Revision as of 15:38, 21 October 2005

This is a page for working on Arbitration decisions. It provides for work by Arbitrators and comment by the parties and others. After the analysis of /Evidence here and development of proposed principles, findings of fact, and remedies, please place proposed items you have confidence in on /Proposed decision.

Motions and requests by the parties

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Proposed temporary injunctions

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Proposed final decision

Proposed principles

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Stubs

1) "Stubs are articles which don't yet contain enough information to be truthfully considered articles. The community believes that stubs are far from worthless. They are, rather, the first step articles take on their course to becoming complete." (From Misplaced Pages:Stub)

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. I think that this is necessary, as much of the case comprises complaints about Maoririder creating stubs. James F. (talk) 12:09, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. Wondering whether I should present some further evidence in the form of condensed statistics from Schoolwatch, showing the immense resources within the community that can be tapped to expand quite brief stub articles, given the right circumstances. --Tony Sidaway 13:59, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Stubs

1.1) "Stubs are articles which " clearly too short, but not so short as to be useless. In general, it must be long enough to at least define the article's title." don't yet contain enough information to be truthfully considered articles. The community believes that stubs are far from worthless. They are, rather, the first step articles take on their course to becoming complete." Misplaced Pages:Stub, a guideline, does not prohibit stubs nor does it incorporate the generally negative community opinion regarding stubs.

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. A better formulation Fred Bauder 16:01, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. I don't see any justification for claiming that there is a generally "negative community opinion" about stubs. Far from it. There are some extreme views that import notions of notability into stub creation, but in general a stub that identifies its subject adequately seems to be regarded as acceptable. Lex fori started out in April as this. It was expanded a bit until it was listed on AfD when it was like this, not much different. The vote was unanimous keep, and the article was expanded by the last person to vote on that discussion (that is, all voters voted keep for the unexpanded stub). Something similar happened to Lex loci rei sitae, with the exception that it has not been expanded. Not one person made anything of the fact that both these articles were extremely brief. Moreover eight out of twelve Maoririder stubs that were nominated for deletion were kept; some of them were expanded, some of them were not. Stubs are an accepted part of Misplaced Pages. --Tony Sidaway 08:32, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
2. Tony's got a point here; The recent 2005 Bali bombings spawned a bunch of new stubs and they've grown since: Jimbaran (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), Warung (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and Bukit (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). The process of writing a term as a redlink and people taking it from there should be encouraged. — Davenbelle 11:06, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Assume good faith

2) Editors are expected to be cooperative with other users and to assume good faith on the part of others.

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. I feel that this applies, too. James F. (talk) 12:09, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. Especially applicable to later stages, when in my opinion Maoririder's primary purpose in using a sock account was to get away from the people he felt were hounding him. --Tony Sidaway 14:06, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

No personal attacks

3) Personal attacks are expressly prohibited because they make Misplaced Pages a hostile enviroment for editors, and thereby damage Misplaced Pages both as an encylopædia (by losing valued contributors) and as a wiki community (by discouraging reasoned discussion and encouraging a "bunker mentality").

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. And this old chestnut. James F. (talk) 12:09, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

Comment by others:

Blocks without policy backing

4) "Administrators who block without policy basis should be sure that there is exceptional, widespread community support for the block." (From Misplaced Pages:Blocking policy)

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. To address exactly why Maoririder was blocked at first. James F. (talk) 12:09, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. Oops, remind me to add to evidence that ike9898 consulted at least one other editor, who approved, besides Scimitar. --Tony Sidaway 13:39, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Ideal stub article

5) "When you write a stub article, it is important to bear in mind that its main interest is to be expanded, and that thus it ideally contains enough information to give a basis for other editors to expand upon. Your initial research may be done either through books or through a reliable search engine such as Yahoo! or Google. You may also contribute with knowledge you have acquired from other sources, but it is useful to conduct a small amount of research beforehand, in order to make sure that your version of the facts is correct and from a neutral point of view." (From Misplaced Pages:Stub)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. I believe it can be seen in user talk:Maoririder that the main crux of the perceived problem with his new article creation revolves around this issue. -Satori 15:33, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Creating stub templates

6) "Do not create new stub types prior to discussing them at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals." (From Misplaced Pages:Stub)

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Comment by parties:

1. This is another idea Maoririder has shown some difficulty with. -Satori 15:33, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed findings of fact

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Creation of stubs by Maoririder

1) Maoririder (talk · contribs), new Misplaced Pages editor, has created a large number of stubs, some of which are so short as to fail to define the subject of the article, see /Evidence for numerous examples.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. Could you make this a little more specific? I've gone through dozens of this guy's stubs and I'm not seeing him fail to define the subject. --Tony Sidaway 08:34, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Complaints regarding Maoririder

2) A number of other editors have complained to and about Maoririder, both about his creation of stubs and his failure to substantially improve them after their creation. Often these other users have offered to help. see User talk:Maoririder.

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. Are editors required/expected to expand their own stubs? Kelly Martin 19:45, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. The above seems to miss the point of having a wiki. Anyone can improve a stub. For some wonderful examples: Portland High School, Portland, Maine and Midget wrestler. Do we want to stop people seeding excellent articles like this? All articles must start somewhere. I wouldn't have written the Portland High School article myself, but because Maoririder provided the foundations I was easily able to complete the structure. During the AfD debate it was kept by almost unanimous vote. --Tony Sidaway 19:03, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Maoririder's response to complaints

3) Maoririder has been generally polite in his response to criticism of his creation of stubs, but is seemingly unable to substantially improve his performance, at least in the short term, see User talk:Maoririder.

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Comment by parties:

1. This is demonstrably false. From this to this in about a week. Of course it was about that time the editors who proclaimed they wanted to help him claimed that he was disruptive and blocked him. --Tony Sidaway 19:06, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Blocks of Maoririder

4) Maoririder has been blocked several times due to his prolific creation of stubs, see Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Maoririder/Evidence#Third_tranche:_Blocks_applied_to_Maoririder

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. This comment by Lucky 6.9, on blocking a sockpuppet expresses well the feeling of some users, "...User:Maoririder has left a HUGE mess in its wake" Fred Bauder 16:49, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. Sometimes users need to take a holiday away from the wiki. Out of 12 of his articles listed on AfD as "hopeless" and "useless nanostubs", 8 were kept, only 4 were deleted; the average deletion rate in AfD is around 70%, but for Maoririder's articles it was more like 33%, so his articles are obviously far more promising than the usual junk that shows up on AfD. Throughout Maoririder's history, there is this continual gap between what some users say about him and what the evidence says. --Tony Sidaway 19:10, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Sockpuppets

5) Blocked, Maoririder has created several sockpuppets which, due to his distinctive editing style, are readily identifiable; these in turn have been blocked, These include Bluejays2006 (talk · contribs), Sandove89 (talk · contribs) and User:Inquisitor911 (talk · contribs)

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. Could this be altered to add that they were almost invariably blocked on the flimsiest pretext? Also the wording above seem to imply that he created socks to evade blocks. Is this actually the case? --Tony Sidaway 19:12, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

   Yes, it's as I remember. None of the sock puppets were created during the period of an account block. You can check the block log, or my summary in the evidence. Sandover was active 6 Oct, Maoririder was blocked 7 Oct. This finding contradicts the known facts. --Tony Sidaway 19:30, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

   Also please note:

   User:Inquisitor911 (talk · contribs) was misidentified as Maoririder and unblocked when Lucky 6.9 recognised his error.

   Sandove89 (talk · contribs) is the only genuine sock to have been blocked.

   Bluejays2006 (talk · contribs) has never been blocked.

   --Tony Sidaway 19:59, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed remedies

Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Karmafist's Idea

1) Maoririder will be blocked from uploading files, participating on Articles For Deletion and editing all articles until he has shown that he is able to conform to the encyclopedic standards of the general community. Until that time, he will be welcome and encouraged to participate in personal sandboxes in order to improve his editing skills, which he can show to other, more experienced users (such as those who have helped him in the past on his talk page), who can then offer informal comment/peer review on how to make his content acceptable to general community standards of encyclopedic quality. Continued pseudo-nonsense articles on the personal sandboxes will be acceptable, but not encouraged. Karmafist 22:16, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. This remedy seems inappropriately heavyhanded. From what I've seen, Maoririder has demonstrated that his ability to understand Misplaced Pages policy as written is sufficient; his failure has been in his inability to grasp the unwritten aspects of our policy, such as the one that says that "stubs are bad" even though our article on stubs says that they're not. The steady trend in the improvement in the quality of his articles should not be ignored. Kelly Martin 19:40, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. As I've stated before, I believe that User:Maoririder may have some form of mental retardation, such as Downs Syndrome by looking at his edits. As the case would be with any disability, accomodation and gradual acclimation is the best cure, not enabling poor habits which exacerbate the user's inability to interact on Misplaced Pages due to their disability. Maoririder is a rarity: a Good Faith vandal a problem user who acts in good faith. He seems to genuinely want to improve, but has refused to do so despite numerous attempts to show him how to improve. My only guess on why this has not worked is that he needs more concentrated and intensive mentoring in a less stressful setting until he is able to contribute worthwhile material to Misplaced Pages rather than content that has to be cleaned up later by other users. Karmafist 22:16, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
2. This seems like a massive exaggeration and an unacceptable limitation on an editor who is performing de facto incremental improvements to the wiki. The term "good faith vandal" is both insulting and grossly untrue. Someone has just moaned at me about the stubs created by his latest sock puppet, Bluejays2006 (talk · contribs). The stubs are brief, and need some minor tweaks, but are obviously not vandalism or injurious to the wiki by any stretch of the imagination. I'd like to find out why the standard has deteriorated from that of 2/3 August, but other than that there's no problem here. --Tony Sidaway 23:56, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

   The term was not intended to insult, so I struck it out. Ultimately the goal for me here is to get Maoririder up to a higher level of participation in Misplaced Pages, not to quibble over off hand terminology. Karmafist 03:45, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

   If you really think he's so bad that he can only be allowed to edit the sandbox then you should be applying for an injunction. But sorry I can't see that this suggested remedy, without some accompanying facts, is even remotely appropriate. We're talking about an editor whose stubs get expanded. One of his latest stubs, Midget wrestler, was nominated for deletion yesterday evening and is already on its way to a keep result, having been expanded by other editors. So all this stuff about "useless nanostubs" is sheer nonsense, apparently born of personal prejudice against very short articles.

   The reference to "pseudo-nonsense articles" is, as far as I can tell, an outright calumny. Maoririder does not produce any kind of nonsense, pseudo or otherwise. While his presentation may be lacking, his articles usually seem to be accurate and verifiable.

   Hmm, people cooperating to produce articles: isn't that how a wiki is supposed to work? --Tony Sidaway 07:41, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Mentorship

2) Maoririder shall be assigned a mentor who shall monitor his edits. Monitoring shall include approval of all new articles created by Maoririder which approval shall be noted on the talk page of the new article, see Misplaced Pages:Mentorship

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. While I believe that a mentorship might be beneficial to Maoririder, the restriction on obtaining prior authorization to create a new article is overly burdensome. Kelly Martin 19:42, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. Not ideal, but might tend to protect him from harassment. --Tony Sidaway 19:23, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
2. I agree with Kelly that mentorship might be beneficial to Maoririder. However, Lucky 6.9 attempted to be a voluntary mentor for him in August, and frustrations over the perception that Maoririder wasn't catching on is what led to the RfC. I think some thought needs to be given towards how best to guide Maoririder towards being a better editor in a way that will be effective, and not lead to the animosity that Tony is concerned about. -Satori 20:21, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Maoririder prohibited from creating new articles

3) Maoririder shall create no new articles for one year.

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. Far too heavy-handed. Kelly Martin 19:42, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. Extreme. Do we need this? -Where's the evidence of disruption? -Tony Sidaway 19:23, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Deletion of new articles created by Maoririder

4) Any new article created by Maoririder which is not seconded by another Misplaced Pages user on the talk page of the article is subject to immediate deletion without any formal procedure.

Comment by Arbitrators:

1. This will exacerbate, rather than remedy, the situation, by making Maoririder's contributions even more subject to summary, unexplained deletion. It will also exacerbate his sense of persecution. Kelly Martin 19:44, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by parties:

1. Better than mentorship. However these needs to be an egg timer clause. Say 72 hours without expansion? Also expansion of the article by another editor would be better endorsement than a note on the talk page. Trouble is you'd still get people freaking out and speedying his stuff on principle. --Tony Sidaway 19:27, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Maoririder to use one account

5) Maoririder shall use one account of his choice.

Comment by Arbitrators:

Comment by parties:

1. A non-issue. His use of other accounts has been benign--to try to get away from the people hounding him. If they will stop doing that, he needs only one account. --Tony Sidaway 19:28, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Proposed enforcement

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Outlawed

1) Any edit by Maoririder which violates the remedies in the matter (for example a new article created without confirmation by his mentor or seconding by another user) may be deleted on sight by any administrator without further process; any sockpuppet which displays his distinctive editing style may be blocked for a period of one month.

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Comment by parties:

1. This kind of enforcement seems to treat maoririder's contributions as damage to the wiki, which they're obviously not. --Tony Sidaway 08:10, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment by others:

Analysis of evidence

Place here items of evidence (with diffs) and detailed analysis

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General discussion

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