Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 14:51, 30 January 2006

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Request for arbitration is the last step of dispute resolution. Before requesting arbitration, please review other avenues you should take. If you do not follow any of these routes, it is highly likely that your request will be rejected. If all other steps have failed, and you see no reasonable chance that the matter can be resolved in another manner, you may request that it be decided by the Arbitration Committee.

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Currently, there are no requests for arbitration.

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

Currently, no requests for clarification or amendment are open.

The Arbitration Committee considers requests to open new cases and (exceptionally) to summarily review new evidence and update the findings and decisions of a previous case. Review is likely to be appropriate if later events indicate the original ruling on scope or enforcement was too limited and does not adequately address the situation, or if new evidence suggests the findings of fact were significantly in error.

The procedure for accepting requests is described in the Arbitration policy. If you are going to make a request here, you must be brief and cite supporting diffs. New requests to the top, please. You are required to place a notice on the user talk page of each person against whom you lodge a complaint.

0/0/0/0 corresponds to Arbitrators' votes to accept/reject/recuse/other.

This is not a page for discussion, and Arbitrators or clerks may summarily remove or refactor discussion without comment.

• Arbitration policy
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How to list cases

Under the below Current requests section:

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Note: Please do not remove or alter the hidden template

Current requests

Reopening 172

Involved parties

• 172 (talk · contribs)

In April 2005, the Arbcom requested that I clarify the issue about whether I wished to continue as an admin of Misplaced Pages, and respond to a case involving compaints by Netoholic and Silverback about my use of admin abilities. The decision concluded as follows: "If 172 does not wish to reply to this question, then it will be assumed that he has chosen to leave the project and does not wish to keep his admin abilities." Until now, I have not responded to the case. I considered the case spurious, along with Snowspinner and Neutrality, who examined the evidence as a part of what we now call "clerking," and reached similar conclusions. ; and I was planning to leave Misplaced Pages in frustration.

Ten months later, I've changed my mind and decided to reply. To help explain this reversal, I'll start by putting my decision to leave last year in some context. My frustration with Misplaced Pages had been building before the arbitration case. I was especially concerned about the lack of mechanisms for enforcing content policies. To deal with this frustration, I launched Misplaced Pages:Forum for Encyclopedic Standards in November 2004 as "a place where active Misplaced Pages editors committed to writing quality articles can 'meet' and promote encyclopedic and scholarly standards, even if they are not participants on the Wikimedia Foundation, the IRC channel, the mailing list, and conflict resolution committees (and who in turn currently lack a voice in the formulation of policy)." Later, following my decision to leave Misplaced Pages, I articulated these concerns most explicitly in one of the most-discussed WikiEN-l mailing list posts of March 2005. In the post I argued that a culture on Misplaced Pages was emerging prioritizing process over product, behavior over content.

My views in early 2005 are now mostly out-of-date. First, recent improvements in the references and the citation apparatus of various articles along the lines of the proposed guidelines and strategies at the Forum for Encyclopedic Standards are encouraging. These improvements, I believe, stem from the efforts of many other users, who launched and streamlined a number of related pages. Second, the dramatic improvement in the performance of the Arbcom in late 2005 has made Misplaced Pages a more productive work environment. The recent promotion of a number of arbitrators stating along these lines is quite encouraging: "My strongest belief is that Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia and this should be reflected in the Committee's decisions."

Since I no longer have the reservations about Misplaced Pages that I had in March 2005, while I'm online, I want to do as much as I can to aid Misplaced Pages's development, which includes resuming work on my fair share of janitorial work. Although my main focus will always be content editing, I am one of Misplaced Pages's most experienced editors, having been here three years with around 20,000 edits under my belt. I was only the 60th user to become an administrator. I think that my thorough understanding of how Misplaced Pages has developed over the years will also be particularly helpful to other admins.

As requested, although the evidence in Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/172-2 is frivolous, I understand now that there is a need to respond for sake of record; therefore, I will respond to the issues purportedly resulting in Netoholic and Silverback's case point-by-point as soon as it is reopened.

Wrapping up on a self-critical note, although a fair examination of Netoholic and Silverback's "evidence" will demonstrate that I was using my admin abilities in reasonably satisfactory conformity with policy, and that my intent was always positive, I now better understand that admins not only have to follow policy but take very active measures to make sure that the perception that they are following policy is always maintained. On that note, when doing admin work in the future, I will take new precautions to make sure that difficult users no longer have ammunition to use against me. As a content editor, I understand that I will be more vulnerable to charges of acting as an interested party than other administrators. Therefore, I will take a number of precautions that are not required of admins. First, even when I am an uninvolved party, I will no longer use any admin abilities--even rollback of obvious vandalism-- on any pages or disputes related to any history, politics, and current affairs articles (the subjects that I edit). Second, even when I am an uninvolved party, I will not intervene in any dispute or 3RR violation involving editors with whom I have had past content-related disputes. Third, even when I am an uninvolved party, I will not decide on WP:CFD, WP:AFD, and WP:TFD votes involving any history, politics, and current affairs subjects. In short, I plan to be just as cautious as any admin when it comes to never appearing to be in a sort of conflict of interest when it comes to my use of admin abilities.

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

-Ril- 2

Involved parties

• -Ril- (talk · contribs)
• SimonP (talk · contribs)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

There have already been a total of three ArbCom cases agains CheeseDreams/-Ril-, as well as several RFCs.

That's a lie. There has only been one prior arbcom case against me, and it primarily concerned my signature. There have been no RFCs since the prior arbcom case, and no attempt at any dispute resolution has been made by SimonP in that time about anything. --Victim of signature fascism 01:53, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by SimonP

It's probably bad to bring a case to the committee in my first week of as an arbitrator, but -Ril- has returned to his/her old tricks.

At this point I am quite certain the -Ril- is the hard banned user CheeseDreams.

1. Both have the same twin interests in Christianity and Egyptian mythology
2. Both have a deeply held, and similar, opinions on Christianity and a seeming inability to work constructively with others in these areas
3. -Ril- first began editing soon after CheeseDreams was temporarily blocked in January 2005. When CheeseDreams returned for a period -Ril- immediately stopped editing. Only once the CheeseDreams account was permanently hardbanned did -Ril- begin editing again.
4. Both have claimed to be British and to be university lecturers.
5. Both have very similar writing styles, and similar techniques such as mass messaging users and persistent edit wars.
6. I don't have Check User yet, but from times they have edited when logged out they come from the same place. An IP that was pretty obviously CheeseDreams edited History of Christianity/Jesus, pre-4th century Christianity, and syncretism from 81.157.11.245, while a user who was quite obviously -Ril- edited Authentic Matthew from 81.156.177.21 and 81.156.176.160.
7. These IP addresses seem fairly static, and clearly stay with one person for several weeks at a time. 81.156.177.21 was in use for about three weeks this spring. During that period it participated on -Ril-'s side in two long running disputes: redirecting Authentic Matthew and moving expansion tags from the talk page. During the same period this IP made a comment at CheeseDream's arbitration review, that was quite clearly coming from CD.

Statement by party 2

1. Who is CheeseDreams? And what is the significance of this?
2. I have never edited History of Christianity/Jesus, pre-4th century Christianity, and syncretism - you can check the article's history if you like.
3. I don't have an interest in Christianity. My interests are

   • Contemporary international politics, the Islam vs. George Bush conflict in particular
   • Egyptian mythology
   • Greek mythology
   • Ancient linguistics, particularly comparative philology (the evolution of languages, and how they interrelate and share ancestors), and also how we can use it to tell us about the evolution of myth

   This latter interest may have a very minor amount of overlap with Christianity, for example in the subject of theophory of names, historic terminology, etc. though I don't see much discussion of this subject happening in Christian circles.

   The interest in Egypt would I suppose cover the Habiru, Sea Peoples, Shishak, and Hyksos, who do have overlap with Biblical themes, but this is Old Testament not Christian, if anything

   My entire edit history reflects this, and you will be able to see that hardly any of my 7000+ edits are anything to do with Christianity

4. I am indeed British, or rather English, and I am a university lecturer in the subject of linguistics (I generally teach historical linguistics related courses)
5. I did edit Authentic Matthew, but I first did so on 10th July, and it was not a disputed article until after that point. Indeed came to the article as a result of gradually going through the "articles to merge" category and merging articles. At that time I was spending a great deal of time taking part in Misplaced Pages:Cleanup, mainly around recent changes and new articles. Authentic Matthew was the 3rd or 4th such article in the "articles to merge" category that I merged - one of the others was 56 kbit/s line, I don't recollect the names of the rest - and it was only when the merge was completely reverted that the article became the subject of dispute.
6. I'm not really engaged in edit wars, nor have I been. If you mean persistent controversial discussions on talk pages, then that is perhaps true recently, but that isn't the same thing as an edit war.

--Victim of signature fascism 02:08, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

P.s. could someone explain exactly what I am being accused of here, as this just seems to be a case of "I hate -Ril-, please do something about him" rather than "-Ril- has done X which is bad".

P.p.s. I suspect SimonP's motive in bringing this case has everything to do with sour grapes in him being on the losing side of a community consensus about not including large source texts in an article, which SimonP still refuses to comply with.

Statement by outside party

Both -Ril- and CheeseDreams being on BT says nothing at all IMO - it's the biggest DSL ISP in Britain, with millions of subscribers, and DHCP IPs that have a change forced every few days at most. It's like saying both are on AOL. The edit pattern doesn't match in my subjective opinion; CheeseDreams' past socks are readily apparent by editing interests but mostly by style - CD is clearly unbalanced, whereas -Ril- is good and lucid in many areas but often somewhat brittle (in my subjective opinion) in dealing with some others. I have no knowledge of other details of the particular matter raised here - David Gerard 10:51, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Statement by outside party2

I make no comment on the specifics of the case. (I have not examined it, and in any case my opinion that -Ril- is a disruptive troll, would preclude any neutral consideration.) However, I do think Arbcom needs to comment on the evidence here. Whilst a sock of a banned user can be blocked by an admin without Arbcom, when there is no definitive 'check-user' possible, someone has to weigh the other evidence and reach a fair and unbiased conclusion. If that is not Arbcom's job, whose is it? If any admin blocked on the basis of an interpretation of the evidence, another is sure to take a different view. Arbcom should either rule whether 'on the balance of probabilities' the evidence sustains the allegation. All other ways lead to wheel wars. --Doc 14:03, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

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

• Recuse, obviously - SimonP 01:52, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
• Recuse. Dmcdevit·t 03:43, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
• If it can be shown that -Ril- is CheeseDreams, then I don't believe a new case is required - previous decisions apply to sockpuppets/reincarnations too. Let's get a CheckUser done before we go any further. —Matthew Brown (T:C) 09:24, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
• I believe I'm right in saying that it's now too late for a CheckUser to be run, as the information is stored on the RC table, which expires after two weeks. Both the IP addresses listed are those of BT, which is a pretty major ISP in the UK, so the IP evidence in itself doesn't say anything. However, the rest of the evidence does seem fairly damning. As far as I'm concerned, -Ril- may be blocked as a sockpuppet of CheeseDreams. No case needed. Sam Korn 12:31, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
• Recuse, since I expressed an opinion on the user in the ArbCom elections. (I do concur with the tenor of what has been said, though.) Charles Matthews 10:05, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Requests for Clarification

Requests for clarification from the Committee on matters related to the Arbitration process.

Netoholic

Netoholic has been editing in Misplaced Pages and Template namespaces, and several people have been complaining on WP:ANI that he's been revert warring and has been uncivil about it. Raul654 has made the vague statement that Neto's been doing good work regaring WP:AUM. Ambi has stated that she will undo any block of Netoholic. I do realize that Neto's contributions on templates (or indeed, elsewhere) are generally useful, but I should also note that Brion VIBBER indicated that WP:AUM is not as pressing as initially thought. This is confusing.

In other words, the "status" of this user is unclear, and for reasons unknown the previous query on this issue was removed from this page. I ask once more that the ArbCom clarifies the issue, as I do believe there are better solutions to the case than banning Neto from those namespaces. However, if the ArbCom declines to amend or rescind the namespace ban, the next time I hear a complaint about Netoholic I will enforce the current namespace ban as written. Let me state once more that I do not want to block the guy, but barring clarification, if there are more complaints I see no other option. Radiant_>|< 13:10, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Don't wikilawyer so. I removed the query because nothing had happened in over a week, which suggested that you didn't care any more. The primary rule of Wikimedia projects (and yes, this even trumps NPOV, but only in extremely rare and limited circumstances) is to use common sense. If Netoholic's actions aren't disruptive, but are in fact aiding the project, then I see no particular reason to go ahead and prevent him from contributing so; OTOH, were Netoholic's actions to become disruptive, then the ruling would be appropriate to be used to block him from such actions. The Arbitration Committee is not your mother. It is up to the blocking (or deciding-not-to-block) sysop to come to their own conclusion as to whether their common-sense-o-meter has pinged. If in doubt, don't.

James F. (talk) 15:59, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

WP:NPA. Nothing had happened in that section because people were waiting for an answer. Both Raul and Ambi have implied that Neto should not be blocked for violating his ban regardless of disruptiveness, hence a request for clarification was made out of respect for them. Radiant_>|< 16:15, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Come, now, Radiant!, how was that in any way a personal attack. If you want a statement from an Arbitrator, here you go: while Netoholic is behaving usefully, he is not to be blocked for a technical violation of the terms of his case. No more needs to be said, and this had been said even before the original request was made. Sam Korn 16:21, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Radiant!: I'm sorry, whut? How on Earth was that an attack, personal or otherwise? Please enlighten me, so that I can avoid upsetting you in future.

James F. (talk) 16:35, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I concur with Sam. If he's not being disruptive, don't block him. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 17:18, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

And if he is being disruptive? — Omegatron 17:43, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Anyone who is being disruptive may be blocked. Netoholic just as much as everyone else. That doesn't mean you shouldn't carefully consider whether he is being disruptive. Sam Korn 20:59, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

• What I'm trying to say really is that people have been asking for clarity about the Netoholic case for several weeks, and have not received any clear answers from the ArbCom until Sam's statement just now. I don't appreciate being accused of Wikilawyering when asking for a clear answer on an issue that has received numerous unclear answers, or lack of answers, in the recent past. When JDF removed the query because nothing had happened in over a week, there were in fact several people still waiting for an Arb answer; a quick scan of RFAr and ANI history gives requests for enforcement or questions if the ban is still in place by Bratsche, CBDunkerson, Jtdirl, Omegatron, Gareth Hughes, Adrian Buehlmann, Carbonite and myself, and the only ArbCom response had so far been vague statements by David Gerard and Raul654 that were considering lifting the ban, and a statement by ex-arb Ambi that she would instantly undo any block on Netoholic. Now excuse me if I find that confusing. Radiant_>|< 17:05, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

• I do agree, there is something fishy going on here, the best for the arbcomm is to define the question in black and/or white. _→AzaToth 17:10, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
• Actually Netoholic is clearly disruptive. He is unilaterally pushing by revert warring the method described at Misplaced Pages:hiddenStructure which clearly breaks accessibility for no good reason. Now that Brion has vaporized WP:AUM there is clearly no reason to break screen readers on thousands of pages and against clear consensus. This method is now sprinkled over hundreds of templates. --Adrian Buehlmann 17:45, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I wish my comments on the issue weren't archived. Can they be resurrected?

If Netoholic's actions aren't disruptive, but are in fact aiding the project

His actions are disruptive and are in fact not aiding the project. — Omegatron 17:42, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I would note that this is a most highly disputed claim in itself, and that many of the comments here are from the people who thought that server load was something to be decided by a vote on a talk page - David Gerard 18:19, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

David, please be civil in your argumentation. _→AzaToth 18:23, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

It would be helpful if you would refrain from repeating that false claim again and again. We had actually asked for current confirmation of the devs on this (now Brion has and he removed the policy tag, thereby reverting you). Nobody tried to vote away server load. It would be helpful to stick to the matter and not constantly bash people based on errant claims. --Adrian Buehlmann 18:29, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Please stop repeating that baseless argument. No one was ever trying to vote away server load.

There was never any proof of a server load problem, and server load isn't a valid reason to limit ourselves or create policy, as our lead developer has clearly stated. — Omegatron 20:16, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I think that some clarification/advice for Netoholic could be useful.

Comments 1) Netoholic's improvments to the Templates are nothing short of miraculous. Watching him, I have been able to utilize techniques here and elsewhere and all efforts to encourage positive changes should be made. 2) When objections are raised, Netoholic seems to react impatiently and rudely to those that oppose his changes. 3) Attempts to learn from Netoholic, or enlist his help to make improvements to the stylesheet are often ignored or treated as childish questions.

Suggestions 1) Netoholic should make comments on the talk page about the improvements. 2) Netoholic should either educate objectors about the benefits of the change (or inform others such as myself to help him) 3) When the objectors acknowledge the benefits and incorporate the standardizations as best they can, any additional changes should be made using standard wiki processes. 4) If there really is a server load issue, the dispute should be settled by asking the programmers rather than asserting what they mean. This is an edited version of my prior archived comment Trödel&#149;talk 19:44, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Netoholic's ban from editing in the Template: namespace should be enforced. If he can learn to convince others to make changes that he wants to the templates, instead of making sweeping contentious changes without discussion, the "miraculous" benefits of his knowledge can still be used. — Omegatron 20:16, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I think this would be a perfect fit. If this doesn't bruise his ego, he will shure love to point out where we are all wrong. And shure he is able to express that as he is very intelligent. What he lacks is just patience and he can't stand other opinions than his own because he lacks the patience to explain. So I would shure hire him as a non-template-editing consultant. But the template-edit-decisions simply does not make he himself. Deal or no deal? --Adrian Buehlmann 21:53, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I (and many others) have a problem with the 'hiddenStructure' technique Netoholic is using. It seems to me inappropriate to disenfranchise blind users, users with non-CSS browsers, users on non-English Wikipedias, and others... which is what this method has done. It does not work for all users and thus it simply should not be used. This change was advanced under claims that alternate methods cause server load problems and that hiddenStructure would work for almost everybody. Both of those claims have since been shown to be false... making continued efforts to promote this methodology seem wholely without merit to me. Given that there are other methods which work for everyone I do not think edit warring to restore bad code is warranted. Nor running bots (at faster than the allowed rate) to replace Template:Main without even mentioning it on Misplaced Pages talk:Bots... let alone getting consensus agreement there as required.

Netoholic has done alot of work with templates. Unfortunately, a good deal of that work has ultimately turned out to be detrimental in that it reduces the accessibility of Misplaced Pages. The longer this continues the worse the site will appear for the minorities Netoholic dismisses as insignificant. --CBD _☎ 20:10, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed on all points. Yet we are even more powerless to stop him with this quasi-revocation of his ban in place than we would have been if he had never been through ArbCom at all. We're supposed to block bots on sight for controversial edits, but no one feels confident enough to do it with these vague statements telling us we should/shouldn't. — Omegatron 20:21, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

If it is that detrimental you should be able to find at least one admin who can block him for a day. If not then there must be some reason: are the changes too difficult to understand or evaluate whether they contribute/detract from the project; are the changes not clearly detrimental; or some other reason. My experience has been that some changes have been very helpful and other changes have been reverted, but understanding what should stay and go was not always easy. Additionally, experienced users that I trust suggested that his changes were very helpful, and when I looked into it I agreed, and thus came to see the usefulness hiddenStructure over the use of metatemplates. Trödel&#149;talk 20:54, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

In the time since the Arbitration decision, I feel like I've been more open and communicative by orders of magnitude. I feel like there are a few people here that are looking to "shoot the messenger" when it comes to my efforts related to WP:AUM. At the present time, that page's status seems questionable -- we have two very well-informed developers giving different opinions on why we should get rid of meta-templates. Jamesday has said that we should reduce their usage to prevent unnecessary server utilization. Brion has said that the server utilization may not be the problem, but that meta-template schemes are ugly and fragile, and should be handled by built-in functions. It seems like people were tolerant of WP:AUM when server concerns were raised, but aren't being as receptive as to the "ugliness", which can be subjective. Since this ambiguity has been raised, some individuals (especially CBDunkerson), who never liked WP:AUM, are taking the opportunity to go "balls to the walls" and undo weeks of work. At best, all mass efforts, both towards and away from meta-templates, should stop for the time being.

One thing that was mentioned was related to Template:Main. Per the talk page, User:Dbenbenn proposed using separate templates in order to remove the need for any sort of meta-template/hiddenStructure requirement. That is precisely the sort of positive movement we should be making. By using Template:Main articles on a couple dozen pages, it allowed this change. My use of a bot to help with this was entirely appropriate, as it is approved to handle this sort of maintenance. I remain open to anyone who wants to assume good faith and and me for explanations on my talk page, instead of a rant on a more public page, when they don't understand something. -- Netoholic @ 03:12, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Again, several of these statements are somewhat less than accurate. First, Brion has not said that all meta-templates should be removed. He has said that they (and any other 'code' method) should be removed if they are 'ugly and fragile'. The 'hiddenStructure' method is rather ugly and so 'fragile' that we don't have to worry about it breaking in the future because it is already broken now. Second, it is inaccurate to say that I "never liked" WP:AUM except in the sense that nobody (I hope) likes code limitations which require alot of work to clean up. The fact is that I did alot of work to implement WP:AUM when it was temporarily made policy based on claims of neccessity for server performance which have since proven unfounded. If meta-templates were a serious server problem then I'd be (actually was) all for replacing them. Since they aren't I'm now still in favor of limiting and improving them, but steadfastly against replacing them with a method which produces bad output for some users. Third, I am not disputing whether we move 'towards or away from meta-templates'... even since WP:AUM was downgraded I have continued to move templates away from meta-templates. The dispute here is over whether we should be 'moving towards or away' from 'hiddenStructure' and other CSS hacks which do not work for all users. The answer to which seems fairly obvious to me... why are we disenfranchising users when there is no need to do so? --CBD _☎ 12:49, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

May I dryly suggest that anybody who thinks Netoholic is highly disruptive now should reread his case, and see the sort of shit he used to pull. He has improved dramatically, and his current behavior is in no way worthy of any sanction. Phil Sandifer 03:45, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

If this here: <tr class="hiddenStructure"><th>Died</th><td><i>not deceased</i><br /></td></tr> (as seen on George W. Bush) is the kind of ridiculous html that Misplaced Pages wishes to have in thousands of articles, ok then (non-CSS capable screen readers do read "Died not deceased"). WP:AUM is no longer a policy and Brion has stated that there is no danger to the servers by using things like qif, which delivers decent html and will be replaced by MediaWiki built-ins. We even have a solution that does not violate WP:AUM but is also opposed and reverted by Netoholic on sight which would produce decent html (it's called "Weeble code" and it does not need a centralized conditional meta-template like qif). If it seems worth to abolish the reputation of Misplaced Pages for the timeframe until we have conditionals in Misplaced Pages, ok then. It's your decision which way to go. Netoholic is now CEO of templates and if you are satisfied with the outcome then I see no point in arguing against that any longer. But at least you have been warned and you should know what you do. --Adrian Buehlmann 08:12, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I think this is cleared up now. Netoholic will not be blocked when he's not disruptive, and can be blocked if he is. A quick glance at his contribs shows that he really isn't; if new issues of e.g. revert warring come up, please drop a note at WP:ANI. I should point out that, even if WP:AUM is not as urgent as originally thought, there is no policy to "use meta-templates as much as possible" either. In other words, Neto doesn't need to be backed by policy in order to work on templates. Since there is apparent disagreement on the various solutions, might I suggest that an RFC be opened on what coding to use in templates? Radiant_>|< 08:09, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Running an unapproved bot and 'yelling' at people for 'not understanding' the mass change which he had not bothered to explain (or even mention) on Misplaced Pages talk:Bots seems pretty 'disruptive' to me. There are reasons that consensus is supposed to be gathered before bots are run to make such sweeping changes. Splitting 'main' into separate templates to avoid 'meta' vs 'hiddenStructure' issues may well have been a viable solution... I saw what he was doing and wasn't sure it was really neccessary (conditional main could have been done without meta OR CSS) but didn't care much either way. However, there is no cause to be blaming others for 'not understanding' and complaining about temporarily broken pages. Had Netoholic followed the process as required more people would have known about the change in advance and could have helped to minimize page disruption. Instead, he bulled ahead and made a mess of things and then got angry with people for, inevitably, 'not understanding' what he had not bothered to properly explain. Ditto on 'See' vs 'Further' and similar issues. Agreement should, must, be sought in advance... otherwise 'disruption' is inevitable. --CBD _☎ 12:49, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

CheckUser rights

I've heard some users comment on a lack of people with CheckUser rights, and I notice a backlog of about a week on the CheckUser board. As such, I was wondering if the ArbCom intends to extend CheckUser rights to some of the new Arbiters. Radiant_>|< 02:33, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we have been discussing giving it to one person (a non-arbitrator) for the last day or so. We'll probably soon end up giving it to some of the new arbitrators too. Raul654 02:34, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Considering the fact that a certain previous arbitrator has been doing most of the checkuser requests for awhile now is it to be assumed also that the arbcom is happy with allowing those who already have it to keep it despite not having a current position on the arbcom? Jtkiefer ---- 02:40, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

While I was still on, I did say I'd happily give it up if asked (though I'd rather not), but that Kelly at least should definitely keep it 'cos she plans to actually work on the CheckUser feature when her Linux box is back to life. Considering the present CheckUser extension is more or less a quick hack Tim Starling put together for my personal use so I wouldn't have to bug the devs, it could do with a lot of polishing up! - David Gerard 16:11, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Well when I mentioned a former arbitrator who did the majority of checkuser checks I was referring to Kelly and the fact she's planning on making the checkuser feature better is all the more reason former arbitrators should be able to keep their access as long as they don't go postal and blatantly misuse it... and I seriously doubt that will ever happen. Jtkiefer ---- 03:02, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Descriptions of edits

The decision of Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Ultramarine was that he, I, and Robert West (who is still having technical difficulties with WP) should collaborate on a consensus version.

Since my return to Misplaced Pages, Ultramarine is continuing his habit of referring to edits he has made as the "good", "superior", "correct abd complete" version. I find this uncollegial, and ask if it is consistent with the spirit of the arbitration decision. Several diffs of such claims be found in the evidence in the case, and the usage has continued on Talk:Democratic peace theory, and I believe elsewhere. Septentrionalis 21:34, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Zen-master

Zen-master (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) I think it is time to ask for a banning of Zen-master. For how long, I do not know. But. Probation (which was prescribed for him at Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Zen-master) has failed miserably with him. He was just blocked for violation of the 3RR on Misplaced Pages:Title Neutrality. It's his 3rd 3RR ban in the last 6 weeks. In addition, he has been banned from several articles for periods of time, including conspiracy theory and Misplaced Pages:User Bill of Rights. He also joined an edit war at Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act, which if anything else shows continued poor judgement and lack of understanding of his probation, which is supposed to keep him out of any edit wars. I put a notice on WP:AN/I for others to chime in here as I believe I am missing an article or two he was blocked from in the last 2 weeks. --Woohookitty 07:59, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• Seconded. Zen is belligerent, assumes bad faith, does not listen to other people, revert wars, and calls his opponents vandals. He is unable or unwilling to understand such concepts as consensus, or the fact that policy is not created by voting upon it, and has created or promoted several snarky policy proposals in an attempt to give false credence to his opinions. For instance, Misplaced Pages:Information suppression, which is a faux addition to WP:NPOV with the underlying intent of not allowing scientific sources to "put down" psuedoscientific articles.
• I would recommend putting him under the zero-revert rule, and banning him entirely from the Misplaced Pages namespace. But frankly he hasn't done much that is useful the last weeks. Radiant_>|< 10:36, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
• Many of Zen-master's violations stem from his crusade (over the past 7-8 months) to eliminate the term "conspiracy theory". There's been endless discussions on at least a dozen pages and a straw poll showed strong support for keeping the term. Zen is basically attempting to force through his opinion through Death by a thousand cuts, hoping that other editors will eventually wear down and give up. I'd support a permanent ban from any "conspiracy theory" related article as well as a several month ban from the Misplaced Pages namespace (perhaps allowing for AfD and RfA). Carbonite | Talk 15:11, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
  • That's the main issue with Zen and to me it's what demonstrates the failure of probation. The idea of probation is supposed to change people's ways. Well, if you look at zen's edits since his probation started, I think he's gotten worse, not better. He still doesn't even quite understand why he was put on probation in the first place. Probation is just wasted on him. --Woohookitty 06:36, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
• I'd say it's time for a long term block of a month or more. Can we get a vote by the arbcom? --Woohookitty 16:58, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
• I agree. Zen-master is causes disruption on practically every page he edits. He even managed to try to start drama on WP:FAITH. --Ryan Delaney 15:48, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Probation is designed to try to avoid long term blocks. If probation isn't working then we'll have to try another remedy. Let me think on it a while. In the meantime please provide evidence that probation isn't working ( links are more useful than opinions ) Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 19:59, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Proposed year long ban (4/1/0/0)

OK I'm going to suggest a year long ban. I think we can just vote here. But if my fellow arbitrators disagree then I'm happy to formally reopen the case. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 22:26, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

• I agree. Let's not waste time with a new case. res ipsa loquitur Sam Korn 23:01, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
• Also agree. James F. (talk) 23:24, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose, rather take a look at it again, I'd like to see if he is really wasting all our time or doing some good work. Fred Bauder 23:29, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
• Ban, aye ➥the Epopt 04:54, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
• It's been pointed out to me that I didn't vote. My proposal was intended as a vote, but just to make sure everyone knows where I stand I'm voting for a year long ban. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 10:51, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Here we go again

• Zen-master (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) just got blocked once again for violating the ban on article titles. 2nd time in 13 days. It's his 11th block overall and 5th since probation was imposed. Arbcom, I think it's time to act here. He hasn't learned nor is he going to. Please reopen his case or start a new one or something. --Woohookitty 12:45, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Instantnood page moves

In the 'nood ArbCom decisions "1) Instantnood (talk · contribs) is restricted to proposing only one page move, poll of editors, or policy change relating to Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (Chinese) per week."

What should be done when he doesn't actually propose a move, but just uses subterfuge to get what he wants?

In the ArbCom case there was plenty of evidence in the start of the case that he was abusing the rename process by repeatedly asking for "Foo of Taiwan" to be renamed "Foo of the Republic of China". Now that ArbCom closed the case with that restriction above, he just avoids the rename process altogether. Yesterday there was an existing category Taiwanese newspapers that corresponded with the naming convention in Category:Newspapers by country (ie, "Foobarnese newspapers" as opposed to "Newspapers of Foobar"). To get what he wants without actually proposing a rename he created a parallel category (Newspapers of the Republic of China), put it in Newspapers by country and other parent categories, then deprecated Taiwanese newspapers by removing it from the parent categories.

Meanwhile, while the new category sits on CfD, with an overwhelming early consensus to delete, he's insisting that either his, or BOTH of the categories should exist in the parent categories .

So, he hasn't actually proposed to rename the the category, he just wants to create two parallel categories and move them around in the category structure. (Creating parallel forks isn't new behavior from him, but it fell through the cracks in the case.)

Also meanwhile, he's not "proposing a move" merely "seeking clarification" on another ROC/Taiwan move, Media in Taiwan.

And I'd also like the ArbCom to consider removing the words "relating to Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (Chinese)" from this restriction on his behavior. I'm mostly not involved, but he's currently edit warring with other editors on half a dozen articles related to the naming of food of all things and whether they should be named with Cantonese, Mandarin, or English. , etc. These aren't related to the Chinese naming conventions, but mere mortal editors shouldn't have to try and keep up with his proposals and unilateral moves.

- SchmuckyTheCat 22:31, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

What should be done when he doesn't actually propose a move, but just uses subterfuge to get what he wants? Then it counts as a move. As to the edit warring over food names, guess there are some general problems we didn't handle. Fred Bauder 03:05, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Is there an enforcement mechanism for this, or just an admonishment? (The same question could be said about the edit summary statement - "is reminded to make useful edit summaries.") SchmuckyTheCat 21:19, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Instantnood_2#Instantnood_placed_on_probation will have to serve. However, this requires an administrator with the energy and interest to look into it and actually do something. Fred Bauder 14:16, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

That was not a rename. Republic of China and Taiwan means something different. I am not proposing to move newspapers published in Taiwan to the parent category for the Republic of China, which Taiwan is, contemporarily, a major part of. The relevant Misplaced Pages policies, including the NPOV policy, have been listed here . As a matter of fact, user:SchmuckyTheCat tried several times to delink the category he has nominated to CfD from all other categories ( ), although the CfD is in process.

The disputes around the articles on food is not only around their names, and they're not related to the previous arbitration case. — Instantnood 21:01, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

It's your contention, not the communities, that RoC and Taiwan mean something different. The category existed, you delinked it when you created a new replacement category. A duck by any other name still quacks. SchmuckyTheCat 03:50, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

If you're not agreeing with the NPOV policies, please proceed to propose changes to them. Don't disrupt Misplaced Pages by reverting edits made based on those policies, and, to the worst, nominating something to deletion by producing false accusations there. — Instantnood 09:50, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

If the disputes over food names is not related to the previous arbitration case, then could you explain the administrative action of page bans in Barbecued pork with rice, Char siu, and so on? And yes it is not a rename. If it was you would have flouted the arbcom rules outright and STC wont have needed to post this here at all to highlight your gaming of the rules.--Huaiwei 15:23, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I think this entire exchange here with the numerous openly hostile comments Schmucky has made toward Instant or anyone who in anyway supports a viewpoint like Instant's or even advocates a modicum of decorum shows the action taken by the ArbCom just didn't go far enough here. The edit warring continues across several articles, Schmucky has flat out said he intends on being hostile and continue what sounds like a crusade when he describes it against Instant . The ink is hardly dry from the decision and the warring continues. --Wgfinley 04:02, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

I would like to comment, that my recent dealings with Wgfinley has been far from jovial, given his propensity in openly accusing the "opponents of instantnood" of all wrong doings, while continuing to believe instantnood is a victim of circumstance. I do not find STC's comments openly hostile in any way, and the source quoted above does not show his intention to be hostile or to launch a crusade against Instantnood, since he did insist that he at least still goes by the rules, something instantnood has spectacularly failed to do consistantly before or after the arbcom ruling. I would therefore read Wgfinley's comments with a pinch of salt.--Huaiwei 15:23, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, how is it supposed to stop it? You could endorse one side or the other but in most POV disputes, surely the two sides will not actually go, well, the arbcom says the other POV has merit so I'll just stop fighting for my POV. If anything, it shows the pointlessness of the arbcom, or any other empowered group of editors, getting involved in content disputes. Not that pointlessness will stop them, obviously. -- Grace Note

Request for Checkuser privileges

I, Improv, hereby request checkuser privileges. I have been a Unix systems administrator for many years, and thus have the needed network skills to understand and use the tools. I pledge to keep the queue of pending requests very small. --Improv 04:26, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Motions in prior cases

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