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Revision as of 21:51, 1 July 2014

Discretionary sanctions turning into mindless bureaucracy

I am just having a WP:AE request thrown out on "procedural" ɡrounds, because apparently I failed to submit the required prior warnings in triple copies with the right kind of rubberstamp and on the correct latest version of the prescribed standard form . Would those arbitrators who are responsible for having turned AE into this absurd parody of a bureaucracy please step forward so that I can punch them in the face? Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:29, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Can we finally move the joke that is WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY to WP:BJAODN where it belongs? Since clearly its provisions, such as "A procedural error made in a proposal or request is not grounds for rejecting that proposal or request", are a dead letter. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:17, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Arbitration Enforcement Question

We know that disruptive editing on an article page that is covered by discretionary sanctions is subject to arbitration enforcement sanctions. My question is whether disruptive editing on a talk page for an article that is subject to discretionary sanctions is subject to arbitration enforcement sanctions. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:23, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:36, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. Then I will be requesting sanctions against disruptive IPs at Talk: Cold fusion. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:01, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Exactly where are the instructions for the template to warn the IPs? Is the banner at the top of the talk page sufficient, or do I have to warn the IPs? Robert McClenon (talk) 19:09, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

You have to alert the IPs first on their user talk page with {{Ds/alert}}.  Sandstein  19:22, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

More specifically, that is {{subst:Ds/alert|cf}} or {{subst:Ds/alert|ps}}. By the way, what is the template for the Syrian Civil War? Would that be an extension of {{subst:Ds/alert|a-i}} ? Also, the case-sensitivity is annoying. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:01, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

This civil war doesn't seem to fall within any of the topic areas listed at Misplaced Pages:AC/DS#Current areas of conflict, except to the probably very limited extent the war may involve Israel. But, to my knowledge, the war is principally a conflict within Syria and among groups unrelated to Israel, so the war as a whole doesn't seem to fit within the scope of the existing sanctions.  Sandstein  22:10, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

I think that the issue is that "the community" imposed the sanctions at WP:AN or WP:ANI, rather than the ArbCom. Does that have a different enforcement mechanism? Robert McClenon (talk) 22:17, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, if any community sanctions apply, they are not enforced via the AE board and are not subject to the DS rules.  Sandstein  05:06, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon: See WP:GS, specifically WP:GS/SCW. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:24, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

IP area still being swamped by socks

I've begun a thread on discussing possible changes to ARBPIA on the matter of socks, if those interested in the matter could join the discussion that would be great. Sepsis II (talk) 03:06, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't really see how this is an arbitration-related matter. Socks are a problem in many areas, and the only thing that can be done about them is to make individual WP:SPI reports with enough evidence for administrators to act upon.  Sandstein  04:59, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

You can't seriously believe that SPI is effective against the swarm of puppetmasters and it is related to WP:ARE as a large number of cases are caused by socks. Sepsis II (talk) 05:03, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Sandstein again is correct that this is not an arbitration matter. But the traditional solution doesn't work, or rather it means:'Please forget article-editing, dear editor, and spend several hours each day checking each edit over dozens of articles of the socks that turn up each day'. The area is becoming unfriendly to editors who actually work articles, and tolerant by default of obvious banned or meatpuppets of banned editors who have obviously ratcheted up the disruption. This is obvious and yet there is no relief. That is not in Sandstein's area of competence: it is a technical matter requiring a change of rules.Nishidani (talk) 06:24, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I just thought some of this page's watchers might be interested in be a part of improving ARBPIA, guess I was wrong. Sepsis II (talk) 06:40, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

My guess is that the problem isn't socks but rather another Zeq/CAMERA-type episode. This would very much be an arbitration-related matter. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 07:26, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Could be related to Ministry of Hasbara funded Israeli university courses? Sepsis II (talk) 07:37, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

• Personally I think the ARBPIA sanctions need to be looked at again because they are encouraging and enabling sockpuppetry and giving an advantage to those using multiple accounts over good faith editors. There have also been a number of sanctions recently of long term good faith editors after filings at admin boards by obvious sock accounts. Sockpuppetry is more of a problem than edit warring in the topic area so I am not sure it makes sense to have a sanction regime (i.e 1rr) that tackles edit warring but encourages sockpuppetry. Dlv999 (talk) 10:27, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

• We desperately need more restrictions against these "throw-away-socks" which appear at regular intervals. (And we *know* there has been "recruiting" going on here). I suggest that if an editor has less that 250 edits, you might revert them without it counting as your 1RR. So you might revert, say a Franken Farther, without being "tied down" for the next 24 hours. Cheers, Huldra (talk) 13:39, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

These type of throw away sockpuppet accounts a dime a dozen on any controversial topic in the IP area. Dlv999 (talk) 15:06, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Sandstein. I wish I could see evidence of editorial concern from 'both sides'. None is apparent, giving the impression, which troubles me, that the plaintiffs above represent one side to a dispute. It can be read that way. It can also be read as reflecting the probability that most sockpuppettering and IP one-off edits comes from one direction. This is my assumption, based on 7al years of working here, and I think that the only way this can be handled is, as Sandstein suggests, to compile lists of drive-by editors, sockpuppet suspects, meatpuppet suspects, regardless of which POV is being apparently supported, so that, eventually, administrators or the ARBPIA committee can, at a glance, see the dimensions of the problem. To do this in a manner that is above suspicion of manipulation would require, as suggested, editors identified as concerned with ensuring the precise and neutral presentation of an Israeli perspective also to help out. Perhaps they could comment here, since the silence makes this legitimate concern appear to be a group POV-driven drive by editors often identified as partisans for the other side (a tendentious simplification in my view - what is desired is an equable and level 'playing' field). Nishidani (talk) 20:55, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

• If there is evidence (preferably checkuser-supported) that there is a systemic and widespread sockpuppetry problem in this area, then either discretionary sanctions or a Committee amendment request might be able to do something about it (for example, a revert restriction for new single-purpose accounts). But this would likely involve an amount of evidence and discussion that is beyond the scope of a single AE request. I suggest that a group of established editors representing viewpoints associated with both sides of the conflict should jointly set up a RfC to collect evidence and discuss possible solutions. One or several of these solutions could then be implemented through the arbitration or arbitration enforcement processes.  Sandstein  16:42, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

As was mentioned, restrictions on reverting, such as WP:1RR, encourage the use of throw-away sockpuppet accounts. I haven't edited in this area. Are the sockpuppets registered illegitimate users? (If they are unregistered, semi-protection will work.) Also, because of the requirement that an editor be notified of discretionary sanctions, sockpuppets are a way to avoid discretionary sanctions. (They don't avoid the rules against sockpuppetry.) I don't have an obvious answer. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:35, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

They are registered, throw-away accounts, and they are a huge problem. (Dlv999 listed some above.) One example for today: Halhul, which is an article I have written a large amount of the history of, had this one today, removing stuff with the edit line "speculative and un-referenced". As anyone can check: it was referenced. I reverted it, and is therefor in effect unable to edit it more for the next 24 hours. And to Sandstein: you do realise that any RfC will be swarmed by socks? Huldra (talk) 20:32, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Is the WP:1RR imposed directly by WP:ARBPIA, or is it imposed on a case-by-case basis by uninvolved administrators? If it is directly imposed by the ArbCom, then it illustrates unintended (but predictable after the fact) consequences, because by locking honest editors into one revert, it permits dishonest editors to use throw-away socks. If so, maybe the ArbCom should be asked by motion to reconsider WP:1RR as making life easier for dishonest editors and harder for honest ones. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:34, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

(ec)Halhul almost immediately after Huldra's edit had two newbies step in (71.125.245.49/Allisonraty (talk | contribs), with a violent smear of the town. Fortunately I too had the page bookmarked. I expunged the nonsense. And was reverted, in good faith by Banjohunter (see his talk page), who didn't catch what was going on, being unfamiliar with the background. Result. I can't fix it, and hope Bh, seeing the problem outlined on his talk page, will revert. I have almost a thousand pages bookmarked and see dozens of problems like this everyday, and can't cope with more than a few percent. Neither can anyone else. I'm fine with wikipedia's open-door policy of recruitment. But some remedy for what serious contributors have to put up with, unnecessarily because of the lack of a prophylactic rule preventing such chronic abuses, should now be considered, because of the attrition it causes to good editors (I exclude myself), and to the encyclopedic aims of wikipedia. Nishidani (talk) 21:39, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I was just trying to straighten out some anonymous edits and get a neutral pov on the Halhul page. I did not realize there was some sort of edit war going on. Nishidani made the reasonable point that the event was not connected to the village, so I reverted my edit. Banjohunter (talk) 02:38, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

You are forgiven, such things are easily done. Cheers, Huldra (talk) 08:25, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Robert McClenon: WP:1RR is imposed directly by WP:ARBPIA, and it is valid for all articles in the Israel/Palestine area. Which means virtually every article I edit (I mostly write history on places in Israel/Palestine.) I have about 3,500 articles on my watch-list, and have lost count on how many throw-away accounts I see each day. I have worked in this area for 9 years, and while the 1RR rule has mostly been very beneficial (IMO), it has also had exactly the unintended side-effects that you state. I would absolutely not remove the 1RR. What we need is a rule for more established editors to be able to revert those throw-away accounts, without becoming tied up for 24 hours. Therefore, my suggestion that we could revert anyone with less than a certain number of edits, without it being counted against ones "1RR"-quota. Cheers, Huldra (talk) 21:59, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

In that case, WP:1RR is an honorable experiment that has partially failed. ArbCom should be asked to revise it. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:42, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Robert McClenon:The WP:1RR must be amended, before it drives all content creators away. (But not changed back to 3RR!) Take the Halhul -example. Both Nishidani and I are long-term content contributors to the article, see here. It normally gets 20-30 views pr day. Yesterday the bodies of the 3 kidnapped israelis was found in a field near Halhul, feelings are apparently running high, and pageviews for the article hit 1200. Lots of socks and un-registered edit the article page, but due to 1RR I cannot even revert slander like this, as I had "used up" my 1RR-quota for the day. (Btw, there is no proof, or even indication that the kidnappers are from Halhul. The suspected named kidnappers are from Hebron.) Things like this happen all the time in the I/P area; some article gets in the news, lots of page-views and lots of socks vandalise the article. And we are helpless to stop it. Cheers, Huldra (talk) 08:25, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Personally I think that all articles covered by sanctions like ARBPIA should be permanently semi-protected. It is "against Misplaced Pages philosophy" but the area is now pretty mature and the majority of new editors are not up to any good. Semi-protection would not prevent socking, but would slow it down a great deal. Zero 21:49, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I´m really ignorant here: how many edits do you need before you can edit semi-protected articles? Huldra (talk) 21:59, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

10, and that's why some socks make 10 edits to their own user page before going on a frenzy. It keeps out the editor's who follow rules, not the one's who don't. Sepsis II (talk) 22:05, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I want 0RR on new ARBPIA focused accounts until 500 edits and 6 months, a ban on these accounts from filing reports related to ARBPIA articles, and that accounts under 0RR can be reverted without counting towards 1RR which I want to stay for all experienced editors.

This would not hurt the thousands of true new accounts/IPs who make a productive edit or two, but the "new" editors who make 20 reverts within 10minutes of joining wikipedia would be quickly blocked and even a swarm would not take over an article per 1RR as they currently do. Sepsis II (talk) 22:05, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

If an article is semi-protected, then non-registered can´t edit, can they? Non-registered occasionally do good edits, even in the I/P area (here is an non-registered correcting my blunder, when I mixed up Beitin and Beita <facepalm>). If so, I would prefer something along the lines of what Sepsis suggests. Cheers, Huldra (talk) 22:50, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

The rule is 10 edits and 4 days. That's long enough to slow down someone who wants to create an account on an ad-hoc basis for joining a current dispute. Also, IP editors are disallowed altogether. If 10 edits to user space are enough that should be changed (where does one go to request it??) – it should be 10 edits to article or project space. Although your proposals would be better, the addition of another layer of rules worries me. It is already hard for ordinary editors to keep track of everything. Zero 22:56, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Then semi-protected would certainly be an improvement from today. I am concerned about two issues, though. Firstly, un-registered sometimes do useful work. Secondly, (and most importantly) when I see the huge disruption/waste of time caused by quacking ducks (a couple of the more belligerent ones active presently could easily sail through 10 edits and 4 days) I wonder if the "extra layer" isn´t worth it. Presently it is difficult to do any useful work with this duck-army around. Cheers, Huldra (talk) 09:49, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

If an edit count entry requirement for the topic area was introduced it should probably be based on manual edits rather edits made with tools like STiki. Many of the people who come here as socks wouldn't think twice about exploiting whatever tools are available to provide cover. Semi-protection and the autoconfirmation requirements don't provide useful protection in practice, as can be seen from the data available from the many NoCal (Category:Misplaced Pages sockpuppets of NoCal100) and AndresHerutJaim (Category:Wikipedia_sockpuppets_of_AndresHerutJaim) socks for example. Socks are organized in the sense that they plan ahead and make sure that they have the resources in place in advance. A good example of this is when Precision123 (a Shamir1 sock) switched to the AmirSurfLera account. See the graph of daily and cumulative edits. Precision123's last edit was 2014-05-26. The dramatic change of slope in the graph for AmirSurfLera shortly after that here, probably indicates the switch over from one account to the other. Another example of preparing resources in advanceis NoCal's use of multiple concurrent socks (see the dates in User:Sean.hoyland/socks). Sean.hoyland - talk 10:40, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Before I forget, and for those who haven't seen it, there is a little bit of data available that shows the effects of semi-protection among other things for an article of interest to many (confirmed) socks at the time. The data is for 1948 Arab–Israeli War article and talk page between 2012-04-08 and 2013-01-10 (and there's some background info here)

• 1948 Arab–Israeli War - article results (PDF)
• 1948 Arab–Israeli War - talk page results (PDF)
• 1948 Arab–Israeli War OpenOffice spreadsheet

Sean.hoyland - talk 12:01, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Chip Berlet

This is a question about discretionary sanctions. Is it too early to request that the article Chip Berlet be placed under the discretionary sanctions recommended by the pending case "American Politics"? I ask because we are seeing the behavior described in that case occurring on this BLP. Viriditas (talk) 21:16, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Absurd -- Chip Bertlet himself said the edit citing an opinion as an opinion was fine -- but Viriditas seems to assert ownership of the BLP. shows that the "problem" does not exist. This is an example of an editor seeking discord where none exists. Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:31, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

The above response exemplifies the problem and shows why I have proposed a preliminary injunction pending the closure of the American politics case. Editors like Collect are treating American politics-related BLPs as a battleground, attacking editors who disagree with them, and attracting the support of SPA's who only edit war and confuse the talk page. I have barely edited the article in question, yet I have noticed that Collect does not follow the consensus on the talk page, preferring to pose his unusual form of BLP and NPOV edits. The talk page illustrates the problem. We require a preliminary injunction to prevent the edit warring and SPA shenanigans that Collect encourages. Viriditas (talk) 21:45, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

The assertion about WP:BLP is wrong -- Chip Bertlet states the material is reasonable for the BLP. The claim of WP:NPOV violation is absurd. The relevant quote here is:

Amazing. You are engaging in the same behavior that led to the current arbitration case, Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/American politics. When the consensus was pointed out to you on the talk page, a SPA showed up at that very moment to agree with you, an account recently created to do nothing but edit war on this article. Furthermore, NPOV, BLP, and other policies have been violated. When the aforementioned case closes, I'll make sure the article is tagged under discretionary sanctions and that your little friend is blocked. Have a nice day. Viriditas (talk) 21:03, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Which shows the actual purpose of this exercise here. Please note that I have, indeed, posted at WP:BLP/N and on Chip's personal user page. Viriditas is seemingly taking the word "Wikivendetta" to new heights here. Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:51, 1 July 2014 (UTC)