Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 21:48, 26 February 2007

Some discussion

On my watchlist. HighInBC 00:28, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Similarly. – Chacor 00:30, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I've added a bit, please feel free to edit/second-guess/slash away. IronDuke 01:46, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Template updates

I have edited the navbox template to add archives, and removed the header from the board. I have made a page at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/CommunityHeader and transcluded it similar to what is done on the incidents noticeboard. Navou / _{review me} 04:17, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I moved it to Misplaced Pages:Community noticeboard/Header. Picaroon 05:53, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

New shortcut - chaned the redir of WP:CN to here from its original target: Misplaced Pages:Common knowledge. This keeps it in line with WP:AN and WP:BN, makes more sense as this is likely to be used widely and knowledge is not spelt with a N at the start. Viridae 07:35, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that's a good idea. Nearly everything that links to it refers to wikipedia:common knowledge. I picked CNB as the shortcut because that one only had several links, not dozens. Picaroon 01:46, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Archive service

I have placed werdna bot on the page, if you want the notice to go away, I think I can do that without doing away with the archiving. Thoughts? Navou / _{review me} 00:31, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

• I have changed the archive code from 5 to 3 days. Navou / _{review me} 01:25, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Community noticeboard

I may have missed some of this history of whatever discussion prompted this (I see none here), but this page seems a bit out of place. Wouldn't this be better at someplace like the Village Pump instead? Isn't this needlessly fragmenting things? IronGargoyle 02:58, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Possibly. See Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard#Should_we_initiate_a_new_noticeboard.3F.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  07:37, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. I shall review. IronGargoyle 16:33, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Cross posted: To be honest, I think I'd rather move AN over CN; from my perspective, splitting the discussion like this seems more confusing than anything. It adds another page for me to watch over, fragments already-hectic discussion, and may add to the unfortunate perception that admins are more important than other users. Well-intentioned, I am very much sure, but a move/merge may be more useful than a split, is my take. – Luna Santin (talk) 04:04, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Move posts?

I don't mind having a new specialized noticeboard, but it will only be productive if we move inappropriate posts to the forum where they actually belong. Already the Community Board is picking up policy-related discussions that arguably belong on WP:VPP or WP:VPR. Otherwise I'm afraid we'll just confuse matters. >Radiant< 16:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Sigh...

It states quite clearly at the top of the page:

While comments from all editors are welcome, please note that "voting" won't be taking place, including on proposed community bans. Ejecting an editor from the community does not rest solely on simple majorities, or even supermajorities.

Yet people appear to be voting on proposed community bans (such as CroDome's) as if it were an RfA or similar (i.e. bolding their opinion, !votes like "Support", etc). This is really dissappointing. I don't think that the Community Noticeboard should be used for everyone to pile on a disliked user.. whatever happened to consensus, discussion, the dispute resolution process? I know that this page is meant to be used for, amongst other things, such proposed bans, and it will attract a lot of disputes but this just feels wrong. --Veesicle (Talk) (Contribs) 23:31, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I apologize, I was not aware that bolding one's opinion meant 'voting'. However, each person that has 'voted' according to the definition, has supplied reasons behind their so-called 'vote'. I see nothing wrong with this. Those who make the final decision should in turn disregard the number of so-called 'votes' but take into account the arguments supporting them. Therefore, I see nothing wrong with the discussion regarding a community block for user CroDome. Maîtresse 23:38, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

• There are a number of examples where a user has simply left a message along the lines of "Support, this user deserves a ban" and then left with no participation in the discussion. This is not working towards consensus and besides isn't fair on a user who has a ban proposed against them. Besides that, bans are meant to be used at the end of dispute resolution, not for a user who has not so much as been blocked! This is ridiculous and completely out of line with policy. Veesicle (Talk) (Contribs) 23:44, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I was referring to the CroDome discussion, where users have supported their so-called 'votes'. Maîtresse 23:53, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

it is helpful to see the trend of discussion in a quick summary, but yes, there are other words to use the "support" or "oppose" ; individualized wording might differentiate this page from other processes.In terms of a ban, as I understand it what we would be doing is recommending, but i do not fully understand where that recommendation goes. DGG 23:48, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

• Then lets fix it... Should we edit the top of the page to state "opinions with no rationale will be discounted" or some wording? Thanks Navou / _contribs 23:49, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Something along those lines sounds good. Maîtresse 23:53, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

• I have boldly made the change. Navou / _contribs 00:19, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Argh!

Blasted semiprotection! Now I'll have to go to the ANI! 68.39.174.238 05:19, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Or register... MastCell 06:02, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

But it does bring up the question as to exactly why this page is semiprotected. I just checked through this page's entire edit history (it's not too long... yet) and I saw relatively little IP vandalism. Rather I saw quite a lot of legitimate discussion from IP accounts. Anon users are indeed still part of the community so I think they should be allowed to participate here. —Elipongo 15:46, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree completely. I think it's an absolute travesty when community discussion pages like this one and the villiage pumps are semi-protected. ~ ONUnicornproblem solving 15:54, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Not at all. You abuse it, you lose it. ✎ Peter M Dodge (Talk to Me) 18:09, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

But the people who are abusing it and the people who are losing it are not the same people. The people who abuse it (hopefully) lose their edit priveleges entierly by being blocked. Those who suffer by having the page semi-protected are innocent users. ~ ONUnicornproblem solving 18:11, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

And as I pointed out above, there was actually very little IP vandalism that actually happened; definitely less than ten such edits out of nearly a thousand legitimate ones for this page. That wouldn't warrant semi protection on an article much less here. —Elipongo 18:24, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Until Werdna stamps out per-page-blocks, semi-protection is the only available option. ✎ Peter M Dodge (Talk to Me) 19:08, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

It still doesn't explain why semi-protection was applied to begin with. I have half a mind to remove it, but I'll ask for more opinions. Titoxd 19:11, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Well it obviously wasn't me, being not a sysop. The best idea is always to ask the protecting sysop why they protected the page to begin with, as opposed to speculation. ✎ Peter M Dodge (Talk to Me) 19:15, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I've unprotected the page, there's just not enough vandalism going on. We can live with the occasional revert. --Conti|✉ 19:14, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you there Conti. I was going to do it myself after reading this thread. Semi-move protecting isn't a bad idea... if we need to move this it will be after a discussion of some kind. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 02:26, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Templates for ban requests

This page is chaotic. We should create templates for community ban requests -- along the lines of {{afd2}} and possibly even one like {{afd1}} to notify the user in question -- to help keep things organized. --N Shar 23:55, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Please no... heavens no. Community bans are serious enough that to trivialize them with templates would be a step in the wrong direction. These things a discussions and attempts to form consensus, give evidence, etc... not votes. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 02:24, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree. No. If you want to have a user banned, at least notify him of the discussion personally. Doing it with a template is unnecessarily inflammatory. Titoxd 02:27, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, but I still think the page is rather messy, and some sort of template could help organize it. When I speak of {{afd2}}, I don't mean to suggest that the discussion associated with the template would be in the same style as AfD. That template has nothing to do with !votes or their absence. Community bans are indeed serious -- all the more reason to keep the discussion organized. If a user can't navigate his/her own community ban discussion, that would be a very serious problem. --N Shar 03:17, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Don't obfuscate consensus.

I'd like to request that, in the future, people leading discussions about community bans or related issues should not try to use preferential voting to express a consensus. List a few options (the fewer the better) and get people to support or oppose them, so that anyone reading the page can see whether there's a consensus for each option.

I'm a fan of using preferential voting in many situations that require actual voting, but a page like this fails at its intended purpose if it takes a calculator to figure out what the consensus is. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 11:06, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

• This is why voting is evil. ✎ Peter M Dodge (Talk to Me) 17:57, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
  • It is only one of many reasons why. —Centrx→talk • 18:16, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages policy vs. claims of editors in the community ban of User:GordonWatts

From Misplaced Pages:Community_noticeboard, is this quote: Weighing up the above, it is clear to me that the community mood is that Gordon Watts should not edit Terry Schiavo articles directly, should not link or suggest links to his own sites, and should restrict himself to making a very small number of brief comments to Talk pages, of the order of one per day. If Gordin is not able to abide by this restriction then a ban will be sought, either through community processes or through ArbCom. Guy (Help!) 13:48, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I did not get any sleep last night because of a combination of overnight auto trouble and the sudden death of my cousin, Kitty Barnett, which I learned this morning. so I am quite preoccupied with other things, but I see this sudden reply, and the template says that: "Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page," so I shall comport and reply -much to the chagrin of some users, I am sure.

Reply:

• "Gordon Watts should not edit Terry Schiavo articles directly" To the 1st point, it is clear to me that the community mood is that Gordon Watts should not edit Terry Schiavo articles directly, This admin points out that I have not edit warred He hasn't edit warred (much) over the links, just complained volubly on the talk page about their removal. Annoying: yes, disruptive: a little, but malicious: no. If he had just edit warred, he'd have got a 24 hour block, but because he spoke up (albeit at great length, over and over) he's being community banned?" If I have not edited improperly, then any ban from editing is improper -and suggests editors' complaints about me responding to their accusations were the reason for the ban -which is not a valid reason on an open wiki.
• Community "mood" does not trump policy here, folks.

• "should not link ... to his own sites" Although I do admit that many years ago, I added a link to one of my newspapers, after having obtained concensus, and this may have been against current policy, that action many years ago is not being discussed or criticised -plus, I was a new editor back then. This admin here quite clearly shows that I did not add any links to my website: "The dispute seems to have started with this uncivil edit summary from Calton. The material Calton was removing was in the article when I joined Misplaced Pages in April 2005 (before Gordon). The actual link (to a site that Calton objected to, but not Gordon's personal website) was added by Zenger, not by Gordon, although Gordon did revert the person who reverted Zenger.." So, I am innocent of linking to my own site.

• "should not ... suggest links to his own sites" This requirement by the "mood" is against current Misplaced Pages policy. Observe: Misplaced Pages policy: WP:COI clearly says that "If you feel it necessary to make changes to Misplaced Pages articles despite a real or perceived conflict of interest, we strongly encourage you to submit content for community review on the article's talk page or file a Request for Comment to the wider community, and to let one or more trusted community members judge whether the material belongs in Misplaced Pages," not that I suggest links to my web papers very often. Also, Misplaced Pages:Spam#Canvassing point 6 states that "If your product is truly relevant to an article, others will agree -- try the talk page. We usually recommend that editors be bold in adding directly to articles. But if the above advice makes you concerned that others will regard your contribution as spam, you can find out without taking that risk: Describe your work on the article's talk page, asking other editors if it is relevant."
• If the editors who suggested this restriction don't like me occasionally suggesting my own websites -for occasions when no other link will do (like when The Register was the only paper to cover one Terri Schiavo Oral Argument hearing in my hometown), then these editors should either change the policy -or leave Misplaced Pages. The rules are the rules.

• "...should restrict himself to making a very small number of brief comments to Talk pages, of the order of one per day." This is the one possibly valid complaint made against me (I was not guilty of edit-warring or linking my own site, even though one revert did have that net effect). So, a review of the RfBan page for this action will reveal that the editors claimed I was too talkative -and companied about the content of my talk page comments. This editor sums up the community opinion of many (if not most) editors: They felt that I talked too much -and they didn't like what I posted, however to restrict my talk page comments based solely on the content is censorship. Yes, I admit that, on occasion, I sometimes post somewhat lengthy posts -but so did Martin, another user, on the related talk page, as this diff shows, but he is not criticised or restricted. Also, this diff shows my documentation that I did not dominate the talk page, posting far less than half of the comments, even though no one should have objected had I posted even half.
• So, it appears that my talk page comments (in the Community noticeboard talk page primarily) were rejected because of content, but this is censorship: I never threatened to violate concensus or policy, so the mere fact I held a [[minority[[ opinion regarding certain links (many of them not my own newspapers) leads me to believe I was censored because of my minority view -and hints others may have been jealous that I have accomplished so much in this case, more than them.

• • So, in conclusion, we have editors who made many blatantly false statements (such as repeatedly alleging I promoted my personal websites -when, in fact, most of my edits, by and large, have nothing to do with my web newspapers). The one who filed this RfBan is User:Calton, who has a very lengthy history of trouble-making, as shown by bothMisplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Calton and by comments from others in the ban request page for me (comment by myself and Musical Linguist come to mind: "Even recently, when Gordon called Calton "Cal" (which I'm sure was not intended to give offence, as lots of editors use abbreviations of names) , and Calton replied with something like "Only my friends get to call me Cal, Gordy-boy." I just see example after example of people taking away the dignity of someone who gets on their nerves."

• • Calton has a very lengthy history of having caused trouble, but he is not guilty of the actions of the other editors; They acted on a matter and made premature conclusions without actually knowing the facts.

• • All one need to do is read the Misplaced Pages:Community_noticeboard#Community_ban_request_on_User:GordonWatts page from top to bottom and see if I am guilty of anything more than strongly defending myself. (I was harshly criticised for defending myself by many editors, and this is one of the kinder criticisms here, where User:Veesicle rightly points out this problem of editors simply being annoyed at me defending myself.

OK, did I violate policy -or, rather, did I merely annoy editors, who falsely claimed I had violated policy.--GordonWatts 01:39, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I should point out that this talk page is for improvements and suggestions for its associated project page. If you disagree with the decision, I would suggest you try appealing to the Arbitration Committee, this is not the place for it though. —Elipongo 02:06, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I think your suggestion has merit; I shall do as you say! However, I respectfully point out that my post here is placed in the correct place: See the policy that I quoted immediately above to support this claim. Thank you for your feedback, Elipongo . I shall grant your request.--GordonWatts 02:12, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I just want to comment that even if the websites don't have "Gordon Watts" in the URL, they're still personal websites. That was not a "false claim". Call them newspapers if you want; they're personal newspaper sites. Leebo 02:16, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I have initiated WP:RFAR action against you and the other editors involved in this recent ban action

I have initiated WP:RFAR action against you and the other editors involved in this recent ban action. Observe:

Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration#Current_requests

--GordonWatts 02:29, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I think it's unlikely that the ArbCom will accept the case as it is currently presented. Specifically because nothing was presented under "Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried". I don't know if the community discussion that spawned the complaint counts as other forms of dispute resolution (for instance, if one had a problem with how a request for comment was undertaken, one wouldn't present that specific RfC as proof that dispute resolution had been tried). Leebo 03:27, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I have mixed feelings on the likelihood that your analysis is correct, but thank you for it, and I feel clean regarding my allegation that I had tried all other remedies to the best available form. Also, this is more than a problem regarding me -how I am treated sets the tone to how all editors are treated when they have minority opinions: Even as others point out, it was more than just the length of my posts.--GordonWatts 03:33, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Logging long runningsanctions for reference

see Wikipedia_talk:Community_sanction#Time_to_revive_this... there is some overlap between this, and the Community Sanction page (and its log). I favour rationalisation of this page, that one, and the Community Sanction log so that discussions get archived appropriately but there is a non automatically archived place to refer to which can tell interested parties what sanctions are in place. Comments? There may be best or here, whichever. ++Lar: t/c 21:48, 26 February 2007 (UTC)