly Arbcom/T&S calls that often result in the WMF accepting requests for certain activities.) And anyone who is being paid by the WMF is responsible to the WMF as the employer, not to English Misplaced Pages Arbcom.
I think Arbcom is perhaps not telling the community some very basic facts that are leading to their efforts to find someone to take responsibility for its organization, which might include "we have too many members who aren't pulling their weight" or "we have too many members who, for various reasons that don't have to do with Misplaced Pages, are inactive", or "we have some tasks that nobody really wants to do". There's no indication that any of these solutions would solve these kinds of problems, and I think that all of these issues are factors that are clearly visible to those who follow Arbcom on even an occasional basis. Arbitrators who are inactive for their own reasons aren't going to become more active because someone's organizing their mail. Arbitrators who don't care enough to vote on certain things aren't any more likely to vote if someone is reminding them to vote in a non-public forum; there's no additional peer pressure or public guilt-tripping. And if Arbcom continues to have tasks that nobody really wants to do, divest those tasks. Arbcom has successfully done that with a large number of tasks that were once its responsibility.
I think you can do a much better job of making your case. Risker (talk) 20:05, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
- I think there is a need to do something as poor communication and extremely slow replies, if replies are made at all, has been an ongoing issue for the committee for some time. However I agree that asking the foundation to pay someone to do it is going too far. The point that if you are paid by the foundation, you work for them and not en.wp or arbcom is a compelling one. There's also a slippery slope argument to be made in that if we're paying these people, shouldn't we pay the committee? If we're paying the committee, shouldn't we pay the arbitration clerks....and so on. Just Step Sideways 20:26, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
- I fully share Risker's concern about a paid WMF staffer who, no matter how well-intentioned, will be answerable to the WMF and not ARBCOM. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:55, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
- The 2023-2024 committee is much more middle aged and has less university students and retirees, who oftentimes have more free time, than the 2016-2017 committee. -- Guerillero 08:56, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- It seems to me that the issue of there often being some Committee members who, for whatever reason, are not "pulling their weight", is at the core of the problem to be addressed here. Because this happens "behind the scenes", the community has no way to hold anyone accountable in elections, and because of human nature and the understandable desire to maintain a collegial atmosphere within the Committee, I don't really expect any members to call out a colleague in public. I suppose there could even be a question of what happens if whoever might be filling the role proposed here nudges a member to act, but the member just disregards that. It's difficult to see how to make it enforceable. I don't have any real solutions, but this strikes me as central to the problem. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:31, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- I think this is largely correct. I was reluctant on the committee to even note this committee's inactivity problem (worst of any 15-member arbcom ever), even though it was based on a metric that is public, when I was still on the committee. And it gets further complicated by the fact that some people not visibly active in public more than pull their weight behind the scenes - the testimonials Maxim received when running for re-election being a prime example. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:00, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- During my first term it was Roger Davies. He was barely a presence on-wiki but he kept the whole committee on point and up-to-date about what was pending. Trypto is right that it isn't enforceable, it is more a matter of applying pressure to either do the job or move oneself to the inactive list.
- I also think the committee can and should be more proactive about declaring other arbs inactive even when they are otherwise present on-wiki or on the mailing list" That would probably require a procedures change, but I think it would make sense. If there is a case request, proposed decision, or other matter that requires a vote before the committee and an arb doesn't comment on it for ten days or more, they clearly don't have the time and/or inclination to do so and should be declared inactive on that matter so that their lack of action does not further delay the matter. It would be nice if they would just do so themselves, or just vote "abstain" on everything, which only takes a few minutes, but it seems it has not been happening in practice. Just Step Sideways 00:14, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- And Roger was a pensioner which kinda proves my point -- Guerillero 08:53, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- Roger may have been a pensioner at the end of his time on the committee (7 years), but he certainly wasn't at the beginning of his term. He was co-ordinating arbitrator for a lot of that time, and did a good job without a single bit of extra software. The problem with that software is that people have to already be actively engaged to even contemplate using it. My sense is that the real issue here is the lack of engagement (whether periodic or chronic) on the part of many of the arbitrators. People who are inactive on Arbcom tasks aren't going to be active on any tasks, including reading emails asking them to do things or special software sending alerts. Simply put, if people aren't going to put Arbcom as their primary Misplaced Pages activity for the next two years, keeping in mind other life events that will likely take them away, they should not run in the first place. Yes, unexpected things happen. But I think a lot of the inactivity we've seen in the last few years involved some predictable absences that the arbs knew about when they were candidates. (Examples I've seen myself: Oh, I have a big exam to write that needs months of study; oh, I have a major life event that will require a lot of planning; oh, I'm graduating and will have to find a job.) No, I don't expect people to reveal this kind of information about themselves; yes, I do expect them to refrain from volunteering for roles that they can reasonably foresee they will have difficulty fulfilling. Risker (talk) 04:21, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- I might as well ask a hard question. Is there a way to make public enough information for the community to be able to evaluate ArbCom candidates for (re)election, in terms of behind-the-scenes inactivity? If individual Arbs were to make public comments, that would do it, but it would also potentially be very contentious and could reduce effectiveness instead of improving it. Could ArbCom initiate a new process of posting onsite information about the processing of tasks, without revealing private information (such as: "Ban appeal 1", "Ban appeal 2", instead of "Ban appeal by "), and list those members who voted (perhaps without listing which way they voted)? Maybe do that monthly, and include all tasks that had not yet gotten a quorum. Yes, I know that's difficult. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:48, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- I question an answer to the problem of "we're having trouble finding enough people to do the secretarial work we have already" being "let's create substantially more secretarial work" even accepting the premise that people would then get voted off if they didn't pull their weight. While I think that premise is correct, what this system would also encourage - even more than it already exists - is an incentive to just go along with whatever the first person (or the person who has clearly done the most homework) says. And that defeats the purpose of having a committee made up of individual thinkers. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:55, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- That's a fair point. I'll admit that, even from the outside, I sometimes see members who appear to wait to see which way the wind is blowing before voting on proposed decisions. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:59, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- That's something that's hard to know or verify, even for the other arbs. The arbs only know what the other arbs tell them, and I've never seen anyone admit to that. Just Step Sideways 23:44, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- That's a fair point. I'll admit that, even from the outside, I sometimes see members who appear to wait to see which way the wind is blowing before voting on proposed decisions. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:59, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- I question an answer to the problem of "we're having trouble finding enough people to do the secretarial work we have already" being "let's create substantially more secretarial work" even accepting the premise that people would then get voted off if they didn't pull their weight. While I think that premise is correct, what this system would also encourage - even more than it already exists - is an incentive to just go along with whatever the first person (or the person who has clearly done the most homework) says. And that defeats the purpose of having a committee made up of individual thinkers. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:55, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- I might as well ask a hard question. Is there a way to make public enough information for the community to be able to evaluate ArbCom candidates for (re)election, in terms of behind-the-scenes inactivity? If individual Arbs were to make public comments, that would do it, but it would also potentially be very contentious and could reduce effectiveness instead of improving it. Could ArbCom initiate a new process of posting onsite information about the processing of tasks, without revealing private information (such as: "Ban appeal 1", "Ban appeal 2", instead of "Ban appeal by "), and list those members who voted (perhaps without listing which way they voted)? Maybe do that monthly, and include all tasks that had not yet gotten a quorum. Yes, I know that's difficult. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:48, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- Roger may have been a pensioner at the end of his time on the committee (7 years), but he certainly wasn't at the beginning of his term. He was co-ordinating arbitrator for a lot of that time, and did a good job without a single bit of extra software. The problem with that software is that people have to already be actively engaged to even contemplate using it. My sense is that the real issue here is the lack of engagement (whether periodic or chronic) on the part of many of the arbitrators. People who are inactive on Arbcom tasks aren't going to be active on any tasks, including reading emails asking them to do things or special software sending alerts. Simply put, if people aren't going to put Arbcom as their primary Misplaced Pages activity for the next two years, keeping in mind other life events that will likely take them away, they should not run in the first place. Yes, unexpected things happen. But I think a lot of the inactivity we've seen in the last few years involved some predictable absences that the arbs knew about when they were candidates. (Examples I've seen myself: Oh, I have a big exam to write that needs months of study; oh, I have a major life event that will require a lot of planning; oh, I'm graduating and will have to find a job.) No, I don't expect people to reveal this kind of information about themselves; yes, I do expect them to refrain from volunteering for roles that they can reasonably foresee they will have difficulty fulfilling. Risker (talk) 04:21, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- And Roger was a pensioner which kinda proves my point -- Guerillero 08:53, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- I think this is largely correct. I was reluctant on the committee to even note this committee's inactivity problem (worst of any 15-member arbcom ever), even though it was based on a metric that is public, when I was still on the committee. And it gets further complicated by the fact that some people not visibly active in public more than pull their weight behind the scenes - the testimonials Maxim received when running for re-election being a prime example. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:00, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- It seems to me that the issue of there often being some Committee members who, for whatever reason, are not "pulling their weight", is at the core of the problem to be addressed here. Because this happens "behind the scenes", the community has no way to hold anyone accountable in elections, and because of human nature and the understandable desire to maintain a collegial atmosphere within the Committee, I don't really expect any members to call out a colleague in public. I suppose there could even be a question of what happens if whoever might be filling the role proposed here nudges a member to act, but the member just disregards that. It's difficult to see how to make it enforceable. I don't have any real solutions, but this strikes me as central to the problem. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:31, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
I think the timing for this is wrong. The committee is about to have between 6 and 9 new members (depending on whether Guerillero, Eek, and Primefac get re-elected). In addition it seems likely that some number of former arbs are about to rejoin the committee. This committee - basically the committee with the worst amount of active membership of any 15 member committee ever - seems like precisely the wrong one to be making large changes to ongoing workflows in December. Izno's idea of an easier to try and easier to change/abandon internal procedure for the coordinating arb feels like something appropriate to try now. The rest feel like it should be the prerogative of the new committee to decide among (or perhaps do a different change altogether). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:44, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
- Kevin can correct me if I'm wrong, but I assumed he was doing this now because he will not be on the committee a month from now.
- That being said it could be deliberately held over, or conversely, possibly fall victim to the inactivity you mention and still be here for the new committee to decide. Just Step Sideways 23:12, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
- Since WP:ACE2024 elections are currently taking place it makes sense to have the incoming arbitrators weigh in on changes like this. They are the ones that will be affected by any of these motions passing rather than the outgoing arbitrators. - Aoidh (talk) 00:27, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- Oh I assumed that's why he was doing it also. I am also assuming he's doing it to try and set up the future committees for success. That doesn't change my point about why this is the wrong time and why a different way of trying the coordinator role (if it has support) would be better. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:28, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- Regarding "timing is wrong": I think you both would agree that these are a long time coming – we have been working on these and related ideas for years (I ran on a related idea in 2022). I do think there's never quite a good time. Very plausibly, the first half of the year is out because the new arbs will need that time to learn how the processes work and think about what kinds of things should be changed vs. kept the same. And then it might be another few months as the new ArbCom experiments with less-consequential changes like the ones laid about at the top: technological solutions, trying new ways of tracking stuff, etc., before being confident in the need for something like set out above. And then things get busy for other reasons; there will be weeks or even occasionally months when the whole committee is overtaken by some urgent situation. I've experienced a broadly similar dynamic a few times now; this is all to say that there's just not much time or space in the agenda for this kind of stuff in a one-year cycle, which would be a shame because I do think this is important to take on.
I do think that it should be the aspiration of every year's committee to leave the succeeding committee some improvements in the functioning of the committee based on lessons learned that year, so it would be nice to leave the next committee with this. That said, if arbitrators do feel that we should hold this over to the new committee, I'm not really in a position to object – as JSS says, this is my last year on the committee, so it's not like this will benefit me. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 01:30, 2 December 2024 (UTC)- I think it's entirely possible for the new committee to have a sense of what it wants workload wise by February-April and so it's wrong to just rule out the first half of the year. By the end of the first six months of the year that you and I started (and which JSS was a sitting member on) we'd made a number of changes to how things were done. Off the top of my head I can name the structure of cases and doing quarterly reports of private appeals as two but there were others. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:47, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- Here's what I'll leave you with overall. What you may see as a downside – these proposals being voted on relatively late in the year – I see as a significant possible upside. Members of this committee are able to draw on at least eleven months' experience as arbitrators in deciding what is working well and what might warrant change – experience which is important in determining what kinds of processes and systems lead to effective and ineffective outcomes. That experience is important: Although I have served on ArbCom for four years and before that served as an ArbCom clerk for almost six years, I still learn more every year about what makes this committee click. If what really concerns you is locking in the new committee to a particular path, as I wrote above, I'm very open to structuring this as a trial run that will end of its own accord unless the committee takes action to make it permanent. This would ensure that the new committee retains full control over whether to continue, discontinue, or adapt these changes. But in my book, it does not make sense to wait. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 22:58, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- I think it's entirely possible for the new committee to have a sense of what it wants workload wise by February-April and so it's wrong to just rule out the first half of the year. By the end of the first six months of the year that you and I started (and which JSS was a sitting member on) we'd made a number of changes to how things were done. Off the top of my head I can name the structure of cases and doing quarterly reports of private appeals as two but there were others. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:47, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- As a 3-term former arb and a 3-term current ombuds commissioner, I've had experience of about a dozen Wikimedia committee "new intakes". I am quite convinced that these proposals are correctly timed. Process changes are better put in place prior to new appointees joining, so that they are not joining at a moment of upheaval. Doing them late in the day is not objectionable and momentum often comes at the end of term. If the changes end up not working (doubtful), the new committee would just vote to tweak the process or go back. I simply do not understand the benefit of deferring proposals into a new year, adding more work to the next year's committee. That surely affects the enthusiasm and goodwill of new members. As for the point that the '24 committee is understaffed and prone to indecision: argumentum ad hominem. If Kevin's proposals work, they work. If anything, it might be more difficult to agree administrative reforms when the committee is back at full staff. arcticocean ■ 15:49, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- If these pass now you will have new members join at a moment of upheaval as anything proposed here will still be in its infancy when the new members join (even if we pretend the new members are joining Jan 1 rather than much sooner given that results are in and new members tend to be added to the list once the right boxes are checked). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:55, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- You're right. And it's important to be realistic: any proposal would be under implementation for several months, so say from December through February. Would that be so bad? Any change will disrupt, in the sense that a few people need to spend time implementing it and everyone else needs to learn the new process. But waiting until later in the year causes even more disruption: members have to first learn an 'old' process and then learn the changes you're making to it… New member enthusiasm is also a keen force that could help to push through the changes. arcticocean ■ 16:28, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- I think new member enthusiasm is part of why I think this lame duck hobbled committee is the wrong one to do it. I have high hopes for next year's group and think they would be in a better place to come up with the right solution for them. And as I noted to Kevin above this isn't hypothetical - the year we both started as arbs we made a lot of process and procedure changes in the first six months. It was a great thing to funnel that new arb energy into because I was bought into what we were doing rather than trying to make something work that I had no say in and that the existing members had no experience with. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:34, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- While I think a solution such as adopting ZenDesk is something that could face objections, personally I think the idea of having someone track a list of work items for a committee is a pretty standard way of working (including pushing for timely resolution, something that really needs a person, not just a program). From an outsider's perspective, it's something I'd expect. It doesn't matter to non-arbitrators who does the tracking, so the committee should feel free to change that decision internally as often as it feels is effective. I'd rather there be a coordinating arbitrator in place in the interim until another solution is implemented, than have no one tracking work items in the meantime. isaacl (talk) 19:30, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- I think new member enthusiasm is part of why I think this lame duck hobbled committee is the wrong one to do it. I have high hopes for next year's group and think they would be in a better place to come up with the right solution for them. And as I noted to Kevin above this isn't hypothetical - the year we both started as arbs we made a lot of process and procedure changes in the first six months. It was a great thing to funnel that new arb energy into because I was bought into what we were doing rather than trying to make something work that I had no say in and that the existing members had no experience with. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:34, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- You're right. And it's important to be realistic: any proposal would be under implementation for several months, so say from December through February. Would that be so bad? Any change will disrupt, in the sense that a few people need to spend time implementing it and everyone else needs to learn the new process. But waiting until later in the year causes even more disruption: members have to first learn an 'old' process and then learn the changes you're making to it… New member enthusiasm is also a keen force that could help to push through the changes. arcticocean ■ 16:28, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- If these pass now you will have new members join at a moment of upheaval as anything proposed here will still be in its infancy when the new members join (even if we pretend the new members are joining Jan 1 rather than much sooner given that results are in and new members tend to be added to the list once the right boxes are checked). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:55, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
Just to double check that I'm reading motion 1 correctly, it would still be possible to email the original list (for arbitrators only) if, for example, you were raising a concern about something the correspondence clerks should not be privy to (ie: misuse of tools by a functionary), correct? Granted, I think motion 3 is probably the simpler option here, but in the event motion 1 passes, is the understanding I wrote out accurate? EggRoll97 02:15, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- @EggRoll97 Yes, but probably only after an additional step. The penultimate paragraph of motions 1 and 2 says
The Committee shall establish a process to allow editors to, in unusual circumstances following a showing of good cause, directly email a mailing list accessible only by arbitrators and not by correspondence clerks .
No details are given about what this process would be, but one possibility would I guess be something like contacting an individual arbitrator outlining clearly why you think the c-clerks should not be privy to whatever it is. If they agree they'll tell you how to submit your evidence (maybe they'll add your email address to a temporary whitelist). Thryduulf (talk) 03:01, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
In my experience working on committees and for non-profits, typically management is much more open to offering money for software solutions that they are told can resolve a problem than agreeing to pay additional compensation for new personnel. Are you sure there isn't some tracking solution that could resolve some of these problems? Liz 07:20, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- In our tentative discussions with WMF, it sounded like it would be much more plausible to get a 0.1-0.2 FTE of staffer time than it would to get us 15 ZenDesk licenses, which was also somewhat surprising to me. That wasn't a firm response – if we went back and said we really need this, I'm guessing it'd be plausible. And we've never asked about compensating c-clerks – that was an idea that came from Voorts's comment above, and I proposed it for discussion, not because I necessarily support it but because I think it's worth discussion, and I certainly don't think it's integral to the c-clerk proposal. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 15:00, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- Well, offering compensation for on-wiki tasks would be breaking new ground for the project. I do wonder though about the possibility of securing former arbitrators for these correspondent clerks' positions. It sounds like all of the work of an arbitrator (or more) without any ability to influence the results. I don't know if we'd have many interested and eligible parties. How many clerks would you think would be necessary? One? Or 3 or 4? Liz 21:40, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, these are great questions. Responses to your points:
- On volunteers: As I wrote above, four functionaries (including three former arbs) expressed initial-stage interest when this was floated when I consulted functionaries – which is great and was a bit unexpected, and which is why I wrote it up this way. Arbitrators will know that my initial plan from previous months/years did not involve limiting this to functionaries, to have a broader pool of applicants. But since we do have several interested functs, and they are already trusted to hold NDA'd private information (especially the former arbs who have previously been elected to access to this very list), I thought this would be a good way to make this a more uncontroversial proposal.
- How many to appoint? I imagine one or two if it was up to me. One would be ideal (I think it's like 30 minutes of work per day ish, max), but two for redundancy might make a lot of sense. I don't think it's
all of the work of an arbitrator (or more) without any ability to influence the results
– because the c-clerk would be responsible for tracking matters, not actually attempting to resolve them, that's a lot less work than serving as an arb. It does require more consistency than most arbs have to put in, though. - On compensating: Yeah, I'm not sure I'll end up supporting the idea, but I don't think it's unprecedented in the sense that you're thinking. Correspondence clerks aren't editing; none of the tasks listed in the motion require on-wiki edits. And there are plenty of WMF grants that have gone to off-wiki work for the benefit of projects; the first example I could think of was m:Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/UTRS User Experience Development (ID: 22215192) but I know there are many.
- Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 21:59, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- I am quite confused, I often read arbs saying most of ArbCom work is behind-the-scenes work. But is all this behind-the-scenes work essentially just a one-person 30-minute-a-day work? If so, the solution here is that more arbs should simply pull their weight, which Motion 3 helps. I don't think WMF would pay someone to work 30 minutes a day either. Kenneth Kho (talk) 07:19, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
But is all this behind-the-scenes work essentially just a one-person 30-minute-a-day work?
. No, the actual work takes a lot more time and effort because each arb has to read, understand and form opinions on many different things, and the committee needs to discuss most of those things, which will often re-reading and re-evaluating based on the points raised. Then in many cases there needs to be a vote. What the "one-person, 30 minutes a day" is referring to is just the meta of what tasks are open, what the current status of it is, who needs to opine on it, etc. Thryduulf (talk) 11:31, 3 December 2024 (UTC)- Thanks, I realized I misunderstood it. I see that this is a relatively lightweight proposal, perhaps it could work but it probably won't help much either.
- @L235 I have been thinking of splitting ArbCom into Public ArbCom and Private ArbCom. I see Public ArbCom as being able to function without the tools as @Worm That Turned advocated, focused more on complex dispute resolution. I see Private ArbCom as high-trust roles with NDAs, privy to WMF and overseeing Public ArbCom. Both ArbComs are elected separately as 15-members bodies, and both will be left with about half the current authority and responsibility. Kenneth Kho (talk) 01:54, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- Thryduulf is right; I think Kevin meant that the tracking itself might be a 30 minute a day activity. But it has to happen consistently, and with a high catch rate. It also has to happen on top of our usual Arb work, which for me already averages a good ten hours a week, but can be more than twenty hours in the busy times. And I, like the other arbs, already have a full time job and a life outside Misplaced Pages. I don't like the idea of splitting ArbCom in twain, nor do I think it could be achieved. CaptainEek ⚓ 02:18, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- I agree, having someone managing the work could really help smooth things out. Kenneth Kho (talk) 11:36, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- My first thought is that cleanly splitting arbcom would be very difficult. For example what happens if there is an open public case and two-thirds of the way through the evidence phase someone discovers and wishes to submit private evidence? Thryduulf (talk) 02:31, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- I agree, the split won't be entirely clean. I'm thinking Public ArbCom would narrowly remand part of the case to Private ArbCom if it finds that the private evidence is likely to materially affect the outcome. Kenneth Kho (talk) 11:34, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- How will public know whether the private evidence will materially affect the outcome without seeing the private evidence? Secondly, how will private arbcom determine whether it materially affects the outcome without reviewing all the public evidence and thus duplicating public arbcom's work (and thus also negating the workload benefits of the split)? What happens if public and private arbcom come to different conclusions about the same public evidence? Thryduulf (talk) 11:39, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- You raised good points that I did not address. I think that a way to do this would be to follow how Oversighters have the authority to override Admins that they use sparingly. Private ArbCom could have the right to receive any private evidence regarding an ongoing case on Public ArbCom, and Private ArbCom will have discretions to override Public ArbCom remedies without explanation other than something like "per private evidence". Private ArbCom would need to familiarize themselves with the case a bit, but this is mitigated by the fact that they only concerned with the narrow parts. Private ArbCom could have the authority to take the whole Public ArbCom case private if it deems that private evidence affect many parties. Kenneth Kho (talk) 11:55, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- How will public know whether the private evidence will materially affect the outcome without seeing the private evidence? Secondly, how will private arbcom determine whether it materially affects the outcome without reviewing all the public evidence and thus duplicating public arbcom's work (and thus also negating the workload benefits of the split)? What happens if public and private arbcom come to different conclusions about the same public evidence? Thryduulf (talk) 11:39, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- I agree, the split won't be entirely clean. I'm thinking Public ArbCom would narrowly remand part of the case to Private ArbCom if it finds that the private evidence is likely to materially affect the outcome. Kenneth Kho (talk) 11:34, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- 12 candidates for 9 open seats is sufficient. But it hardly suggests we have so many people that we could support 30 people (even presuming some additional people would run under the split). Further, what happens behind the scenes already strains the trust of the community. But at least the community can see the public actions as a reminder of "well this person hasn't lost it completely while on ArbCom". I think it would be much harder to sustain trust under this split. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:35, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- I honestly like the size of 12-member committee, too many proverbial cooks spoil the proverbial broth. I did think about the trust aspect, as the community has been holding ArbCom under scrutiny, but at the same time I consider that the community has been collegial with Bureaucrats, Checkusers, Oversighters. Private ArbCom would be far less visible, with Public ArbCom likely taking the heat for contentious decisions. Kenneth Kho (talk) 11:40, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- Thryduulf is right; I think Kevin meant that the tracking itself might be a 30 minute a day activity. But it has to happen consistently, and with a high catch rate. It also has to happen on top of our usual Arb work, which for me already averages a good ten hours a week, but can be more than twenty hours in the busy times. And I, like the other arbs, already have a full time job and a life outside Misplaced Pages. I don't like the idea of splitting ArbCom in twain, nor do I think it could be achieved. CaptainEek ⚓ 02:18, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- I am quite confused, I often read arbs saying most of ArbCom work is behind-the-scenes work. But is all this behind-the-scenes work essentially just a one-person 30-minute-a-day work? If so, the solution here is that more arbs should simply pull their weight, which Motion 3 helps. I don't think WMF would pay someone to work 30 minutes a day either. Kenneth Kho (talk) 07:19, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- I agree with L235 regarding whether this is all the work and none of the authority: it does not come with all the responsibility that being an Arb comes with either. This role does not need to respond to material questions or concerns about arbitration matters and does not need to read and weigh the voluminous case work to come to a final decision. The c-clerk will need to keep up on emails and will probably need to have an idea of what's going on in public matters, but that was definitely not the bulk of the (stressful?) work of an arbitrator. Izno (talk) 00:26, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, these are great questions. Responses to your points:
- Well, offering compensation for on-wiki tasks would be breaking new ground for the project. I do wonder though about the possibility of securing former arbitrators for these correspondent clerks' positions. It sounds like all of the work of an arbitrator (or more) without any ability to influence the results. I don't know if we'd have many interested and eligible parties. How many clerks would you think would be necessary? One? Or 3 or 4? Liz 21:40, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
- @Liz well that's what I thought. I figured that ZenDesk was the winningest solution, until the Foundation made it seem like ZenDesk licenses were printed on gold bars. We did do some back of the envelope calculations, and it is decidedly expensive. Still...I have a hard time believing those ZenDesk licenses really cost more than all that staff time. I think we'll have to do some more convincing of the Foundation on that front, or implement a different solution. CaptainEek ⚓ 01:29, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
I touched upon the idea of using former arbitrators to do administrative tasks on the arbitration committee talk page, and am also pleasantly surprised to hear there is some interest. I think this approach may be the most expeditious way to put something in place at least for the interim. (On a side note, I urge people not to let the term "c-clerk" catch on. It sounds like stuttering, or someone not good enough to be an A-level clerk. More importantly, it would be quite an obscure jargon term.) isaacl (talk) 23:18, 2 December 2024 (UTC)
To that end, upon the first appointment of correspondence clerks, the current arbcom-en mailing list shall be renamed to arbcom-en-internal, which shall continue to be accessible only by arbitrators, and a new arbcom-en email list shall be established. The subscribers to the new arbcom-en list shall be the arbitrators and correspondence clerks.
Something I raised in the functionary discussion was that this doesn't make sense to me. What is the basis for this split here? Izno (talk) 00:08, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- I assumed it was so that the clerks would only see the incoming email and not be privy to the entire commitee's comments on the matter. While all functionaries and arbs sign the same NDA, operating on a need to know basis is not at all uncommon in groups that deal with sensitive information. When I worked for the census we had to clear our debriefing room of literally everything because it was being used the next day by higher-ups from Washington who were visiting. They outranked all of us by several orders of mgnitude, but they had no reason to be looking at the non-anonymized personal data we had lying all over the place.
- Conversely it would spare the clerks from having their inboxes flooded by every single arb comment, which as you know can be quite voluminous. Just Step Sideways 00:23, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- And it would also prevent them from seeing information related to themselves or something they should actively recuse on. Thryduulf (talk) 01:15, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- This suggested rationale doesn't hold water: someone with an issue with a c-clerk or where they may need to recuse should just follow the normal process for an issue with an arb: to whit, kicking off arbcom-b for a private discussion. Izno (talk) 01:39, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- I was thinking of material from before they were appointed, e.g. if there was a discussion involving the actions of user:Example in November and they become a c-clerk in December, they shouldn't be able to see the discussion even if the only comments were that the allegations against them are obviously ludicrous. I appreciate I didn't make this clear though. Thryduulf (talk) 02:35, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- This suggested rationale doesn't hold water: someone with an issue with a c-clerk or where they may need to recuse should just follow the normal process for an issue with an arb: to whit, kicking off arbcom-b for a private discussion. Izno (talk) 01:39, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- Making arbcom-en a "firewall" from the arb deliberations would inhibit the c-clerk from performing the duties listed in the motion. I cannot see how it would be workable for them to remind arbs to do the thing the electorate voluntold them to do if the c-clerk cannot see whether they have done those things (e.g. coming to a conclusion on an appeal), and would add to the overhead of introducing this secretarial position (email comes in, c-clerk forwards to -internal, arbs discussion on -internal, come to conclusion, send an email back to -en, which the c-clerk then actions back to the user on arbcom-en). This suggested rationale also does not hold water to me. Izno (talk) 01:43, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- Apologies – if this was the interpretation, that's bad drafting on my part. The sole intention is that the new correspondence clerks won't see the past arbcom-en archives, which were emails sent to the committee on the understanding that only arbitrators would see those emails. C clerks will see everything that's newly sent on arbcom-en, including all deliberations held on arbcom-en, with the exception of anything that is so sensitive that the committee feels the need to restrict discussion to arbitrators (this should be fairly uncommon but covers the recusal concern above in a similar way as discussions about arbs who recuse sometimes get moved to arbcom-en-b). The C clerks will need to be able to see deliberations to be able to track pending matters and ensure that balls aren't being dropped, which could not happen unless they had access to the discussions – this is a reasonable "need to know" because they are fulfilling a function that is hard to combine with serving as an active arbitrator. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 01:54, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- Well, I clearly totally misread your intent there. I.... don't think I like the idea that unelected clerks can see everything the committee is doing. Just Step Sideways 03:15, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- And it would also prevent them from seeing information related to themselves or something they should actively recuse on. Thryduulf (talk) 01:15, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- FWIW, I oppose splitting arbcom-en a second time -- Guerillero 10:17, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- Regarding 1.4, I think arbcom-en and -c are good ones for a c-clerk to have access to. -b probably doesn't need access ever, as it's used exclusively for work with recusals attached to it, which should be small enough for ArbCom to manage itself in the addition of a c-clerk. (This comment in private elicited the slight rework L235 made to the motion.) Izno (talk) 06:08, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- What does this mean – when was the first time? arcticocean ■ 15:52, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
- @Arcticocean: In 2018, arbcom-l became arbcom-en and the archives are in two different places. -- Guerillero 18:54, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
Appointing one of the sitting arbitrators as "Coordinating Arbitrator" (motion 3) would be my recommended first choice of solution. We had a Coordinating Arbitrator—a carefully chosen title, as opposed to something like "Chair"—for a few years some time ago. It worked well, although it was not a panacea, and I frankly don't recollect why the coordinator role was dropped at some point. If there is a concern about over-reliance or over-burden on any one person, the role could rotate periodically (although I would suggest a six-month term to avoid too much time being spent on the mechanics of selecting someone and transitioning from one coordinator to the next). At any given time there should be at least one person on a 15-member Committee with the time and the skill-set to do the necessary record-keeping and nudging in addition to arbitrating, and this solution would avoid the complications associated with bringing another person onto the mailing list. I think there would be little community appetite for involving a WMF staff member (even one who is or was also an active Wikipedian) in the Committee's business; and if we are going to set the precedent of paying someone to handle tasks formerly handled by volunteers, with all due respect to the importance of ArbCom this is not where I would start. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:32, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks for your comments. Regarding
little community appetite
– that is precisely why we are inviting community input here on this page, as one way to assess how the community feels about the various options. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 02:01, 3 December 2024 (UTC) - I also like the idea of an arb or two taking on this role more than another layer of clerks. I'm sure former arbs would be great at it but the committee needs to handle its own internal business. Just Step Sideways 03:37, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
- I think it is ideal for the arbitration committee to track its own work items and prompt its members for timely action, and may have written this some time ago on-wiki. However... years have passed now, and the arbitration committee elections aren't well-suited to selecting arbitrators with the requisite skill set (even if recruitment efforts were made, the community can only go by the assurance of the candidate regarding the skills they possess and the time they have available). So I think it's worth looking at the option of keeping an arbitrator involved in an emeritus position if they have shown the aptitude and availability to help with administration. This could be an interim approach, until another solution is in place (maybe there can be more targeted recruiting of specific editors who, by their ongoing Misplaced Pages work, have demonstrated availability and tracking ability). isaacl (talk) 18:01, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
2 and 4 don't seem like very good ideas to me. For 2, I think we need to maintain a firm distinction between community and WMF entities, and not do anything that even looks like blending them together. For 4, every time you involve money in something, you multiply your potential problems by a factor of at least ten (and why should that person get paid, when other people who contribute just as much time doing other things don't, and when, for that matter, even the arbs themselves don't?). For 1, I could see that being a good idea, to take some clerical/"grunt work" load off of ArbCom and give them more time for, well, actually arbitrating, and functionaries will all already have signed the NDA. I don't have any problem with 3, but don't see why ArbCom can't just do it if they want to; all the arbs already have access to the information in question so it's not like someone is being approved to see it who can't already. Seraphimblade 01:49, 3 December 2024 (UTC)
@CaptainEek: Following up on your comments on motion 1, depending on which aspect of the proposed job one wanted to emphasize, you could also consider "amanuensis," "registrar," or "receptionist." (The best on-wiki title in my opinion, though we now are used to it so the irony is lost, will always be "bureaucrat"; I wonder who first came up with that one.) Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:49, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
- Or "cat-herder". --Tryptofish (talk) 00:18, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
- Following parliamentary tradition, perhaps "whip". (Less whimsically: "recording secretary".) isaacl (talk) 00:31, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
- @Newyorkbrad:, if memory serves @Keegan: knows who came up with it, and as I recall the story was that they wanted to come up with the most boring, unappealing name they could so not too many people would be applying for it all the time. Just Step Sideways 05:03, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
So, just to usher in a topic-specific discussion because it has been alluded to many times without specifics being given, what was the unofficial position of ArbCom coordinator like? Who held this role? How did it function? Were other arbitrators happy with it? Was the Coordinator given time off from other arbitrator responsibilities? I assume this happened when an arbitrator just assumed the role but did it have a more formal origin? Did it end because no one wanted to pick up the responsibility? Questions, questions. Liz 06:56, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- I cannot speak for anything but my term. I performed this role for about 1.5 years of the 2 I was on the committee. To borrow an email I sent not long before I stepped off that touches on the topics in this whole set of motions (yes, this discussion isn't new):
- Daily, ~20 minutes: went into the list software and tagged the day's incoming new email chains with a label (think "upe", "duplicate", etc).
- Daily, ~10 minutes: took care of any filtered emails on the list (spam and not-spam).
- Monthly, 1-2 hours: trawled the specific categories of tags since the beginning of the month to add to an arbwiki page for tracking for "needs to get done". Did the inverse also (removed stuff from tracking that seemed either Done or Stale).
- Monthly, 15 minutes to prep: sent an email with a direct list of the open appeals and a reminder about the "needs doing" stuff (and a few months I highlighted a topic or two that were easy wins). This built off the daily work in a way that would be a long time if it were all done monthly instead of daily.
- I was also an appeals focused admin, which had further overhead here that I would probably put in the responsibility of this kind of arb. Other types of arbs probably had similar things they would have wanted to do this direction but I saw very little of such. Daily for this effort, probably another 15 minutes or so:
- I copy-pasted appeal metadata from new appeals email to arbwiki
- Started countdown timers for appeals appearing to be at consensus
- Sent "easy" boilerplate emails e.g. "we got this appeal, we may be in touch" or "no way Jose you already appealed a month ago"
- Sent results for the easy appeals post-countdown timer and filled in relevant metadata (easy appeals here usually translated to "declined" since this was the quick-n-easy daily work frame, not the long-or-hard daily work frame)
- (End extract from referenced email.) This second set is now probably a much-much lighter workload with the shedding of most CU appeals this year (which was 70% of the appeals by count during my term), and I can't say how much of this second group would be in the set of duties depending on which motion is decided above (or if even none of the motions are favored by the committee - you can see I've advocated for privately documenting the efforts of coordinating arbs rather than publicly documenting them regarding 3, and it wouldn't take much to get me to advocate against 2 and 4, I just know others can come to the right-ish conclusion on those two already; I'm pretty neutral on 1).
- Based on the feedback I got as I was going out the door, it was appreciated. I did see some feedback that this version of the role was insufficiently personal to each arb. The tradeoff for doing something more personalized to each other arb is either time or software (i.e. money). I did sometimes occasionally call out when other members had not yet chimed in on discussions. That was ad hoc and mostly focused on onwiki matters (case votes particularly), but occasionally I had to name names when doing appeals work because the arbs getting to the appeal first were split. In general the rest of the committee didn't name names (which touches on some discussion above). I think some arbs appreciated seeing their name in an email when they were needed.
- I was provided no formal relief from other matters. But as I discussed with one arb during one of the stressful cases of the term, I did provide relief informally for the duration of that case to that person for the stuff I was interested in, so I assume that either I in fact had no relief from other matters, or that I had relief but didn't know it (and just didn't ask for anyone else to do it - since I like to think I had it well enough in hand). :-) The committee is a team effort and not everyone on the team has the same skills, desire, or time to see to all other matters. (The probing above about arbs being insufficiently active is a worthwhile probe, to be certain.) To go further though, I definitely volunteered to do this work. Was it necessary work? I think so. I do not know what would have happened if I had not been doing it. (We managed to hit only one public snag related to timeliness during my term, which I count as a win; opinions may differ.)
- There is no formal origin to the role that I know of. Someone else with longer committee-memory would have to answer whether all/recent committees have had this type, and who they were, and why if not.
- I don't know how much of what I did lines up with what L235 had in mind proposing these motions. I do not think the work I did covers everything listed in the motions laid out. (I don't particularly need clarification on the point - it's a matter that will fall out in post-motion discussion.) Izno (talk) 08:48, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- The original announcement of the Coordinating Arbitrator position was here. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:29, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- Archive zero: I love it! --Tryptofish (talk) 21:37, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- Interestingly, that announcement also repeated the announcement at the top of the archive page that a departing arbitrator continued to assist the committee by co-ordinating the mailing list: acknowledging incoming emails and responding to senders with questions about them, and tracking issues to ensure they are resolved. So both a co-ordinator (plus a deputy!) and an arbitrator emeritus. isaacl (talk) 23:23, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
former arbitrator will continue to coordinate the ArbCom mailing list.
was probably a statement along the lines of "knows how to deal with Mailman". And I think you're getting that role mixed up with the actual person doing the work management:the Arbitration Committee has decided to appoint one of its sitting arbitrators to act as coordinator
(emphasis mine). Izno (talk) 23:46, 6 December 2024 (UTC)- Obviously I have no personal knowledge of what ended up happening. I just listed the responsibilities as described at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 0 § Improving ArbCom co-ordination. I'm not sure what I'm getting mixed up; all I said is that a co-ordinator and deputy were appointed, and that a former arbitrator was said to be co-ordinating the mailing list. It's certainly possible the split of duties changed from the first post in the archive. isaacl (talk) 00:01, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- Oh, I see that now. Izno (talk) 00:04, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- Obviously I have no personal knowledge of what ended up happening. I just listed the responsibilities as described at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 0 § Improving ArbCom co-ordination. I'm not sure what I'm getting mixed up; all I said is that a co-ordinator and deputy were appointed, and that a former arbitrator was said to be co-ordinating the mailing list. It's certainly possible the split of duties changed from the first post in the archive. isaacl (talk) 00:01, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- I think I agree with Izno regarding the coordinating arbitrator role. There's no problem letting the community that the role exists, but I don't think it's necessary for the role's responsibilities to be part of the public-facing guarantees being made to the community. If the role needs to expand, shrink, split into multiple roles, or otherwise change, the committee should feel free to just do it as needed. The committee has the flexibility to organize itself as it best sees fit. isaacl (talk) 23:36, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- I think this is the right approach. It doesn't need to be advertised who is coordinating activity on the mailing list, it just needs to get done. If it takes two people, fine, if they do it for six months and say they want out of the role, ask somebody else to do it. And so on. Just Step Sideways 23:50, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- For instance, I don't think it's necessary to codify whether or not the coordinating arbitrator role is permanent. Just put a task on the schedule to review how the role is working out in nine months, and then modify the procedure accordingly as desired. isaacl (talk) 23:32, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
- One exception: the first bullet point regarding responding to communications and assigning a tracking identifier does involve the committee's interactions with the community. I feel, though, that for flexibility these guarantees can be made without codifying who does them, from the community's point of view. (It's fine of course to make them part of the coordinating arbitrator's tasks.) isaacl (talk) 23:41, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- The original announcement of the Coordinating Arbitrator position was here. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:29, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
- Izno, this actually sounds like a helluva lot of work, maybe not minute-wise but mental, keeping track of everything so requests don't fall through the cracks. I think anyone assuming this role should get a break from, say, drafting ARBCOM cases if nothing else. Liz 03:49, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- It might be a lot of work, but it wasn't the bulk of the work, even for the work that I was doing. There was a lot more steps to being the appeal-focused admin above. Izno (talk) 04:02, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- You made me laugh, Liz. That sounds like my normal start-of-day routine, to be accompanied by a cup of tea and, perhaps, a small breakfast. I'd expect most arbitrators to be reading the mail on a daily basis, unless they are inactive for some reason; the difference here is the tagging/flagging of messages and clearing the filters, which probably adds about 10-12 minutes. I'll simply say that any arb who isn't prepared to spend 30-45 minutes/day reading emails probably shouldn't be an arb. That's certainly a key part of the role. Risker (talk) 04:43, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- +1. In my thoughts to potential candidates I said an hour a day for emails but that included far more appeals than the committee gets now. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:47, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- Never mind reading emails, the bulk of my private ArbCom time was spent on processing them: doing checks, reporting results, and otherwise responding to other work. You can get away with just reading internal emails, but it's going to surprise your fellow arbs if you don't pipe up with some rational thought when you see the committee thinking about something personally objectionable and the first time they hear about it is when motions have been posted and are waiting for votes. Izno (talk) 06:17, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- Right now, I check my email account about once a week. I guess that will change if I'm elected to the committee. It would have helped to hear all of these details before the election. Liz 08:41, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
- My hour included time to respond to emails, though I also note you're not going particularly deep on anything with that time (at least when ArbCom had more appeals). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:26, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
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Ethiopian Epic
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Request concerning Ethiopian Epic
- User who is submitting this request for enforcement
- Tinynanorobots (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 11:23, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- Ethiopian Epic (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log
- Sanction or remedy to be enforced
- Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Yasuke
- Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
- November 14th created during the Yasuke case and went active when it ended. First 11 edits were to Government of Japan. In one case three edits were used to write one sentence.
- November 12 Manually reverted the lead back to how it was in September.
- November 16 Falsely Claimed cited material was OR. (G
- November 24 Falsely Claimed cited material was unsourced
- November 24 It took an ANI report to get him to use the article talk page. His defense was accusations and denial.
- November 23 He reverted to a version that went against consensus established on the talk page and contained a falsely sourced quote.
- November 25 Engages in sealioning
- November 29 Removes a well sourced line from Yasuke as well as reverted an edit that was the result of BRD. He has now started disputes with me on all three Yasuke related articles.
- November 30 starts disputing a new section of
- December 2 Brought again to ANI, he claims that I didn't get consensus for changes, even though I had discussed them on talk prior to making them.
- December 4 He keeps mentioning ONUS, and asking me to discuss it, in response to me discussing.
- December 9 Used a non-controversial revert to hide his edit warring.
- December 11 did the same thing on List of foreign-born samurai in Japan.
- December 11 He also repeatedly complains that he doesn't like the definition because it is vague and claims that his preferred version is "status quo"
- Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any
- If contentious topics restrictions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:CTOP#Awareness of contentious topics)
- [
- Alerted about discretionary sanctions or contentious topics in the area of conflict, on December 1 (see the system log linked to above).
- Additional comments by editor filing complaint
I am not sure if this is actually a AE matter, but was told to go here by multiple admins. The biggest issue is the Editing against consensus on accompanied by bludgeoning. However, there are signs of bad faith editing on all three pages where I have interacted with EE. It could also be a CIR issue or it could be some sort of harassment. I don't know. I just know that EE first avoided providing clear reasons for reverting edits and has been trying to engage in Status Quo Stonewalling. He keeps citing Onus or Burden and asks me not to make a change until the discussion is over. Often, this doesn't make sense in context, because the change was in place. He has made false claims about sources and what they say. His editing on Yasuke is not so much a problem as the discussion which comes across as gaslighting.
- @User:Red-tailed hawk, I am not an expert on proxies or socks. All the IPs have only posted on the one article and have advocated an odd definition for samurai, that doesn't apply to the article. All except the first one have just reverted. It is possible that this is just laziness, or lack of confidence in writing skills etc. After all, the false citation was added by another user and was just kept. I found the latest one the most suspect, in part because of it first reverting to the incorrect definition, before restoring most of the text and second because of falsely citing policy. I am not sure if they are proxies, but I hoped that someone here would have the expertise to know. I don't think the proxy evidence is the most important. EE is either acting in bad faith or has CIR problems. The later is possible, because he thanked City of Silver during ANI, although City of Silver has been the harshest critic of EE's behaviour towards me.
- I think there should be some important context to the quote:
"those who serve in close attendance to the nobility"
. The quote can be found in several books, on Samurai it is sourced to an article published in Black Belt Magazine in the 80s by William Scott Wilson, where he describes the origin of the word samurai. He is describing the early phases of its meaning in that quote, before it became to have martial connotations. It also refers to the time before 900. The earliest foreign samurai on the list was in the late 1500s. It also doesn't apply to most of the persons on the list. Finally, it is not mentioned in Vaporis's book, which EE keeps adding as the source. He hasn't even made the effort to copy the citation from Samurai.
Not only did I have a dispute with Symphony Regalia about samurai being "retainers to lords", but also on Yasuke about "As a samurai" and on List of Foreign-born Samurai in Japan EE made the same reverts as SR. EE had with his first edit in all three articles continued a dispute that I had already had with SR.
- @User:Ethiopian Epic I actually don't have a problem with you discussing things. Your talk page posts aren't really discussion though. Your main argument on all three pages has been a shifting of the burden of proof. You don't really discuss content and continually ask me not to make changes without discussing first, and then make changes yourself. I understand that your position is that your preferred version is the status quo. However, my edits regarding the definition on List of Foreign-born samurai in Japan , were discussed and consensus was clearly gotten. Similarly, my edits on Yasuke were discussed, and even though I didn't use the exact same version as Gitz said, Gitz had suggested using warrior instead of bushi, so I used samurai, because I thought it would be less controversial.
- Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested
Discussion concerning Ethiopian Epic
Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.
Statement by Ethiopian Epic
This is clear retaliatory filing because I recently didn't agree with Tinynanorobot's edits against RFC consensus, and because I made talk page sections on some recent edits.
@Eronymous That's not true and you are a very obvious alt account with only 26 edits. No one gave you a notification of this discussion and it's not on the Yasuke talk page. This suggests you are the sock puppet of someone here. Your post is also misleading and incorrect it wasn't an insertion. The line you are talking about in Samurai has been there for over 10 years and is normal. I know because I've read it before. Here is a version from 2017 that still has it. I don't understand why you are misrepresenting edits and using an alt account.
@Red-tailed hawk I think he is just fishing. That's why he removed his IP claims. Even his other diffs are just mislabeled regular behavior. It's amusing because Eronymous is the likely alt of Tinynanorobots or someone posting here. I think the way Tinynanorobots edits against clear consensus, skips discussion, and then files frivolous ANI/AE reports with misleading narrative like above is disruptive. Discussion is an easy solution and benefits everyone. I hope he will respect RFC consensus.
Statement by Relm
I am largely unfamiliar with the account in question, but I do frequently check Yasuke. I believe that EthiopianEpic has displayed a clear slant and battleground mindset in their editing in regards to the topic of Yasuke, but that their conduct on the Yasuke page itself so far has generally been in the ballpark of good faith edits. The revert on December 9th was justified, and their topic on November 29th is well within bounds (though I acknowledge that the background of their prior disputes on other pages with Tinynanorobots shows it may be edit warring) given that the two things being reverted was a change that seemed to skirt the prior RFC with agreement being given in a very non-direct way, and the other portion being an addition which had not been discussed on the talk page prior to its implementation (though previous discussions ered on the side of not including it). I am not accusing Tinynanorobots of any misconduct in any part of that either.
What I will note is that in addition to the sockpuppet IP allegations made by Tinynanorobots, I wanted to lodge that the posting style of EthiopianEpic, as well as their knowledge of much of the previous discussions on the page deep in the archive, led me to suspect that they were an alt of User:Symphony_Regalia. I never found anything conclusive. Relm (talk) 14:48, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Simonm223
These two editors have been tangling at WP:AN/I repeatedly. Last time they came there I said that this would likely continue until a third party intervened. And then the thread got archived with no action (see AN/I thread here) so I'm not surprised that the two of them are still tangling. There is evidence that both editors have engaged in a slow-motion edit war. Both have claimed the other is editing against consensus. Here I will say that it appears TinyNanoRobots is more correct than Ethiopian Epic. Furthermore, while neither editors' comportment has been stellar, as other editors have pointed out, it appears more that EE is following TNR about and giving them a hard time than the alternate. . In the linked AN/I case (above) you'll note EE attempted a boomerang on TNR and was not well-received for the effort.
Frankly my view is that both editors are not editing to the best standards of Misplaced Pages but there is definitely a more disruptive member of this duo and that is Ethiopian Epic. I think it would probably cut down on the noise considerably if they were encouraged to find somewhere to edit which was not a CTOP subject and if they were encouraged to leave TNR alone. Simonm223 (talk) 18:05, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Eronymous
Similar to Relm I check on the Yasuke page every so often, and it seems very likely given the evidence that User:Ethiopian Epic is an alt of User:Symphony_Regalia created to evade his recent ArbCom sanctions, having started editing the day prior to the Yasuke case closure. Of note to this is the last edit of Symphony_Regalia on Samurai was him attempting to insert the line "who served as retainers to lords (including daimyo)" - curiously enough, Ethiopian Epic's first edit on Samurai (and first large edit, having just prior made 11 minor ones in a short timeframe to reach autoconfirmed status) is him attempting to insert the same controversial line that was reverted before.
Symphony_Regalia has a history of utilising socks to edit Yasuke/Samurai related topics and is indefinitely blocked from the .jp wiki for extensive sockpuppetry (plus multiple suspected IPs) for this.
Prior to being sanctioned Symphony Regalia frequently got into exactly the same arguments concerning wording/source material with User:Tinynanorobots that Ethiopian Epic is now. One could assume based on their relationship that he is aggrieved that Tinynanorobots was not sanctioned by ArbCom during the case and is now continuously feuding with him to change that through edit warring and multiple administrator incidents/arbitration requests in the past few weeks. Eronymous (talk) 22:31, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Nil Einne
I was ?one of the editors who suggested Tinynanorobots consider ARE in the future. I did this mostly because after three threads on ANI with no result, I felt a change of venue might be more productive especially since the more structured nature of ARE, as well as a likely greater concern over low level of misconduct meant that some outcome was more likely. (For clarity, when I suggested this I did feel nothing would happen from the third ANI thread but in any case my advice being taken onboard would likely mean the third thread had no result.) I did try to make clear that I wasn't saying there was definitely a problem requiring sanction and also it was possible Tinynanorobots might themselves end up sanctioned. Since a topic ban on both is being considered, I might have been right in a way. If a topic ban results, I'd like to suggest admins considered some guidance beyond broadly constructed on how any topic ban would apply. While the entirety of the Yasuke article and the list of foreign born samurai stuff seem clear enough, one concern I've had at ANI is how to handle the editing at Samurai and its talk page. A lot of the recent stuff involving these editors seems to relate to the definition of samurai. AFAIK, this is generally been a big part of the dispute of Yasuke (he can/can't be a samurai because it means A which was/wasn't true about him). Nil Einne (talk) 12:42, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
Result concerning Ethiopian Epic
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
- I've never been very impressed with retaliatory filings, and the one below is no exception. I will also note that I'm never too impressed with "must be a sock" type accusations—either file at SPI or don't. In this case, though, I think Yasuke would be better off if neither of these two were participating there. Seraphimblade 19:33, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
- Red-tailed hawk, what are your thoughts after the responses to you? Seraphimblade 16:18, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
- I think that it would be declined if it were an WP:SPI report and the editor should be mindful not to throw sock accusations around willy-nilly going forward. But I typically don't see any sort of sanction imposed when someone makes a bad SPI report, particularly if they're newer or aren't quite clueful yet. So I don't see much to do on that front other than tell them that we need more specific evidence of socking when reports are made than merely shared interest, particularly when the IPs are scattered across the world. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 02:24, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
- I'm still inclined to topic ban both these editors from Yasuke, but would be interested in hearing more thoughts on that if anyone has them. Seraphimblade 07:10, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
- I think that it would be declined if it were an WP:SPI report and the editor should be mindful not to throw sock accusations around willy-nilly going forward. But I typically don't see any sort of sanction imposed when someone makes a bad SPI report, particularly if they're newer or aren't quite clueful yet. So I don't see much to do on that front other than tell them that we need more specific evidence of socking when reports are made than merely shared interest, particularly when the IPs are scattered across the world. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 02:24, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
- Red-tailed hawk, what are your thoughts after the responses to you? Seraphimblade 16:18, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
- I also generally don't like "might-be-a-sock"-style accusations; when we are accusing someone of sockpuppetry by logged out editing we typically need evidence to substantiate it rather than just floating the possibility in a flimsy way. Filer has provided several diffs above as possible socks, but each of those IPs geolocates to a different country (Germany, Norway, and Argentina respectively) and I don't see evidence that any of those IPs are proxies.@Tinynanorobots: Can you explain what led you to note the IP edits? Is it merely shared interest and viewpoint, or is there something more?— Red-tailed hawk (nest) 02:01, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
- Looking at this .... mess... first, I'm not sure what actually was against the ArbCom decision - I don't see a 1RR violation being alleged, and the rest really appears to me to be "throw stuff at the wall and see if it sticks". But, like Seraphimblade, I'm not impressed with either of these editors actual conduct here or in general. I could be brought around to supporting a topic ban for both of these editors in the interests of clearing up the whole topic area. Ealdgyth (talk) 14:33, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
- @Tinynanorobots: you are well above the 500 word limit. Please request an extension before adding anything more. Barkeep49 (talk) 16:18, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
Tinynanorobots
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Request concerning Tinynanorobots
- User who is submitting this request for enforcement
- EEpic (talk) 19:14, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- Tinynanorobots (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log
- Sanction or remedy to be enforced
- Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Yasuke
- Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
- 09:21, 14 November 2024. Tinynanorobots removes
As a samurai
from the lead text and replaces it withsignifying bushi status
against RFC consensus (There exists a consensus to refer to Yasuke as a samurai without qualification
). - 17:12, 15 November 2024. Tinynanorobots removes
who served as a samurai
from the lead text and addswho became a bushi or samurai
against RFC consensus (There exists a consensus against presenting Yasuke's samurai status as the object of debate
). - 12:43, 20 November 2024. On List of Foreign-born Samurai, Tinynanorobots removes the longstanding definition and adds
This list includes persons who ... may not have been considered a samurai
against RFC consensus (There exists a consensus against presenting Yasuke's samurai status as the object of debate
). - 07:48, 23 November 2024. Tinynanorobots reverts to remove
As a samurai
in the Yasuke article after Gitz6666 opposes at , again ignoring WP:ONUS. - 03:13, 4 December 2024. I restore and start a talk page discussion so that consensus can be formed.
- 14:10, 6 December 2024 . Tinynanorobots, when consensus fails to form for his position, becomes uncivil and engages in a sarcastic personal attack
What you are saying doesn't make sense. Perhaps there is a language issue here. Maybe your native language handles the future differently than English?
- 14:22, 11 December 2024. Tinynanorobots removes "As a samurai" again, ignoring WP:ONUS and BRD even though no consensus has formed for his position, and no consensus has formed to change existing consensus.
- 08:37, 6 December 2024. Tinynanorobots explains their reasons,
I don't know if samurai is the right term
which is against consensus. - 07:27, 28 November 2024. POV-pushing - With no edit summary Tinynanorobots tag bombs by adding
Slavery in Japan
.
- Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any
- If contentious topics restrictions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:CTOP#Awareness of contentious topics)
- Alerted about discretionary sanctions or contentious topics in the area of conflict, on 23:06, 13 November 2024.
- Additional comments by editor filing complaint
Tinynanorobots frequently edits against consensus, restores his edits when others revert, doesn't wait for consensus, and engages in feuding behavior. He seems to think WP:BRD or WP:ONUS don't apply to him which is disruptive, and I don't know why.
Unaccounted removals of sources 23:44, 14 September 2024 - Warning from other editor about repeated removal of content when multiple users are objecting.
AGF 12:21, 15 September 2024 - Warning from yet another editor about not assuming good faith and making personal attacks
It seems to be chronic which suggests behavior problems. Tinynanorobots also frequently fails to assume good faith in others. I don't know why as I don't have any issues with him.
Their preferred edit for Yasuke against the RFC consensus is now still in the lead section.
@Relm Sorry for the confusion. I think we talking about different edits, so I'll adjust that part. I am referring to Tinynanorobot's repeated removal of As a samurai
against RFC consensus, which states There exists a consensus to refer to Yasuke as a samurai without qualification
.
- Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested
Discussion concerning Tinynanorobots
Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.
Statement by Tinynanorobots
The accusations made by EE are so misleading as to be evidence against him. Most of what he is discussing is in reference to a successful BRD. I actually discussed the bold edit first on the talk, but didn't get much of a response. I decided a bold edit would get more feedback. The edits were reverted and then discussed. Gitz's main problem was OR, not a RfC violation. This was because he didn't read the cited source. Anyway, since Atkin says "signifying bushi status", I have no objection to restoring this text.
I never used any sarcasm, I know that some languages handle how they talk about time differently. It seems reasonable that a translation error could be the reason for EE asking me not to change the article, althoug my edit had already been restored by someone else and at the same time asking me to discuss that I had already discussed and was already discussing. I am disappointed that EE didn't point out that he felt attacked, so that I could apologize.
This was written in response to another user, and the whole thought is I don't know if samurai is the right term. It is the term a fair amount of sources use, and the one that the RfC says should be used. It is also consistent with common usage in reference to other historical figures.
In fact earlier in that post I said this: I am not qualified to say whither or not Yasuke having a house meant that he was a samurai
This is blatantly taking a quote out of context in order to prejudice the Admins against me.
- @User:Ealdgyth I filed here, because the last time I filed at ANI it was suggested that I bring things here if things continue by an Admin. I try to follow advice, although I keep getting conflicting signals from Admins. I am most concerned that you find my work on Samurai and List of Foreign-born Samurai in Japan not adding anything helpful. My suggestion to rewrite the way samurai was defined on the List in order to reduce OR and bring it in line with WP:LSC was meant with unanimous approval by those who responded. Samurai is a high importance article that has tags on it from years back, is unorganized and contains outdated information. I am not the best writer, but I have gotten some books, and am pretty much the only one working on it.
Statement by Relm
I am the editor alluded to and quoted as 'protesting' Tinynanorobots edit. When I originally made that topic, I was fixing a different edit which left the first sentence as a grammatically incomplete sentence. When I looked at it in the editing view, one of the quotes in the citation beforehand was quoting Atkins Vera, and I mistook this for the opening quote having been changed. When I closed the editing menu I saw 'signifying samurai status' in the second paragraph and confused the two for each other as I had not noticed the addition of the latter phrase a little under a month ago. I realized my mistake almost immediately after I posted the new topic, and made this (1) edit to clarify my mistake while also attempting to instead direct the topic towards making sure that the edit recieved sufficient assent from Gitz (it did) and to talk about improvements that could be made to the opening sentence. I further clarified and made clear that I was not accusing Tinynanorobots of having done anything wrong in a later response (2).
Though many of their earlier edits on the page may show some issues, as they grew more familiar with the past discussions I believe that Tinynanorobots has made valuable contributions to the page in good faith. Relm (talk) 03:21, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Barkeep49
- @Ealdgyth I think this misinterprets the ArbCom decision. So Yakuse is a contentious topic and it has a 1RR restriction, in the same way as say PIA. As in PIA administrators can sanction behavior that violates the contentious topics procedures besides 1RR. Beyond that, editing against the RFC is a finding of fact from the case. Barkeep49 (talk) 16:25, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
Statement by (username)
Result concerning Tinynanorobots
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
- As above, I'm failing to see what exactly is against the ArbCom case rulings - I don't see a 1RR violation. But also as above, I'm coming to the view that neither of these editors are adding anything helpful to the topic area and am leaning towards a topic ban for both. Ealdgyth (talk) 14:35, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
Rasteem
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Request concerning Rasteem
- User who is submitting this request for enforcement
- NXcrypto (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 03:06, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- Rasteem (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log
- Sanction or remedy to be enforced
- WP:ARBIPA
- Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
- 23:21 12 December 2024 - removed wikilink of an Indian railway station thus violating his topic ban from India and Pakistan.
This violation comes after he was already warned for his first violation of the topic ban.
Upon a closer look into his recent contribution, I found that he is simply WP:GAMING the system by creating articles like Arjan Lake which is overall only 5,400 bytes but he made nearly 50 edits here. This is clearly being done by Rasteem for passing the 500 edits mark to get his topic ban overturned.
I recommend increasing the topic ban to indefinite duration. Nxcrypto Message 03:06, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
- Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any
- "topic banned from the subject of India and Pakistan, broadly construed, until both six months have elapsed and they have made 500 edits after being notified of this sanction."
- If contentious topics restrictions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:CTOP#Awareness of contentious topics)
- Additional comments by editor filing complaint
- I agree that there are genuine CIR issues with Rasteem, for example while this ARE report is in progress they created Javan Lake, which has promotional statements like: "The lake's stunning caluts, majestic desert topographies, and serene lakes produce a shifting destination. Its unique charm attracts a wide range of guests, from adventure contenders to nature suckers and beyond". Nxcrypto Message 03:26, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
Discussion concerning Rasteem
Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.
Statement by Rasteem
This approach seems to be a coordinated attack to abandon me from Misplaced Pages indefinitely. Indeed, after my ban for 6 months. I was banned on 6 December, and in just 7 days, this report is literally an attempt to make me leave Misplaced Pages.
1. I rolled back my own edit; it was last time made unintentionally. I was about to revert it, but my internet connection was lost, so when I logged in again, I regressed it.
The internet is constantly slow and sometimes goes down. I live in a hilly location and I had formerly mentioned it.
My edits on Arjan Lake isn't any WP:GAMING factual number of edits I made; it is 45, not 50. Indeed, I made similar edits before in September and December months on the same articles within a single day or 2-3 days.
2. List of villages in Khoda Afarin on this article, I've added 5680 bytes & made 43 edits.
3. List of villages in Tabriz on this article I've added 4000 bytes & made 49 edits.
Statement by (username)
Result concerning Rasteem
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
- While I don't see a change in editing pattern that indicates gaming, the edits to Arjan Lake indicate issues with competence, as the article is weirdly promotional and contains phrases such as "beast species", "emotional 263 proved species". —Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:57, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
- Adding to Femke's point,
magnific 70- cadence-high waterfalls in this area
is not prose that inspires confidence in the editor's competence to edit the English Misplaced Pages. So, we have violations of a topic ban and questions about the editor's linguistic competence and performance. Perhaps an indefinite block appealable in six months with a recommendation to build English competency by editing the Simple English Misplaced Pages, and to build general Misplaced Pages skills by editing in the version of Misplaced Pages in the language they speak best during that minimum six month period. As for Arjan Lake, although the prose is poor, the references in the article make it clear to me that the topic is notable, so the editor deserves some credit for starting this article that did not exist for two decades plus. Cullen328 (talk) 08:57, 14 December 2024 (UTC) - Brief comment to avoid the archive bot. Seraphimblade 17:46, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
KronosAlight
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Request concerning KronosAlight
- User who is submitting this request for enforcement
- Butterscotch Beluga (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 03:16, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- KronosAlight (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log
- Sanction or remedy to be enforced
- Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel articles 4#ARBPIA General Sanctions
- Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
- Adds "depiste being an ex-Muslim" to dismiss accusations of Islamophobia MOS:EDITORIAL.
- Adds MOS:SCAREQUOTES around ‘promoted Islamophobia’ & ‘Islamophobia’ while removing the supporting context.
- Changed "interpreted that statement as a threat and incitement to violence" to "claimed was a threat and incitement to violence, though no threats or violence in fact occurred" MOS:CLAIM & MOS:EDITORIAL
- Changes "Israeli settlers" to "Israeli soldiers" despite the source only explicitly stating them "throwing stones on settlers."
- Unnecessarily specific additions that may constitute WP:POVPUSH such as adding "against civilians" & changing "prevent the assassinations of many Israelis" to "prevent the assassinations of many Israeli civilians and soldiers"
- Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any
- 24 June 2024 Warned to abide by the one-revert rule when making edits within the scope of the Arab-Israeli conflict topic area.
- 22 October 2024 Blocked from editing for 1 week for violating consensus required on the page Zionism
- If contentious topics restrictions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:CTOP#Awareness of contentious topics)
- Previously given a discretionary sanction or contentious topic restriction or warned for conduct in the area of conflict on 22 October 2024 by ScottishFinnishRadish (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA).
- Alerted about discretionary sanctions or contentious topics in the area of conflict, on 24 January 2024.
- Additional comments by editor filing complaint
All edits were made at Mosab Hassan Yousef. After I partially reverted their edits with an explanation, I brought the issue to their attention on the talk page, asking for their rationale. They replied that they were "correcting factual errors introduced by previous antisemitic editors" & asked if I "perhaps have a deeper bias that’s influencing decisions in this respect?"
They then undid my partial revert
- Ealdgyth - While I can't find any comments where they were explicitly "warned for casting aspersions", they were asked back in June to WP:AGF in the topic area.
- Also, apologies for my "diffs of edits that violate this sanction" section, this is the first time I've filed a request here & I thought it'd be best to explain the preamble to my revert, but I understand now that I misunderstood the purpose of that section & will remember such for the future. - Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 15:37, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
- @Vanamonde93 I was able to find a copy of the opinion article being cited 'They Need to Be Liberated From Their God'. Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 20:14, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
- Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested
Discussion concerning KronosAlight
Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.
Statement by KronosAlight
This is a complete waste of the Arbitration Committee’s time.
1. That Yousef was born and raised a Muslim is important and neutral context for readers to be aware of when the article refers to claims of ‘Islamophobia’.
2. The scarequotes indicate that the claim comes from the sources provided, rather than being an objective ‘fact’ determined by a few Misplaced Pages Editors with an axe to grind.
3. This was already addressed on the Talk page and I updated the sentence to say settlers/soldiers with a further label that it needed further clarification because the source does not in fact unambiguously say what Butterscotch Beluga claims.
A few lines above what Butterscotch Beluga quotes is the following lines: “AMANPOUR: How did you take part in that? Were you one of the small children who threw rocks at Israeli soldiers?
YOUSEF: The model for every Palestinian child is a mujahid (ph) or a fidahi (ph) or a fighter. So, of course, I wanted to be one at that point of my life. It wasn't -- it's not my only dream. It's every child's dream in that territory.”
The updated Wiki page noted both settlers/soldiers and included a note that this requires further clarification, perhaps based on other sources, because it isn’t clear (contra Butterscotch Beluga) whether he is referring to soldiers or settlers.
4. It is not controversial to accurately describe Hamas as a terrorist organisation. It is simply a fact. To suggest otherwise is POV-pushing.
5. This is not POVPUSH; ‘assassinations’ against civilians during peacetime are usually called ‘murders’.
I in fact didn’t even remove the word ‘assassinations’, I merely broadened the description from ‘Israelis’ to ‘Israeli civilians and soldiers’ (as Butterscotch accepted) to indicate the breadth of the individuals in question included both civilians and combatants. This is not POVPUSH, it is simply additional information and context verified in the source itself.
All in all, a vexatious claim and a waste of the Arbitration Committee’s time.
Statement by Sean.hoyland
Regarding "I was correcting factual errors introduced by previous antisemitic editors", it would be helpful if KronosAlight would explicitly identify the antisemitic editors and the edits they corrected so that they can be blocked for being antisemitic editors. Sean.hoyland (talk) 08:17, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
The editor has been here since 2012. It is reasonable to assume that they know the rules regarding aspersions. It is reasonable to assume they are intentionally violating them, presumably because they genuinely believe they are dealing with antisemitic editors. So, this report is somehow simultaneously a vexatious complete waste of time and the result of the someone interfering with their valiant efforts to correct errors made by antisemitic editors. Why do they have this belief? This is probably a clue, a comment they had the good sense to revert. For me, this is an example of someone attempting to use propaganda that resembles antisemitic conspiracy theories about media control to undermine Misplaced Pages's processes and then changing their mind. But the very fact that they thought of it is disturbing. Their revert suggests that they are probably aware that there are things you can say about an editor and things you cannot say about an editor. From my perspective, what we have here is part of an emerging pattern in the topic area, a growing number of attacks on Misplaced Pages and editors with accusations of antisemitism, cabals etc. stemming in part from external partisan sources/influence operations. Sean.hoyland (talk) 17:35, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Zero0000
Aspersions:
- I made that comment to highlight the obvious problem of antisemitism among Misplaced Pages editors.
- It seems less like a merger and more like a deliberate burying of the original information.
- Given some of the users involved there, I don’t have very high hopes given the Pirate Wires allegations.
- Is there no limits you will not cross in order to seek to justify your Jew-hatred?
Zero 10:36, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Vice regent
KronosAlight, you changed on 14 Dec 2024: "An open letter signed by Christian and Muslim religious leaders interpreted that statement as a threat and incitement to violence
" to "An open letter signed by Christian and Muslim religious leaders claimed was a threat and incitement to violence, though no threats or violence in fact occurred
".
Can you show where either of the sources state "though no threats or violence in fact occurred"? VR (Please ping on reply) 18:07, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Smallangryplanet
Wanted to add some pertinent evidence:
Talk:Zionism:
- "Interesting question, you should look it up and find an answer"
- I’ll leave it to others to consider what that says about Misplaced Pages’s community.
- If your claim is that the sinking of SS Patria is morally comparable then I simply don’t think you should be allowed to contribute to any of these articles
- You think WW2 and the Holocaust are too low-level to include in the lede?
Talk:Allegations of genocide in the 2024 Israeli invasion of Lebanon:
Talk:Relations between Nazi Germany and the Arab world:
Talk:2024 Lebanon electronic device attacks:
Talk:Anti-Zionism:
- There's no difference between opposing the Jewish people's right to self-determination and calling for the destruction of the State of Israel. It's just two different sets of words to describe the same thing.
- "The route to this implication is via the identification of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. Anti-Semites want to rid the world of Jews: Israel is a Jewish State: Anti-Zionists oppose Israel as a Jewish state, ergo anti-Zionists are anti-Semitic, and as such, seek the destruction of Israel." All of this is correct.
Talk:Gaza genocide:
- Even if we assume that Hamas' own numbers are broadly correct (which we shouldn't, because it don't distinguish between civilian and combatant casualties, and have been repeatedly proven be largely just invented), that doesn’t seem to even come close to genocide. Why are we even indulging this ludicrous nonsense?
- When this war ends and the vast, vast, vast majority of Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank are still alive and negotiating begin about the future of their region and political administration etc., will this article be deleted, or will this remain as yet another blood libel against the Jewish people?
Talk:Nuseirat rescue and massacre:
Talk:Al-Sardi school attack:
Talk:Eden Golan:
Other sanctions:
- March 2024: indefinitely topic banned from the subject of flood myths for sealioning, WP:ASPERSIONS, etc
- June 2024: warned to abide by 1RR
- October 2024: blocked for a week
Statement by (username)
Result concerning KronosAlight
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
- Much of the "diffs of edits that violate this sanction" fail to explain "how these edits violate" the sanction - to me, much of these diffs look like a content dispute. However, the "additional comments" section DOES have a diff that is concerning and violates the CT by casting an aspersion that is not backed up by a diff - the "antisemitic editors" diff. Has KA been previously warned for casting aspersions? If they have, I'm inclined to issue a topic ban, but many other editors get a warning for this if they lack a previous warning. The diffs brought up by Zero (not all of which I necessarily see as aspersions, but the "Jew-hatred" one is definitely over the line - but it's from September so a bit late to sanction for just that) - did anyone point out that aspersions/incivility in this topic area is sanctionable? I see the warnings for 1RR and consensus required... Ealdgyth (talk) 13:30, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
- @KronosAlight: - can you address the fact that saying "correcting factual errors introduced by previous antisemitic editors" and "Is there no limits you will not cross in order to seek to justify your Jew-hatred"? Neither of these are statements that should ever be made - and the fact that you seem to not to understand this is making me lean towards a topic ban. Ealdgyth (talk) 14:45, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
- KronosAlight, can you please provide quotes from the references you cited for - for instance - "for his terrorist activities" in this addition, showing that the sources explicitly supported the content you added? Calling a person or an organization is perfectly acceptable if you support that with reliable sources; if it is original research, or source misrepresentation, it isn't acceptable. I cannot access some of the sources in question. You may provide quotes inside a collapsed section if you wish to save space. Vanamonde93 (talk) 19:28, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
- I missed Zero's comments earlier. A lot of those comments, while concerning, are generic, not directed at a specific editor. this, however, is beyond the pale. I would need some convincing that this user is able to edit this area constructively. Vanamonde93 (talk) 20:56, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
- @KronosAlight, can you please respond to this? I too am concerned...the quote you're objecting to wasn't from DrSmarty. It was a direct quote, scare quotes and all, from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. You seem to have reacted to it as if it were DrSmarty. Valereee (talk) 16:06, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
- I missed Zero's comments earlier. A lot of those comments, while concerning, are generic, not directed at a specific editor. this, however, is beyond the pale. I would need some convincing that this user is able to edit this area constructively. Vanamonde93 (talk) 20:56, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
- I don't like to sanction in absentia, and I'm not yet suggesting we do so, but I want to note that not choosing not to respond here, or going inactive to avoid responding, will not improve the outcome as far as I am concerned. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:20, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
- They're a pretty sporadic editor...many edits over a period of a few days, then nothing for two weeks. Maybe we pin this until they edit again? Valereee (talk) 17:26, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
- I agree with Valereee that this editors contribution history shows a pattern of editing for a day or two at a time followed by several weeks of inactivity. So I don't think it's fair to say they went inactive here but also holding this open for multiple weeks waiting for a response places some burden on the other other interested editors. Barkeep49 (talk) 17:33, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
- Welp, it's been nearly ten days since they first posted here, calling this a waste of time and vexatious. They're fully aware it's happening, and it's not even like they haven't been to AE before.
- I've gone through the diffs here, and it seems to me the basis of KA's problematic editing is that they're on a mission to WP:right great wrongs, specifically w/re what they see as antisemitic bias on WP. The exchange at Talk:Algeria a few weeks ago makes that pretty clear: they come into Algeria and open a section to post a content complaint about the article not covering changing Jewish demographics in the country, saying "Many people have edited it, but apparently not one has seen fit to explain" this. Another editor suggests KA fix whatever problem they're seeing, and KA responds: I made that comment to highlight the obvious problem of antisemitism among Misplaced Pages editors. The question was rhetorical. And many of their other talk contributions are focussed on these accusations of systemic bias.
- And @KronosAlight, in case you're paying attention: of course WP has systemic bias. It's usually unintentional, but in most CTOPs there are editors who consciously try to push a POV. The solution for that isn't to go 'round making accusations. It's to go 'round fixing the problem either by adding missing content or by discussing biased content in nonproblematic ways. It's the "nonproblematic ways" part you're missing, here. And if you are paying attention: You cannot make an AE case go away by ignoring it. I very strongly recommend you come in here and respond to the questions. Valereee (talk) 13:40, 26 December 2024 (UTC)
- They're a pretty sporadic editor...many edits over a period of a few days, then nothing for two weeks. Maybe we pin this until they edit again? Valereee (talk) 17:26, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Nicoljaus
Procedural notes: Per the rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals, a "clear and substantial consensus of uninvolved administrators" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action.
To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see WP:UNINVOLVED).
- Appealing user
- Nicoljaus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:09, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
- Sanction being appealed
- To enforce an arbitration decision, and for edit warring, and intent to game 1rr, you have been blocked indefinitely from editing Misplaced Pages.
- Administrator imposing the sanction
- ScottishFinnishRadish (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
- Notification of that administrator
- I'm aware. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:18, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Nicoljaus
The circumstances of my blocking were:
- I was looking for a Misplaced Pages account for Hiba Abu Nada to add it to Wikidata. I couldn't find it, so I did a little research. The reference in the article indicated that she participated in some WikiWrites(?) project. I didn’t find such a project, but I found the WikiRights project: https://ar.wikipedia.org/ويكيبيديا:ويكي_رايتس. It was organized by a certain Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor. I read the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor article and didn't see any outside perspective, "controversy" or anything like that, just self-representation. I surfed the Internet and instantly found information that must be in the article to comply with the NPOV. I started adding , everything went well for two days. Then:
- 12:53, 23 April 2024 - Zero0000 made a complete cancellation of all additions
- 13:14, 23 April 2024 - (20 minutes later!) Selfstudier wrote on my TP
- 14:20 - 14:22, 23 April 2024 - With two edits (first, second) I partially took into account the comment of Zero0000 about "ethnic marking", but returned the last .
- 14:27, 23 April 2024 (7 minutes later!!) Selfstudier makes a second complete cancellation of all my edits, blaming POV editing
- 14:45, 23 April 2024 - I’m returning the version where I partially took into account Zero0000’s comments (removed "ethnic marking")
- 15:10, 23 April 2024 - Selfstudier accuses me of 1RR breach. In the dialogue, I explained that the group that really violated the rule was Selfstudier&Zero0000, who obviously acted in close coordination. My first undo was part of a counter edit User talk:Nicoljaus#1RR_breach
- 15:41, 23 April 2024 Selfstudier writes on Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement
- 16:10, 23 April 2024 (30 minutes later!) ScottishFinnishRadish issues an indefinite block . No opportunity to write my “statement”, as well as an extremely bad faith interpretation of my remark as "an intent to game 1rr".
Given that the both Selfstudier and Zero0000 are currently being discussed in Arbcom (https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Palestine-Israel_articles_5/Evidence), I humbly ask you to take a fresh look at my indefinite block and soften the restrictions in some way". Nicoljaus (talk) 19:32, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
- @ScottishFinnishRadish: - You mean, I need to discuss my previous edit war blocks? Well, the last one was almost four years ago and that time I simply forgot that I was under 1RR (there was a big break in editing) and tried to get sources for a newly added map, and the opponent refused to do so . As it turned out later, the true source was a book by a fringe author, which the RSN called "Usual nationalistic bullshit, no sign of reliability". Yes, it was a stupid forgetfulness on my part. Nicoljaus (talk) 16:18, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
- @Aquillion:
Even if you were correct that Selfstudier & Zero0000 were WP:TAGTEAMing (always a tricky accusation, because it's hard to separate that from just your edits being so obviously problematic that two people independently reverted them)
-- That's why I wrote that my "so problematic edits" attracted attention only after two days, but two users appeared within 20 minutes. However, after months, a lot of data about the cooperation of these users appeared (and this is not my imagination): "While a single editor, Shane (a newbie), advocated for its inclusion, a trio of veterans including Zero0000, Nishidani and Selfstudier fought back. After Selfstudier accused Shane of being a troll for arguing for the photo’s inclusion, Zero0000, days later, “objected” to its inclusion, citing issues of provenance. Nishidani stepped in to back up Zero0000, prompting a response by Shane. The following day, Zero0000 pushed back against Shane, who responded. The day after, Nishidani returned with his own pushback. The tag-team effort proved too much for Shane, who simply gave up, and the effort succeeded: the photo remains absent" . I'll add that after Selfstudier accused Shane of trolling, Zero0000 appeared on Shane's page and said: "Kindly keep your insults to yourself I won't hesitate to propose you for blocking if you keep it up" . According to the table at the link , these two users cooperated like this 720 times. Probably hundreds of people were embittered, forced out of the project, or led to blocking like me.--Nicoljaus (talk) 13:02, 20 December 2024 (UTC) - @ScottishFinnishRadish: Hello, thank you very much for transferring my remarks, now I understand how it works. I would like to clarify the issue of meatpuppetry. You directly accused me of such intentions in justifying the block, and now this accusation has been repeated . Let's figure out whether my hint that Selfstudier and Zero0000 are working too closely was so absurd? Was it really and remains so absurd that it could not be perceived as anything other than my self-exposure? I don't think so.
As for the "edit war" - I understand that edit wars are evil. In the spirit of cooperation, I tried to meet my opponents halfway, as in this case, taking into account their claim, which I could understand, in the counter edit. If such an action is also considered an edit war and a violation of the 1RR/3RR rule - I will of course avoid it in the future.--Nicoljaus (talk) 16:00, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
@Valereee: Hello, I understand your point that edit wars can be disruptive, particularly in a CTOP context. However, I believe it is essential to recognize that not all reverts carry the same implications. While it is true that a revert is a revert, the context and intent behind the action should also be taken into account. In this instance, I made efforts to address the concerns of the other party involved, which reflects a willingness to engage in dialogue rather than simply reverting. Furthermore, I acknowledge your reference to the 1RR/3RR rule and my history of blocks for edit-warring. However, given the amount of time that has passed, I believe I have gained valuable insights and learned a great deal. Moreover, given this topic, I think I actually learned something unlike the other side, whose history of blocks for edit-warring remains clean.--Nicoljaus (talk) 4:24 am, Today (UTC−5)
@Valereee: In response to this, I can say that I already know very well how carelessly admins impose blocks. If any further statements are needed from me, just ping me. With best regards.--Nicoljaus (talk) 09:51, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
Statement by ScottishFinnishRadish
Absent from the appeal is discussion of the five prior edit warring blocks and any indication that they will not resume edit warring. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:18, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
- I said
They have a long history of edit warring, so I'd like to see that addressed rather than blaming others
above, twelve days ago. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:30, 19 December 2024 (UTC) - Nicoljaus, you should be focusing on convincing people that you won't edit war in the future rather than more WP:NOTTHEM. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:11, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
Statement by (involved editor 1)
Statement by (involved editor 2)
Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Nicoljaus
Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.
Statement by Simonm223
This edit looks like a bright-line WP:BLP violation via WP:ATTACK and WP:WEASEL - and removing BLP violations are generally somewhere where there is some latitude on WP:1RR which makes the actions of Zero0000 and Selfstudier more justified, not less. Simonm223 (talk) 13:50, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Aquillion
Selfstudier accuses me of 1RR breach. In the dialogue, I explained that the group that really violated the rule was Selfstudier&Zero0000, who obviously acted in close coordination. My first undo was part of a counter edit
- I feel like this is obvious enough that I probably don't have to point it out, but "counter edit" is not a WP:3RR / WP:1RR exception. Even if you were correct that Selfstudier & Zero0000 were WP:TAGTEAMing (always a tricky accusation, because it's hard to separate that from just your edits being so obviously problematic that two people independently reverted them), it still would not justify your revert. The fact that they're parties to an ArbCom case (which hasn't even yet found any fault with them!) doesn't change any of this. You should probably read WP:NOTTHEM. --Aquillion (talk) 14:15, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
Statement by Sean.hoyland
"the group that really violated the rule was Selfstudier&Zero0000, who obviously acted in close coordination"...yet another conspiracy-minded evidence-free accusation against editors in the PIA topic area, the third one at AE in just a few days. Sean.hoyland (talk) 14:59, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
Statement by (uninvolved editor 1)
Result of the appeal by Nicoljaus
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
- I do not see any indication that Nicoljaus actually realizes the problem. The edit warring blocks were indeed some time ago, but one might think they would remember it after being blocked for it repeatedly, not to mention that being issued a CTOP notice might call a CTOP restriction to mind. And the remark in question sure looks to me like a threat to game 1RR via meatpuppetry, too. Given all that, I would decline this appeal. Seraphimblade 23:10, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
- I see nothing in this appeal that makes me think they've taken on board the changes that they'd need to do to be a productive editor. It reads to me like "my block was bad, here's why", and that's not working as a reason for me to support unblocking. Ealdgyth (talk) 23:21, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
- Nicoljaus, what we need to see is you demonstrating you understand edit-warring at a CTOP, which is what you were blocked for, and convincing us you won't do it again. Arguing the block should be lifted because other editors did something you thought looked suspicious isn't going to convince us. Just FWIW, Nicoljaus, the source doesn't actually say these two users cooperated like this 720 times. It says they edited the same articles 720 times, and that's not unusual. Most editors see the same other editors over and over again in articles about their primary interest. And edit by editor 1>2 days>revert by editor 2>revert by editor 1>20 minutes>revert by editor 3 is also not at all unusual anywhere on the encyclopedia and isn't evidence of tag-teaming. People read their watch lists. Any editor with that article on their watchlist, which is nearly fifty editors, might have investigated the large revert of an edit by an experienced editor at a contentious topic. Valereee (talk) 15:18, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
- @Nicoljaus, it's not that edit wars are evil. It's that they're disruptive, and particularly in a CTOP we really really don't need additional disruption and drama. A revert is a revert, even if you tried to meet my opponents halfway, as in this case, taking into account their claim, which I could understand, in the counter edit. Re: If such an action is also considered an edit war and a violation of the 1RR/3RR rule: a revert is a revert and is covered in the policy around reversions. And you have a history of blocks for edit-warring, including at other CTOPs.
- It's been seven months since the block. I'm trying to come around to a way to at least allow this editor a chance to show us they've taken this stuff on board...maybe a 0RR at all CTOPs? Valereee (talk) 17:44, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
- @Nicoljaus, re I believe it is essential to recognize that not all reverts carry the same implications. While it is true that a revert is a revert, the context and intent behind the action should also be taken into account. In this instance, I made efforts to address the concerns of the other party involved, which reflects a willingness to engage in dialogue rather than simply reverting. Some editors at talk pages will take your apparent intentions into account. Some will just take you to ANEW. Some admins at ANEW will take your apparent intentions into account. Some will just reblock you.
- No one anywhere is promising that your intentions will be taken into account -- or even that they'll try to figure out what your intentions are -- and therefore it's completely your responsibility to read the situation you're in correctly. If you read it wrong, you're likely to be blocked again, and honestly another block for edit-warring at a CTOP is likely to be another indef, and it would absolutely not surprise me for the blocking admin to require 12 months to appeal. Valereee (talk) 15:25, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
- No need to reply, but I'll tell you plainly I've been trying to give you opportunities to convince other admins here, and you keep wanting to dig the hole deeper. I'd support an unblock with an editing restriction of 0RR at any article with a CTOPs designation on the talk page. Valereee (talk) 13:13, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
PerspicazHistorian
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Request concerning PerspicazHistorian
- User who is submitting this request for enforcement
- NXcrypto (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 15:53, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- PerspicazHistorian (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log
- Sanction or remedy to be enforced
- WP:ARBIPA
- Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
- 17:57, 18 December 2024 - removed "discrimination" sidebar from the page of Hindutva (fascist ideology) even though the sidebar was inserted inside a section, not even the lead.
- 17:59, 18 December 2024 - tag bombed the highly vetted Hindutva article without any discussion or reason
- 10:15, 18 December 2024 - attributing castes to people withhout any sources
- 12:11, 18 December 2024 - edit warring to impose the above edits after getting reverted
- 17:09, 18 December 2024 - just like above, but this time he also added unreliable sources
- 18:29, 18 December 2024 - still edit warring and using edit summaries instead of talk page for conversation
- 14:46, 19 December 2024 (UTC) - filed an outrageous report on WP:ANI without notifying any editors. This report was closed by Bbb23 as "
This is nothing but a malplaced, frivolous personal attack by the OP.
"
- Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any
- If contentious topics restrictions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:CTOP#Awareness of contentious topics)
- Additional comments by editor filing complaint
I do not see any positive signs that this editor will ever improve. So far he has only regressed. Nxcrypto Message 15:53, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
- While going through this report, PerspicazHistorian has made another highly problematic edit here by edit warring and misrepresenting the sources to label the organisation as "terrorist". This primary source only provides a list of organisations termed by the Indian government as "terrorist" contrary to MOS:TERRORIST. Nxcrypto Message 03:12, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
Discussion concerning PerspicazHistorian
Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.
Statement by PerspicazHistorian
By far I am also concerned how my edits were forcefully reverted without a proper reason despite providing enough references. Please check how I am getting attacked by them on Chandraseniya_Kayastha_Prabhu Page.
I didn't know about the three-revert-rule before User: Ratnahastin told me about this: User_talk:PerspicazHistorian.
Please grant me one more chance, I will make sure not to edit war.
In the below statement by LukeEmily, As a reply I just want to say that I was just making obvious edit on Chandraseniya_Kayastha_Prabhu by adding a list of notable people with proper references. And according to Edit_warring#What_edit_warring_is it is clearly said: "Edits from a slanted point of view, general insertion or removal of material, or other good-faith changes are not considered vandalism." It was a good faith edit but others reverted it. I accept my mistake of not raising it on talk page as a part of Misplaced Pages:BOLD,_revert,_discuss_cycle.
As a clarification to my edit on Students' Islamic Movement of India, it can be clearly seen that I provided enough reference to prove its a terrorist organisation as seen in this edit. I don't know why is there a discussion to this obvious edit? Admins please correct me if I am wrong.
- @Valereee, Yes I read about 1RR and 0RR revert rules in Misplaced Pages:Edit warring#What edit warring is#Other revert rules. I now understand the importance of raising the topic on talk page whenever a consensus is needed. Thank You ! PerspicazHistorian (talk) 07:16, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, I will commit to that. PerspicazHistorian (talk) 13:10, 20 December 2024 (UTC) Moved comment to own section. Please comment, including replies, only in this section. Seraphimblade 13:19, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
- At that time I was new to how AFD discussions worked. Later on when Satish R. Devane was marked for deletion, I respected the consensus by not interfering in it. The article was later deleted. PerspicazHistorian (talk) 11:54, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
- Hi @Doug Weller , I just checked your user page. You have 16 years (I am 19) of experience on wiki, you must be right about me. I agree that my start on Misplaced Pages has been horrible, but I am learning a lot from you all. I promise that I will do better, get more neutral here and contribute to the platform to my best. Please don't block me.
- P.S.- I don't know If I will be blocked or what , according to this enforcement rules, I just want to personally wish good luck to you for your ongoing cancer treatments, You will surely win this battle of Life. Regards. PerspicazHistorian (talk) 12:23, 21 December 2024 (UTC)Moved comment to own section. Please comment, including replies, only in this section.Valereee (talk) 15:30, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
Statement by LukeEmily
PerspicazHistorian also violated WP:BRD by engaging in an edit war with Ratnahastin who reverted his edits and restored an article to a stable version by admin. Also, I want to assume good faith but it is surprising that PerspicazHistorian claims that he did not know the three revert rule given that he has more than 800 edits.LukeEmily (talk)
Statement by Doug Weller
I'm involved so just commenting. I don't think this editor is competent. I had to give them a community sanction caste warning as they were making a mess of castes. See this earlier version of their talk page.]https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:PerspicazHistorian&oldid=1262289249] and User:Deb's comment that "It was very unwise of you to keep moving Draft:Satish R. Devane to article space when it has not passed review. As a direct result of your actions, a deletion discussion is taking place, and when this is complete and the article is deleted, you will be prevented from recreating it. Deb (talk) 14:44, 4 December 2024 (UTC)" There have also been copyright issues. I strongly support a topic ban. Doug Weller talk 11:00, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
- I won't be involved in the decision. No more treatments for me, just coast until... Doug Weller talk 12:50, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
Result concerning PerspicazHistorian
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
PerspicazHistorian, can you explain your understanding of WP:edit warring and the WP:3RR rule? I'd like you to read thoroughly enough to also explain wny someone may be edit warring even if they aren't breaking 3RR. Valereee (talk) 21:58, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
- @PerspicazHistorian, that explanation of edit warring is a bit wanting. An edit war is when two or more editors revert content additions/removals repeatedly. Even a second reversion by the same editor can be considered edit warring. Best practice -- and what I highly recommend, especially for any inexperienced editor -- is the first time someone reverts an edit of yours, go to the talk page, open a section, ping the editor who reverted you, and discuss. Do you think you can commit to that?
- Re: your question on why your "obvious edit" was reverted: we don't deal with content issues here, only with behavior issues, but from a very quick look, the source is 50 years old, and using a list headed "TERRORIST ORGANISATIONS LISTED IN THE FIRST SCHEDULE OF THE UNLAWFUL ACTIVITIES (PREVENTION) ACT, 1967" that includes a certain organization as a source that the organization should be described as a terrorist organization is WP:ORIGINAL RESEARCH; in their revert NXcrypto provided an edit summary of "Not a reliable source for such a contentious label. See WP:LABEL." Please discuss at talk, not here; we don't deal with content here. Valereee (talk) 11:28, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
Walter Tau
This request may be declined without further action if insufficient or unclear information is provided in the "Request" section below.
Requests may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs (not counting required information), except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Request concerning Walter Tau
- User who is submitting this request for enforcement
- Bobby Cohn (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) 20:51, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
- User against whom enforcement is requested
- Walter Tau (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Search CT alerts: in user talk history • in system log
- Sanction or remedy to be enforced
- Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Eastern Europe#Final decision
- Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it
- 4 December 2024 Creation (and subsequent editing and AfC submission) of Draft:Maternity capital. See it's page history, there's no need to supply the entirety of the diffs here.
- For context on how this subject falls under the purview, see the context given by the news article as shared on the talk page: Russia using adoption of Ukranian children during the Russo-Ukranian war. Then note how this state program directly discusses adoption support, which was adapted by Putin following the start of the war. A citation given in the draft article. The Google translated version specifically notes the changes "At the same time, residents of the new regions will receive maternity capital regardless of the basis and timing of their acquisition of Russian citizenship" (emphasis mine).
- This draft, as it is written, is extremely promotional in areas and could basically be hosted on a state-sponsored website. Given the context, I believe this falls under the topic ban.
References
- Bruce, Camdyn (14 December 2022). "Ukrainian official rips Russia for 'kidnapping' more than 13,000 children". The Hill.
- "Путин подписал закон, уточняющий условия выплаты материнского капитала" . interfax.ru.
- Diffs of previous relevant sanctions, if any
- 26 November 2024 Notice given by Rosguill (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) that they were now subject to an arbitration enforcement sanction
- 5 December 2024 Blocked by Swatjester (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) for violating the sanction based on the edits to a project page.
- If contentious topics restrictions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:CTOP#Awareness of contentious topics)
- Has been made aware, see the diffs in the above section.
- Alerted about contentious topics as it applies to this specific draft, on 4 December 2024 by Asilvering (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), given a warning about this specific draft and how it falls under the above purview.
- Additional comments by editor filing complaint
It has been repeatedly pointed out to Walter Tau that they are skirting the line of the their topic ban by specifically not mentioning the "elephant in the room", see the diff by Asilvering above. They have also repeatedly chosen to ignore advice that they stop editing in the subject area and have repeatedly claimed to fail to see how their editing is problematic. As such, I have opened this discussion here so as to get an answer for Walter Tau on their editing, see "Also, since you mentioned a "topic ban", I would appreciate, if you provide a reference to it, as well as explain how it relates to this article Materniy Capital." They claim to continuously be unaware of the ban, see also their talk page discussions.
- Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested
Notified 24 December 2024.
Discussion concerning Walter Tau
Statements must be made in separate sections. They may not exceed 500 words and 20 diffs, except by permission of a reviewing administrator.
Administrators may remove or shorten noncompliant statements. Disruptive contributions may result in blocks.
Statement by Walter Tau
I feel, that the decision by Boby Cohn regarding my draft https://en.wikipedia.org/Draft:Maternity_capital, is "arbitrary and capriciuos" to use US legal terms : ], for the following reasons:
1) nowhere my draft mentions the words "Ukraine" or "Ukrainian".
2) this draft ] is a translation of the original Russian wiki- article : https://ru.wikipedia.org/%D0%9C%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%BF%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BB . I have heard the argument, that different languages in Misplaced Pages use different standards for articles' notability etc. Can someone please provide a web-link to Misplaced Pages rules, that actually confirms, that different standards for different languages is the currently accepted policy. I have been unable to find such statement.
3) In fact, my draft focuses mostly on the policies before 24 February 2022, i.e. before full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.
4) Please correct me, if I am wrong, by it seems that Boby Cohn's only argument of my ban violation is the following statement in my draft of Maternity Capital. "Residents of new regions are paid maternity capital regardless of the time and basis for obtaining Russian citizenship." In my defense: I did not write that statement- it is a Google translation from the Russian wiki, actually a small part of the translated text. And with all honesty, when I was reading the translated text, it did not cross my mind, that someone may interpret so broadly. Also, this sentence-in-question does not really add much to the main subject to the article, and I do not object to its deletion.
5) Considering, that a) I did not write, but only translated the text-in-question; b) the relevance to the text-in-question to my topic ban is not apparent, particularly in the larger context of the whole article; c) I do not object deleting the text-in-question from the draft; may I suggest changing the draft to fix this controversy?
6) If there are other controversial sections/sentences in my translated draft, it may be better if someone re-writes them. Most wiki-readers, can agree with a statement, that this draft ] may not reach an "Article of the Day" status, but it has a value as a stand-alone article as well as a source of references (more-to-be-added). Walter Tau (talk) 13:45, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
I can see now, why some editors consider the translated addition, that I made, a violation of my ban on editing Russia-Ukraine topic. It was not my intention. I fact, I agree with the deletion of the questionable sentence "Residents of new regions are paid maternity capital regardless of the time and basis for obtaining Russian citizenship.". At the same time, I would like to keep the rest of draft, so that myself and other keep working on getting it published. Do I understand correctly, that the notability of this topic is not being questioned?
Statement by TylerBurden
Walter Tau doesn't seem to think they have done anything wrong on Misplaced Pages, so it's honestly not surprising to see them continuing to push the limit despite the sanctions they have received. At some point you have to wonder if there is a foundational WP:COMPETENCE or trolling (or a combination of both) issue. Either way, yes they are clearly violating their topic ban by writing about the Russian kidnapping of Ukrainian children from the war, because that is what this whole ″adoption″ thing is. --TylerBurden (talk) 17:22, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
Statement by (username)
Result concerning Walter Tau
- This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators. Comments by others will be moved to the sections above.
- Sidestepping for now the question of whether simply not mentioning anything conflict-related would have been enough to avoid a TBAN violation, the references to "new regions" make this a violation much more straightforwardly. Justice is blind but not stupid. Walter, I think we're going to need to see recognition from you that this was a TBAN violation, if we're going to find a good path forward here. I'd also like to know who you are referring to when you reference other editors working on the draft? Auric has made some gnomish edits but you appear to be the only substantive editor. And why are you implying, on Bobby's talk, that y'all have been corresponding by email, when he denies that? -- Tamzin (they|xe|🤷) 22:29, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
- I'll be direct: I think Walter knows what he is doing and has no intention of abiding by his TBAN, even when it was exhaustively explained to him, and I don't think we should be wasting further time here when we're almost certainly going to be right back here again within a few weeks. ⇒SWATJester 05:29, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
- Back off a one week block for violating the topic ban, and already violating it again? (The "new regions" material is unquestionably a violation.) It seems that Walter Tau is either unwilling or unable to abide by the restriction, and does not, even after explanation, understand any of the issues here (or even understand something so simple as that different language Wikipedias are independent from one another and each have their own policies and practices). Given that, I don't see anything to be done here except to indef. Seraphimblade 17:45, 25 December 2024 (UTC)