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Aside from all these problems, the Manual of Style has been treated by the date delinkers as if compliance with it were mandatory, regardless of particular article consensus. That is erroneous thinking, as previous ArbCom decisions have shown and as the Manual of Style itself plainly states. ] (]) 05:11, 11 January 2009 (UTC) Aside from all these problems, the Manual of Style has been treated by the date delinkers as if compliance with it were mandatory, regardless of particular article consensus. That is erroneous thinking, as previous ArbCom decisions have shown and as the Manual of Style itself plainly states. ] (]) 05:11, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

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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.

To request enforcement of previous Arbitration decisions or discretionary sanctions, please do not open a new Arbitration case. Instead, please submit your request to /Requests/Enforcement.

This page transcludes from /Case, /Clarification and Amendment, /Motions, and /Enforcement.

Please make your request in the appropriate section:

Arbitration Committee proceedings Case requests

Currently, there are no requests for arbitration.

Open cases
Case name Links Evidence due Prop. Dec. due
Palestine-Israel articles 5 (t) (ev / t) (ws / t) (pd / t) 21 Dec 2024 11 Jan 2025
Recently closed cases (Past cases)

No cases have recently been closed (view all closed cases).

Clarification and Amendment requests

Currently, no requests for clarification or amendment are open.

Arbitrator motions
Motion name Date posted
Arbitrator workflow motions 1 December 2024

Current requests

Date delinking

Initiated by —Locke Cole • t • c at 03:00, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Involved parties

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request
Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

This is in chronological order for the most part (where things don't overlap anyways).

Statement by Locke Cole

This has been an ongoing content dispute for the past six months that has repeatedly degenerated into incivility and poor behavior on the part of the proponents of this change. At the moment we have editors using a single script to mass delink dates (collectively over thousands of articles) who have been asked to stop because their changes are disputed and do not have consensus. We've held numerous discussions, conducted a month long RFC (which involved the community and was listed in the watchlist) and have no consensus for these mass automated changes as they're being enacted. In a prior ArbCom decision it was stated:

Editors who are collectively or individually making large numbers of similar edits, and are apprised that those edits are controversial or disputed, are expected to attempt to resolve the dispute through discussion. It is inappropriate to use repetition or volume in order to present opponents with a fait accompli or to exhaust their ability to contest the change. This applies to many editors making a few edits each, as well as a few editors making many edits.

— Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Episodes_and_characters_2/Proposed_decision#Fait_accompli

All of the editors involved in this dispute are aware of this decision (they were warned about it months ago), but they continue to operate under the assumption that their actions have consensus. I urge the committee to accept this case so the behavior (incivility, edit warring, stalking, personal attacks, and so forth) of those involved can be looked at. I understand the committee doesn't take up content disputes, but I fear this situation will not end without binding arbitration as those involved seem unwilling to consider compromises which don't involve automated date delinking. Thank you for your consideration. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:00, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Motion request

If accepted I would request that the committee pass a motion stopping all automated or semi-automated edits of this fashion until the conclusion of arbitration. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:00, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Limited response to Dabomb87

I do not believe Mediation or a Third Opinion would help here. We've already solicited the entire community via a watchlist notice, and a slightly uninvolved administrator (Masem) has tried multiple times to try and mediate the issue. To no avail, it seems. The core behavioral issue here is the incivility and the mass unlinking by automated means (the "Fait accompli") while objections and disputes remain unresolved or unanswered. Further than that, there remains the disparaging behavior of those who simply wish to ignore objections ("this is a waste of time", "don't you have something better to do", "this is only being continued by a 'gang of five'", etc). Remarks which are unhelpful at reaching a consensus, I might add. —Locke Cole • t • c 04:27, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Limited response to Tony1

I'm not asking the committee to decide the content dispute, I'm asking the committee to look at the behavior of those involved in the content dispute. Specifically those running automated or semi-automated tools to force their preferred version on the rest of us, but also the uncivil behavior of those participating in the discussions. —Locke Cole • t • c 09:34, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Limited response to Arthur Rubin and Masem

The overall goal of this, for me anyways, is to remove the fait accompli from the table. This situation right now makes it impossible (or really difficult) to discuss the issue when a sense of inevitability pervades all discussions ("we're doing this, so talk all you want, but while you were typing that up, I delinked another hundred articles"). This inevitability isn't lost on the proponents of the change either: I get the general impression they feel empowered in these discussions to dismiss compromises and alternatives out of hand (yet another reason for the mass delinkings to stop). Hence my motion request. The community should be able to handle this, but not while editors are pushing their preferred version of things on the rest of us. Worth noting: there are 6,930,277 articles on Misplaced Pages, I really doubt all of them have been delinked already. —Locke Cole • t • c 11:56, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Response to Sam Blacketer

The fait accompli is from the sheer magnitude of the edits being performed. As John Vandenberg notes, Date delinker has performed nearly 9,000 edits of this variety. Unless those of us on the other side choose to engage in identical behavior (using a bot or semi-automatic script to relink dates) they effectively present us with a situation that's already to their liking. And the thing to keep in mind is that Date delinker isn't the only one performing these operations. It wouldn't surprise me if there were already 50,000 edits of this type (combined amongst all automated and semi-automated accounts). —Locke Cole • t • c 00:11, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Dabomb87

The diversity of the English Misplaced Pages means that disputes are inevitable, and it is unrealistic to believe that 100% support can be garnered for most things. The Date Linking RFCs clearly indicated that there is consensus against most, if not all, dates being linked (see my comment here for a more detailed breakdown). Besides the RFCs, examples of this consensus against delinking dates exist in our Featured articles and Featured lists, where the delinking of dates was accepted without any form of resistance, as well as a preliminary survey. Second, Locke's point of incivility does not seem well-supported. The one instance in which inciviliy was considered a major problem, when a situation culminated in an RFC on User:Tony1's conduct, the survey of attitudes there indicated that not only was Tony1's conduct within policy, but his delinking of dates was not disruptive at all. I would like to impress upon the Arbitrators that both sides of the debate have remained civil most of the time. Lastly, I do not believe that all other courses of dispute resolution have been used. Other than the Date Linking RFCs, there has been little interaction from editors, admin or not, to give their input. The ANI threads were usually importations of the heated MOSNUM discussions, and most of the admins at MOSNUM were somehow involved in the debate and could not provide a neutral third opinion. I will note that those who have been complaining about the date delinking are largely a small minority group. In most cases, when users have asked questions about the delinking activities, they are given a polite, easy-to-understand answer, which is usually accepted without much complaint. The fact that there has not been a flurry of new complaints demonstrates that there is significant consensus for the date delinkings to occur. Therefore, I ask that the Arbitration Commitee decline this case and allow other forms of dispute resolution, such as mediation and third opinion, to take place. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:42, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement by User:Greg L

I really do want to avoid having my activities on one of my hobbies—Misplaced Pages—defined by the whims of others. So I expect (hope) to have a minimum of participation here. I just don’t want to be dragged down in the mud with unproductive bickering over something like how to format a date in an article. I have a practice of my own that is fully in compliance with MOSNUM as well as with the current community consensus according the latest RfCs. Note the beginning here in Kilogram. As you can see, right at the beginning is a date, 7 April 1795, that is unlinked. Further, since the SI’s kilogram is not closely associated with the United States, I elected to consistently use the international-style date format throughout the article. Note also the two date-related links, • 1795 in science and • 1799 in science, that I added in the See also section of the Kilogram article. This is but one of many techniques to let readers know of the availability of these types of history-related articles. Furthermore, this method fully discloses the precise nature of the article a reader would be taken to if they clicked on the link. Since Tony, I, and others found ourselves often repeating the same message on WT:MOSNUM to ‘newcomer’ editors concerned about date de‑linking after seeing Lightbot activity affect them, I wrote WP:Why dates should not be linked to help ease the transition.

I do think I can be of assistance here by offering this observation: Towards resolving this dispute, arbitrators need a convenient and succinct way to establish facts regarding the current community consensus on linking and related bot activity. Arbitrators should know that Dabomb87 has produced a nice summary of the relevant RfCs at User:Dabomb87/Summary of the Date Linking RFCs. It is a convenient portal as it contains links to the RfCs themselves. These RfCs also remind us of a central consideration to resolved here in arbitration: is bot activity (or planned bot activity) in accordance with the current community consensus?

Note that we have editors like Arthur Rubin re‑linking month/day dates, like this edit today to 2009 in sports. The end result, of course, is to reestablish links to articles that for the most part have nothing to do with sports. This is contrary to not only the general consensus of the RfCs, but also this portion of WP:Manual of Style (links), which states that links should be relevant connections to the subject of another article that will help readers to understand the current article more fully. Said another way, links should be germane and topical to the subject matter of the article.

Clearly, with 6,930,277 articles on en.Misplaced Pages, there are probably over a million date links to be fixed, the vast majority of which take readers to unrelated historical trivia that has little if any relevance to the topic of the article containing the links. This is far too many to manually bring into compliance; human-guided bots are the only way I know of to address such an undertaking. The RfCs show that it should be a rare date indeed that is linked in the form of blued, in‑line body text. So the very few dates that should be linked and which are accidentally swept up by bot activity can easily be hand-restored. Furthermore, as I have illustrated above, there are alternative, often superior ways to let readers know about relevant material, such as entries in See also sections. Hand-restoring a relatively small number of links is a good opportunity for editors to avail themselves of these other techniques.

Another important factor to consider is which camp of editors is best trying to adhere to the community consensus on this matter. How is it that we are all here at ArbCom after a month‑long series of RfCs that enjoyed wide input? I am not seeing any pattern of behavioral problems with the respondents to this complaint. Tony and Lightmouse have exemplary block logs (here and here, respectively). Both are experienced and influential editors with a long track record on Misplaced Pages. The only block on Tony’s record was quickly withdrawn as being done in error. These sort of track records just don’t happen by accident; they happen only by an editor exhibiting a consistent pattern of being logical and reasonable and by abiding by Misplaced Pages’s rules—even when under duress when acting in a leadership capacity, as Tony often finds himself in. What is not passing my “grin test” here is the block log for the filing party, Locke Cole, nor the block log for Aurthur Rubin. There seems to be a pattern here regarding the willingness of notable editors on just one side of the dispute to conform to expected conducted on Misplaced Pages. I think this is germane to the dispute’s origins and believe any reasonable interpretation of the RfCs will bear this out.

BTW, I want to specifically draw attention to and endorse the statements of the following editors:

  1. This statement by Colonies Chris. Notwithstanding that it is a hearty dose of plain-speak, I believe it all to be true and highly relevant.

Greg L (talk) 22:39, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Tony1

(1) The filing party begins by stating that "This has been an ongoing content dispute". Yet the lead clearly states that:

will not make editorial statements or decisions about how articles should read ("content decisions"). Please do not ask the committee to make these kinds of decisions, as they will not do so.

That the basis of the application is a content dispute is reinforced by this subsequent statement by the filing party: "I understand the committee doesn't take up content disputes, but I fear this situation will not end without binding arbitration as those involved seem unwilling to consider compromises which don't involve automated date delinking."

On this basis, I submit that the application be dismissed.

(2) If there are residual concerns about the claims of "incivility and poor behaviour on the part of the proponents of this change", I believe that a thorough examination of behaviour would conclude that there have been instances of frayed tempers on both sides, but that given the length of the discourse (some six months), this is not out of the ordinary and that other forums have been and could still be used to gain resolution. I do not see incivility as a major ongoing problem, and feel that in this context it has been overstated.

(3) I want to put on record that in the view of many users, the trialling, implementation and refinement of automated and semi-automated means for assisting editors to comply with the style guides WRT the removal of date-autoformatting, and the cleaning up the rather messy state of underlying date formats, have been characterised by politeness, cooperation and sensitivity to critical feedback.

(4) I submit that the filing party's construction of consensus in this context is not a balanced view. In particular, Proposal 3 in the first RfC cited above provided strong consensus that the use of an automatic or semi-automatic process to bring article text into compliance with any particular guideline in the Manual of Style (dates and numbers) requires no separate or prior consensus. Tony (talk) 08:47, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Addendum

  • (a) Colonies Chris says it. Much of what I was going to add about the substantive allegations in the statements by the filers and their associates has been clinched in the more recent statement below by Colonies Chris.
  • (b) The problem of scope and purpose. I believe the Committee may face a difficult task in defining exactly what it should arbitrate on in relation to this application. These comments may be relevant.
  • There appears little that ArbCom would want to do concerning incivility in this matter, which has not been out of the ordinary—indeed, the matter has been characterised by relative civility, even though the filer has concentrated on making a case that rudeness and chaos abound. Arb. Rlevse's concerns for "more input on behavioral issues related to MOSNUM and attempts to resolve them" (and related concerns by Arb. Vassyana) are laudable, but my experience in that forum suggests that MOSNUM talk will just have to wade through its difficulties as best it can, just as always: MOSNUM, indeed, deals with the most contentious issues of all style guides. I believe that any threat to the "stability to articles" (a concern for Arb. FloNight) has been overstated. Colonies Chris provides statistical and anecdotal evidence of a quite different situation. In summary, I think we're over the worst of it, and things go on despite the tension surrounding the issue (notably, in the past few weeks Locke Cole and Tennis expert have been very supportive of an unrelated initiative of mine).
  • Trying to determine the consensus for the changes would create a very difficult task for ArbCom. While I can see why Arb. Davies hints at this scope, producing an official interpretation of the detailed RfCs at MOSNUM, which were not framed in a way that was ever going to produce clear results, is not something I'd wish on the arbitrators; in addition, those RfCs would need to be interpreted in the context of a huge amount of other information—they are only the tip of the iceberg. I note Arb. Blacketer's comment that "the committee cannot issue binding policy on the issues within the RFCs".
  • Several Arbitrators are concerned about bot usage. Although using this as a test-case for establishing/confirming/changing the rules for bot usage might be possible, the technical complexities needed to underpin a judgement make me quiver. If this is to be part or all of the scope of a case, I submit that the scope be very tightly defined from the start (as suggested by Arb. Vandenberg). Please note that a recent RfC produced convincing consensus that special consensus is unnecessary for bots to assist in compliance with styleguides.
  • Throwing out the case might be an option. While focusing on small intervals of time or collating diffs over a long interval (as above) might give the impression that there are "no visible signs of abating" (Arb. Coren), the noise created by the few is likely to recede, given the strong support in the community for a "smarter" approach to linking and for the removal of date autoformatting. Waiting it out, I suspect, has been on our minds for some time, and is probably the natural and wiki-ish thing to do. Tony (talk) 10:35, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement by User:Arthur Rubin

I don't see the point of this. Even if ArbCom were to rule that the date delinking or date delinking bots were inappropriate conduct, the damage has already been done. Perhaps a precedent could be set against the possibility of another family of previously recommended links which became deprecated under questionable circumstances, but ArbCom doesn't really set precedents.

For what it's worth, there appeared to be a weak consensus in favor of some date autoformatting at Question 2 of WP:MOSNUM/RFC, and a clear consensus that some year links are appropriate at question 4. Given that, bots will clearly have signficant errors. User:Tony1 has (apparently in a semi-automated process), removed month-day links from year articles in two (short) runs after he specifically agreed it was wrong. (Diffs available on request. I reverted some of the ones today (within 24 hours ago, anyway.))

And in case anyone brings it up, I didn't take any admin action, even though I felt that blocking User:Lightbot would have been of benefit to Misplaced Pages.

As for what ArbCom can do — I really can't think of a thing. Some otherwise sensible editors are misinterpreting consensus, and some (whether or not they are misinterpreting consensus) have been violating WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA.

So, I recommend that ArbCom refuse the issue — not because the delinkers have any consensus on their side, but because the damage to Misplaced Pages is mostly done (in large part by bots given authority to make any date linking, delinking, or formatting their authors saw fit), and that there is little that ArbCom can do that would help.

Limited response to Dabomb87: I don't see any other venues untried for dispute resolution of the underlying issue, that of date delinking and edit warring over date delinking. (WP:3O would be inapproriate unless, say, Tony1 and Greg L were considered identical, and Locke and I were considered identical.) There are still possible venues for the conduct issues. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:05, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Limited response to Tony1: Question 3 in your RFC may prove that there would be consensus for a bot to remove autoformatting if there was a clear consensus that autoformatting links were always inappropriate. The hypothesis is disputed, and it would not extend to year or month-day links. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:08, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Summary: The only thing the ArbCom could do that seems helpful is to determine the consensus. I don't think that's within their charter. (Is that a finding of fact?) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:38, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Bot followup: Lightbot claims a charter to perform any date linking, delinking, or reformatting that the operator deeps suitable. I don't know whether it was approved for that process, but, even if it were, that is not a suitable charter for a bot. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:46, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment by Franamax

  • Date linking? Solved through content dispute resolution, with community agreement seeming to be "needs to be a good reason to do it". No reason to arbitrate.
  • Date de-linking, especially by automated means? Not resolved anywhere I ever saw, rather it seemed to be carried on to put "facts on the ground" as soon as possible, riding over any questions or alternatives. In particular, use of a bot basically means that no editorial discretion is applied. The same goes for an editor who uses a "semi-automated" script to indiscriminately remove all date and year links. However, it seems that the damage is done, last I checked, LightBot had finished the Z... articles and was chewing into Template: space. It's all over but the crying now.
    • Arbitration: an injunction would be helpful to restrict bots (or "semi-bots") from revisiting previously edited articles and again removing all date and year links. No community consensus exists to remove all links, so bots should not be on constant patrol to defeat good-faith editors making selective decisions. This would not apply to reverts to fully date-linked versions, but the onus is on the bot coder to prove the necessity now. ArbCom has within its remit to require re-certification of the bots/scripts now that their primary task has been completed.
    • Arbitration: investigation of the circumstances by which this happened, looking not at content but at procedure. Consensus was widely obtained to restrict date-linking, but I'm aware of no consensus to use automated methods to eliminate all date-linking. This reflects on the bot-approval and bot-review methods, which are (or should be) within ArbCom's remit.
  • Behaviour? I followed and tried to participate in these debates, but was met in part with, and definitely observed, what I could best describe as an "abrasive" attitude from the pro side of the coin. Pro here being the "we've been trying for two years to get rid of this hideous blot which destroys the entire wikipedia experience, birds sing at midnight, who are you to question this now, it's time to right the ship, you're an ignorant idiot" side (vastly-overblown paraphrase is mine :)
    • Arbitration: consider the actions of all involved, with a view to behaviour issues in long-term content disputes. Locke Cole will not fare well, several parties have not behaved in the best light, Tony1 I believe should have some special scrutiny (the "abrasive" thing I mentioned above, on or across the line of civility).

I'm involved only on a very peripheral basis and would likely not present evidence. I believe that my statements above are fairly self-evident and will be supported with factual evidence by parties to this case. If my statements are seen as unduly prejudicial, I will provide evidence if the case is accepted. Franamax (talk) 10:39, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
Addendum on review (re Tony1, item (4)):

Even granted the consensus Tony posits for Proposal 3,
  • Very clever Tony, you posited a negative hypothesis at the RFC, received a negative consensus, and now seem to construe that as a positive consensus for your positive hypothesis. Masterful, except I don't think it works that way.
  • Even granting your artful dodging, any process which removes all date links from all articles is uncompliant with MOS, unless you can point to where automated processes were imbued with the ability to determine the non-existence of a "reason to do so" per your Proposal 1. I take it then that you are also asking for an ArbCom injunction against automated scripts/bots? Franamax (talk) 13:04, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Guy Peters

Although there is no consensus how many dates should be linked (opinions differ from only the most important, which bring huge additional value, to all dates), there is clear consensus that some dates should be linked always.

Dabomb87, Lightmouse and others against this consensus robotically remove all links to dates. If they were successful, articles from 499 BC to 2059 would be orphaned which is against WP:NOTPAPER. If they wish delete articles from 499 BC to 2059, the only proper way for doing so is WP:AfD.

Dabomb87 additionally wikistalked me, most recently WordPress.com. This is quite disrupting in continuation to work for the Misplaced Pages which I started in 2003. —Guy Peters 10:47, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Limited response to Arthur Rubin & Franamax

Delinking still continues and despite the effort of Dabomb87, Lightmouse and others, millions of articles cannot be delinked in few months time. —Guy Peters 11:02, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Limited response to Tony1

Years are not autoformated, only days and months. —Guy Peters 11:06, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Masem

All other things being equal, this is not a case that is needed at ArbCom as the usual processes to deal with matters of content and policy are still being worked on. I'd almost consider this a case of forum shopping by Locke Cole.

That said, there are certain questions of how heavy a hand Tony and others that support the removal of dates have been pushing for this. Tony et al must be commended for the effort they have done to recognize the problems with date autoformatting both for how dates are presented to end users that aren't logged in and how they saturate pages with lots of links, as these are problems. However, the effort to completely remove date autoformatting without considering the wide response of the community seem to be a bit heavy handed. While Tony and others have tried to suggest the deprecation of date autoformatting to various wikiprojects and at the Featured Article process, there was really never any formal wide-scale input that one would usually expect for a policy/guideline change that impacts every article, instead relying on the fact that they've received mostly silence from editors when date autoformatting was stripped from articles to imply consensus. At this point, when the actual language of MOSNUM was changed based on their local agreement, this is when all matters started to go south. As one of the comments above noted, some point after this change, I began to get more active, noting that Locke Cole and others that were against the removal of date autoformatting were correct to the extent that there was no obvious visible evidence of a consensus for the change beyond the 5-6 major editors of MOSNUM to that point and suggested an RFC to definitively decide the issue. There was a bit of miscommunication with starting that, but by the end of the date, the RFC was ran, got watchlist-noticed, and garnered around a hundred responses (a good # for an RFC), and clearly showed that date autoformatting was to be removed by strong consensus, justifying Tony et al's deprecation of the tool.

But, that said, the RFC also asked other questions, such as if we should get the devteam to make a working version of date autoformatting that works as we need it to to address the failings of the current method, and without using date autoformatting, when dates should be linked. While the responses were less clear than the DA question, there is certainly support for a new date autoformatting system, something the devteam has stated is possible to correct, and there was certainty in consideration of whe when certain dates should be linked to larger pages. Given that the general response to these questions, to myself at least, I felt that there should be a plan of attack prior to removing the date autoformatting code throughout wikipedia to account for any near-term future improved date autoformatting and to allow editors to markup specific dates that they do want to remain linked (but not autoformatted) to prevent those from being removed (mostly through the use of templates to help mark dates as meta-data). However, Tony and the others cited are insistent about moving forward getting their bots going to strip all date autoformatting from articles and having to manually come back and restore links. Policy has no say about which is the best way but I would think that given the ado over the change in policy that, as there's no deadline to get rid of these, trying to work out the least disruptive means to remove date autoformatting while allowing editors to retain their date links would be the more appropriate route to completing their goal. Already, with Lightbot and the others stripping dates, there have been small edit wars and incident reports at WP:AN/I on it (though mostly raised by those that were against the removal of date autoformatting in the first place).

But the problem, really, at the end of the day is not so much about any significant behavioral issues but instead about dealing with editors like Tony and the others named that have a strong conviction to achieving certain goals for (as they see it and most of time, correctly) the benefit of Misplaced Pages. As such, their tactics for approaching the implementation of changes to MOSNUM is a bit heavy-handed and at times feels like a cabal, ignoring outside opinion if it runs contrary to what they would like to drive the MOS towards. The rapid push to get rid of date autoformatting without allowance for grandfathering of appropriate link dates or considering any new date autoformatting aspects by the devteam, for example, demonstrate this gung-ho approach that shouldn't necessarily be discouraged (I'm well aware of the molasses that working through a consensus can take) but also should be in check when one considers the general attitude that other editors see and consider the MOSNUM group to be based on these actions. I feel its in their best interest to encourage the participation of the community before taking wide-ranging drastic changes instead of forcing it down, even if it for the best of the community.

Is there anything ArbCom can do about this? Very doubtful (beyond noting if there are any improper bots being run as existing ArbCom response as suggested). Maybe there's some behavioral issues here, I don't see them (some edit wars have broken out with date formatting removal but nothing at a large enough scale to get ArbCom involved). This case is mostly a clash between editors with strong convictions towards a goal, which will make things tense and result in rash decisions that could have negative impacts, but both with WP's best interests in making the work better. Attitudes on both sides are not healthy (I take issue with Tony calling the discussion "polite", particularly in the case of many of Greg L's contributions which seemed condescending to those that did want to keep links to year and date pages; there was also some system-gaming going on when some day-month pages were put up for AFD seemingly to test the waters for their removal during this process), but nothing out of line with WP:CIVIL or other expected behavior from editors. Maybe there's something to be said about what type of actions should be done when a change that likely going to affect nearly every article on WP to prevent edit warring, but even then, there's dozens of other changes that happen to policies and guidelines that go on every day that technically should have the same treatment. There's no punishable behavior here, only that I think all groups involved need to remember they aren't in a vacuum here and to avoid making unilateral decisions, and to consider what other editors may appear to see based on their actions. --MASEM 11:33, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement from Goodmorningworld

I'll note in passing the tendentious labels put on some of the diffs by Guy Peters Locke Cole in his collation above. However, I trust that the arbitrators are perceptive enough to recognize this immediately on their own. Lightbot has approval to perform the tasks it does, any complaints should be raised at the Bot owners' noticeboard, not here. Automated removal of datelinks has been approved not only by the Bot Approvals Group but is met with overwhelming support from editors. (See the responses to Question 3 in the Dec 2008 RfC launched by Tony1.) The number of complaints from editors watchlisting articles from which datelinks have been removed is minuscule. Colonies Chris who runs a script that performs a similar task to Lightbot's has statistics. Out of the very small percentage of removals leading to complaints, very nearly all are resolved amicably and swiftly, either by the complainant agreeing that removal of datelinks makes sense, or by the delinker entering an exception for that article. For all practical purposes, there is no community-wide perception of a problem.

Date articles are uniquely privileged in all of Misplaced Pages, in that a permanent spot is reserved for them on the Main Page. Every single day of the year a large portion of Mainpage screen real estate is reserved to On this day which leads to the sort of chronological trivia that some people enjoy; in principle every date article ever created on Misplaced Pages is accessible from there if linked right. There is no risk that they will become linkless orphans in no-man's-land.

I submit that the Arbitration Committee and the community would be best served by a swift dismissal of the request.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 12:45, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement from Woodstone (talk)

My impression is that the actual ongoing debate is about the date format. The delinking of dates has obtained a good consensus with very little opposition rather quickly long ago, after it was made clear that not logged-in users have never benefited from the autoformating feature connected with the linking. So the bot is acting based on consensus and should be allowed to continue. It would be wise however to define a way by which specific and exceptional date links could be protected from the bot. −Woodstone (talk) 13:29, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement from User:Ohconfucius

I would respectfully disagree with those who have said this has been largely civil, and would ask Arbcom to take this case because it is undoubtedly a behavioural issue stemming from a small group of individuals' inability to accept valid consensus. User:Locke Cole and I have locked horns over the issue almost continually from September 2008 onwards. For the record, said editor is one of approximately five individuals totally opposed to removal of Date-autoformatting, and must be credited for having raised the issue most vocally in a manner akin to ownership. This subject/guideline may have the dubious honour of having the record number of attempts to scale the Reischtag. There has been a micron-thin veneer of civility (usually in terse language wrapped in brown paper) but the underlying incivility is undeniable. You may not find extreme civility from me nor from Greg, but our wrapping is transparent film, so what you see is what you get. The plaintiff has had a strong influence on how this debate has taken on a personal dimension over the most trivial issue of a pair of square brackets, using all the bureaucratic means at his disposal. I do confess to having given some best efforts to stay calm, parry and recoil, but find myself no match for the plaintiff's aggressive and unrelenting onslaught. The plaintiff has consistently made it clear that he considers any form of delinking disruptive behaviour. This uncompromising stance makes for uneasy discussion. Things have gone so far and gone on for so long that I simply no longer believe that he takes no pleasure in seeing me blocked.

In addition to creating and expanding articles, I am interested in carrying out WP policies and guidelines, whereas the plaintiff is on record as not only opposing consensus on the issue (as borne out by the RfCs closed 25 December 2008), but also quoted as saying that WP:MOSNUM is "only a guideline" implying that compliance therewith is not mandatory. He has been all over town on his complains in attempts to stymie all efforts to clear the detritus, which a very significant number of users have expressed strongly wanting done away with within the project. I have stripped dates off some 8,600 articles as at today's date, and have received only about ten complaints, most of which have nothing to do with the principle of removing dates. One notable complaint was this torrent of abuse. Of course Locke was well within his rights to demand clarification on the matter at RfC, but his adamant refusal to take 'no' for an answer, which ordinarily might do him credit for tenacity, can also be viewed as having a disruptive dimension. Anyhow, there were few indications that Locke was ever committed to be bound by the outcome of the RfC, so this move hardly comes as a surprise. In fact. Lock has been strategically planning seizing this committee since 17 November.

To conclude, The way forward? I have already moved on, and am now concentrating my MOSNUM efforts to unifying date formats within articles. I am glad this ArbCom request is the last resort, because I would dearly like to see an end to this matter, which has been the most gigantesque distraction. Ohconfucius (talk) 04:13, 11 January 2009 (UTC) (reworked from edits 15:43, 10 January 2009 (UTC) and 01:12, 11 January 2009)

Addendum

Not happy with the state of disruption he and his cohorts have sown in WP, a battle appears to have erupted over the merger of Misplaced Pages:Only make links that are relevant to the context into Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (links) by User:Kotniski, and the most pointy edits which the plaintiff is attempting to put through in the latter. While there may be some limited discussion and agreement to merge the two, the timing of that action, together with the nature of amendments which have been made by the plaintiff (thus opening up another front in this dispute) while this WP:MOSNUM arbitration request was being prepared (it dates from 17 November 2008) is under consideration strikes me as being reckless and in contempt of process at worst; at best, I consider it unwise. I contend that this would put Locke's good faith into question. Ohconfucius (talk) 02:25, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Important statement regarding User:date delinker

There seems to be a misconception by a couple of arbitrators that the above account is a bot. I am the operator of this account. I believe it has been made clear that the account is not a bot. Edits made using the account at present rely predominantly on Auto Wiki Browser - please refer to the Mission Statement on the Userpage. Before AWB approval was gained, reliance was put on multi-windowed functionality of Firefox to achieve edit speeds of several pages a minute, which triggered WP's spam-guard mechanisms and alerted some admins to block the suspected bot. My arguments that I was not operating a bot was looked at and was accepted by User:Luna Santin, User:Fritzpoll and User:JLaTondre. Ohconfucius (talk) 14:35, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Limited response to User:Kotniski

With all due respect to the excellent technical efforts of Kotniski, his sage advice and his in my view correct reading of the consensus, the process he believed was broken is only appears so because a handful of individuals, led by the plaintiff, have demonstrated utter disrespect for the consensus, using all means at their disposal to repeatedly "reinterpret" the declared will of the people. I have full confidence in ArbCom that this subversion not be allowed to pass, for it will surely be a day for the annals of WP as the beginning of the end - one of its fundamental pillars, the consensus model will be irreparably shattered, to be replaced by a bureacracy. The only other way I can see of ensuring no disputes on such matters in future would be to replace it with directives from the top. Ohconfucius (talk) 16:01, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement from Earle Martin

I did not participate in the recent RfC on year linking, as at the time I both found the size of the discussion overwhelming, in addition to not having had any stake in the matter from prior experience.

A few days ago I became involved in a discussion regarding the repeated removal of a single year link from the lede of an article by Lightbot. I requested Lightmouse on his talk page to suspend the bot's blanket removal of year links until consensus for such an action was demonstrated.

This was immediately after I had taken the time to go through the RfC in search. While there were undeniably a number of voices (roughly 40) agreeing with the proposal that "Year links should never be made", there were more (roughly 55) agreeing with the proposal that "Year links should be made in certain cases". This is not a consensus for either point of view.

I was only met with a reply from Dabomb87 that I shouldn't "be surprised if you see a rash of editors suppressing a discussion that has been brought up many times", and adding that "It is time to move on". In other words, if you raise the issue you'll be told to shut up, so go away. I do not believe that it is appropriate behavior for any editor to make another feel unwelcome in participating in this fashion.

When I took my concerns to WT:MOSNUM, I was accused of "forum shopping" by Ohconfucius and greeted with a torrent of aggressive language and swearing by Greg L: "the puke you expect our articles should be linking to... just because you can prove you can stomach through reading that shit will only prove that you like reading mindless shit... turning yet more main body text into a giant blue turd". Reading through some of the archive links provided above by Locke Cole shows my experience was far from unique.

It is my concern, both as an editor with an opinion in this debate, and an administrator watching the situation, that the behavior of several individuals in this area equates to no less than an ownership issue over the whole site, by using automated or semi-automated tools to forcibly apply an opinion on style across articles on a vast scale in the absence of any policy requirement for it or even widespread consensus.

Please note that I am not asking the ArbCom to rule on the content issue of whether dates should be linked; I am perfectly aware that that is beyond their remit. Whatever the result is for that in the future, all parties should be expected to abide by it and discuss it in a fair and sanguine manner, as for any other policy issue. No result has yet been found, and therefore it is inappropriate for any editor or group of editors to be acting as if it has. For that reason I have added myself as a co-sponsor of this RfAr. -- Earle Martin 18:50, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Additional: I am becoming more and more concerned with the behavior of Greg L. Edits such as this one are totally unacceptable behavior. -- Earle Martin 21:33, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement from uninvolved MickMacNee

This whole dispute has been lame beyond belief, but the more important aspect is that it is damaging Misplaced Pages and therefore it is behaviour that needs to be examined by the committee. Over the past month I have chopped my watchlist by I would think at least 50%, probably more, dropping at least 1,000 articles that I most likely will never pick up again, directly as a result of the fun and games the involved parties have been having with bots and semi-auto editing. In anticipation of the expected response, I do not as a rule not watchlist minor edits or bot edits, becuase the minor flag is often misunderstood/abused, and bot edits are often marking the flagging of image issues which need attention, rather than trivial things like this. On the actual issue at hand, I have no strong opinion either way, but if it turned out there was a strong consensus to delink all dates, and to retrospectively do that, then it should have been done once, as a batch job by one bot account quickly, with anybody edit warring it without cause blocked. But it appears to me to have not been done this way, it has been done over weeks and weeks, by multiple people/accounts, and has been edit warred over without sanctions. If Flagged Revisions is adopted because not enough people are catching vandalism on watchlists, this sort of lame dispute is the reason why. It's maddening. MickMacNee (talk) 16:46, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement from uninvolved Protonk (talk)

I agree broadly with MickMacNee. I don't think arbcomm should step in and say "we link dates" or "we do not link dates". I think we need Arbcomm to step in and say "stop this continuous cycle of RfC's, AN/I threads, edit wars and spilling out into a request for Adminship." It is apparent the community doesn't feel capable of resolving this (and honestly, we tend to resolve these things with an inappropriate level of granularity) and that the content issue doesn't seem to go away though discussion.

Response to Sam Blacketer

With all due respect, distinguishing between dates delinked during an edit to a page that includes other content changes and dates delinked in a stand-alone edit is asinine. If we require (as the AWB policy does) that dates be delinked along with some change to an article, then a bot will be written or re-written to make a formatting change along with the delinking. If we think that dates should be delinked then delinking them is part of working on the encyclopedia. It doesn't add anything to argue that delinking is ok, unless it is done all by itself.

Statement from semi-involved NuclearWarfare

I was debating adding myself to this RfAr or not, but as I have not been in many of the discussions (I've merely implemented delinking and have discussed it on WT:AWB and WP:Requests for adminship/NuclearWarfare), I have decided to stay out of it. I just wanted to note a few things for the Arbitrators.

John Vandenberg - Lightbot's third RFBA, Misplaced Pages:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot 3, covers its current delinking. I'm not sure if that approval is still active; there were whispers that I heard that it wasn't, but that is something for another user to answer.

The two Requests for Comments showed a clear consensus in most cases for at leastmost very limited linking.

  • Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Three proposals for change to MOSNUM had a clear consensus to reject date linking and date autoformatting. It had a less clear, but still fairly strong consensus to allow automated and semi-automated edits to help delink dates.
  • Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Date Linking RFC
    • Deprecating the current date autoformatting - Dates should not be delinked (very clear consensus)
    • Is some method of date autoformatting desirable? - About 50/50, but this is not relevant to this RfAr, and is more a Developer issue.
    • When to link to Month-Day articles? - 2/49/49 support. Examples:
      • "John Fred was born on September 15 and invented the tricycle on October 29."
      • American independence was declared on July 4
      • American independence was declared on July 4.
    • When to link Year articles - 10/60/30
      • "John Fred was born on September 15 1789 and invented the tricycle on October 29 1810."
      • "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue."
      • "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue."
    • When to use Year-in-field links - murkier; no real consensus came about there.

Hope this helps. Feel free to alert me if you guys need anything else from me. NuclearWarfare (Talk) 19:23, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement from Tznkai

I will attempt to dredge up the appropriate diffs and history in a moment but for now, I have this to say:

The issue is not whether or not dates should be linked or not linked, or delinked or whatever. On the list of things that matter, with the main page libeling Bill Gates as a child molester at the very top, and whether mono books' default shade of white should be described as "cosmic latte" or "ivory" at the very bottom, our so called style guideline on the use of numbers in articles finds itself somewhere in the bottom 5. This hardly explains why there has been serious incivility, edit warring, abuse of process and otherwise disruptive behavior over the issue although this might. This would be lame if it wasn't for the genuinely hurt feelings and wasted hours over this issue. In short, there is a major behavior problem here, and if the users involved can't be brought to heel, I would very much like them to be quarantined in the insane asylum so the rest of us can get on with our wiki lives in peace.--Tznkai (talk) 23:39, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement from Septentrionalis (Pmanderson)

On the substantive issue, this is a dispute on this issues discussed in the polls in the #Statement from semi-involved NuclearWarfare above.

Is there a consensus that we should always delink dates? If not, should we allow automatic, or semi-automatic delinking of dates? (My own views are that we should link dates rarely, and about half the poll holds that opinion; and that we do not have consensus either to always delink or to handle the matter by bot and accept the cases where the bot delinks a useful link).

Lightbot is presently operating under Misplaced Pages:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot 3. The request itself was vague; it was disputed at the time; and since then a number of users have requested reconsideration, including Gerry Ashton and myself. Is this sufficient basis for Lightbot to operate?

These questions, unfortunately, only ArbCom can decide; we've tried other methods. It would be nice if Arbcom did.

There is a fundamental underlying issue, which ArbCom may also wish to address. The chief use of MOS and its subpages is to give "authority" to the following procedure: a handful of editors decide that Misplaced Pages ought to do something, and every article must do it (here, the parties to this who did not file think there should never be a linked date). They write this in as a paragraph on a MoS subpage, and then go around WP insisting on their One True Way because it's consensus. So far they've been bold; fine. But when objections arise, they do not really discuss, or attempt to reach an agreement to disagree; instead, they claim, as here, that it requires consensus to change MOS: i.e. for these five editors, it would take twenty or thirty editors to object with any effect. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:22, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement from RexxS

I can affirm that although I'm new to the debate on WT:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers), I've been treated with remarkable civility by all of the editors there - a little lecturing and a touch of sarcasm, but nothing my delicate constitution couldn't handle, even though I would characterise myself as firmly on one side of the debate. Apart from a brief outburst or two among a huge amount of debate, I suspect the exchanges there have been as polite as most other areas of Misplaced Pages.

Nevertheless, it is conceivable that ArbCom could help. I believe that the disagreement is as I summarised it here] and here. If it is true that editors are polarised on the question of whether date-links should be an automatic exception to WP:Context or not, then we either need another RfC (!) or a ruling from ArbCom (?). Otherwise, I fear that we are doomed to recycle arguments like "I can't find a single relevant/useful date link" vs "The date article would be interesting to someone wanting to browse/find out more about that year, etc." --RexxS (talk) 04:35, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Response to Earle Martin

I should have mentioned that the other factor polarising editors is the interpretation of the recent RfC's. As an example, Earle says While there were undeniably a number of voices (roughly 40) agreeing with the proposal that "Year links should never be made", there were more (roughly 55) agreeing with the proposal that "Year links should be made in certain cases". This is not a consensus for either point of view. By characterising the RfC as a vote, it misses the point that contributors made comments. Of the 55 (including myself) who supported "Year links should be made in certain cases", over three-quarters of those commented along the lines of "Only when it provides useful context/relevance" or echoed Fabrictramp's Year links should be made when it truly helps the understanding of the article. This is almost never, but if there ever is a time when it does, I don't want to rule it out. Several editors take the raw numbers and say "No consensus"; others put together the "Never" and "Rarely" and see a clear consensus that date-links are just as subject to WP:Context as any other link. I remain unsure about whether ArbCom is the place to decide such an issue. --RexxS (talk) 05:03, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement from Tennis expert

The various references to "semi-automated" editing includes both scripts and AWB. I have previously complained about the use of AWB to make controversial delinking edits at a frantic pace in clear violation of the AWB rules of use, only to have my complaint rejected by an administrator who himself uses AWB at a frantic pace to edit articles, a clear conflict of interest. I refer you to this AWB discussion and this ANI discussion. Others have complained about the use of AWB to make insignificant or inconsequential delinking edits in clear violation of another AWB rule of use, only to have the complaint rejected. I refer you to this AWB discussion, this AWB discussion, and this AWB discussion. Essentially, AWB, bots, and scripts are being used to make any discussion about the Manual of Style moot, futile, and pointless because all articles will have been changed to conform with one vocal faction's views (who are very proficient in bot and script programming) before the discussion is over. Also, the AWB and script users have converted what were supposed to be semi-automated tools into automated tools that are not bots in name only. Often, when it is brought to the attention of those users that they are making serious errors and asked to correct those errors, the notice is ignored or the reply is "that's the price of progress". See this discussion on the Ohconfucius talk page, this discussion on the Ohconfucius talk page, and this discussion on the Lightmouse talk page.

The statements by various people that hardly anyone has complained is ridiculous because whenever anyone does complain, they are steam-rolled by edit warring, aggressive posts and edit summaries, canvassing and other conspiratorial behaviors, accusations of mental illness or dyslexia, name calling, and other despicable tactics that clearly violate various Misplaced Pages policies and drive away valuable editors forever. See, for example:
Ohconfucius says I'm stupid
Ohconfucius says that certain administrators are communists and Stalinists
Ohconfucius says that certain people he disagrees with are terrorists
Conspiratorial behavior involving Ohconfucius and Tony1
List of some of Ohconfucius's disruptive and unconstructive behavior
Tony1 speculates about my having a major depressive disorder
Tony1 calls me a pest
Tony1 calls me a fanatic
Tony1 calls me a pig and eccentric
Tony1 calls me a fanatic and eccentric
Ohconfucius denegrates a contributor with "BIG YAWN"
Ohconfucius denegrates a contributor with "ZZZZzzzz"
Ohconfucius accuses me of being a drama queen and a princess
Ohconfucius accuses a contributor of being defensive-aggressive

Aside from all these problems, the Manual of Style has been treated by the date delinkers as if compliance with it were mandatory, regardless of particular article consensus. That is erroneous thinking, as previous ArbCom decisions have shown and as the Manual of Style itself plainly states. Tennis expert (talk) 05:11, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Reply to Colonies Chris

See this and this where he admitted his edit warring intentions and activities. See also this report of his edit warring, where in response he was incivil, confrontational, wikilawyering (esentially claiming that you can't edit war when all you're trying to do is enforce the MOS), and uncooperative. Tennis expert (talk) 11:38, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

He claims that he has not edit warred about date delinking. But here are a few examples of his doing exactly that:
Anna Kournikova (1), (2)
Stan Smith (1), (2)
Judy Tegart Dalton , (2)
Alexandra Fusai (1), (2)
Kelly Liggan (1), (2), (3)
Roscoe Tanner (1), (2)
Lesley Turner Bowrey (1), (2)
Jill Craybas (1),
Stephanie Rottier (1), (2)
Tatiana Panova (1), (2).
Wilmer Allison (1), (2)
Jelena Dokic (1), (2)
Debbie Graham (1), (1)
Flavia Pennetta (1), (2)
Tennis expert (talk) 21:52, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Woody

I have been involved in this issue since the beginning of this latest round of delinking. I objected to the mass delinking of FAs and FLs which was made with this justification to the talkpages of all featured articles. My initial response can be found at Talk:Victoria Cross#Proposal to remove date-autoformatting in which I stated that I wouldn't get involved over at MOSNUM because "those pages have their cliques and I have little time for high-school politics." The summary by Septriontrialis is fairly accurate when it comes to the procedure at our MOS pages. Whenever I labour through the talkpages I find that there are editors entrenched on both sides, usually going round in circular arguments with little output.

For too long these pages have become a time-sink where editors debate the merits of the most small, and frankly lame changes to the MOS. They have little time to spend on editing articles, by that I mean expanding, verifying and reviewing. We need a clear ruling from Arbcom about the behaviour of all those involved on these pages; on the meaning of consensus and its interpretations; and on the use of automated tools to present a fait accompli. I hope that ARBCOM can finally resolve some of these issues and let us return to the development of articles.

Statement from User:Colonies Chris

I’ll divide my statement into two parts; my opinion, and some facts about the community reaction to date delinking.

First of all, this whole case is a blatant example of forum shopping. Locke Cole has opposed these changes tooth and nail from the very start – first he lost the argument on the changes to MOSNUM, then he tried to claim that delinking was disruptive even though it was line with MOSNUM; then he tried to get me, Lightmouse and others banned from using AWB to make these edits; then he lost two RFCs, and made spurious complaints at WP:ANI, then even when he’d lost the RFCs – one of them specifically on the issue of using automated processes to implement the MoS - he’s still trying to say that there’s isn’t consensus to bring the encyclopaedia into line with its own Manual of Style, and also saying that MOSNUM is only a guideline and he doesn’t have to obey it anyway. This is someone who just can’t accepts that things aren’t going his way and is disrupting everyone else to make his point. The claim of incivility is just another spurious attempt to keep the dispute going – as Tony1 said "there have been instances of frayed tempers on both sides" - but none of it has resulted in anything that the ArbCom need be spending its time looking at.

The claim that ‘the bot has unlinked everything already’ is utter nonsense. I’ve just picked a random date (September 12) and checked what links to it – there are about 7000 links, even disregarding links to calendar-related articles. Multiply that up by 365, divide by, say, 5, to allow for multiple date links in articles, and you have about half a million articles still with some form of date linking, at a conservative estimate. What the objectors seem to forget when they object to automated delinking is that those links weren’t made by people carefully considering the merits of whether a particular date should be linked. They were made because that’s what the MoS recommended (in the case of autoformatting) or because the syntax of autoformatting is so unintuitive that the average editor tended to just link all bare years and other date fragments and time periods willy-nilly.

Here are some facts; most of what I do on WP is gnoming. Since the MoS was changed to deprecate autoformatting, I've been routinely unlinking dates in the course of my other edits. I estimate that I've edited about 10,000 articles, and roughly 70% of those edits involved some sort of date delinking – either full dates or bare years or the occasional more exotic combination. That's about 7000 articles delinked. If delinking were seriously disputed – by more than just Locke Cole and a few vocal others - you’d expect me to get a lot of complaints. How many have I had? Seven. In three cases I explained about the MoS and my argument was accepted. In two cases the editors wouldn’t accept that, so I just left them to it. And in two cases editors were so uncivil that no attempt at reasoned argument could have made any difference. This gives the lie to Locke Cole's suggestion that the changes are being steamrollered in. It's just that he doesn’t agree, plain and simple, and he won’t concede that the argument is lost. The community accepts the changes. The evidence is clear.

Response to Tennis Expert
This claim repeated ad nauseum that there is a local consensus (on tennis-related articles) that overrides the MoS needs to be exposed for the self-serving nonsense that it is. When various dates in tennis-related articles were being unlinked, in line with the MoS, and Tennis Expert was reverting those changes, in contravention of the MoS, where were the other tennis editors standing up to support this supposed local consensus? There were none - because it existed only in Tennis Expert's mind, as a justification for his insistence that everyone do things his way. Like it or not, hardly anyone has complained – see the facts in my statement above. And I have not imtimidated anyone, nor steam-rollered, edit warred, nor made aggressive posts and edit summaries. The evidence is open to anyone to examine.

How telling it is that the best Tennis Expert can come up with to support his allegation of edit warring is a complaint that he himself filed, and whose outcome was NOVIO. Strange he didn't mention that.

Comment from vaguely-involved User:Kotniski

My thoughts on this matter, for what they are worth:

Where we are now. After horrifyingly vast amounts of discussion of this topic, the conclusion of the community seems to be basically thus: dates in WP articles are not to be linked EXCEPT (A) in articles about other dates; (B) possibly in a few other situations where they might be useful. Exception (A) seems pretty clear cut, but all attempts to define any situations to be included under (B) (date of birth, first date mentioned in the article, etc.) have failed to take off. Therefore there is probably no date link, other than those of (A), which the community has any enthusiasm for keeping. On the other hand there are many thousands of date links (mostly left over from autoformatting) which are now deprecated and are desired to be removed. This is clearly the kind of task that can be usefully done by a bot or by humans using scripts, particularly if combined with other tidying-up. Exception (A) shouldn't be a problem; operators can easily define classes of articles (year articles etc.) where the bots don't delink dates. Exception (B) isn't too significant a problem, since it's far from clear that it ever applies, and in any case the "harm" done by delinking the few (if any) dates in that class is easily outweighed by the "good" done in removing the far greater number of unwanted links. There should simply be some agreed syntax (for example, a comment within the link) which can be used to tell the bots that a particular link is not to be touched (only to be used, of course, when there is good reason – like 2000 on the MM dab page, yes, there are some exceptions – and not just because of an editor's personal view on date linking). Summary: the bots will benefit the project as long as the described exceptions are provided for.

How we got here. Oh dear. This episode is really not something we can be proud of. Massive unproductive debate over many months, frequently lost tempers, large-scale edit-warring, interpersonal conflicts persisting even now – and all to reach a very simple and clear-cut decision that we could have got to ages ago without a single unkind word being spoken. Something's broken in the way we do decisions, and the wise people of ArbCom may be able to offer some guidance on what lessons are to be learnt from all this. For me, as proposer and writer-into-policy of the original autoformatting deprecation, I take the lesson that proposals directly affecting vast numbers of articles need to be loudly publicized in the community at large before any attempt at implementation. For the community, I suggest that there needs to be a mechanism whereby disputes that are getting hugely out of hand are forcibly brought under control - formally moderated, kept on track, and closed (preferably by a panel, for debates this big) after being allowed to run a reasonable time. We have structured processes for making certain decisions - deletions, renames, RfAs, ArbCom cases - why not have them available to resolve other issues where - exceptionally - the normal consensus-forming process has broken down. Summary: something needs to be done to stop this happening again.

People. I believe all those involved in this debate have acted for what they believed to be the best for the encyclopedia. Tempers have been frayed, to say the least, on all sides, but this is largely a consequence of the systemic failure to get the matter properly streamlined until very late in the day. I would hope that everyone can now accept the outcome, and get on with either implementing it or making other positive contributions to Misplaced Pages, which I know that all of them will. And to put aside past conflicts and work together amicably wherever their paths should cross. Summary: hey, it's only dates.

Re the present complaint. I agree that actions by various people on all sides in the past might have been imperfectly judged. However there seems to be no reason to complain against the action being taken with the use of bots now, with consensus finally established (at least to the extent that we can see that the use of bots is beneficial, as I've argued above). (I don't understand why some arbitrators seem to be saying that the consensus-building process should still be continuing - it's been as far as it possibly can and a lot further, and I don't believe there's any serious doubt about the principal conclusions as stated above. There will never be unanimity, if that's what they're hoping.) So I would strongly recommend that ArbCom not take any action to obstruct the useful work of these tools being done now, but confine itself to saying what went wrong throughout the whole saga and suggesting what might be done to prevent issues getting so out of hand in the future.

Comment from completely uninvolved User:S. Dean Jameson

Looking at this issue, it's apparent that the issue -- content dispute or no -- has not been, and will not be, decided on-project. That makes the issue to accept the case relatively cut-and-dried for the arbitration committee, in my view. As for the underlying facts, it would appear that something at least resembling consensus was reached at WT:MOSNUM. However, per the Fait Accompli finding in the episodes case, once editors at the individual articles began to dispute this consensus, the automated edits should have stopped immediately. Personally, I don't see any particular value in linking individual dates, unless that date is particularly significant for some reason, but that's beside the point. Once the edits were disputed, they should have stopped. They didn't, and now that is a behavior issue (along with some concerns regarding personal attacks and basic collegiality) that the committee should address. SDJ 17:35, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by non-recused Clerks.
  • Recuse - statement may come later, for now but I was involved very briefly as an administrator, tried to stop an incredibly uncivil discussion, and then was compared to people who trick Black voters in the South so I am definitely not reliably neutral.--Tznkai (talk) 04:47, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Propose renaming to MOSNUM due to larger issues. Date delinking is only the latest incarnation of MOSNUM problems. — Rlevse • Talk • 13:20, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
    • I'm not so sure about the renaming; let's have a little more discussion on that. I don't want the scope of the case expanded in a way that might encourage editors to include in it every disagreement about a style or nomenclature issue across the project. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:17, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (8/0/2/0)

See Wikipedia_talk:Bot_policy#User:Date_delinker, it's using AWB on an alternate account, which is within policy. — Rlevse • Talk • 14:25, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Accept, largely per Vassyana and suggest renaming to MOSNUM due to larger issues. Date delinking is only the latest incarnation of MOSNUM problems. — Rlevse • Talk • 13:22, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment Because of the potential for a dispute on this topic to cause instability to a large amount of articles and the length of the dispute, I'm willing to take this case sooner rather than late, unless there if good evidence of clear ongoing consensus building process that will end with well accepted solution. If the discussion is stalling due to problematic user conduct, then can address it if needed. If issues of unauthorized bot usage need to be addressed then make that clear. Please cite specifics of any problems. FloNight♥♥♥ 14:43, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
    • Now Accept. Not to make a content ruling but to assist in developing a process that will result in stability to articles and address any user conduct issues that may be causing local article discussion or global topic discussions to stall without forming consensus. FloNight♥♥♥ 10:48, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment; I'm inclined to accept a case when the topic focus causes large, repeated threads on noticeboards with no visible signs of abating. This invariably means there is a behavioral problem, even if the problem is the repeated call to arms rather than the issue itself. — Coren  15:28, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Accept; the issue pivots around large scale implementation of style changes, and the behavior surrounding the propriety of such changes. I don't think the name change is necessary, but it is acceptable. — Coren  17:13, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Question Can anyone provide an estimate of: (i) the percentage of articles within the corpus that have so far been de-linked and (ii) the rough proportion of de-linked articles which have been subsequently reverted? --ROGER DAVIES  15:48, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
    • My estimation is very rough and is based on feeling rather than actual data: Perhaps 30 % of all articles with dates were forcibly delinked. Probably in less than 1 % the links were re-introduced. —Guy Peters 21:16, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment. In the interests of full disclosure I made an early comment to Lightmouse on this issue, and participated in both the Date Linking RFC and the MOSNUM proposal. I don't think I have prejudged this case but if seriously asked to recuse on these grounds by a party to an accepted case then I would be bound to accede.
That being said, I am concerned at the time spent by a small number of editors who have been mass delinking - which cannot truly, I think, be regarded as writing an encyclopaedia. Removing links while doing other necessary changes on individual articles could not be disruptive, but systematically delinking for aesthetic reasons strikes me as a waste of server time.
There are two caveats to my opinion. First, the issue of whether to link or delink dates is not, in my mind, entirely on a level with the merging and deleting seen in the Episodes and characters case, and does not create the "fait accompli" mentioned in the title of the principle. Second, if we were to accept the case, the committee cannot issue binding policy on the issues within the RFCs. Sam Blacketer (talk) 18:44, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Quick reply to two comments (by Locke Cole and Protonk), I certainly agree that making superficial editorial changes along with delinking dates is substantially the same as just delinking them; I was thinking really of manual routine page maintenance rather than automated mass changes. I would accept a case strictly limited to the use of automated or semiautomated tools to delink dates on articles but nothing wider. The caveat about recusal still stands. Sam Blacketer (talk) 21:29, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Recuse I am a good friend of Tony and my ability to be impartial may not be accepted by all. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:39, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Accept pending what the name will be. I support just keeping it to the date delinking conduct issues; if we widen the scope it could be dangerous, so I oppose a rename at this time. Wizardman 16:29, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Recuse - I have participated in date-linking discussions previously, and while I don't hold a very strong opinion on the central issues, and my opinion has shifted over time (to the stage where I support most, but not all, date delinking), I'm involved enough and have discussed this with several of the editors concerned (at least four of the parties), to the extent that I don't feel I could impartially judge the behaviour issues here. I do agree with those who have stated that this case should most emphatically be about the behaviour here, and not the content. Incivility, unnecessarily strong criticism, tendentiousness, inability to compromise or see the other side's arguments, misreading of consensus (possibly in good faith, or being blinded by bias), edit warring, attacks against bot operators, impatient and unhelpful responses by bot operators, misguided application of the manual of style, and other issues, are among those that have taken place here (just a selection of the behaviour on both sides). I also echo the comments by those who point out that date delinking is not really the most urgent matter to be resolved here. Carcharoth (talk) 00:36, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

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Request for clarification: Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience

Note: the specific article involved is List of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts

List of any users involved or directly affected, and confirmation that all are aware of the request:

(Note: since this case involves an article and not any specific editor(s), neither I nor the parties below are directly affected. However, I've notified all active editors as a courtesy, and have left a note on the article's talk page.)


Statement by Backin72

We are at an impasse regarding use of the "pseudoscience" label at List of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts. Certain of the findings of principle in the Pseudoscience Arb case were incorporated into NPOV (see: WP:PSCI), and are now being disregarded. Basically, some editors want to characterize as pseudoscience any topic that has received criticism as such, even from self-published sources like Quackwatch and CSICOP. We've had a bunch of RfC's (I stopped counting before 2008: 19 Jan. 2008, 15 Aug. 2008, 18 Nov. 2008, 28 Dec. 2008), all of which have failed to generate consensus, and lately a lot of edit-warring (see edit history). We're deadlocked, other attempts at WP:DR have not worked, and each side is convinced they are right, so I believe the time is ripe for ArbCom to clarify.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. WP:PSCI is quite clear on what to explictly characterize (or label, or categorize) as pseudoscience, and what not to. For convenience (at the expense of the 500-word limit; sorry), here is a cut-and-paste of WP:PSCI:

In an Arbitration Committee case, which can be read in full here, the committee created distinctions among the following:

  • Obvious pseudoscience: "Theories which, while purporting to be scientific, are obviously bogus, such as Time Cube, may be so labeled and categorized as such without more ."
  • Generally considered pseudoscience: "Theories which have a following, such as astrology, but which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience."

The ArbCom ruled that the following should generally not be characterized as pseudoscience:

  • Questionable science: "Theories which have a substantial following, such as psychoanalysis, but which some critics allege to be pseudoscience, may contain information to that effect, but generally should not be so characterized."
  • Alternative theoretical formulations: "Alternative theoretical formulations which have a following within the scientific community are not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process."

It's pretty clear what NPOV is telling us: don't categorize or otherwise characterize a topic as pseudoscience unless it's trivially "obvious pseudoscience" (and requires no reference), or it's "generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community". Classifying a topic as the latter obviously requires a suitable source, cf. WP:RS#Consensus, and also WP:MEDRS. Such sources usually are scientific academies or other mainstream, official groups (e.g., many of the sources listed in List of scientific societies rejecting intelligent design). Skeptical advocacy organizations like Quackwatch and CSICOP, while notable (and perhaps suitable for establishing that a topic is what we call "questionable science"), cannot be taken as representing general agreement in the scientific community. Such sources suffer from self-selection bias, and don't even meet WP:MEDRS at all.

However, some editors don't believe that inclusion of "questionable sciences" on the list violates WP:PSCI. One editor says "a list is not a category", irrespective of the list's title. Some want to populate the list as robustly as possible, and have tended to brush off the objection that we must find the proper sources, i.e., those indicative of what the scientific community generally holds. This is especially problematic given that the list's title is unambiguous: "List of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts" leaves no wiggle room, any more than category:pseudoscience does. When we put a topic on that list, we are saying that the topic is pseudoscience, no ifs, ands or buts.

My view is that if we keep the list's present title, we should strip out all topics that are not verifiably "generally considered pseudoscience" or "obvious pseudoscience". If we changed the list's title to something like "List of topics referred to as pseudoscience", then I think it would be OK to include "questionable sciences". However, I'm still concerned that we'd have to clearly demarcate the clear-cut pseudosciences from the "questionable" ones. Otherwise, it's like having an alphabetical "List of burglars, and people who might have been burglars according to speculation". It's a violation of WP:WEIGHT to have clear-cut pseudosciences alongside grey-area topics.

So, I request that ArbCom clarify that findings 15-18 in Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience accordingly:

  • Proper sources are required to show that a topic is "generally considered pseudoscience". (I believe it would also be appropriate to clarify that statements from individual scientists or skeptical bodies do not suffice as sources here.)
  • These findings apply not only to "category:pseudoscience", but also to lists with unambiguous titles such as List of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts, as well as to navigational templates, and any unqualified assertion such as "X topic is pseudoscience". "Questionable sciences" and "alternative theoretical formulations" should not be depicted as pseudoscience, e.g. via inclusion on the list in question, as titled.
  • Don't hide distinctions in the fine print. Obvious or generally-considered pseudosciences should not be conflated with questionable sciences by listing them alongside each other without explanation. WP:WEIGHT and other principles require that questionable sciences be clearly demarcated from the former two, either by having their own list, or otherwise by annotation or segregation into a separate section of a broader list (e.g., a "List of topics referred to as pseudosciences").

Thank you for taking the time to consider this matter. --Backin72 (n.b.) 13:28, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Comment for Coren and others: Yes, this is a content problem; so were aspects of the original ruling and finding (see WP:PSCI). In practice, ArbCom does comment on content from time to time, and WP is better for it. Please have a look at those RfC's I linked to before blowing this off to "community resolution". Said community is deadlocked, with some believing that everything on the list, grey-areas included, are obviously pseudoscience. But the sourcing situation is a little bit different than Eldereft's humorous renaming example below. There are pseudosciences according to the scientific community, and "pseudosciences" according to lesser sources like advocacy groups or individual critics. There are editors who, like skeptical groups, want to apply this label to as many things as possible, in an WP:IAR spirit, because they believe they're right. Others believe WP:PSCI was correct and should be followed strictly. This has created the present impasse. If the community never resolves it, and there are real NPOV problems, shouldn't ArbCom intervene? --Backin72 (n.b.) 21:55, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
Comment for Rlevse and Vassyana: I don't think the Fringe Science case will help much; nothing in the proposed principles addresses WP:PSCI (probably because it's not all that germaine). Please don't be too hasty in blowing this off. If the community could fix it, it would have done so in the past couple years. We have an impasse between editors who take WP:PSCI seriously and editors who want to IAR because they feel the pseudoscience label is best used liberally. We've tried virtually every part of WP:DR, which is why we're at the end of it .... here. So, have another look? Pretty please? It's a fairly narrow issue. --Backin72 (n.b.) 08:12, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Enric Naval

Talk:List of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts is currenty a crapola because of so much arguing over that WP:PSCI ruling, but the modifications proposed by Backin would just make it worse. It just deepens the "content ruling" problem by a) expanding its scope and b) enforcing stricter limitations on content.

While that ruling needs modification, this doesn't look the correct way to go.

Statement by Elonka

This is really more of a content dispute than anything that ArbCom needs to deal with. As background, I have been acting as an administrator for the last few days at List of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts, trying to help stabilize the article via the discretionary sanctions authorized from the Pseudoscience case. There currently appear to be three main points of dispute, though all three appear (to me) to be the topics of constructive discussion on the talkpage. The main three issues are: (1) What should the page be titled; (2) Should Chiropractic be included on the list; and (3) Should Traditional Chinese medicine (such as acupuncture) be included on the list. Up until about a week ago, there were pretty systematic back and forth revert wars going on, but since there has been more administrator attention on the article, the revert wars have stopped, and the discussion environment seems to be improving on the talkpage. No direct sanctions have been implemented (at least by me), though I did post a few nudges to the talkpages of a few users: QuackGuru, Dematt, Backin72, Levine2112, along with some off-wiki communication with ScienceApologist (talk · contribs). All editors have been cooperative and have voluntarily complied with the requests, which is appreciated, and the article appears much more stable as a result, though of course vigorous discussion is continuing on the talkpage. As far as ArbCom is concerned, the existing ArbCom motions and discretionary sanctions seem sufficient for the current situation, so it would probably be best to allow the discussions at Talk:List of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts to continue, with administrators continuing to monitor the page. --Elonka 18:32, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Eldereft

Possibly influenced by the daunting volume of often polite discussion and rapid watchlist-destroying reverts, all listed editors are long-term good faith contributors. There is general consensus that unquestionable science should be excluded from the list - anti-vaccination advocacy groups and others clearly outside the scientific conversation are not sufficient sources.

I prefer to view this as a genuine dispute concerning where the bar of WEIGHT falls - if a practice, for instance homeopathy, is published in peer-reviewed journals or practiced in some hospitals, can reliably-sourced analysis support an entry in this list? This often boils down to the issue of efficacy vs. rationale - many papers studying the efficacy of chiropractic are published in quality sources, but the original and a continuing rationale asserts the existence and healing powers of a putative energy. MEDRS applies only to the efficacy side of this question, though assertions made in the absence of evidence may come into play. To further complicate matters, there are three answers to this question: write an entry mentioning nuances and caveats; write an entry discussing solely the pseudoscientific aspects; or write no entry. I favor the first position (adequately sourced) - state that hypnosis exists but Mesmerism and past-life regression are pseudoscience. This issue is treated in the inclusion criteria described in the introduction to the list.

This brings us to the question of sourcing - a few pseudoscientific practices are widespread enough to have attracted the notice of organizations and departments who ordinarily devote themselves to science. Everyone has heard about the 'power lines cause cancer' scare, and the American Physical Society felt it worth their time to state that "o plausible biophysical mechanisms for the systematic initiation or promotion of cancer by these power line fields have been identified." They have issued no corresponding statement on the misapplication of quantum mechanics in service of mysticism. The test of whether such a body has issued a statement is a much better indicator of how widespread a practice is or how much it impinges on their mission than it is an indicator of "how pseudoscientific" it is. Skeptical bodies are interested in pseudoscience, and may make reliable statements regarding it.

There is also a perennial proposal to rename the list to include alleged, purported, or some similar qualifier in the title. Fyslee gives what I see as the best-articulated formulation of this position here. My own position is that we should rely on in-line attribution and nuanced explanations to show rather than tell. A ridiculous analogy would be a proposed rename to Hertzsprung–Russell diagram according to mainstream astrophysicists.

Requested clarifications

  • How do we treat topics some of whose aspects are reliably described as pseudoscientific?
  • How does ASF bear on source segregation, attribution, and pseudoscience?

Requested non-clarifications

  • Sufficiency of sourcing is a content matter.
  • How do we deal with advocacy, both in editors and in sources?
  • A saintly uninvolved administrator may wish to consider Discretionary sanctions.

Statement by other user

Statement by other user

Clerk notes

Arbitrator views and discussion

  • This is a content dispute, and I see no evidence that this could not be solved within the community. — Coren  15:35, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Content dispute, plus this could be affected by the current RFAR case on Fringe sciences, which is in voting phase. — Rlevse • Talk • 18:45, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Decline. Normal content disagreement, not requiring the intervention of ArbCom. If discussion isn't getting anywhere, there's plenty of options. If something truly is an endemic problem regarding "psuedoscience", and classification as such, there's an ongoing case about the fringe science topic area. Vassyana (talk) 21:31, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
    • Further comment. The page has the eyes of one or more experienced editors that seem willing to assist with helping to settle the dispute and resolve the behavioral issues. I would recommend trying to work with them to resolve the situation. If that option fails, there are still other options to explore. Informal and formal mediation are options I would recommend exploring. The incidents, edit warring, and wikiquette noticeboards can be used as needed to request administrator assistance with behavioral issues. Regarding references towards the fringe science case, if this situation is relevant, please add evidence to the case. If WP:PSCI is an important and relevant principle, please add appropriate workshop proposals to the case. Vassyana (talk) 18:26, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Decline Wizardman 02:41, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Decline Risker (talk) 04:28, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Decline Rlevse sums it up well. Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:32, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
  • I am leaning towards declining also as this is a content issue and the proposed decisions of the current fringe science case does have elements that will help. Also, there is still plenty of time to workshop if more are needed. In regards to the requested changes to the pseudoscience case, the principles already indicate to what extent they apply to content as well as "category:pseudoscience", using the terms labeled and categorized. It appears as if the ambiguity is in the word "categorized", which may refer to the MediaWiki functionality described in the guideline Misplaced Pages:Categorization, or it may refer to the characterisation of a topic within content of articles. If it is the latter, "labeled" is a term of strong and unambiguous characterisation, while "categorized" is a term of loose characterisation. My reading of principle 15 is that only obviously bogus science can be "labeled" as such in the content of an article without good sources to support that label. With that in mind, principle 16 indicates that "generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community" would need still need proper sources. John Vandenberg 10:48, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Decline per Vassyana's comment. -FloNight♥♥♥ 10:53, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Decline - content dispute. My advice, if it will help, would be for those expending time and effort on the very difficult task of finding a stable version of such a list, to work instead on improving Pseudoscience (and related articles) and all the articles of the potential candidates for this list. Once that is done, then it may be more obvious whether the list in question is possible or even needed. To clarify further, good articles are generally more helpful and informative than controversial lists, and those lists are best done after the groundwork has been done at the articles. Carcharoth (talk) 00:56, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
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