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:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-06-27 Spoiler: Difference between revisions - Misplaced Pages

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Revision as of 10:44, 28 June 2007 editTony Sidaway (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers81,722 edits →What would you like to change about that?: Tony's point of view:← Previous edit Revision as of 11:08, 28 June 2007 edit undoKierano (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users2,733 edits →What's going on?: more detailsNext edit →
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==== What's going on? ==== ==== What's going on? ====
*A group, mainly consisting of current and former admins, some with top-level clique connections, has taken the policy ] as it occurred at a particular point of time (around late May?), and have since made mass edits (around 45,000) to remove Spoiler templates from articles encyclopaedia-wide. *A group, mainly consisting of current and former admins, some with top-level clique connections, has taken the policy ] as it occurred at a particular point of time (around late May?), and have since made mass edits (around 45,000) to remove Spoiler templates from articles encyclopaedia-wide.
*The group regularly continues to remove new applications and re-applications of the template, such that, with a number of exceptions probably countable on one hand, '''all spoiler warnings have been removed from Wikipeda'''.


=====Pro-spoiler point of view===== =====Pro-spoiler point of view=====

Revision as of 11:08, 28 June 2007

Misplaced Pages Mediation Cabal
Statusnew
Request dateUnknown
Requesting partyUnknown

]]

Request Information

This is a request for mediation on the Misplaced Pages:Spoiler policy for use of the spoiler template. There is ongoing and heated debate on the policy, and there have been recent mass-edits (45000+) of Misplaced Pages by a group of editors, some of them admins.

Who are the involved parties?

Editors carrying out or actively reinforcing mass-removal of templates:

Possibly also involved:

Editors opposed to mass-removal of templates:

Just looking at the talk page, there are probably at least twenty or so people involved. Interested parties should put their names here?

What's going on?

  • A group, mainly consisting of current and former admins, some with top-level clique connections, has taken the policy WP:SPOILER as it occurred at a particular point of time (around late May?), and have since made mass edits (around 45,000) to remove Spoiler templates from articles encyclopaedia-wide.
  • The group regularly continues to remove new applications and re-applications of the template, such that, with a number of exceptions probably countable on one hand, all spoiler warnings have been removed from Wikipeda.
Pro-spoiler point of view
  • The group regularly continues to remove new applications of the template, under the assumption that the new guide has a consensus.
  • The spoiler guide page corresponding to the template is, in its current form, under hot dispute, and in need of mediation itself.
Use of AWB
  • Ongoing process violations, including controversially-halted MfD and TfD, and a gross failure by admin(s) to investigate a formal charge of AWB tool misuse, fomented distrust of the group and their uncompromising spoiler tag POV buttressed with an absolute claim of consensus.
  • The use and repeated use of the AWB tool to enforced tag-removal compliance became a manufactured consensus issue and unintentional automated-edit-warring issue.
  • The claim that the repeated use of AWB was an accident, raised loss-of-control issues that such mass-removals should not be permitted, and that due to the chilling effect following that accident, consensus can not be absolutely determined as claimed.
  • Some of the group have used the lack of immediate replacement of the 45,000 templates as an indication of encyclopedia-wide consensus for their point of view. This could suggest a violation of WP:POINT, apart from being circular reasoning.
Diregard of consensus and general violation of wikiquette
  • The fact that major change in the guide is underway (which may justify removal of most spoiler warnings) was not announced on the spoiler template prior to their removal, so many people may not have noticed this new proposal and may not have participated in the discussion.
  • A number of reports related chilling threats against editors who attempted to replace the tags. These threats were dismissed as mere failure to achieve local consensus under strict spoiler tag placement guidelines which are disputed on the spoiler guide talk page.
  • The group dismissed the talk page dissent, claiming there was no dispute with the guideline because very few spoiler tags were replaced, and they repeatedly removed a dispute tag placed on the guideline. A talk page poll suggested that there was in fact a guide dispute and that a dispute tag should be placed on the guide page.
  • Many editors have stated on the talk page for the policy that they oppose the removals.
  • RFC polls suggested that a large minority of over 40% want spoiler tags or at least opposed their mass removal. One poll was halted by a member of the group when it became personally embarrassing, and as the 40% tag approval slowly continued to rise.


  • In fairness, not every member of the informal group approved of every action taken by individuals in the group, but it's reasonable to assume they acted or failed to act in overall support of the group's goals. Individuals who wish to dissasociate themselves and criticize controversial actions or inactions apparently done with their group approval are welcome to do so.
Tony Sidaway's point of view

(Note: this is a personal point of view, but may be representative of the commmunity at large to some extent)

  • Spoiler tags have been removed from some 45,000 articles.
  • Very little fuss given the enormous scale of it.
  • Clear wiki-wide consensus for this. Once tags are off they usually stay off.
  • Workable guideline, subject to editing by consensus as all guidelines.
  • Few restorations seem to be mostly by occasional editors unaware that they're no longer expected to add them.
  • A few disgruntled editors.
  • Some editors (less than half a dozen) edit warred to restore tags and were either blocked or warned not to edit disruptively. They tend to believe that they were threatened because the restored tags, not because they broke Misplaced Pages policy by edit warring in the course of doing so. Tended to find themselves outnumbered by up to six editors removing tags against one restoring.
  • No editors warned or blocked who was not breaking Misplaced Pages policy.
  • Inexperience on their part leading to misconceived charges of abusive behavior.
  • A user-education issue.

What would you like to change about that?

  • We would like users to stop trawling wikipedia for spoiler templates to remove. In most cases, this is occurring far faster than most pages are edited by their regular contributors, and is brute-forcing the no-spoilers POV onto the community at large. Possibly a guideline needs to be established on mass-application of contentious style guidelines?

Tony's point of view:

  • If there were any significant opposition to removal of unnecessary spoiler tags, the one or two people regularly doing removals would not be able to keep up with it. That there is no significant opposition suggests extremely strongly that there is consensus for this guideline. In time I expect the spoiler tag to become a thing of the past, as it already is for most fiction projects.

Mediator response

Administrative notes