Misplaced Pages

I do think the sanctions ought to recognise the specific problems of sockery. Editors should be expected to file a proper sock report, and once somebody has done that administrators should take account of this. The question of whether good faith newbies are being inappropriately bitten by a particular editor (who for that reason should not be left to make reverts on his own sole judgement) can be made by an admin and appealed in the usual way. The point is that much of the mess is due to parties failing to extend good faith and engage in reasonable discussion, and that can be handled well by discretionary sanctions. --TS 01:47, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

• See also Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident proposed editing restrictions for some earlier discussion. Prodego 01:51, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

• For the love of all things holy, yes. These pages have been in desperate need of administrative oversight for ages. I do share Stephan's concerns though. Semiprotection doesn't help because Scibaby (and some of the others) age their socks to get around semi. Tony's suggestion for formal sock reports becomes impractical when dealing with someone who has created over 500 socks. We need a streamlined process for that. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:51, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Yes, I agree with that suggestion. The sock problem in this topic area is the worst I've ever seen on Misplaced Pages. How would you envisage a streamlined process working? -- ChrisO (talk) 01:54, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
    • For a start we'd need a few admins who are familiar (or willing to become familiar) with the MO of the usual suspects. We'd also need a straightforward way of reopening cases for repeat offenders. The current WP:SPI is quite cumbersome in that regard. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:01, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

      Cumbersome? How much more streamlined can it get? The current reports simply list the suspects and the poster simply states "the usual reasons" and then the list gets checkusered. There are accounts being accused with a few as a single edit. --GoRight (talk) 05:45, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

      • That just means Misplaced Pages is a police force, not an encyclopedia. Just ban editing on the article for anyone with less than a years worth of edits. Head of Security for the World (talk) 02:04, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
        • While that idea would certainly keep out the swarms of ranting newbies that descend on the articles whenever a blog or Fox News throws them a fresh piece of red meat, sadly I suspect it would not be in keeping with the spirit of Misplaced Pages. -- ChrisO (talk) 02:17, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
          • But that doesn't address the POV-pushing from editors with over a year's worth of experience. I'm concerned that this might give these editors free reign to violate WP:NPOV at will. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:30, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
            • Agreed, POV-pushing from experienced editors is a problem. Having more admins looking in, with more freedom of action, should help to curb that. But that's a separate issue from the onslaught of sockpuppets. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:05, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
• Heaven's no, these articles are already a bastion of wikilawyering, WP:OWN, and meatpuppetry and this will simply make the problem much worse. I've noticed a couple admins will edit some global warming articles, staying away from others, while another admin will edit a different set of global warming articles, but then ban/use admin power in the articles the other admin is edit warring in - these regulations will increase this type of behavior and keep already badly balanced articles in the horrible shape they are in. If this "must" pass, then it should be made clear that an admin involved in one global warming article is involved in them all - skeptics are far more frequently banned/sanctioned over non-skeptics - the use of admin power in these articles is neither balanaced or fair. TheGoodLocust (talk) 02:10, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Ryan's proposal is effectively a carbon copy of the regime already in place to manage Barack Obama-related articles. I'd suggest you have a read through Misplaced Pages:General sanctions/Obama article probation and the sub-pages to see how that has worked in practice. I might add that if sceptics are being sanctioned more frequently that is probably a reflection of more frequent disruptive behaviour on that side of the dispute. I've certainly not seen any non-sceptic counterpart to the rampant sockpuppetry being pursued by the likes of Scibaby, though admittedly the breadth of my experience in this topic area is very limited. -- ChrisO (talk) 02:17, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

    "I might add that if sceptics are being sanctioned more frequently that is probably a reflection of more frequent disruptive behaviour on that side of the dispute." - Did you have a straight face when you typed that? Just curious. The skeptics are fighting to bring balance to the currently POV status quo. Changing the status quo is by definition disruptive and vehemently resisted by the WP:OWNers of that status quo. Team AGW has no need to do anything other than stonewall any suggestion of change. Stonewalling has never been viewed as disruptive as far as I have seen. --GoRight (talk) 06:02, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

People like "SciBaby" come into existence when people (William Connolley specifically) ban them as sockpuppets, or tag team new editors until they get 3rred or worse. Besides, if AGW-advocates had socks there would be no way to find out - editors who are AGW skeptics seem to always be accused of sockpuppetry and get checkusered. How many AGW advocates have been checkusered? Anyway, skeptics are not more "disruptive" - they just tend to be newer and less experienced at gaming the system and provoking people into getting banned. TheGoodLocust (talk) 02:39, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

If as you suggest there are people who are gaming the system, then this proposal to encourage more administrator involvement will help to address that problem. --TS 03:02, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

More admins simply mean more marks for the gamers - these people have been doing this for many years now and do it well. The solution is less admin involvement, not more - I'm a free market kind of guy. TheGoodLocust (talk) 03:08, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

So you propose a free-for-all? Or do you just propose that the current situation (in which you claim longstanding abuse of Misplaced Pages by regular editors continues) should continue? --TS 03:11, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

A free for all is more preferable than having one side with their hands handcuffed behind their back. If past observations are any indicator the rules will be strictly enforced for one side while the other side will be able to do whatever they want. The only way this could possibly change is with at least 1-3 very good admins with the sense and the balls to apply the rules equally or through less admin interference. I'm quite skeptical of the former happening since any admin volunteers for this will either be masochistic or biased. TheGoodLocust (talk) 03:41, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

TGL: I'm pretty sure less admin involvement is not the answer here. ++Lar: t/c 03:25, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

And I would suggest that characterising admins as "marks" is not exactly doing justice to the admin community. -- ChrisO (talk) 03:43, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, calling them "marks" seems a dang sight better than calling them "meatpuppets" which is what Team AGW did to Tedder. --GoRight (talk) 06:08, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I think perhaps this side discussion is in danger of becoming a recapitulation of the Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee discussions on various talk pages, so I suggest we leave it there. We've all had our say and Thegoodlocust has clarified his point as I requested. --TS 03:48, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

• I support either the first or the second wording. Neither is perfect but both are better than what we have now, which is too chaotic. As for combatting socks, if SPI used the normal way is too cumbersome maybe we need to keep an SPI page open for Scibaby (and similarly for other repeated sockers) and not close it but just let reports pile up and CUs deal with it on an ongoing basis. ++Lar: t/c 03:25, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

• Concur with lar. Prodego 03:55, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

• A question: many of the issues I've seen personally have been a combination of behavioural and content issues - for instance, editors repeatedly adding unsourced personal commentary to articles. Are these proposed sanctions meant to deal with content issues or just behavioural ones? So for instance, if someone repeatedly violated BLP or NPOV on an article, would that be actionable? -- ChrisO (talk) 04:19, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

That is actually one of my bigger concerns. NPOV claims are subjective, which makes enforcement more open to interpretation and therefore bias/manipulation. :*] (talk) 04:24, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

• This is a case in point: an editor is repeatedly deleting a cited summary and replacing it with uncited personal commentary on completely bogus grounds (apparently the police and a major university aren't reliable sources, who knew?). This is the kind of behaviour - completely ignoring prohibitions on original research and lack of verifiability - that needs to be penalised. -- ChrisO (talk) 11:35, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I looked at the diff and apparently he was removing content from the Real Climate blog, which only seems to be a "reliable source" in these articles because William Connolley used to blog there. If he added unsourced commentary (I didn't look) then that should be removed, but removing a source like "Real Climate" is a good thing. TheGoodLocust (talk) 00:51, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

• Yes. Please. Edit-warring & editing against consensus, incivility and a disregard for BLP are all problems that we need to shut down, Guettarda (talk) 06:03, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
• More admin intervention would be good, but it must be informed. This debate is about global warming related articles (of which climate change is one, but that particular article is relatively uncontroversial) William M. Connolley (talk) 13:27, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
• I'm broadly supportive of the sanctions proposals, but there are some changes I feel are necessary, and some assurances I'd like to hear (not requiring wording changes).
  

Wording changes

1. The first wording allows sanctions after a warning. I'd like clarification that the reference to warnings means warning posted on an editors talk page after the implementation of this proposal. Many of the involved editors have received some warning and without change, this proposals would allow a one year ban immediately. (Yes, I know it can be appealed, but it basically would reverse the "innocent until proven guilty" presumption into "guilty until proven innocent".) I don't think reasonable people would oppose this clarification, and perhaps Ryan can simply clarify that it is implicit.
2. The second wording has no warning requirement. While I can endorse the reduction of the usual warning escalation from four to one, dropping it to zero is not appropriate.
3. I concur with LiteratureGeek's observation that a block of one year is unreasonably onerous. I'd prefer "block up to one week, topic ban up to one year".

Assurances

1. I can imagine someone arguing that Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident is not an article about climate change. This isn't an abstruse argument, it's a simple fact that the article isn't about climate change. For the purpose of this agreement, I'd like assurance that this article will be deemed one of the climate change articles (I think "broadly construed" covers it, but if someone would simply say, "of course", it will help.}
2. I take it as obvious that is an admin is involved in one climate change article, but not another one, they are considered involved. Seems obvious, but I've seen statement implying otherwise, so just want to hear "of course".
3. Assuming the final agreement contains language requiring a warning, I'd like to hear that if a warning is issued, and an uninvolved admin posts that the warning was not warranted, it will not count as a warning. I note that there is no requirement that the warnings be issued by an uninvolved admin, or even by an admin. It would subvert the process if any editor could simply post a warning for edit warring, thereby making it possible to invoke strong sanctions without further discussion.--SPhilbrickT 16:04, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

It looks to me as if this second proposed wording has pretty broad support and has already been tested in the field. I suggest we discuss the minutiae once it is put into action. Let's do it and see how it works in practice, as was done in the Obama case. --TS 18:31, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I object to the characterization of the reaction as "pretty broad support". Unfortunately, this is a perfect example of the whole problem, writ small. I see support from TS and ChrisO. I see support from Ryan, but as proposer, that goes without saying. Prodego and Lar are the only uninvolved supporters I see. I, personally, like the general concept, but asked specific questions which have not been answered. Without answers, I am strongly opposed. GoRight expressed reservations, as did Stephan Schultz, LiteratureGeek, A Quest For Knowledge and TheGoodLocust. I'd say a fair reading of the discussion identifies almost as many editors with concerns as editors with unreserved support. Barber supports, with some reservations, and Boris supports. (Sorry Dimawik, not sure how to characterize your position). --SPhilbrickT 16:20, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

• I like the general idea, and I think it will be helpful in many ways, particularly in removing simple incivilities and cutting back further on the edit warring, and with abuse from SPAs and IPs. I especially like this language, which gets at the problems we have with many veteran editors: the need to reduce edit-warring and misuse of Misplaced Pages as a battleground, so as to create an acceptable collaborative editing environment even on our most contentious articles. Editors wishing to edit in these areas are advised to edit carefully, to adopt Misplaced Pages’s communal approaches (including appropriate conduct, dispute resolution, neutral point of view, no original research and verifiability) in their editing, and to amend behaviors that are deemed to be of concern by administrators. And yet I don't think admins will really hold veteran editors to high standards, even when they can be seen to be POV pushing, using battleground behavior and below-3RR edit warring. When a group of highly political editors takes over an article to POV-push it, they need to be held to the strictest standards on behavioral violations, because no one's going to topic ban or block them for violating NPOV itself. Admins, fearing controversy and reversal (and ultimately fearing a waste of their time), won't be strict enough, even on behavioral violations, even with editors who repeatedly violate them. That's just the way it is. So I support this fully but have no hope it will do much good. It would be better to pass this over to ArbCom and have them set up something like this, preferrably with ArbCom-selected admins. An ArbCom-endorsed regime on these articles would give admins the backbone they need for this kind of task. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 19:24, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Okay, let's do it. --TS 00:24, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely. Implement Ryan's proposal as written. No embellishments such as restrictions against anyone editing (other than standard Misplaced Pages policy). Any further restrictions such as 1RR, etc can be implemented on an as-needed basis by admins. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:32, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

This is just a restatement of standard policy: "Any uninvolved administrator may, on his or her own discretion, impose sanctions on any editor working on an affected article if, despite being warned, that editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Misplaced Pages, " -- such is already the case for all editors on all articles on all subjects, as are the mechanisms for reviewing it. Frankly, though, I don;t really expect arbcom to do anything better. DGG ( talk ) 00:52, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

• Even today, the WP:3RR and WP:CIVIL rules are not enforced against the pro-AGW side, and the same side of the dispute seems to be able to call for air support (edit protection) whenever the going gets tough - and gets this support immediately. I thus expect that giving more ammo to the admins will hurt, as the very same decisions will be made by the same semi-involved admins, yet will be easier to make and harder to revert.

A single admin who took sides is all it will take under the proposed rules to make life for people who do not edit Misplaced Pages for living really miserable. Notice that unlike 3RR, the other rules, say, WP:CIVIL, are 100% fuzzy, and the changes make them a subject to the interpretation of a single person. The proposed changes will therefore simply make the most problematic group of the editors even more disruptive. Dimawik (talk) 04:37, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

• Interesting. I'm slightly worried with the qualifications regarding who's an uninvolved administrator though. It only takes two working together to completely enforce their POV and all the editors will be able to do is to go to ArbCom. As outlined in the current ArbCom-case, one affected talk page has problems with administrators seemingly acting as gatekeepers and disrupting attempts to reach consensus. So far I haven't seen any admin abuse (and I hope there won't be any), but it's a possibility that cannot be ruled out. It's actually somwhat visible in this very discussion as of this moment, although I do not think this is the place to start a discussion about it. Troed (talk) 16:28, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

• I would like to support this as it stands but SPhilbrick's six points give me sufficient pause that I would like to see them clarified. I don't think details like proper issuing of warnings and maximum block length are "minutiae", I think they're central. A quick resolution here would be desirable though, since it would likely head of a nascent Arbitration case that will take 500 times as much text and time to arrive at probably exactly the same conclusion (along with primciples like "Misplaced Pages is an on-line encyclopedia") Even if it's just going to be the current wording #2, it can always be reviewed after two months and taken to ArbCom then, by which time the new Arbs will have figured out how their pencil-sharpeners and email work. This is worth a try. Franamax (talk) 17:29, 1 January 2010 (UTC) Support wording 2 with the addition of warning text. Franamax (talk) 20:52, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

• I strongly support this approach under either wording, which probably makes an arbitration case unnecessary. But I would prefer it if the current consensus wording no. 2 would be clarified to read that a prior warning with a link to the discussion is required, as is standard practice in arbitral discretionary sanctions remedies.  Sandstein  20:12, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Thanks Sandstein - I've added the caveat in about issuing a warning first - I certainly agree that it should be the case. Ryan Postlethwaite 20:19, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
    • Thanks. Shouldn't that be "to these provisions" (i.e. to the entry on the general sanctions page) rather than "to this discussion" (this page)?  Sandstein  21:19, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
      • Yup, good catch - I've changed it. Ryan Postlethwaite 21:33, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Alternative proposals arising from discussion

Proposal by Thegoodlocust

Okay, if admin interference must be implemented then here is my proposed solution and it is far easier to implement and will be far more effective. Topic ban anyone who makes more than 100 (200-500, or whatever we decide on) article edits to global warming related articles. The articles will be just fine, it'll calm things down, and make the articles more welcoming for new input and eyes. Nothing could be more fair than that. TheGoodLocust (talk) 03:48, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

That would have the effect of getting rid of all of the experienced editors and turning the field over completely to newbies and socks. I can't see that working. -- ChrisO (talk) 03:53, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

The experienced editors are a problem and have been for years. They may have gotten better at hiding it, those who've studied criminology know older criminals are less likely to be caught, but the problems they cause continue and will continue until they either quit obsessing over the subject or are made to quit obsessing over it - in fact, it'd probably be doing them an enormous personal service. TheGoodLocust (talk) 03:59, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

If, as Thegoodlocust has suggested at 02:39, banning only encourages socking, this proposal if implemented would pose a further temptation to socking. --TS 03:56, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree, that's why I said "if admin interference must be implemented." The only difference is that this would be applied equally, people would know about it, and it would be intrinsically fair and less likely to inflame passions on the subject. TheGoodLocust (talk) 03:59, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd add, from a technical point of view we could do 'enhanced' semi-protection like this, obviously these criteria wouldn't be a great idea. But if you wanted to say, protect a page from editing by anyone with less than 500 edits, or who registered less than 3 months ago, you could do that with the AbuseFilter. You could also do editing rate limits on a group of articles, as well as some other things. I'm not sure that would be the best way to fix this situation though, unless semiprotection combined with strict edit warring rules were to fail. However, best to keep all options on the table. Prodego 04:00, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Would it be possible to restrict to experienced admins (old accounts), but only those with less than a certain # of edits to such articles? That sort of compromise might be ideal. TheGoodLocust (talk) 04:03, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

No, and as outlined above, that is a bad idea anyway. Prodego 04:06, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

This is a really bad idea. Since this is a technical subject (or the science is, at any rate), we'd be banning everyone who actually knows what they're talking about. This is doubly bad here because once implemented, the scokpuppets (who necessarily have few edits) would rule. So then once the admins interfered, they'd be letting loose a storm of sockpuppetry. Yowzers. Awickert (talk) 04:07, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, which is why we aren't going to do any of the things TheGoodLocust suggests. Lets get back to the restrictions proposed above please. Prodego 04:12, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Are you concerned that you'd be banned from the articles? I might, I'm not as proflic, but I wouldn't really care since I think such a policy would be for the greater good. Besides, if only experienced editors could edit the articles then that'd cut down on sockpuppet use. This reminds me of the whole Social Security situation, it is going bankrupt, but nobody wants to do what is necessary to stop the system from collapsing because a vocal minority would get upset at the only solutions. TheGoodLocust (talk) 04:12, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Not so concerned for myself, and due to the ECx4, I was still actually replying about the <X edits - sorry for the confusion. I wouldn't mind only allowing selected editors to edit post-admin-intervention. That would allow the real editors to deal with the dispute without sockpuppets and SPA-vandals sabotaging everything. Prodego's "accounts <X days old" suggestion might do a good part of the trick. Awickert (talk) 04:22, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

The idea of a "accounts <X days old" restriction has its attractions - it would raise the bar for the sockpuppets and would reduce the number of disruptive new users - but it wouldn't do anything to tackle the disruptive established users. They are probably the bigger part of the problem. Absent an Arbcom ruling cutting a swathe through the SPAs, we're probably stuck with them for the time being (or at least until they cross the line). -- ChrisO (talk) 04:40, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

<outdent> How would the "real editors" be selected? How would "single purpose" be defined? I have no problem with the proposals if they are implemented fairly and evenly. TheGoodLocust (talk) 04:41, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

The "real editors" would be difficult to define. SPA-vandals could be prevented from editing via a ">X day old account" rule. Not perfect, certainly, and I actually am unconvinced of what I am saying, so perhaps this is not the route to take... Awickert (talk) 04:49, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd think a more accurate way of identifying SPAs would be by the proportion of global warming articles edited compared to non-global warming articles. The only question would be what % defines a SPA? Over 50%? 75%? The attractive part of this, assuming fair application, is that it'd dampen extremism a bit. TheGoodLocust (talk) 05:43, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Thegoodlocust, This is the best (only?) good idea I've seen to reduce the tag-teaming and socks. tedder (talk) 06:34, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks fellow Oregonian (Vote no on 66/67! :)). TheGoodLocust (talk) 06:37, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages, the 💕 that anyone can edit. I'm all for reducing vandalism where possible, the proposals of only admins, people with 500 edits, >3 months, etc are all unreasonable to apply to dozens of articles. It's contrary to the purpose of the encyclopedia. Oren0 (talk) 06:46, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

That's a good point, but I'd say right now that SPAs are making it, in a de facto manner, impossible for anyone else to really edit those articles. I think it comes down to either letting the SPAs continue their reign or making the articles more welcoming to other people. TheGoodLocust (talk) 06:59, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Easy to game. You just do a few minor typo corrections. If it is over 50% for example, you search for an obvious typo, fix it, then do your edit on the main page. Or you start chipping in on AFDs/Talk page RFCs etc etc etc. --Narson ~ Talk • 13:01, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

<outdent>I meant a % of "article" edits - not talk page edits. Also, if someone's edits on other articles are just typos then they should be topic banned from GW too - they are obviously trying to game the system. Most people do minor edits for such things so it should be easy to tell - and if they aren't marking them as minor then that is simply more evidence they are attempting to game the system. TheGoodLocust (talk) 20:34, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Banning people who know the subject and restricting it to people who aren't interested is a Really Bad Idea William M. Connolley (talk) 18:17, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Let's test that out Connolley, we can topic ban SPAs for a few months and then see if that calms things down a bit. Besides, I think you'd welcome the break. TheGoodLocust (talk) 18:39, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not a SPA, so it wouldn't affect me. GR is though William M. Connolley (talk) 22:27, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Wow touchy - assume good faith please. Obviously I meant you wouldn't have to deal with SPA vandalism and would get a much needed break. Although, now that you mention it, it would only be fair to make sure that SPA criteria applies equally to veteran editors like yourself and GoRight. TheGoodLocust (talk) 23:10, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Proposal by GoRight

Well if we're thinking out of the box on things that aren't going to see the light of day, how about 1 edit per person per article per calendar day (as opposed to per 24 hours like 3RR)? That would cut down the edit warring and article churn AND it's trivial to enforce. --GoRight (talk) 06:23, 31 December 2009 (UTC) P.S. Plus 1 on each of the talk pages as well. --GoRight (talk) 06:31, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

That's fine with me. I think a lot of things could help if implemented correctly. TheGoodLocust (talk) 06:25, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with your PS though - I don't think conversation should be stifled - esp. not to that degree. TheGoodLocust (talk) 06:35, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Which time-zone, though? UTC? Sceptre 06:33, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I vote for Martian (UTC+4387.62) Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 06:38, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

More to the point, how about automatic checkuser for every new editor that shows up to edit climate change articles out of the blue with full knowledge of Misplaced Pages guidelines, policies, and dispute resolution procedures, and no known learning curve? I estimate that at the current rate, this would require at least 30 checkuser requests per month. Want an example? Adam.T.Historian (talk · contribs). This guy shows up on December 30, makes 62 edits to date, 39 of which are made to Talk:Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident. What about Gunnanmon (talk · contribs). User shows up on December 30, and makes 12 edits on the same talk page. Guess which two editors suddenly became friends? Even more interesting is how the Adam.T.Historian account is being used as an expert vote wrangler, straight outta the box. All starting with this. The likelihood that this is a new user is close to nill. Viriditas (talk) 08:57, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Sure, as long as I get to have mine picks checkusered to. I'd like to see one on this account User:Oski Jr. But I won't be able to get one I am quite certain, unlike the rubberstamp Scibaby checkusers you guys get. --GoRight (talk) 19:25, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Sure, checkuser would be better than banning users based on as little as a single edit per "WP:DUCK." In my opinion scibaby is a scapegoat that was created just so people can ban certain users on site, which has resulted in massive IP range blocks, many people being falsely accused and/or blocked. I'm not even sure if it's possible to calculate how many legitimate users and donors that have been aborted by the entire "scibaby" affair. TheGoodLocust (talk) 09:36, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Do you have any example of a user being banned based on a single edit per WP:DUCK? If yes, please tell us. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:06, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

No. GR is a SPA; if you want to see whether he is serious about improving wiki or just causing disruption, then his attempt to enable wiki-lawyering by User:Abd is instructive William M. Connolley (talk) 13:29, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your insightful bias - is there anything you would like to comment upon the proposal itself, rather than the proposer? LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:59, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

On edit per day per article would seem to be a gift to the edit warriors. They just have to show up for their daily alloted revert and carry on. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:08, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

@LHVU: oh, I thought it was obvious. But if you're not prepared to think it through yourself: the proposal itself is silly. Calendar day rather than 24h is obviously bad. One edit appears like a pointless restriction - why would you want to prevent people adding non-controversial text? 1RR is the more obvious restriction, it is well understood and easy to implement William M. Connolley (talk) 17:58, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I want to point out that the main problem at the Climatic Research Unit e-mail controversy article is NOT the typical case of AGW skeptics attempting to push their POV. Sure, that's a problem, but there's another problem at this particular article. There are editors there who are refusing to admit that there's a controversy in an article about the controversy. Those of you who are familiar with my work on the 9/11 conspiracy theories and Lunar landing hoax articles know that I am no fringe theorist and have absolutely no desire in promoting minority or fringe viewpoints against scientific consensus. But in an article about a controversy, you have to at least explain what the controversy is about. We have editors who are so overzealous that they are refusing to even mention what the controversy is about. So we have POV-pushing coming from two different directions. What's more, some of the criticism is coming not from AGW skeptics, but from AGW proponents such as George Monbiot and colleague Michael Mann. I strongly urge the admins on this board to take into consideration that there's more going on at Climatic Research Unit e-mail controversy article than the typical AGW skeptic nonsense when implementing this proposal. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:00, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I am afraid that you are mistaken. The behavior and tactics that you observe from the "mainstreamers" on Climatic Research Unit e-mail controversy are exactly the same on every GW page. You are drawing a distinction without a difference. The only difference is that on the GW articles the "controversy" is over whether there is a consensus or not, and in that respect there are legitimate scientific voices, for example Richard Lindzen, on the skeptics side that receive the same character assassination treatment you have observed at Climatic Research Unit e-mail controversy. Just read his article and the discussions on the talk page to see what I mean. --GoRight (talk) 19:38, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Jolly good. But why did you say it here? William M. Connolley (talk) 18:06, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Read the last sentence. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:35, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

In my view this proposal would do nothing to improve matters and would only encourage socking. Banned editors who think nothing of creating a battery of 10 new socks would rejoice to see the regular editors ability to deal with their insertion of misinformation thwarted. --TS 18:11, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I support this one edit per day suggestion, with editors falling foul of it moving to one edit per week. If as Tony says this would only encourage socking then we have plenty of editors here already to edit these bunch of articles, have them all semi protected to stop this problem. Off2riorob (talk) 18:15, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

1RR or one edit/day is unlikely to help. In fact, I can give you about 500 reasons why it won't work. There are a finite number of good-faith editors and a relatively infinite supply of new sockpuppets on these topics at present. These proposals empower the sockpuppeteer - by giving them the "right" to dozens of edits per day - and penalizes people who use one account. That's not the right set of incentives. MastCell  21:05, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually that is not the situation and it does work well and has worked at the Irish troubles articles, I have seen it work, hordes of sockpuppets do not turn up and when they do with the extra administrator eyes they are easily dealt with. Off2riorob (talk) 23:05, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Ah. Were the Irish articles beset with individuals known to have used over 500 sockpuppets individually? We're not talking about encouraging de novo sockpuppetry; we're talking about an existing, prolific sockpuppeteer (and a few lower-level ones) who would benefit substantially from such an approach on these particular topics. MastCell  23:12, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

It would also be open to exploitation by meatpuppets. In the Irish case, I don't think we had numerous blogs on one side of the dispute campaigning against Misplaced Pages's supposed "bias" and directing their readers to specific articles. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:59, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

• Unfortunately there are a number of editors who use Misplaced Pages for purposes of advocacy on this subject; this is complicated by the fact that those editors see William as doing the same, which is tricky as he is advocating the dominant scientific view (as an expert in the field). Unfortunately this is not going to go away until either the scientific consensus changes (unlikely in the near term) or the deniers acceppt the consensus (unlikely before the heat death of the universe). I don't see any way around it other than restrictions monitored and imposed by a group of long-time users / admins selected for previous non-involvement on climate change - a community appointed editorial board for climate articles. Guy (Help!) 10:53, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Proposal by Arzel

Restrict editing to climate change articles such that no admin may actively edit these pages or any related pages. This would ensure that uninvolved admin's are responsible for sanctions, bans, blocks, etc. Any current admin that are currently editing a climate change article will either have to stop editing these pages or give up their administrator role. Part of the problem with banned editors and socks is systemic because of the actions of admin's closely involved with these articles. Removal of involved admins from these articles should reduce future bans and blocks and ultimately reduce the need for editors to create socks. It is apparent that many of these issues are from editors that feel they have been unfairly targeted because they feel these articles are being controlled to present one point of view. Until that appearance of control is removed there will be no appreciable improvement in these articles. Address the root of the problem, don't try to fix a symptom of the problem. Arzel (talk) 20:23, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Proposal by WMC

Restrict editing of GW-related *science* articles to editors who have a demonstrable record of improving the *science* of GW in related non-controversial articles William M. Connolley (talk) 22:31, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

That's a non-starter in my opinion. Requiring editors to acquire a good record on science prior to editing would exclude people who make useful changes unrelated to the science content, and all that is required to edit science content, in truth, is some knowledge of basic scholarship. --TS 22:38, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I can't believe I'm agreeing with Tony, but I thought it was well established that scientists are (for the most part) crap writers. How are we going to have any readable articles??? Brilliantine (talk) 01:43, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Wasn't this the problem of nupedia, 7-10 years ago, and why it didn't catch on? Trying to figure out who had a record of improving science within GW articles would also be subjective. Such is life, I suppose. On a earlier brought up comment, some of us, even after four years, are finally grasping where wikipedia stands on certain issues. For some of us, it takes quite a while to mine the WP help pages, since there are so many. Thegreatdr (talk) 22:54, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Conditional support. The science of global warming is an extremely complex topic, and although I am a scientist in a related field, I don't always trust myself to get things right. This should allow people who understand the field to write articles and increase signal-to-noise. "Conditional" for 2 reasons: (1) I remain categorically skeptical of these restriction proposals, but this is the only so far that seems plausible. (2) What about small edits (per TS) and new users who are knowledgeable? Awickert (talk) 22:46, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Oppose - The assessment required to identify applicable editors is subjective. --GoRight (talk) 22:53, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

No, it would be easy enough. It would count you out, obviously, for example. In fact it is hard to think of a single skeptic who would be included. Can you think of one? William M. Connolley (talk) 17:45, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I have to say this seems totally impractical. How would you manage this, for a start? Would we have some sort of review panel assessing editor's contributions and giving them "permits" to edit GW-related articles? Who would select those reviewers? How would the unqualified be kept out? And so on. While I agree that a large part of the problem with these articles is an influx of scientifically illiterate and just plain ignorant people, this is a problem which every topic area faces. It just happens to be on a larger scale in this topic area because the American right has embraced anti-intellectualism and is hostile to any branch of science that undermines its ideological assumptions, and because Americans are over-represented on the English Misplaced Pages. Those are structural problems which we can't fix. All we can hope to do is reduce their impact. -- ChrisO (talk)

If I'd said something that bigoted towards a group of people then someone would've erased it within minutes - the fact that your statement still stands after so long is evidence of the left-leaning bias of wikipedia. TheGoodLocust (talk) 03:07, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think what ChrisO said has anything to do with the alleged "left-leaning bias of Misplaced Pages", which appears to be a Conservapedia talking point, nothing more. When ChrisO says that the "American right has embraced anti-intellectualism and is hostile to any branch of science that undermines its ideological assumptions" he may be exaggerating. While it is true that you can find many examples supporting what ChrisO is saying (start at Politicization_of_science#Recent_examples), in my own experience, liberals and conservatives both have a tendency to embrace anti-intellectual and anti-science positions. This is because, liberalism and conservatism are concepts based on ideology, and ideology is incompatible with freethought. The goal is not to remain entrenched in ideology, but rather to transcend it. These old beliefs have outlived their usefulness. Viriditas (talk) 06:08, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Proposal by Rd232

We have WP:ARBCOM, and they take weeks to deliberate and come up with remedies in cases like this. Why should we think that we can achieve something similar in an WP:AN thread? These inevitably fruitless attempts should be dropped in favour of pursuing existing dispute resolution of various stripes more vigorously. What might be usefully discussed here is how and on what issues to do that. Rd232 06:37, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Proposal by BozMo

I advocate either nothing or a Mini Arbcom approach. Seen what 2/0 has managed to achieve by being there and being respected and am deeply impressed, although even he has just become entangled with accusations, draw your own conclusion from User_talk:2over0#Biased_Admin_action_disguised_as_.22fixing.22. So suggest get or appoint a small balanced standing committee of Admins to do this (2/0 as chair I suggest), with a couple of Arbcom members. They need to become a bit specialised in the issues around GW (specific socking issues, specific disruption issues etc). At present part of the problem is that there are loads of competent involved admins but they all get dragged into being involved by reverting socks, or reverting well meaning people who meat puppet for socks, or reverting such obvious POV pushing that it becomes vandalism or otherwise following instinct to do no-brainers which improve the project. Then there are odd drive-by admins who don't look deep enough, muddy the waters and get all uppity, exaggerating the problem when they are told "do you mind engaging your brain before you do that" by the regulars. The serious long standing admins all get shy of using tools because of ambiguity over "involved". I suggest this committee never edit any of the articles concerned from here on, but just handle warnings and sanctions. People like Connolley can edit the articles and the committee can trout him at 1800 every Friday (on traditional grounds that if they don't know what he has done wrong he will). Use select committee rules to agree on a list of names. Or do nothing. Sure it isn't great but there are worse places to try to venture an opinion... try putting Germaine Greer's views into Breast Implant, or "balancing" Antisemitism... I think you will find much worse conduct without even trying hard and neither have the sock or public outcry issues which plague GW. --BozMo talk 14:02, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

General discussion

Looking at GoRight's idea of a 1RR single edit per calendar day (yikes!), the encouragement this would give to sock puppets seems insuperable to me. Thegoodlocust's suggestion has all the disadvantages of GoRight's, and would pose the added problem of excluding our most highly qualified editors in the field. William M. Connolley's suggestion, placing a very high entry bar on editing global warming articles, would be a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Arzel's proposal seems to assume that the problem is biased admins, and ignores or downplays the role of problematic non-admin interactions and constant sock puppetry. Rd232 proposes vigorous prosecution of dispute resolution; encouraging editors who have a grievance to follow this path is something I find myself doing a lot, but with limited success.

So far these added proposals are attracting, some of them, quite a lot of discussion, but have little support.

This leaves the original proposal of Ryan Postlethwaite, in a variety of two different but similar wordings. Unlike the other proposals it has wide support and the second wording has the benefit of having been tested on the Obama articles. It presupposes that the problem can be resolved if administrators are encouraged to enforce policy more rigorously, and that's a reasonable assumption and one that the arbitration committee has increasingly endorsed in recent sessions. Accordingly, we should probably abandon the side proposals and concentrate on the main one. --TS 11:13, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

• Agree. The choice is essentially between Ryan's proposal to adopt a well-understood, previously tested regime that has been a success in quelling problems in another topic area, four proposals that would introduce novel regimes with which many unresolved problems have been identified, and a further proposal that - while it has its merits - would not address the conduct issues (though dispute resolution certainly should be pursued in parallel with greater admin involvement). The regime proposed by Ryan's second choice of wording (copy/pasted from the Obama articles regime) seems to me to be the obvious choice. I suggest that we should nominate a date by which the regime should be implemented - say next Friday, 7th January, if there is a consensus for it? -- ChrisO (talk) 12:05, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

  One or two weeks should be enough. --TS 12:26, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

• Yes, what Tony said. Let's try this for a defined period (one month?) and then take to arbitration if it doesn't work. Guy (Help!) 14:36, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

  How about a three-month trial? If it completely flops we'll be back at arbitration sooner than that in any case. --TS 15:21, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

  I'd like to see a review over time and see the direction of the curve. If the curve of disputatious nonsense is flat after a month then we're going nowhere, if it's downwards then that's good. The problem for me is the amount of everybody's time that this is sucking up. As with all issues where there are strong financial interests holding out against a strong scientific consensus (homeopathy, creationism, pseudoscience in general) there is a long-term external problem that will always manifest itself in agenda accounts turning up to "fix" the problem of Misplaced Pages reflecting a consensus they don't like. Guy (Help!) 16:05, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

  Well put, Guy. That is one of the best concise summaries of the actual problem I've seen expressed. --Nigelj (talk) 16:25, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

  Try to avoid debating the controversy out there, and let's stick to the subject here, because I could bring up equally valid matters equally outside this discussion (there's an economic interest in pushing this issue from the climate-change side as well: government grant money is available for those pushing climate change to the extent climate change is seen as a problem; the pecuniary interests of third-world government officials in getting climate-change foreign aid is another issue, and we could go on and on, further and further from the topic ...) I'm fine with any of the Postlethwaite versions, opposed to the more innovative versions, fine with any of the trial periods of the lengths TS and Guy have brought up. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 16:46, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

  I agree with John. The discussion on the global warming articles can get heated and, above all, lengthy. We ought to try to stay focused here. --TS 17:22, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

  Sure. My point was, the problem is fundamentally unfixable because it's of external origin, the issue here is whether it's manageable or containable. I think we will find that out fairly quickly, and I think if we make a point of reviewing progress and increasing or decreasing the intrusiveness of control measures as necessary then we will get to a resolution (positive or negative) more quickly. Guy (Help!) 23:30, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

• As a rather curious observer to this, I would urge the use of Ryan's proposed system. Not only is its effectiveness proven, but it avoids some of the gamesmanship the other ones would promote. Obviously, this is tinged by the fact I trust Ryan to ensure its enforcement, as without effective enforcement it is all meaningless. I'd urge that it is implimented at the earliest possible moment, so everyone can get back to the trifling matter of content. --Narson ~ Talk • 14:43, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
• I agree all the side proposals are doomed and we should concentrate on Ryan's. I only put mine up for the fun of seeing people recoil in fear at the idea of knowing anything about the subject before editing William M. Connolley (talk) 17:52, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Moving forward

It's clear the 2nd wording (based on the Obama article probation) has consensus here. I agree with Guy that we should see how things run for a month, then we can review things on the admin noticeboard to review things to see if we need tweaks, or if we indeed need to go to arbitration. A number of minor tweaks have been proposed, but I personally think the wording is fine as is. If we still need tweaks after a month, we can make them then. Unless there's any major objections, I'm going to implement the second wording in a few hours. Ryan Postlethwaite 19:46, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

There are some issues that could use clarification. I'll explain how I would clarify some of the open issues, and assume that if I'm wrong, you'll respond.

1. The Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident is not about Climate Change, but I'll assume that the modifier "broadly construed" will include that article.
2. The process requires a warning before sanctions can be issued. Implicit is that an admin cannot simply give the warning, and then apply sanctions. There must be additional violations after the written warning.
3. I have seen warnings issued that were not appropriate. I take it as obvious that if someone receives a warning, and an uninvolved administrator posts that the warning wasn't valid, it doesn't count as a warning for the purposes of subsequent sanctions.--SPhilbrickT 20:41, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Point 1 and 2 you're correct on. With regards to point three, the warning is merely there to let users know about discretionary sanctions and the fact that they're there on the articles that they've been editing. It should be used fairly loosely - if someone is active on the pages under the sanctions and there appears to be some misconduct, however minor then they should be notified of the sanctions in place - if they do something again then they can be sanctioned. Ryan Postlethwaite 20:47, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

As I said before: making this about climate change is wrong. It should be about global warming William M. Connolley (talk) 21:00, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Does anyone else have any thoughts about this? I'm fine with it being climate change personally. Ryan Postlethwaite 21:35, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Focussing it broadly (i.e. CC) does no harm. The danger with a narrow focus (just GW) could be that individuals move their nonsense over to other CC articles to try to escape these controls. --Nigelj (talk) 21:38, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

William, so that uninvolved administrators not familiar with the field would know what you mean here, could you explain what difference your proposal would make? Are there some articles that fall under one definition and not another? --TS 21:40, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

It is mostly just a general indication of not knowing what is going on. Climate change isn't a controversial article - it is about general stuff, like ice ages. GW, and all its relatives MWP, the CRU hacking stuff, etc, are the controversial bits William M. Connolley (talk) 22:13, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

In that case, for ease of understanding, I suggest defining the scope as "articles relating to climate change and global warming, broadly defined". -- ChrisO (talk) 22:46, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

These are two good points:

• SPhilbrick (16:04, 31 Dec: take it as obvious that is an admin is involved in one climate change article, but not another one, they are considered involved. -- never answered. I don't think it's obvious at all)
• Dimawik (04:37, 1 Jan: the very same decisions will be made by the same semi-involved admins, yet will be easier to make and harder to revert. A single admin who took sides is all it will take under the proposed rules to make life for people who do not edit Misplaced Pages for living really miserable )

Both make a good point about the possible next level of POV pushing, which will be more sophisticated: admins taking sides. This is pretty much inevitable given that any "uninvolved" admin can start throwing his or her weight around and pretty much any admin can walk in. Nevertheless, I support the proposal because the potential abuses are preferable to the current situation. Admins who aren't prudent about not taking sides should be brought before AN/I -- if necessary, again and again. Wikipedians who actually want NPOV treatment of subjects should be vigilant about watching for admin misconduct here (while being respectful of people trying to handle a difficult task), because what we're doing essentially channels the temptations toward admins. I do wish admins who involve themselves with policing here were not associated with any side or with regardingother global warming articles. If they are, they should realize that they too are under scrutiny. Having ArbCom appoint admins to police would have avoided much of this, but let's see how it shakes out, and be ready to complain when we see evidence of abuses. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 21:50, 1 January 2010 (UTC) --wording change in reaction to Franamax's comment just below -- JohnWBarber (talk) 22:31, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I wonder if I would be classed as involved. I've made a handful of edits at Antarctica clarifying the science on ice mass balance and part was in response to an IP saying AGW wasn't real. Also, I worked with -gasp- Polargeo doing it. Does that make me "pro-global warming" now? Franamax (talk) 21:57, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I changed my comment in response to what you've just said. My concern is with admins involved controversially on the general topic who then police controversially. If your edits were opposed on grounds of not being NPOV there, I'd avoid getting involved with sanctioning the other side here. If not, I wouldn't be scrupulous. If you get hot under the collar about people on the other side of whatever opinions you have about this, it's probably a bad idea. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 22:31, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree with your method of definition here and it's what I would endorse too. Except if my edits "were opposed on grounds of not being NPOV", that leads to a tasty pot of beans. I'd prefer "were credibly opposed..." but the whole thing falls apart right there. The opposer always thinks they're credible, whichever side they're on. :( Franamax (talk) 22:48, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I can anticipate one difficulty that this regime will encounter. In science articles, Misplaced Pages follows the scientific consensus and does not offset mainstream viewpoints with fringe POVs. The contrarian/sceptical/denialist (delete as applicable) viewpoint is clearly a fringe view within the scientific community, comparable to the pro-intelligent design or creationism POV, which is likewise a fringe view among scientists. As with creationism, the contrarians are more widely represented outside the scientific community than within it. In some countries it may even represent a majority viewpoint among the public (though not among scientists). Any admin action that has the effect of maintaining or upholding the scientific viewpoint at the expense of the "populist" viewpoint is going to be attacked as "biased". We have already seen some warm-up accusations to this effect on this page. How do we respond to such accusations? -- ChrisO (talk) 23:19, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

• Make it so. There is some cavilling but the proposal is sound and any minor clarifications don't really need to be agreed before we can make the first moves. To Chris' point above, we go back to what reliable independent sources say. Good quality secondary and review sources, of which Nature would be my favoured example, can describe popular dissent and set it in the context of the scientific consensus. Guy (Help!) 23:23, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure this addresses my concerns (see here). How will this proposal will address the issue of POV-pushing from AGW proponents? (Again, see here for an explanation of my concerns). A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:45, 1 January 2010 (UTC)